It is revealed that Takumi has been driving on Mt. Set in the late 1990s in Japan's Gunma Prefecture, the series follows the adventures of Takumi Fujiwara, an eighteen year old who helps his father run a tofu store by making deliveries every morning to a hotel on Akina with his father's Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX (AE86). Although some of the names of the locations the characters race in have been fictionalized, all of the locations in the series are based on actual locations in Japan. The story is centered around the Japanese prefecture of Gunma, (mostly Shibukawa where Takumi's home is) more specifically on several mountains in the kanto area and in and their surrounding cities and towns. Keiichi Tsuchiya helps with editorial supervision. The anime and manga focus on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes and rarely in cities nor urban areas, and the drift racing style is emphasized in particular.

Both the manga and anime series were licensed for distribution in North America by Tokyopop the Tokyopop version of the manga is out of print as of August 31, 2009. It has been adapted into a long-running anime series by Pastel, Studio Gallop, OB Planning, Frontline, Gainax and A.C.G.T which premiered in Japan on Fuji TV and Animax, and a live action film by Avex and Media Asia.

Initial D is a manga by Shuichi Shigeno which has been serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine since 1995.

Initial d street stage translation