Racing simulation based on the Initial D licence, the cult Japanese motorsport manga. Mountain car physics and touge circuits are faithfully reproduced. A title that will delight manga fans and Japanese motorsport fans on PS2.
Your verdict
Category
Racing2 players7+
Split screen
Description
A Japanese Sega racer released in 2003, based on Shuichi Shigeno's Initial D manga. Players drive iconic Japanese cars (AE86, RX-7, Skyline) across the Akina mountain passes and other manga tracks, in an arcade formula built around drifting. Compatible with the dedicated Initial D controller.
Initial D - Special Stage review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
2/5
Story
★★★★★
"Classic"
An adaptation of Shuichi Shigeno's manga, this Sega title makes Akina's pass playable. The series' cult cars, AE86, RX-7, Skyline, are reproduced faithfully and launched down the mountain hairpins, where drift traces long controlled slides. The art direction blends the rendering of the manga's night courses and the anime-drawn character portraits, transposing the comic onto the track.
The game's musical signature, like the manga's, is Eurobeat. Italo-disco tracks at a frantic tempo, synthetic pulses and energetic English choruses propel each descent at a frenzied pace perfectly matched to the speed of the drift. This discotheque soundtrack, inseparable from Initial D culture, turns the nocturnal pass battles into a euphoric motorized trance.
A playable adaptation of the mountain-racing manga Initial D, transposing the series' drifting and night duels into a brisk arcade driving game, kept exclusive to Japan and Asia. This Japanese release appeals to collectors of anime- and racing-licensed games. Its interest lies in this link to a cult work and its local run rather than marked scarcity.
Better with friends
A drift race drawn from a cult manga, where the art of sliding through mountain hairpins gives the nighttime duels all their flavor. The competition plays out head-to-head, in mastering the countersteer and reading tight corners where the slightest slip is fatal. Tense and stylish, it recreates the intensity of the paper's clashes and feeds intimate rivalries you restart for the rematch.
Is Initial D - Special Stage still worth playing in 2026?
Released in 2004 on PS2, Sega's project adapts the famous mountain pass racing manga by bringing the Initial D arcade gameplay onto the console. The touge descents, the drift control and the fidelity to cars and characters such as the famous AE86 immediately appeal to fans of the licence. The driving, technical and demanding, requires memorising each corner to beat the clock. The content stays thin outside the duels and the repetitive eurobeat will divide. A targeted curiosity, recommended for fans of stylised Japanese racing and for followers of the Initial D manga curious about its console transposition.
