Cultural Hybridization: The Western Dominance of Japanese Drift Culture
The first time I saw professional drifting up close was as at a Gridlife event in 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. I tagged along with my friends who were SAE members at our college. They were excited to see the car show and track events. I was excited to see Ludacris perform later that night.
I hear someone yell “The intermediate drift time is starting!” and people start running to the fence along the track. In almost slow motion I see multiple cars with their rear ends swung out, tires barely holding on to the ground, rounding an impossible corner side by side. Tires squealed and their smoke burned my nose and made my eyes water, but I couldn’t stop watching, I was hooked. I wanted to know as much as I could about the technique, the cars, the paint, the style, and most of all, where it came from.
“Speed isn’t everything, you got to look good on the touge too” — Keiichi Tsuchiya, aka “Drift King”
Kunimitsu Takahashi and Keiichi Tsuchiya are names known to be the first drivers that were able to bring drifting to the professional track in the All Japan Touring Championship. Drifting in motorsports soon grew to have its own platform in 1999 with D1 Grand Prix hosted in Japan. Keiichi Tsuchiya’s story inspired many enthusiasts, as before his professional enterprise he started from humble beginnings of street racing, mountain pass drifting, and home car builds. What set street drifting and events like D1 Grand Prix apart, aside from the legal roadblocks, was the evolution of judgment and branding.
Was the angle of drift maintained? Was the drift line followed? Was the car in the correct position entering, rounding, and exiting the turn?
Most importantly, did the driver have style? Was the driver aggressive?
The sport demanded manufacturing regulations for safety and performance that without, what seemed like endless funds, was unattainable to many skilled drivers. As the sport then turned into an exclusive branding showcase, many drivers took to the streets, highways, and mountain passes, anywhere to practice and drive freely.
“I’m afraid that if I raced you on the street I’d push you to your death.”-Keiichi Tsuchiya
Drifting was well alive and thriving in the streets and in the mountains and judged purely as an art form and driving prowess regardless of the law. Car gangs formed often referred to as “zoku” and set the tone of a community of rebels and social outcasts. Street racing took place on public highways and remote streets, oftentimes seeing the Yakuza or Bōsōzoku gangs out for a cruise.
Street racing and drifting also had strong values within family bonds. Where drift cars brought people together either through building it or going out to practice drifting and creating a car club.
Drifting soon entered Japanese pop culture with the animated series Initial D, where 18-year-old delivery driver, Takumi Fujiwara inherits his dad’s drift car and continues his father’s passion to become the best street driver known. Initial D was based in part by the Drift King himself, Keiichi Tsuchiya. His car, a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno is the center of a father-son relationship, illegal mountain pass drifting, car clubs, and lasting friendship.
Keiichi Tsuchiya also was a stunt coordinator, stunt driver, and cameoed in the American film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Before the 2006 film, drifting had already entered American mainstream culture. This contraflow flow of Japanese drift culture was mediated through professional drift events and mass media, such as TV and film.
In 2003, the United States hosted the D1 Grand Prix in California and soon after spin-offs of the motorsport competition were in many western countries. Formula D was founded in 2004 and while inviting any driver from around the world to compete it is exclusively hosted across the United States. Formula D became a very lucrative sport for drivers, with heavy sponsorships to fund the extreme manufacturing regulations and training.
Tokyo born driver, Dai Yoshihara drove in United States Formula D in 2003 as sponsorships and promotions made the sport a well paying full-time job. Dai even has his own wheels designed for style and drift cars.
American mad drifting video games were produced in the 2000s such as the Need for Speed: Underground franchise where exotic cars can be tuned, painted and raced in an illegal street drifting story mode. The Need for Speed franchise is highly accredited with selling over 150 million copies of their video games.
But what really set the stage for explosive growth for drifting in American pop culture in the early 2000s, was the film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The hallmarks of the franchise are American muscle (both cars, and Vin Diesel), women in bikinis, pink slips, nitrous tanks, money, rivalry, and too many explosions to count.
The third film, Tokyo Drift, left with a box office revenue of $158.5 million. The Fast and the Furious Franchise estimated a gross of $5 billion, making it the 8th highest-grossing film series. Not only were the films influential to young American youth with scenes of American muscle cars vs foreign cars, and small-town American actors they could relate too. But this franchise set the picture for street racing and what drifting looked like on a global scale, American.
With young adults in the United States pumped full of adrenaline and the need for speed, the crusade for the street drifting life began. Drifting had its origin in Japan’s subculture of societal rebels and to capture this “authenticity” drivers in The States took the Japanese gangs and formed car clubs called garages.
They imported the top drift Japanese made cars such as the famous AE86 from Initial D, or Nissan 240sx from companies like Japan Direct. Any car modifications were researched and purchased from local Japanese retailers.
They used Japanese characters, in language and anime, to decorate their cars and called themselves JDM fans.
And when shipment and importing became too expensive and could not be expedited, the Drift Tax was born with knock off retailers in its wake. The Drift Tax was an unofficial rule where imported drift cars, or the later American made version of the Japanese cars, were sold for thousands of dollars more than valued. American retail websites, such as Dorki Dori, sell “Japanese inspired” car parts oftentimes using pictures of the Japan-made part for accreditation.
Despite this rally for authenticity and Japan pop culture influence, American drifting still focused on the driving technique and community values in small grassroots communities. Local drift events like Drift Indy are held throughout the midwest for amateur drivers looking for practice, teaching, and inspiration.
Shopping malls are filled with drivers and their car builds and drivers exchange everything from Instagram handles to drift spots and mechanic tips.
Cars donned in Japanese and English words, built on American parts and Japanese style inspiration slide side by side on the track and in the streets of America. Not only are the syle of paint, wheel, body kit similar between Japanese and American drift drivers but also the original values for the love of drifting and driving freely.
The humble origins of drifting in Japan and its entryway into the Unites States pop culture and commercial market begs the question: Is a new, hybrid, culture being created between the two nations? Maybe. The plastered Monster stickers and other sponsored brands, and the American actors telling the story of Japanese street drifting reveal a Western dominance of the culture.
This exchange is not a two-way road as hybridity demands, where characteristics and knowledge of cultures are shared evenly. Mass media has allowed for America to take hold of the global presence of drifting both economically and visually. Drifting has entered American pop culture initially as flashy “Japanese Street driving” and transformed into a professional and amateur sport with American overtones of commercialization. This new culture is also stagnant, there is no push-and-pull relation between Japanese drift culture and the American drift scene. What only looks like a pull and an economic gain for America is seen, with TV, video games, imports, manufacturing, and heavily sponsored events.
