The Initial D run in real life!

Well, sort of. On the way home from work today I thought it would be fun to show everyone the sort of road the Japanese animation and game, Initial D is based upon. This road I filmed used to be the main road over the mountain 10 years ago before they made the by-pass. It's barely big enough to get 2 cars down it side by side and in some parts it's impossible.

So sit back and enjoy the show.
http://www.segagagadomain.com/drive.htm

I must apologise about the sound quality though. This video was filmed with my phone and while the picture quality is good enough the audio is awful.

Yakumo

 

they drive on the wrong site

 

Nah, they drive on the right side like all great countries do :110: Actually apart from the UK and once British empire countries such as India, Hong Kong, Fiji etc are there any other countries that drive on the left apart from Japan and Australia?

Yakumo

 

Thailand, Indonesia, Macau, Surinam are a few of the top of my head.

 

There's quite a few then by the sounds of it.

 

I like that part of Japan, looks really nice

 

blue: left
red: right



your roads are way too narrow in japan

i suggest a nightrun with more speed and less traffic lol

 

Japanese and their cars are quite small, so they don't need bigger roads
I have hard time being in a Japanese car, its so tiny and I'm so tall...

 

sorry but driving left looks very wrong to me but thats not the topic of this thread

 

Not all roads in Japan are so narrow but there are an awful lot of them that need to be wider. Mostly in the smaller towns or mountain areas.

I actually tried a night run video once with my video camera but you can't see bugger all to be honest apart from what the head lights light up. On video it doesn't look very good. I guess I really need a video camera with true night vision to get any good results.

Ah, you mean those shitty small cars they all drive. Yeah, they are bloody awful in EVERY respect apart from flue consumption. Any respectable driver will know how awful they are to drive. Unfortunately most Japanese are awful drivers so they probably don't notice the body roll, poor handling, poor noise reduction and so on.

On the other hand American cars are way over sized. European and standard sized Japanese cars are what I like :nod:

Yakumo

 

I'm surprised Japan didn't switch to the left during the occupation. I know Okinawa did during US control but switched back in the late 70's to simplify things.

 

Yeah, Japan is a mixed bag of British and US road rules and signs. They drive on the same side as the UK and all major road signs are in the British style. On the other hand the traffic lights are in the US style apart from Hokaido which uses the UK style and rout signs look American as well.

Yakumo

 

Nice video yakumo but its a shame about the audio quality which is poor.

Where i live there is a fairly small stretch of road and it can barely fit one car with not much room on either side to do much if ther is a car coming in the other dirrection and i'm sure there was an accident there when we had all that snow.

 

Nice, thanks for sharing. I love the countryside. Every few months I get a strong urge to get out of Tokyo. Watching this just gave me that feeling :crying:.

Just out of curiosity, how is everyday life where you're at?

 

Very nice. It may look like the middle of nowhere but that mountain road leads to the Joukamachi, the old castle samurai town. Chofu (the name of the town I live in, in Shimonoseki) is well equipped with things to do. We have 2 game centres, 2 big 24 hour super markets, Kyotei boat racing stadium, loads of shops including Hard Off and a massive Toys R Us, 2 big electrical stores being Deo Deo (do you have that in Tokyo?) and Yamada Denki. We even have a beautiful garden park with a big children's play area. No graffiti, no shite on the pavement or roads and no wankers! Yes, Chofu is a nice place. In general Shimonoseki is a nice place unlike the shit hole called Tobata in Kita Kyushu where I work.

Yakumo

 

japan is probably the only country in the world, which drives on the left side of the street not because some limey colonoal accomplishments. they do drive on the left side )of the street) because people walking on the left side since longe time, because samurais walked on the left side wearing their katana on the left side to easliy strike down the enemies coming from the opposite way, with their right hand.

 

Yeah, the phone can produce decent quality video for such a small device but unfortunately the audio is very poor. You can't even hear the lovely raw from the engine as I change gears :crying: Next time I'll actually plan out a day to make the video and use the video camera, not on the spare of the moment with a phone like this time :icon_bigg .

I never knew that. It just goes to show that you can learn new stuff all the time.

Yakumo

 

Looked more like a quick drive through a small town rather then a mountain drive, the speeds you were getting to I was thinking that you were driving a Subaru Justy.

I am going back to Gunma in April to visit a mountain onsen, so I'll stick a camera in the car and show some real mountain roads at least in the same prefecture as Initial D. Here is one of the roads we drove on last autumn.



Part of a road that the satnav told us to take but the road was fenced off as falling rocks destroyed the road and made it unsafe. Drive back and use the new bypass that the satnav didn't have...

 

1min 33sec the guy on the motorbike on the right, I really thought he was going to pull out in front of you to access the left hand exit! Just for a split second in the rain I thought he was pulling his feet up!

Just played Initial D 2 5 mins ago and I confess, I think I want a shot in Japan.... without the rain ;-)

 

Been thinking of watching Initial D, is the series any good?

Great looking road, would much rather have a blast down there than a boring high speed road with easy corners (Think i better never move to Japan, that road could be the death of me)