The Yomiuri Shimbun – June 22, 2016 – MAEBASHI — A cafe inspired by the comic “Initial D” has opened in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture.
The popular car-action manga by Shuichi Shigeno is set in Shibukawa and other areas of the prefecture. Although the publisher ended its magazine run in July 2013, there are still devoted fans of the manga, and the D’z GARAGE cafe is likely to become a new tourist attraction.
Located on the way to the Ikaho hot spring resort, the cafe is about 160 square meters and seats 45 people. The black and white tiles on the floor are arranged to look like a checkered finishing flag.
Makoto Okada, 48, operates D’z GARAGE and is a big fan of automobiles. He also runs a pudding shop nearby called Crayon.
Okada opened the cafe in March after renovating a one-story building that used to be a convenience store.
“I wanted to open a spot where automobile fans could get together at the foot of Mt. Haruna, described as Mt. Akina in the manga,” he said.
Five different types of puddings priced at ¥600 plus tax stand out on the menu. Among them, a white soya milk pudding comes in a bottle with black horizontal lines, with the letters “Fujiwara Tofuten (jikayo)” — “Fujiwara tofu shop (private automobile)” — inscribed on it. Okada says it represents both Takumi Fujiwara, the lead character in “Initial D,” whose family runs a tofu shop, and his black and white car, the AE 86 Sprinter Trueno, dubbed “Hachiroku.”
The four other puddings are the colors of cars belonging to Takumi’s rivals.
Another specialty of the cafe is the curry for ¥860 plus tax. The black curry with white rice also matches Hachiroku’s colors.
The cafe further offers an aluminum pudding carrying case in the shape of Hachiroku’s four-cylinder engine, priced at ¥65,000 plus tax, made by Okada’s friend, who makes wooden molds. The container measures around nine centimeters long, 27 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters deep and can hold up to four bottles of the shop’s puddings.
Okada sought and won the approval of Kodansha Co., the manga’s publisher, to sell products related to “Initial D.” He also displays his own collection of seven sports cars, including Hachiroku and RX-7, outside his cafe.
The parking lot accommodates 30 cars, but the space quickly fills on weekends, with automobile fans coming from all over the country.
“I can’t help picking up those puddings,” said an excited man in his 50s, who came from Saitama with his two sons. “I learn a lot here through observing many cars.”
Okada has more plans in mind for his cafe.
“I want to create new products and collect cars that appeared in films,” he said. “I don’t want to disappoint my customers.”
The cafe is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit dzgarage.com for more information.