Initial D Omnibus #7
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeInitial D Omnibus #7 delivers one of the series' most structurally distinctive race arcs: the Takumi Fujiwara vs. Wataru Akiyama endurance battle at Shomaru Pass, the first confrontation in the entire manga to take place on a course outside Gunma Prefecture, broadening the narrative geography of the series for the first time. The duel is uniquely formatted — an open-ended, multi-lap endurance match between two drivers in virtually identical Toyota AE86 platforms, stripping away the usual car-vs-car asymmetry and forcing the drama onto driver stamina, adaptability, and psychology. The volume also charts Takumi's critical mastery of his rebuilt TRD racing engine, a turning point in his technical evolution that sets the stage for the Project D arc. As a 2025 Kodansha USA release in a new, larger print format with a fresh translation, it marks the ongoing restoration of a manga that had been out of English-language print for well over a decade.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Initial D was written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno and serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Young Magazine from 1995 to 2013, with professional racing driver and drifting pioneer Keiichi Tsuchiya providing editorial supervision on automotive accuracy throughout the series. Shigeno — a Kodansha Manga Award winner for his earlier series Bari Bari Densetsu — drew directly on his own late-night mountain-pass driving and his study of Tsuchiya's drifting videos when developing the series. After Tokyopop's North American license lapsed in 2009 and a decade-long gap in English print publication, Kodansha USA announced a new large-format omnibus edition at Anime Expo 2023, launching in March 2024 with new translation by Kevin Steinbach and cover design by Phil Balsman; Omnibus #7 is the seventh volume in that ongoing restoration project.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Collects original tankōbon volumes 13 and 14 of the 48-volume series, presented in Kodansha USA's new large-format 2-in-1 omnibus edition; 448 pages.
- Print ISBN: 9798888771044 | Digital ISBN: 9798894786896 | Release date (both formats): September 2, 2025.
- Centers on the Takumi Fujiwara vs. Wataru Akiyama battle at Shomaru Pass in Saitama — the 21st race in the series and the first to take place outside Gunma Prefecture, marking a major geographic and narrative expansion.
- The race is structured as an open-ended endurance format: the two drivers swap leader/chaser positions each lap, with victory going to whichever driver successfully overtakes the leader — a format devised by Wataru himself.
- Both combatants drive Toyota AE86s — Takumi in his father's Sprinter Trueno and Wataru in a supercharged Corolla Levin GT-APEX — making this a rare same-platform duel that shifts all competitive weight to driver skill and stamina rather than machinery.
- The arc resolves Takumi's adjustment to the TRD Group A racing engine fitted by mechanic Masashi Suzuki after the AE86's engine was blown out in the earlier Emperor arc; it was Wataru who identified the missing tachometer upgrade that unlocked the engine's full output.
- Creator Shuichi Shigeno commented on the race in the Initial D Art Book (2001), describing it as intentionally 'rough and no-nonsense' compared to the series' typical technical battles, with stamina as the decisive factor.
- The Kodansha USA omnibus translation (by Kevin Shinbach) and cover design (by Phil Balsman) are original to this 2024–onward print series, replacing the lapsed Tokyopop edition that only reached volume 33 before going out of print in 2009.
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