Initial D Omnibus 5 Review
In this latest omnibus edition, Takumi Fujiwara ends up learning things the hard way both in and out of the car.
We begin mid-race with the Emperor team, with Seiji Iwaki driving a Mitsubishi Evo IV, racing against Takumi in his panda-coloured Eighty-Six. Seiji is trying his hardest to beat every team in Gunma, and while his fellow member Sudo Kyoichi tells him to stick to a particular plan, Seiji ignores it in the heat of the race, resulting in Takumi somehow managing to undercut him on one bend and win. Emperor however still intend to take on the Red Suns in a week’s time, and Koyichi later meets Takumi to offer him another challenge, but this time against himself.
Takumi’s win means that his father Bunta does not plan to add a brand-new engine to the Eighty-Six, as he believes the time to do so will only come once Takumi loses. However, it’s something else that Takumi ends up losing – his relationship with Natsuki. After helping her beat another girl who insulted her in a race, Takumi gets a phone call from a stranger telling him that Natsuki has been sleeping with older men for money. He refuses to believe it, but when the caller tells him to go to a certain love hotel, he sees her being driven to it in a middle-aged man’s saloon, and ends up heartbroken. This ultimately results in him accepting Koyichi’s challenge during a fit of rage, and ultimately paying a hefty price for doing so.
While there is plenty of racing action in this edition of Initial D, the main draw in this collection is the change in the relationship between Takumi and Natsuki. It feels like it comes out of nowhere. The morning after her revenge race, she bumps into Takumi at the petrol station he works at, but Takumi spots she is walking the opposite way from where she lives. The next time you see Natsuki, she is lying naked on a hotel bed, having had sex with her “Daddy”. This passage may well be disturbing for many readers, whether it be just the fan service or the fact that the story now features a plotline about men paying for underage sex. It is creepy, and it is something you would question being included if the manga was being drawn today. Nonetheless, it does add to the development of the characters, as Takumi learning all about this spurs him on to compete in a new race to his cost. One of the other reasons why this aspect of the story is more interesting than the racing is that Takumi’s opponents at the moment offer little in the way of depth. The boys from the Emperor team appear to want to win just out of ego. They feel like bad guys, but not the ones you really have any interest in.
Regarding the production of the manga, generally there are no problems with Kevin Steinbach’s translation, Scott O. Brown’s lettering, or the editing from Maggie Le and Julia Murphy. Phil Balsman does another wonderful cover. The sixth omnibus edition (Volumes 11-12) is due out in June from Kodansha.
This collection certainly helps in terms of plot development, even if the way it is trying to go about it is frankly disturbing. Still, it’s clear that things will be changing for Takumi and Natsuki in the next edition.
Our review copy from Kodansha was provided by Diamond Book Distributors.
