When I was in high school, my friend has gave me Initial D: First Stage (Anime) to watch. I was skeptical…an anime about cars? I had never been a car person…I took his word for it and gave it a try. Over a decade later, it would still be one of my favorite animes of all time.

Imagine my surprise when I found Initial D: Arcade Stage (Racing arcade game) at UWaterloo Campus Cove. After spending over $1000 in first and second year university playing Initial D, I became pretty damn good. On the online rankings, I would rank top 10 in Canada on over 1/2 of the (8) tracks (4 uphill, 4 downhill). Again, that doesn’t count all the people that don’t input their track times into the site so it’s a bit misleading. Still I would say that I was within the top 25 in Canada for sure. It was very…satisfying to be that good at something. Looking back at it now, I realize that my skill probably came from my years of Mario Kart (SNES).

I’m in a Facebook group called “I learned how to drive by playing Mario Kart”. While I didn’t learn to drive a real car from Mario Kart, I definitely learned the fundamentals of an ideal line, inertia, action and reaction, and drifting. Of all the games I’ve ever played in my life be it World of Warcraft, Initial D, any Street Fighter or Puzzle game, Contra, Mario Bros., I don’t think I’ve ever been more skilled at a game than Mario Kart. Mario Kart was my IT game. It was THE game for me.

My skills aren’t what they used to be anymore, I can’t do the lines or track times that I used to…but my SNES records from my prime speak for themselves. Recently, I tried to search the internet for best course times. People would post their fastest times and I compared them with mine and LUL, my times were still better!

I don’t think I ever played anyone who loved the game as much as me. I would have loved to competitively race another highly skilled driver. Maybe that’s why I loved Initial D so much. I’m like Takumi challenging other racers. But more likely, I’m one of the arrogant opponents who lose on their home course to Takumi :D I’m good…but I’m no Takumi :(