Hey Drift Hunters, have a seat because I am about to blow your fucking minds with this absurd story.

I don't know how else to describe it. This was absolutely surreal.

The man beside me in the picture is my new friend whom I met 30 minutes prior, at McDonalds, when he came up to me while I was stuffing my face with French fries.

IDH, meet Jun Fujinoki.

The name probably doesn't ring a bell, but maybe this does: Takumi Fujiwara.

Ofcourse you know about how in Initial D there is the tofu shop in "City S" where Bunta, and later Takumi, does daily deliveries to a hotel up and down Mt. Akina in an AE86 Trueno and a GC8 WRX STi.

Well my friend Jun Fujinoki's grandfather, just so happened to own a tofu shop.

It was called the Fujinoki Tofu ten and was located in Shibukawa city.

My friend Jun was tasked with getting up before the crack of dawn and doing daily tofu deliveries to a hotel up and down Mt. Haruna in his grey GC8 WRX STi.

You heard that right.

In the mid 90's, a mangaka (comic book artist) named Mr. Shigeno made a research trip to Gunma prefecture to learn about the underground street racing scene that his legendary series Initial D would later be based on.

Almost everything in the manga has a parallel in real life.

City S = Shibukawa city
Mt. Akina = Mt. Haruna
Fujiwara Tofu shop = Fujinoki Tofu shop

And yes,

Takumi Fujiwara = Jun Fujinoki.

Holy.

Fucking.

Shit.

Guys, my friend Jun is the real life Takumi.

I got chills writing the above sentence and I hope you did too, especially after I go back and explain the absolute serendipity of our meeting.

So a couple days ago, I was driving down the road, on my way home from work and passing by McDonalds. I'm on a diet, so I thought that I really shouldn't be eating another burger, but at the last second I decided to turn in, and grab a quick dinner.

I figured I could reply to some comments and get some writing done.

So there I was, munching on fries, while typing away on the keyboard, when a guy, who was having dinner with his family several tables over, comes up to me and shows me his phone.

He was watching Drift Hunter!

I laughed, and was delighted and a bit confused, and I think he assumed I didnt speak Japanese so he just tried to communicate using gestures.

*Gestures to the screen*
*points to me*
*points back at the screen*

I nod my head and laugh "Yes, that is me. Thank you!"

He bows and says "Thank you." then goes to sit back down.

I think to myself, well, that was weird, but being a Youtuber with a somewhat sizeable following now, similar things have happened frequently enough that I just take it in stride. In fact, I'm always flattered.

20 minutes later, the family finishes up their meal, and bow to me as they leave. I bow back, super entertained by the whole thing and excited to tell my friends about this little interlude, when I hear a tap on the glass window beside me.

It's the same guy and he is gesturing to his phone again but this time he's showing me a screen that looks like Twitter but with some other interface. It's all in Japanese and I can't quite make it out, but his profile icon is the Initial D AE86 so it dawns on me that he is a fan of Initial D!

I go outside and introduce myself, and he is like "Wait, you can speak Japanese?!"

I laugh and say yes.

He then asks me about Drift Hunter, and it turned out that he had parked beside my car, saw my stickers, and was wondering what they were, so he googled Drift Hunter while waiting in line to order.

He was then blown away by what he watched, and then when I explained what I am doing with Drift Hunter, he was absolutely amazed. This guy is as big fan of Initial D as me, I thought.

He seemed to be rendered speechless for a second, like he had something to say but couldn't quite get it out, so to break the silence I asked, "Eto, Onamae wa nandesuka?" (Um, what is your name?)

"I'm Jun. Jun Fujinoki." he replied with a big grin.

Hmm, familiar sounding name, I thought, racking my brain for connections.

"My grandfather owned the Fujinoki Tofu shop."

I'm sorry, what.

I don't quite process it the first time, so he repeats it.

When the realization hits me, my eyes go wide as dinner plates.

I'm. Absolutely. Floored.

Well, actually both of us were completely speechless for several moments. We were floored for different reasons, but essentially both at the serendipity of our meeting, once I explained what I was doing - making a documentary series, literally exploring the real life version of Initial D.

I have spent the past 3 years searching for where the anime meets reality, and instead it found me.

Jun and his wonderful family then immediately invited me to their home, where we spent the next 3 hours talking about Initial D, the history of the street racing scene in Gunma, and everything in between. He gave me an incredible present; one of the last remaining packagings of the original, real life tofu.

Over the next 3 hours, while we sat on the floor, Jun told me so many incredible things, corroborated so many anecdotes, and confirmed all the suspicions I had that Initial D was absolutely fucking real. He told me so much that I ran out of space on my iPhone to record everything, and while shooting instagram stories and doing a live, my phone just died.

There are so many insane parallels between real life and the anime, and what blows my mind the most is that I cant believe I met the one guy who is at the center of this. In fact no he found ME. If that's not fate then I dont know what is, lol.

To me, this is just surreal.

So yup, I hope you guys enjoyed the story of this absurd turn of events. I want to hear your guys thoughts! I'll eventually edit the video I shot with Jun and put it up on the channel (the raw uncut edit is up on Patreon though, if you want to support me).

Details of the iPhone screencaps:
1. Last remaining original packaging
2. Last remaining tofu beans
3. Personal shots during filming of the movie (camera crew in the background)
4. Real life impact blue team car (obscured on purpose;) )

Okay this post is already really long so I'll end it here! Thank you so much for reading and for all your support guys.

D R I F T H U N T E R A L B O