Tokyopop

Tokyopop is an American company that distribute, licence and publish manga in English. They were the first company in the United States to maintain the original right-to-left format in all of their manga releases.

Tokyopop gained the rights to translate and publish the Initial D series in 2002.

Manga
Tokyopop released 33 volumes of the Initial D manga from 2002 to 2009 when Kondansha let their license with the company expire. These version of Volume 1-33 were used in the ComiXology release of the manga.

Anime
Tokyopop created and released dubs of First, Second and Extra Stage. They had created a subtitled version of Third Stage and had reportedly screened it at the Big Apple Anime Fest in 2003, however it has never been released.

Localisation Differences
When bringing Initial D to the west Tokyopop made many changes to the series to widen its appeal, these include:

Name Changes
A majority of the characters were given nicknames that were used instead of their names, with a couple of characters having their names completely changed. Unless stated otherwise, these names were present in both the manga and anime. Many of the names were used in the localised versions of the Arcade Stage games

Censoring
As Tokyopop were trying to target Initial D to a younger audience than it was originally intended to be for, they had to censor several scenes. Scenes between Natsuki Mogi and her Papa were removed, as well as any scenes containing nudity.

Soundtrack
The eurobeat soundtrack present in the original Japanese version was removed, instead being replaced with a rap and hip hop created by Stu Levy, Tokyopop's CEO, under the name "DJ Milky". However, their unreleased version of Third Stage would maintain the eurobeat featured in the Japanese version.

Translation
Tokyopop's translation of Initial D had street slang added to it to make it appeal to younger audiences. Their translation also featured many errors when it came to car terminology. One example of this are the extra chapters Waste Gate and Waste Gate 2 (Featured in volumes 30 and 33) which were both mistranslated as "West Gate".

Visual Edits
Tokyopop made several edits to the anime, adding effects or cuts that were not present in the original version.

Merchandise
Tokyopop made a deal with Jada Toys to create a line of licensed diecast cars and action figures based on the Initial D property. Toys included in the line are 1/64 scale models of the vehicles from the series and 1:24 scale vehicles including the AE86 driven by Takumi. The models even came with figures of the characters.