Initial D Omnibus 2 Review
This second omnibus of Shuichi Shigeno’s motor-racing manga continues in much the same vein as the first, and that is no bad thing, especially as some of the races in this edition become much more dangerous as well as thrilling.
Takumi Fujiwara, the student who has mastered the techniques of drifting in his father’s Toyota Tureno 86 while doing tofu deliveries, first finds himself in a challenge with Takeshi Nakazoto of the Myogi Night Kids team, who is racing in a Nissan GT-R. Once again, Takumi is able to win the race due to his superb drifting, often clipping the edge of the guardrails to get the best line.
Despite his success, Takumi still doesn’t feel like a proper driver, given that he doesn’t have a car of his own. His friend Itsuki is able to buy a car, but fails to check it over properly and learns that it is a less powerful 85 compared to Takumi’s 86. This leads to some people picking on him, but Takumi is able to restore some pride by beating these bullies using the 85. However, things really take a dramatic turn when Takumi accepts a challenge from a racer in a Honda Civic who dares him to a “duct tape deathmatch”, in which each driver has their right-hand taped to the steering wheel, greatly reducing the amount they both can turn the car. It is a race where much more than pride is at stake.
As stated, this second collection of Initial D has some more brilliant race scenes. The one involving the duct tape sounds, and indeed is, utterly ludicrous. When you type “duct tape deathmatch” into Google, the vast majority of the results only show things related to the manga, usually asking if such a thing is possible, and videos on YouTube of people actually trying to do it. It sounds less like a race, and more like a stunt that got rejected by Top Gear for fear of the Stig’s safety (although some say that he did do this, but ended up mishearing “duct tape” and drove with a mallard attached to his hand). Nevertheless, in the world of manga this is somehow pulled off and to massively impressive effect. It’s the most spectacular race of the manga so far, so it will be interesting to see how things develop as the story progresses.
Again, this action is the best bit of the manga, whereas the character design is still lame and the parts where they are talking about technical areas can feel dull. Thankfully, the translation notes help out with the latter of those aspects.
Once more, the production of the manga is top-notch. Kevin Steinbach’s translation comes across well, Scott O. Brown’s lettering and Maggie Le’s editing are generally fine despite arguably some issues with smaller text between frames, and Phil Balsman’s cover art for the omnibus captures the excitement of the racing itself, despite the obvious factor that the images of fast cars are all frozen in time.
With further excitement to come as Takumi prepares to face a local legend in the next edition, it will be brilliant to continue to reading this sporting spectacle.
Our review copy from Kodansha was provided by Diamond Book Distributors.
