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The 86 accelerated relentlessly, the gap between it and the fifth hairpin curve shrinking by the second. Finally, with a sudden, jarring shift in weight, the car leaned into the inner edge of the turn at a bizarre, physics-defying angle.
Clank!
Okimi frantically flipped the page. What awaited him was a breathtaking, double-page spread.
Takumi's AE86, tilted at an impossible angle that mocked every known law of friction, was hugging the absolute innermost line of the curve. Traveling at well over a hundred kiloters per hour, it clung to the gutter of the steep, treacherous Akina mountain pass, sliding through the long bend in a perfect drift.
Behind it, Keisuke's FD had been forced to decelerate before the entry and was taking the wider, conventional drifting line. By the ti they reached the exit, the 86 had already pulled ahead by two full car lengths.
Okimi felt his eyes grow hot with unshed tears.
This narrative, these visuals, he was officially a fanatic.
"Keisuke's been passed! The 86 took him on the inside!" A teammate's voice crackled over the radio.
At the summit, everyone stood frozen in shock.
"That's impossible! Explain what happened!"
"The 86... it showed unbelievable grip on those five successive hairpins. It was right on the inside rail, taking a line so sharp it didn't make sense. I have no idea how it stayed on the road..."
"Hmph... I see. So that's what the 86 was doing. It's absurd, but on Mount Akina, that move is sothing no one else can replicate."
The perspective shifted to Takeshi Nakazato, the leader of the NightKids and the story's 2nd ranking King of Cool after Ryosuke.
Nakazato's composed, knowing expression sent Okimi's curiosity into overdrive. His eyes were shining with anticipation as he prepared to flip the page and learn the secret.
Instead, he was t with….
Initial D, Chapter 4: End.
"Dammit! Not again! This is just cruel!" Okimi sat stunned for a few seconds before erupting in a string of curses.
---
On the official Pri Manga forums...
It was only 9:00 AM on the day of the release, yet the community was already drowning in the largest wave of reader outcry and plot discussion the manga had seen to date.
"Are you kidding ? Chapter four, and another cliffhanger? Does the author seriously not care about our blood pressure?"
"That cut-off point is lethal. I feel like I'm dying. I can't even enjoy my breakfast, and there's no way I'm getting back to sleep now. Crap!"
"Shiori Takahashi is a nace. I'm calling it: his cliffhanger skills are on the exact sa tier as the Warrior of Love."
"I'm speechless. I thought last week's ending was a low blow, but Sensei had an even dirtier trick up his sleeve this week."
"I just want to storm the campus, drag Shiori out, and give him a piece of my mind. We need to teach him a lesson so he stops doing this to us!"
"I'm going tomorrow! Unlike you guys who just talk big on the forums, I'm going to go there and demand to know the rest of the story."
"Don't bother, man. It's sumr break. You won't find a single student at the university right now, let alone him. Haha!"
"Dammit! Was even the timing of the school holidays part of Shiori's master plan?"
"That guy is too cunning. I'm livid!"
"But seriously, does anyone actually know how that AE86 took a corner at 100km/h on the inside line? It feels impossible! No matter how good the car is, the friction between the tires and the asphalt is a fixed constant. That speed on that line... it's borderline magical."
"Please don't tell this is becoming another supernatural sports manga. I really hope Initial D stays sowhat grounded in reality."
"I wouldn't worry about that. Nakazato wouldn't have that smug look on his face if it were magic. He said he understood what happened, which ans there's a logical explanation. We'll probably find out in chapter five."
"Chapter five... I wonder if Shiori will pull another cliffhanger then, too?"
"Stop! Don't even go there. The thought is too scary. I just want to know how the 86 made that pass. I'll worry about next week's cliffhanger... next week."
"I'm just going to say it. If this manga keeps up this pace, it's a guaranteed masterpiece."
"I agree. It's been years since a manga made feel this hyped. Honestly, if it keeps going like this, it might actually challenge the Big Three pillars of Weekly Pri."
"Forget might. Did you see the voting data from last week? It's still a long way from the top spot, but the gap between it and second and third place is only about a hundred thousand votes. It wouldn't surprise if it overtakes them this week."
---
While the fans were engaged in a heated debate, Haruto spent his day monitoring the feedback. He saw the wave of people cursing his cliffhangers, but there wasn't much he could do about it.
Initial D had such a perfect narrative rhythm that every chapter naturally ended on a high-stakes mont. There simply wasn't any filler content to pad the endings.
After browsing for a while, he shut down his computer. Lurking on forums was a distraction.
He had real work to do. He had just received a call from the company's accounting departnt.
A portion of the international broadcasting royalties for Puella Magi Madoka Magica had arrived.
It was just the licensing fees from a few mid-sized European and Southeast Asian markets, but the arrival of over 100 million yen was exactly the rescue Haruto needed.
Most importantly, it ant he finally had the capital to launch the preliminary stages of his two new projects: 7 Years From Now and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Looking back at the past six months, he had done nothing but pour money into Madoka.
This was officially the first return on that massive investnt. And it was only the beginning.
With the company accounts bolstered, Haruto's mind began to race with the possibilities for the new projects. The first priority was recruitnt.
A title like 7 Years From Now, which originated as a pixel-art narrative ga, would be relatively simple to adapt. Since the visuals were mostly focused on daily life and mystery, his current team could produce sothing of high quality without needing to be the best in the world.
But Cyberpunk: Edgerunners... that was a different story.
In the other world, that ani was a masterclass in music, art direction, and combat choreography. It was the elite of the elite.
Unlike generic productions, Edgerunners possessed a visual flair that even a complete novice could recognize as top-tier.
Haruto had no intention of turning Edgerunners into a diocre production. He needed to spend money where it mattered. Strengthening his internal staff and poaching high-level talent from rival studios.
He decided to use the initial 100 million yen to kickstart both projects, with plans to increase the investnt once the larger Madoka profits started rolling in. That afternoon, he called a eting with the core mbers of his studio to outline the upcoming expansion.
The staff looked at him with dazed expressions. Haruto had gone from Madoka to the movie, and now, before they had even finished the film, he was proposing two new series.
Does this guy actually have a cooldown period? Is there no such thing as writer's block for him? they wondered. They had just barely crossed the finish line of the movie's production, and he already had the next mountain for them to climb.
The following day, the weekly rankings for Weekly Pri were released.
Initial D had experienced another massive surge in votes. With 1,208,956 votes, it had officially claid the Number 2 spot in the magazine.
When the data hit the screens, the entire Pri Manga headquarters fell into a trance.
This ant that the Iron Wall of the three pillars, Rising Shonen, Ultra Comic, and Next Jump, which had remained unbroken for three years, had been shattered in just four weeks by a young challenger writing about a niche racing topic.
It was utterly preposterous.
Even Katashi hadn't expected the climb to be this vertical.
This success had blown past the boundaries of his expectations and left the entire manga industry reeling. Haruto wasn't a total rookie, as he brought his own legion of light novel fans with him, but ranking second in the nation's premier magazine after only four chapters was unheard of. How high will this thing go? they all wondered.
Two days later, the sales figures for the third volu of the Madoka Magica Blu-rays were finalized.
First-week sales: 600,751 copies.
Building on the half-million success of Volu 2, Volu 3 had once again broken the record for first-week sales. Many in the industry had thought they were immune to the shock of Madoka's numbers, but seeing over 600,000 copies sold in seven days left them feeling a bitter sense of resentnt.
It was too much.
The professionals couldn't stay calm anymore. If a high-budget production from a major studio had achieved this, it would be acceptable.
But Madoka? A show made by a group of industry strays, led by a no-na writer, a director with a diocre resu, and a producer no one had heard of? Its success felt like a personal insult to every veteran in the business.
If any of them tried to make excuses for their own poor performance in the future, their bosses would just point to the Madoka example and shut them down instantly.
"Seriously, where is this show going to end up?"
"I don't even know anymore."
"Is this the power of the magical girl genre?"
"It makes no sense."
"I just want to see the movie now."
"Everything depends on the word-of-mouth for the film. If Rebellion has the sa quality as those twelve TV episodes, I can't even fathom what the sales figures will look like."
"Don't get your hopes up for a movie. As long as it doesn't add so weird, unnecessary lore, it'll be fine. I'm not expecting a masterpiece. I just don't want it to drag down the series' average. It would be a tragedy if such an amazing work was ruined by a bad sequel."
In the ani world, with new Blu-ray volus dropping weekly, the Madoka fever showed no signs of cooling down, continuing to overshadow the new autumn releases.
For a work that was almost certainly going to be crowned the Ani of the Year, this level of montum was only natural. anwhile, in the manga world, Initial D had only reached its fourth chapter, yet it was undeniably the dark horse of the year, dominating every conversation in the community.
As ti blurred forward, the calendar turned to August. After only four weeks of serialization, Initial D's influence had officially breached the walls of the Pri readership and was spreading through the general public.
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