Somewhere, in an alternate universe than that of the car community we have grown-up knowing, there exists a place in Sendai, Japan, where USDM car culture is revered. In this story arc, enthusiasts attempt to build and style their cars to resemble vehicles from North America. Some are highly modified, utilizing products from both North America and Japan, while some are altered to resemble vehicles sold as-is in the North American market. It all sounds a little strange, almost like a time-warp or something out of the Twilight Zone, but it does indeed exist. Those of you who have followed this site for an extended amount of time may be familiar with this series of events, known simply as “Kday!”, organized annually by my good friend Takeshi Kobayashi. Takeshi (not Tak-a-shi) has been heavily-involved with bringing U.S. culture over to Japan for the past decade. His business is directly related to importing goods from our side back to Japan and he loves our lifestyle so much, he even built he and his family a house based off of a U.S. blueprint. In his neighborhood, there are your traditional Japanese homes and at the end of the street is an American-sized house with green grass and a good ol’ American white picket fence. He’s also a car guy who loves 80s-90s Hondas and in his garage is a USDM Acura Integra Type R that he purchased here in California. He and his group of friends of some of the best Honda builds in that region of Japan and they are all built in a way that resembles U.S. car culture, but doesn’t alienate the traditional Japanese influences that make our builds great. There are fanatics overseas that love what we do so much, and are so into Americana, that they simply want something from our country for themselves. There are others who aren’t able to acquire a vehicle from North America, so they take a Japanese base and convert their cars to complete USDM specifications. Takeshi’s event offers a platform that welcomes every style of USDM dedication. His group of friends and customers aren’t nearly as fanatical, they just like building Hondas. It is what they love. At his event, you will see their group of timelessly modified Hondas mixed with cars like Toyota Corollas that have been fully-converted to resemble a Geo Prizm, or left-hand drive Toyota pick-ups that were never available in their market…

I have personally never been to Kday!, but I hope to some day attend. His event is usually held around the same time as mine so I just simply do not have time to fly to Japan to visit. This year, my friend Salem went to go check it out and sent me some photos while the event occurred. He was out there to support Takeshi and I’m glad at least one of us was able to make the trek. I always try to cover his events because I think it provides a very unique perspective on what goes on over on “the other side”. On most other websites or social media accounts, you’ll see a lot of the traditional Japanese stuff but never really this side. USDM culture continues to grow over in Japan and I think it is important to document these events who encompass this unique take on U.S. automotive lifestyle. It is a way to show that style is exchanged equally in both countries and there are people out there who are paying very, very, close attention to what happens here. We’ve spent many years trying to replicate Japanese car culture and style. Some have been close, many have been more far off than they will ever imagine. We laugh sometimes at what we see because we think that they are interpreting our style incorrectly, sometimes to comical results, but rest assured that they are doing the same. I find it thoroughly interesting whenever Japanese car enthusiasts see our interpretation of their techniques and they just simply laugh at the entire idea of it. They don’t understand why we like what they do and I sometimes feel the same way when I have no understanding of why they want anything to do with USDM culture. I guess the bottom line is that they just want something different than their own. Different is good, unique, and not the norm. That is what got many of us into building cars and the same ideologies are shared in many other countries, not just Japan. We all want what we don’t or can’t have. When it isn’t possible to acquire easily, we try our best to re-create what we want but can’t have. The formula is easy to understand once you really think about it. Even still, I find it incredibly weird that some go the lengths that they do just to have a piece of obscure Americana. Some are just more extreme than others. It’s not a bad thing, and you just have to appreciate the effort…

For situations like this, when I cannot attend an event overseas, I’m happy that I have great, talented contributors who can lend a helping hand. Shota Mori is a guy who has been shooting events for me for quite a number of years now. I found Mori one day while looking for photos online of something in Japan and since then, he’s been helping me out with content. I don’t have very many contributors here on The Chronicles since I’ve always been partial to doing my own work, but the people who do help me out are very good at what they do. Mori’s skills have steadily improved over the years and I’m overjoyed to see the continued development of his own style of photography. His framing and ability to capture cars in their natural environment has always been good and his photos have only gotten better as his editing technique has evolved. I love seeing his photos and it is a pleasure to have his photos here on The Chronicles. He also shoots more than anyone else I know of, other than myself, and there is always a good selection of photos from every event he attends. More often than not, there are too many photos and I feel bad for having to cut them out. For Kday! C6, he shot what seems like a thousand photos and I had to cut it down to about 250 or so. As such, you’ll be seeing a series of Kday! photos here in the coming week or so…

I should mention that there was torrential downpour that day. It rained like crazy through out the day and there was a possibly typhoon rolling through the area. Sugo Sportsland was drenched the entire afternoon of the Kday! event but it definitely did not stop anyone from making the trip out to Miyagi Prefecture. It is quite a bit of driving for some people, especially those not from the Tokyo region, but the event was overall a huge success, as it is every year. Takeshi always does a great job of putting on his event and he even had some surprise guests this year. We’ll get into that in Part 2…

For now, enjoy Part 1 of the 2016 Kday! event coverage. Most of these shots were taken during the early morning when the cars were rolling in. The rain was steady but it didn’t stop Shota Mori from doing his thing. Huge thanks to him for the photos…

Kday! C6

Sugo Sportsland M-Park

Photos by Shota Mori (@pgm_works)

Words by StickyDilJoe

Early set-up in rainy Miyagi, Japan…

Civic coupes, which are rare in Japan, lowered aggressively on old 5-spoke Work Ewing wheels…

Shota Mori’s CA Accord has taken him any and everywhere in Japan to cover events. Trust in the reliability of Hondas to always come through for you…

Kday! C6 staff ready to bear the rain in their plastic rain jackets…

Takeshi’s friends from Akebono help out annually and also bring out their collection of 80s-90s era Hondas…

Subaru WRX wagon from Red Riner converted to USDM Saab 9-2X specifications minus the left-hand drive…

Takahiro Hasgawa’s Mugen Integra Type R is one of the best Honda builds in Japan. Plenty more of this later…

A couple of wagonists heading into the venue…

DB Integra sedan cruising real low…

Spoon Sports-themed AP2 S2000 in black…

One of the more prominent Honda builds to re-emerge in the Japanese car show circuit this year is Norifumi Kobayashi’s fully-repainted Honda Accord Wagon wearing a U.S. Acura TSX front face…

Rare low mileage USDM Acura Legend sedan now residing in Japan…

Teru Ito and his incredible Mugen RA3 Odyssey build…

Makoto Kikuchi’s turbocharged 6-speed Mazda MPV…

Masaru Tanaka’s AE111 Corolla with complete USDM AE110 Corolla chassis conversion always looking clean with just a set of low-mounted Bride seats and 3-piece wheels…

Yasuhiro Hashiba’s 2JZ-GTE powered USDM Toyota Cressida conversion utilizing a Mark II base chassis…

This Japanese AE91 Corolla went through an entire transformation to become the often-forgotten USDM Geo Prizm hatchback. Everything is complete minus the left-hand drive conversion…

Lifted USDM Toyota Tacoma truck with a huge L.E.D. lightbar lighting up the rainy morning commute…

USDM Honda Civic DX hatchback imported by Southside Auto Customs…

Another LHD EF hatchback from Southside…

ES1 Civic sedan looking good from 1BComplete car club…

Tonpe Nakamura’s extremely low EF Civic sedan…

Kobayashi and another fellow Acura-look Accord waiting to be staged…

The USDM Legend from earlier riding on SSR Professor MS1…

Ito showed-up to Kday! this year on a clean set of white AME Tracer TM02 wheels…

Acura front faces were a pretty common sight at the Kday! event…

The only member of the Phaze2 Japan crew that was able to make it out this year was Eishi Suzuki and his Voltex AP2 S2000…

Left-hand drive E46 BMW M3…

EK Civic hatchback with a full assortment of add-on splitters and side pieces…

Had the opportunity of seeing this white EG6 on Mugen MR5s earlier this year in Tokyo during my trip to TAS 2016…

Seiya Suzuki’s Phoenix Yellow Honda Integra Type R wearing a full Mugen aero kit minus the vented hood, which is probably ideal because of the rain…

Kohei Taguchi’s DC2 Type R running the familiar BackYard Special front bumper…

Mits from L2P debuting his EJ1 Civic coupe build at Kday! C6…

Masaki Fukuda decided to reach into his back of tricks and pulled out a BYS front lip for his EG6 build to showcase at Kday…

Noriyuki Ebara’s USDM FA5 Civic SI sedan…

Longtime Chronicles supporter Takeru Tojo and his beautiful Mugen RR from Lowered2Perfection car club…

Daisuke Ito’s Integra Type R now running Mugen aero…

Nice “SPOON95” California vanity plate on this LHD Civic build from Skill-S…

Kday! C6 is a Honda enthusiasts dream event…

Hiro Ueda from Wekfest Japan made an appearance…

Masatsugu Chiba from IMPORT came in a Daihatsu HiJet kei truck with a trailer carrying his K24 turbocharged Accord build following closely behind…

LHD EJ1 Civic coupe wearing a J’s Racing front lip…

MX-5 Eunos Roadster representing the Mazda enthusiasts of Japan at Kday! C6…

Seiya Suzuki’s girlfriend actually has an EK9 Civic Type R which is also in the same Phoenix Yellow color. She decided to be the passenger this time around and kept the Civic at home…

Fukuda’s EG6 SiR and Ebata’s FA5 SI from L2P…

Two of many Integra Type Rs in attendance at Sugo Sportsland…

Mits from L2P’s coupe with Spoon Sports front lip and period-correct GAB wheels refinished with green faces…

Fukuda’s EG6 is one of the cleanest EG builds in Japan and he has a solid collection of rare parts to always switch-up his build…

Front staggered Volk Racing ZE40 wheels in bronze are perfect for this RR…

Task Ogihara’s slammed EF Civic hatchback on old school Enkei wheels…

Really nice LHD Volkswagen Karmann Ghia on Work Carving Head 40 wheels…

Kday! showcased a really nice grouping of Volkswagen builds as well, including this MK2 Golf GTI…

This MK1 from Local Mad Crew looked really cool on old BBS wheels with the aero disks that protrude past the fenders…

Crazy Rabbit car club always brings out cool VW builds like this bagged LHD MK2 Jetta coupe…

Another aggressively-seated LHD Volkswagen Jetta sedan…

Still much more to come in this series. Make sure to come back periodically to see the rest of these great photos from Shota Mori. Thanks for looking!!…