Written by: Shiro the Commander
Story/Art - Shuichi Shigeno
Licensed by - TokyoPop
Page Count - 200+
Rated 13 and Up
MSRP - $9.99 US

Description/Content: A  (Contains Minor Spoilers)

Initial D stars high school student Takumi "Tak" Fujiwara. Tak is a regular student who earns his living by working at a gas station during the day and for his dad's family tofu shop driving deliveries in his father's AE86 Trueno. Or so it seems? As the story moves on, street racing is shown to be really popular. Tak's best friend, Itsuki "Iggy", drags Tak into viewing some racing. Tak at first shows no interest in racing/cars. After awhile rumors spread of an unknown person being able to drive past some of the best racers late at night. Hmmm.. strange how the identified car is an AE86 with a sticker of a tofu delivery business on the door. As the manga's plot develops, Tak learns to love the sense of racing. He eventually faces off against some highly skilled racers and develops his reputation as a racer. He builds friendships with some and strong rivalries with others.

Packaging: B+

Most of the covers use artwork of the main race expected to take place in the particular volume. After doing some image searches online, I noticed that the Japanese covers were different. That will probably disappoint some people. The "Story Thus Far" segment of the manga volumes are pretty lengthy and help out people if they didn't read a previous volume. Most volumes come with character profiles of some of the characters. As the volume number goes higher new profiles are shown and some updates are in certain profiles. Also in the manga volumes are car specs which can be quite useful to some confused people. A very useful thing TokyoPop included in their release of the manga, which I find very helpful, are Car Racing Terms Glossary. These definitions are very descriptive and a huge help to the not so big car fanatic. In the much later volumes there are "Hey! Extra Pages", which are a bit of extra content Mr. Shigeno decided to do, that are quite humorous. And of course there are the typical manga/dvd advertisements from TokyoPop.

Artwork: A

The character designs are nothing like I've seen before in other manga series. Although they only take a little bit of time to get used to and are very unique in appearance. Of course there is a nice amount of detail in the car designs. The backgrounds/environments, especially during a race in progress, are nice in detail. Really nice to look at as you read on.

Text: B+

The text of the manga is easy to read because of the exceptional size. The words aren't squeezed together either so the text is very easy on the eyes. Several people though are most likely not going to like the fact that most of the characters have Americanized nicknames. (Takumi = Tak and Kochiro = Cole.) It is a problem for most people who enjoy original perfect adaptations. It would be nice if there was a Sound Effect glossary for all the sound that occurs during races. Meh I can live without it.

Other Comments:

Don't let the fact that most of you aren't car fanatics turn you off from trying to read this manga. I'm not that big of a car fanatic yet love reading this particular manga. Despite the large amount of characters, there is an excellent pace of character development for each one. There is also a nice amount of comedy which can be down right hilarious. It caught me off guard. Another thing that I was surprised to read was the romance that develops between some characters. It turns out to be pretty entertaining and got my eyes a bit teary "No I'm not joking". This manga turned out to be really different from other series. It was really nice to take a temporary break from reading manga of unrealistic fantasies such as mecha/magical school girls/monsters/etc.

I recommend this manga for anyone who has at least some interest in the tuner world. Even if you have just a little or none at all it wouldn't hurt to read some of this manga. It can turn out to be a very enjoyable read you won't regret despite your interests.