How Tokyopop ruined Initial D's introduction to the West

Fans of Initial D within Western Countries may know that when Initial D was first dubbed and translated into English, it was handled by Tokyopop, an American distributor, publisher, and licenser of translated Japanese anime/manga into English for most Western audiences. Needless to say, they bombed at their efforts to bring it to a greater English-speaking audience. Here’s why, base on two main points:

1. They took out Eurobeat.

This was the major criticism towards Tokyopop’s distribution of the anime version of Initial D. Rather than keep the Eurobeat tracks which made every race scene excellent, they threw it out and replaced it with god-awful pseudo-rap songs that failed to complement the AE86 drifting in the first act or the observations from Ryosuke Takahashi as he commented on the R32’s understeer. Especially the theme song for the opening. Gone was m.o.v.e’s ‘Around the World’ and in came tosh in the form of ‘Initialize’ by a underheard band known as ‘Drop Logic’. Clearly whoever was responsible for the music of the dubbed-Intiial D at Tokyopop thought it was an anime series ripping off ‘The Fast and the Furious’ or thought the only Japanese car considered ‘cool’ was a Honda Civic with a rear spoiler the size of a step ladder and red painted engine covers.

Even the lyrics to that song are cringeworthy:

"See me roll through these curves like a wrecking ball Just a test where the fast stand tall And the rest just fall Don't get twisted in the mix You blink and then you miss it One bad move Now you can't fix the distance You risk it Everything can change in an instant Dawning of the Red Sun rising every minute 86 custom fine tuned and tinted Speed Stars blasting off the line They can win it!"

Initial D is nothing without Eurobeat, end of story. I can’t have some indie-rap playing in the background of a Sil80 vs AE86 dogfight.

2. Renaming the characters with Western names

Takumi became ‘Tak’. Takeshi Nakazato became ‘Zack’. Keisuke Takahasi became ‘K.T’. Seiji Iwaki of the Emperors was renamed ‘Hawk’? (Or worse, Itsuki = ‘Iggy’). What were they thinking? Seriously? Did they have too much sake (courtesy of their Japanese partners) during the session where they were considering what to translate and what to keep from the original Japanese version, or did they assume Western audiences would not get Japanese names (cause lack of cultural awareness or some other reason).

Anime is a major part of Japanese culture, along with sushi, Honda, butoh, Kei-Cars, vending-machine parking lots, Geishas. It had to retain part of its original Japanese language to at least respect its origins. Everything else from general dialogue to translations of Kanji characters, that’s where the English translation is more effective with. Unfortunately, TokyoPop ignored this, and just went in removing all of the Japanese names into ‘Westernised’ names. As if we’d actually ‘appreciate that’.

TokyoPop did address these criticisms, saying that they “felt the edits were necessary because they were marketing the series to a younger target audience than it was originally designed for in Japan”. In addition, in order to ‘attract a greater audience’, they felt the series would be more attractive if it had a broader-American appeal.

In my opinion, they should have kept some of the original elements from the Japanese version to maintain its authenticity to the series, so that it could still be the great anime series it was but in a different language. Even with retaining these two aspects, they still would have found success in appealing it to the audiences they desired.

Needless to say, they only covered the ‘First’ and ‘Second’ stage before they encountered financial trouble. Later on, Funimation picked up the series, and thankfully enough they kept these two major aspects in their translated version of the series, all the way to ‘Project D’. But even so, the best way you could enjoy the anime series of ‘Initial D’ is only by viewing it in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles to guide you.

And don't forget..