Japanese car culture and anime are intrinsically tied. Initial D, the most iconic car anime series, has sold over 48 million copies globally, turned countless people into Japanese car enthusiasts, and has a cult-like following to this day. We took inspiration from Initial D and other relevant animes like Akira, Wangan Midnight, Cowboy Bebop and Redline. We also used real brands, locations and people throughout the series: The first race and final showdown both take place at the Long Beach Grand Prix, using actual turns from the track.Noboru’s private driving road is modeled after the famous Angeles Crest Hwy. The sequence is inspired by touge driving, a type of mountain-pass driving that’s a staple in Japanese car culture. Noboru is based on a drift instructor who lives above his garage at Willow Springs Raceway in California. We collaborated with enthusiast car brands, like The Chronicles, Vtec Club, Recaro, Greddy.

For Chiaki’s Journey, our intentions were not to mimic any particular anime, but to create an original, ownable, distinctive look and story, taking inspiration from the animation we love coming out of Japan. But authenticity was key–so in traditional fashion, all video work was created in color (anime) and all print work was designed black and white (manga). We sought to treat it as a real series, complete with its own action intro, unique storyline, cliffhangers, series billboards, a 60-page manga book and even an IMDB movie page. We included subtle touches like the letter box added to the action scenes and the 30+ easter eggs, including local Los Angeles driving roads. Every character was designed from scratch and animated digitally by hand in 2D software. Bespoke backgrounds were drafted using a combination of hand-drawn layouts and 3D models, which were then uniquely hand painted in Photoshop.