American Touge

We are just about to release our 3rd Hot Version DVD American Touge. This is actually something we've been wanting to do for a long time. To bring the Japanese cast and crew to the US and make a US version Touge Showdown. It didn't even have to be a Touge Showdown. It could have been anything if we can get everybody over to the US. For us it was a small goal achieved. For a company that had been exporting Japanese car culture to the US, we wanted to do something more integrating. Not just bring over finished programs to the US and translate them but actually do something in the US. Our market is a very niche one but what other Japanese content has actually made that cross over besides anime? Even with anime, there are pretty bad ones. Just because they are from Japan doesn't mean they are good.
So for us, if bringing Japanese car video programs from Japan was step one, mixing more local US stuff in our show was step two. We're proud of this next Hot Version not just because it's as exciting as hell but because of what we worked for. It took us a whole 4 years to come this far and we're very very happy about it.
There were so many people involved in the production of this DVD. Of course the Japanese cast, crew and the US tuners that showed up despite of the short notice. We really appreciate it guys! We made sure everyone's car got a fair judgment just like in the J-version. I don't want to give out too much stuff before the DVD goes on sale at the end of this month but Tsuchiya and Orido were very impressed with the level of tuning in the US. Seriously they had no time to test drive the cars before we shot. What you see is really their first time driving the US tuned Japanese cars.
Also I want to thank Takara USA for sponsoring the segment. Without them it would not have been possible.