The Initial D Pilgrimage: Which Passes Are Real, Where They Are, and How to Drive Them (2026)

Short answer: The mountain passes in Initial D are real roads, they are mostly in Gunma Prefecture, and Gunma's own tourism board publishes an official pilgrimage guide to them. Mt. Haruna is the manga's "Akina." Akagi, Myogi and Usui are used under their real names.

What is not real is the racing. Street racing in Japan is prosecuted under a charge that revokes your licence outright, and the prefecture that promotes the pilgrimage also asks visitors to obey traffic rules on these exact roads.

JDMX lists 2 touge experiences by type and 4 by location, and 2 of its listings depart from Gunma rather than Tokyo. This guide covers which locations are which, what you will actually find there, and the legal reality.

The map: real place vs manga name

All five are covered by Gunma Prefecture's official two-part pilgrimage guide — which is unusual and worth knowing about. A prefectural government publishing a guide to a street-racing manga's locations is not something you find often, and it means the locations below are documented rather than crowd-sourced.

Mt. Haruna, "Akina"

The most important one. Named locations include Lake Haruna and its boathouse, and the former Yasetone Pass toll station with its water tower, which is one of the most recognisable real-world images in the series. Ikaho Onsen's stone steps, nearby, also appear.

Mt. Akagi

Gunma's guide names the Himeyuri parking area as the downhill goal, the Akagi Onsen tourist information centre as the race start, and the AKAGI monument at Lake Akagi.

Mt. Myogi

Start at the Myogi Municipal Second Parking Area, near Michi-no-Eki Myogi. Goal at the Prefectural Myogi Park First Parking Area, by Nakanotake Shrine.

Usui Pass

The "Megane Bridge" (the Usui Third Bridge), an Important Cultural Property since 1993, is the landmark. The guide also names "Sayaka Corner," named after the drift driver Sayaka Shimoda, and the Ogino-ya store at Yokogawa.

Irohazaka is not in Gunma, and it is not simple

Irohazaka is in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture — a different prefecture entirely, and not part of Gunma's guide. It gets grouped with the Initial D passes constantly in English writing. I could not confirm from any official source that it appears in the series, so treat that association as unverified.

It is, however, a genuinely famous driving road, and it has rules that will catch you out:

• 48 hairpins, named after the 48 characters of the iroha syllabary
• About 440 metres of elevation change
• The first Irohazaka is downhill-only. The second is uphill-only. Tochigi Prefecture converted the second so that both its lanes run uphill, effective 1 October 2019
• Once you pass the Akechidaira Ropeway car park heading up, you cannot turn around. If you want the ropeway, stop on the way up
• Normally about 20 minutes uphill. In autumn foliage season it can take two to three hours, and up to six on peak holidays

The legal reality

This needs saying plainly, because the fiction is about illegal racing and some visitors arrive with the wrong idea.

Street racing in Japan is charged as joint dangerous conduct under Article 68 of the Road Traffic Act. The penalty:

• Up to two years' confinement, or a fine of up to ¥500,000
• 25 demerit points — which revokes the licence outright, with a two-year disqualification. Not a suspension

Related offences carry their own fines up to ¥50,000 each: driving a defective vehicle, an inadequate silencer, and noise driving.

Twenty-five points from a single conviction is the number to remember. There is no version of this that ends with a ticket and a story.

What Gunma itself asks of visitors

The same prefectural pages that promote the pilgrimage ask people to obey traffic rules and enjoy it safely. Specifically, they warn about:

• Narrow shoulders and rough parking surfaces
• Poor visibility on the many blind curves
• The danger of stopping at the roadside — use the designated car parks
• Winter ice

That last point matters for planning. These are mountain roads at altitude, and the pilgrimage is a three-season activity unless you know what you are doing.

When the roads are actually open

This is the part that is hard to find in English, so here is what Gunma Prefecture's own road management division publishes.

Mt. Akagi has two scheduled winter closures. For the 2025 to 2026 season: Prefectural Route 16, the Ogo–Akagi Line, closed from 16 December and reopened 6 April; Prefectural Route 251, the Numata–Akagi Line, closed from 5 January and reopened 19 March.

Haruna, Myogi and Usui are not on the prefectural winter closure list at all. I checked the complete table for two consecutive seasons.

But "no scheduled closure" is not the same as "fine in winter":

• Gunma's official snow-depth monitoring service runs 1 December to 31 March — that is the de facto winter window
• Usui Pass is an actively monitored snow point, so expect ad-hoc closures and ice
• Lake Haruna sits at 1,100 metres, and the local tourism association has publicly asked visitors to fit studless tyres around the winter illumination period

Check on the day. Gunma Prefecture runs a live road restriction information service, and it is the right place to look before setting off in winter.

Autumn, and the order the colour arrives in

Akagi peaks first, roughly early October to early November. Haruna follows, late October to early November. Myogi is last, early to late November — which makes mid-November Myogi the final reliable foliage touge in Gunma, and it happens to be the one with no winter closure and a five-minute approach from the interchange.

Irohazaka in Tochigi peaks mid-October to early November, and is one of the worst foliage traffic jams in Japan.

Getting there, and doing more than one

By rail, the nearest Shinkansen station is Takasaki, about 47 to 55 minutes from Tokyo Station. From Takasaki a bus to Lake Haruna takes about 90 minutes. For Akagi, an express bus runs from Maebashi Station to the Akagi Visitor Center in about 70 minutes — but only on weekends and holidays from late April to early November.

By car, the final legs are: Takasaki IC to Lake Haruna, about 60 minutes. Akagi IC to the Akagi summit area, about 40 minutes and 25 km. Matsuida-Myogi IC to Michi-no-Eki Myogi, about 5 minutes.

Can you do two or three in a day? Haruna and Myogi pair naturally — both sit off the Takasaki and Matsuida side. Akagi is the one that costs you a separate ascent and descent, 25 to 31 km of mountain road each way. Two passes is a comfortable day. Three is an endurance day on top of the round trip from Tokyo.

This is the practical reason 2 of JDMX's listings depart from Gunma rather than Tokyo.

Why most people do this with a driver

You can drive these roads yourself if you hold a 1949 Geneva Convention International Driving Permit in paper booklet form, or, for six territories, your home licence with an official Japanese translation. A 1968 Vienna Convention IDP is not valid in Japan.

But a guided touge drive gets you three things that are hard to buy separately:

• Someone who knows which pull-offs are legal — the single most useful thing on a road where stopping in the wrong place is both dangerous and prohibited
• The right car. Turning up to Akina in a rental hatchback is a specific kind of disappointment
• The pace problem solved. These are public roads with residents, buses and cyclists on them, and a driver who knows them goes at a speed that is both legal and enjoyable, which is harder than it sounds

Of the 128 experiences on JDMX, 118 need no licence at all.

What you will actually find

These are ordinary Japanese mountain roads with car parks, a shrine, a lake, a former toll station and some very good corners. There is no Initial D museum on the mountain. The pleasure is recognition — standing at the top of Akina and seeing the road you have watched a hundred times.

People live here. The roads are used by locals, buses and delivery vehicles. Revving and loud exhausts are criminal offences in Japan, not just bad manners, and the goodwill that lets a prefecture publish a pilgrimage guide is worth not spending.

Sources

• Gunma Prefecture official tourism (gunma-kanko.jp) — Initial D pilgrimage guides, parts 1 and 2
• Gunma Prefecture Road Management Division — prefectural winter closure list, 2025 to 2026 season
• Gunma Prefecture — live road restriction information and snow monitoring service
• Takasaki City and Akagi regional tourism — access times and bus services
• Nikko City tourism — Irohazaka
• Tochigi Prefecture — official notice on the Daini Irohazaka one-way conversion, effective 1 October 2019
• Japan Weather Association (tenki.jp) — autumn foliage timing for Akagi and Myogi
• Osaka Prefectural Police — joint dangerous conduct and related Road Traffic Act offences and penalties
• National Police Agency and JAF — driving in Japan on a foreign licence
• JNTO (japan.travel) — International Driving Permit format

Last updated: September 2026. Counts are generated live from the JDMX listings database and change as tours are added or withdrawn. Road configurations, closure dates, bus schedules and foliage timing are set by third parties and vary year to year — check before travelling. This page is general information, not legal advice.