With only a month left before the release of Forza Horizon 6, the hype to sprint through its sakura-strewn streets and serpentine mountain roads has reached a fever pitch. Playground Games has layered its latest open-world racing sim with all the hallmarks of Japan, from the neon-lit city avenues of Tokyo to the snow-capped peaks of the Japanese Alps. Forza Horizon 6 is set to offer a kind of serenity behind the wheel that few games have truly captured, but the wait for its official debut is starting to drag on. If the flood of early gameplay footage isn't enough to satisfy that pull toward rubber-streaked pavement for the next month, it might be time to look back at the manga and anime that defined it. Before The Fast and the Furious, there was Initial D. The 1998 anime, adapted from Shuichi Shigeno’s manga of the same name, is a tour de force that captures the art of touge racing in all its thrilling splendor. “Touge” (峠 in Japanese) literally translates to “mountain pass,” the winding roads that became proving grounds for young, thrill-seeking drivers in Japan throughout the 1970s and 1980s. By the early '90s, tight-knit groups had formed around these same roads, refining drifting techniques and reshaping car culture in the process. Initial D draws directly from that world, pulling from its creator’s firsthand experience with street racing. The story follows Takumi Fujiwara, a seemingly indifferent high schooler with a knack for driving, honed by years of delivering tofu on Mount Akina for his father since he was 13. Unlike your typical Brian O’Conner or Lightning McQueen, Takumi doesn’t chase racing; he just happens to be better at it than anyone else. Takumi’s first race down Akina makes these ideals clear. He enters the race on the simple