Our friend Takeshi Kobayashi recently held his annual “Kday!” event in Japan. This is the third year in which he has organized this event and it is comprised of mostly enthusiasts from Japan who have a particular affinity towards USDM car culture. You guys should all know Takeshi by now. He is a close friend of our’s and regularly makes visits to the U.S. to not only attend major events, but also to spend time with us. I’ve known Takeshi for a couple years now and he’s one of the guys that I always look foward to seeing whenever I have the opportunity to. I originally had planned to attend this event but the timing and money just wasn’t right as I plan to return to Japan in January and once again towards the middle of 2014. I really wanted to go to Kday to check out some of these cars for myself and also to support Takeshi and his business, Type_K Autosource. The event has gradually grown over the last couple of years and you’re likely to see enthusiasts from all over Japan make the long journey to Senday to be a part of Kday. The venue is very nice and Takeshi and his staff do a wonderful job of organizing things and everything seems to be really streamlined every year. One of the great things about the Kday event is that it also continues to serve as a fundraiser to help with the rebuilding of Japan after the massive earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Though they have done a great job rebuilding, it is still very much a work in progress and every little bit helps. After realizing that I wouldn’t be able to make it out there, I knew I had to at least provide coverage of it so I made sure to get in contact with some of my other Japanese friends who were attending to ensure that I had good photos from the day. Shota Mori is my go-to guy when it comes to Japanese event coverage and he simply never fails me…

It’s times like this when I really appreciate having Shota Mori on board. He’s shot for other sites prior to providing coverage for me from Japan and I don’t feel like his work was being properly utilized like it is here. I love the fact that he documents his journeys from start to finish and it really gives the viewers that feeling as if they were really there to experience the trip for themselves. Anybody can just shoot photos tirelessly of cars at events and what not but it is very important to be able to tell a story of what you’ve captured. Mori-san does just that and it’s great that he allows me to go through the photos and put the finishing touches on them because I also am looking at the photos for the first time and I can really get a sense of what he is trying to communicate to me, even though he is very brief with his words. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the photos as much as I did. I always get excited when Mori sends me a new set of photos because I almost know for certain that they will be good every time. Enjoy…

PHOTOS BY SHOTA MORI, POST-PROCESSING AND WORDS BY STICKYDILJOE

Shota Mori’s trip, as always, consisted of a pretty long drive. Sugo Sportsland, the venue where the event was held, is located in Sendai within the Miyagi Prefecture, which is in the Northern side of Japan. Miyagi is mostly farm country that consists of high mountains in the west and large plains towards the central coast. It is also Mori-san’s hometown where he originally grew up so not only was he making a trip to Kday, he was also going home to visit friends and family. He now resides in Gunma Prefecture which is a ways away from Sendai. The plan was to make the drive from Gunma to Miyagi and on the way, he would also pick up his friend Seita Takano. Takano, if you don’t know, has built a pretty wild-looking CB Accord in the past that was also featured in Super Street magazine this year. His car is currently in the process of a full rebuild so he didn’t have a car to bring to the event. Since he is also located in another area of Japan, he took the train and met up with Mori-san in a central area. They then made the trip up north together and then Mori-san played tour guide for Takano and showed him around his hometown…

Mori arriving at Utsunomiya Station where Takano was set to meet him at before they continued their drive to Miyagi…

As always, Mori took his trusty CA Accord sedan on the trip. He drives this car all over Japan and it’s great to see how well-maintained it is for its age…

Once Takano arrived, it was time to continue their journey northward..

One of the first stops they made when they arrived in Sendai was a stop over at Akebono USDM headquarters. The Akebono guys were prepping their cars for Kday as well so Mori decided to stop by to show Takano around…

Ryosuke Takahasi from Akebono was busy re-installing his front bumper on his EF6 CR-X…

The infamous Akebono USDM EF2 Civic…

A set of wheels that were wrapped-up and taken along with them to Kday….

Mori’s Accord parked next to a EJ Civic coupe with Acura LS caps…

Really liked the shot of the Akebono EF that Shota captured while positioned inbetween his Accord and the Civic…

They hung out for a little bit but soon departed as they still had some more stops to make…

Their next stop was over to Solid Works Automobile, which is a body shop in Sendai. This is also the same auto body place that Takeshi goes to whenever he needs something done on one of his Hondas…

Nothing crazy appearance-wise about the shop, but after seeing some of their work, it’s obvious that they do some really high-quality work…

Over at Solid Works was Hiroki Ono’s EF2 Civic with EF9 SiR front end and SSR EX-C Fins…

After a quick stop over at Solid Works, Mori and Takano took a drive over to a mostly vacant lot down the way where a local car gathering was taking place. It wasn’t too busy by the time they got there, most likely because the event was winding down, but Mori was still able to get some good captures…

A trio of builds that were present at the gathering…

Sport/luxury-styled Honda Accord Euro Wagon on silver BBS LMs…

Custom-painted RA6 Honda Odyssey…

2nd gen. Toyota Aristo sitting on Junction Produce Scaras…

In the distance, a JZA80 Supra Turbo stood alone in the massive lot…

This Suzuki MR Wagon kei car looked pretty neat…

Third-generation RB1/2 Honda Odyssey looking good on Leon Hardiritt Friedens…

Really clean rootbeer-toned Nissan Fairlady Z…

A fourth generation RB3/4 Honda Odyssey on BBS Super RS….

As mentioned, Miyagi Prefecture is much simpler and more “country” than the heavily-populated cities like Tokyo…

A used bike shop that Mori and Takano spotted during their journey…

Also spotted during one of their stops was this Honda Accord Euro-R with Mugen front grille…

Their last stop of the day on their tour through Miyagi Prefecture was a group of islands known as Matsushima. The area is highly-regarded because of it’s picturesque setting and is considered one of the “Three Views of Japan”, which is the canonical list of Japan’s three most celebrated scenic sights…

Matsushima consists of about 260 tiny islands that are covered entirely with Pine trees. There are four main spots to view Matsushima known as the Magnificent View, Beautiful View, Enchanting View, and Grand View… (I pulled this info from Wikipedia)

Some of the cruise boats that you can take to get a closer look at the tiny islands…

Just looking at some of Matsushima through the eyes of Shota Mori already expresses the beauty of the area…

It also really helped that Mori arrived right around sunset to really capture Matsushima during “the golden hour”…

Sendai and Matsushima aren’t anywhere remotely close to where I was the last time I was in Japan but seeing this area really makes me want to pay a visit to Miyagi Prefecture…

Despite it’s close proximity to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the islands protected the area and it suffered very little damage…

A couple more brilliant captures of Matsushima…

One of the long red bridges of Matsushima…

After spending some time doing some sight-seeing, it was time to head out to grab some dinner…

The pair stopped at a local convenience store to grab some food and drinks…

As the evening drew to a close, it was time to get some rest as the Kday event was set to take place in the early morning hours…

Mori’s Accord was cleaned-up and ready to go to Kday…

The guy has a very good eye for capturing great photos…

The beautiful countryside of Sendai…

On their way to Sugo Sportsland, they encountered some fellow Kday attendees and Mori snapped away with his dSLR. Here is an F50 Nissan Cima with full Wald Lip kit and Junction Produce wheels…

A LHD EJ1 Civic coupe on white Volk Racing TE37s…

Slammed EK Civic sedan on white 16-inch Regamaster EVOs and a BackYard Special front bumper…

White EK9 Civic Type R on gunmetal Work RSZ-R…

You can notice the USDM influence with the Cali front plate and NWP4LIFE plate frame mounted within the BYS bumper…

One more of the EK9 followed closely by a brown Civic Ferio on Work Equip 01…

Some familiar faces showed-up soon after…

Here’s Yasutaka Shimomukai’s freshly-painted AP1 S2000 from Tactical Art…

Masashi Kameoka’s EF9 Civic hatchback on CCW Classics…

Keisuke Morita’s USDM Scion FR-S…

Tomoyuki Sasaki’s Civic Ferio from Tactical Art and Team Madame…

Takayuki Saito has some wheels problems along the way which I will detail later when I present you guys with Kday coverage from Tactical Art…

Toshiyuki Yanagi’s Super Street-featured Honda Integra Type R…

One more of Sasaki’s orange Ferio on the move…

Closing it out here for today. We’ve barely scratched the surface as we’ve gone through Part 1 and the event has yet to even begin! Much, much more to come as Mori did an amazing job of capturing everything from beginning to end. Stay tuned!!…