I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple weeks now but just never got around to it… So back during the month of Eibach, as you all know, Takeshi from Type_K Autosource in Japan came out to pay us a visit. He’s a big fan of the U.S. Honda community and makes the trek annually so this time around, I made it a point to actually meet up with him and hang out. The last time I ran into him was at Wek’Fest and it was very briefly outside of a supermarket. He’s picked up a bunch of Chronicles merchandise in the past so I really wanted to show him around a bit out here in Socal. He was also staying not too far away so it was very convenient to meet up. After Eibach, he stayed an extra week couple days or so because he usually stays out here for 2+weeks just in case he ends up purchasing a vehicle to bring back with him. All the paperwork and customs B.S. takes time so he had to leave the adequate amount of days just in case. Well he didn’t find the Civic he was looking for but he wanted to pick up some extra Chronicles stuff before he flew back so I met up with him at Midnight Garage. He seemed pretty happy to be over there to check things out, especially the Scions and whatever else was there. This was before Midnight Garage burned down so in hindsight, I’m almost glad that we met up there so he could see the place. When I showed up he was already there walking around snapping pictures and after delivering the merchandise, he gave me a big bag of japanese cookies and snacks that he brought over to give someone else. That dude unfortunately couldn’t meet up in time so I ended up getting the goodies. It was a bunch of like mini cookies, japanese crackers, and what looked like mini Pringles chips. Shit was good, I still have some here actually.

So anyway, what he did intend to give me when we met up was a Japanese magazine that he did some work in. He knows I work in the magazine industry and he even mentioned that he has a subscription to Honda Tuning; and they send it to him all the way in Japan. Pretty cool…Well this magazine he gave me was largely retro/restored and modified Japanese vans and vehicles similar to that but it also contained some Wek’Fest coverage that he had done while he was out here. I had no idea he even knew Ryan/Rywire but Takeshi actually flew out to Norcal and stayed at Ryan’s house! How that connection worked out I’ll never know because I never asked but he documented his trip in this Japanese mag and it was cool to see it…

It’s not an Option mag or anything I’m really familiar with so the cover kinda threw me off when he handed it to me…

…much to my surprise, he opened it up and showed me this full spread he did on Wek’Fest…

It had shots of cars that we’re all familiar with. The first couple pages had Phaze2 Arnel, Rywire, Anh, and Danny…Arnel is even mentioned as “Offset King”…haha…

Super Street cover boy, Anh Truong getting love in Japan…

The bottom portion of the page had DPK*David and his name is even printed…Look David you finally got into a mag!! Haha…

The next pages had even more pics…

Big Mike of course…

Chris Sakai and his Rando kit getting a mention…

I turned the page and there was even MORE coverage. The last page showed some of Takeshi’s adventures with Ryan and some of the Dumpedstars guys…

I kinda wish I knew what it all said because I’m sure it’s interesting, but my Japanese is pretty rough. By “pretty rough” I mean “I don’t understand shit”. It’s cool to look at the snaps though. They ended up with better coverage than what I had. Pretty cool to see cars that we’re all familiar with in a overseas magazine though, just shows how much of an impact the Honda community over here is making worldwide. If you guys think that what you do isn’t recognized or noticed…well just by looking at stuff like this, it’s very apparent that Hondas are still a force everywhere in the world.

I actually asked Takeshi why he and his friends/customers liked the U.S. Honda scene so much and why they read the Chronicles… his response….

“…because you guys make Hondas cool…”

Enough said.