Watched the episode? Now see the photos!…


Watched the episode? Now see the photos!…

Just one of those random nights that turns into something special…

Well it’s been fun Japan but it’s time for me to go back home to Los Angeles! Before I leave though, Yasu and I link-up with our friends from NO GOOD RACING for a fun cruise night! Ryuji wanted to have a get-together before I left and it worked out that I had a free weekend open for some fun. I still haven’t packed my suitcase or anything but hell, I can never turn down an evening of car activities in Osaka. You never know what to expect or what will happen but it’s almost always an amazing adventure…

During Auto Messe weekend, we always try to host a gathering somewhere in Osaka because there are so many people in town for the show. It just makes sense to bring everyone together for some post-show activities. That way it maximizes the experience for those who come to the Kansai region and it allows them to get a taste of true Osaka car culture. It’s not unlike Tokyo, when the masses all link up at various night meets in the city. This is just on a smaller scale but with a completely different vibe. If you enjoy cars, you already know that Osaka will be thriving that weekend. On this particular evening, we decided to bring our newly-finished Mintia “Cold Smash” EK4 Civic race car out. We had friends in town who hadn’t seen the car in-person yet and even though it is a dedicated race car, we thought it’d be fun to see this thing smashing around the city. A few days after that, we all headed over to Kyoto for a fun evening with Kei Miura from TRA Kyoto. You may know him as the man behind the popular aero parts company(s) Rocket Bunny and Pandem. We all grab dinner and then head back to his shop where he shows us some of his latest projects and goes through the unique process in how each build came together….

A couple months ago, Yasu acquired an old EK4 Civic race car that had spent much of its life competing in the Suzuka Clubman one-make race series. The car physically was still in pretty good shape but you can tell that it had been raced a lot. It just had a lot of wear and tear, you know? He wanted to do more circuit racing and time attack events this year using this newly-acquired EK4 so he asked me to design a livery for it. I don’t know why he thinks I’m capable of it because I’ve actually never done a full livery on a real car before but I figured I’d give it a shot. He owns a body shop so if it came out terrible, we could just tear it apart and redo it. My friends had always talked about doing a “Mintia” livery because it’s our favorite Japanese mint and has long been an inside joke. I think most of our friends and acquaintances know about Mintia because we’d always share them with everyone. Der even has a credit card with a custom Mintia skin. So I studied the packaging and went into full detail trying to come-up with a way to use the EK4 as its own Mintia case. Around late October last year, I came up with a pretty rough version of it. Over the course of the last few months, I refined it as Yasu started to transform the car in real-life. He painted the Civic a custom blue hue that matches the Mintia packaging and the graphics started to take shape once I arrived back in Japan last month. Now you all can see it come to fruition…

they’ll tell you that every visit is a unique experience. Kanjozoku culture is a staple here, though it may not be the most accepted, and often people ask me how they can experience it. Please don’t ask. I don’t want to put your life in danger or put you in a position that could get you in any trouble. It looks fun but there are so many inherent dangers that come with it. 100% of the time when people ask about it, I try to warn them about it and express that I would rather they not be involved. Just enjoy it from a distance. On this particular night, a few friends had an incredibly rare opportunity to experience it for themselves and we cruised out after a long day of work to make sure everything went smoothly. The guys from NO GOOD wanted to return a favor and offer some hospitality that was shown to them overseas. Don’t try this at home obviously and this is all not real and a simulation okay? Enjoy!…

After a few weeks in Tokyo, it was time for me to head to Osaka to hang out with Yasu and catch-up on all the happenings over in the Kansai region. There’s always something happening out there but I also enjoy Osaka because it feels like a second-home. Life seems almost normal when I’m out there and I’ve developed a normal routine out there, which is important to me. One of the first big things I had lined-up with Yasu was heading back to Kansai’s famed Central Circuit to check-out the Central Time Attack Challenge, a racing event that has become a regular stop for me during my winter and spring visits to Japan. This one is always a good one because I always find something new and unique to look at and this year’s was no different. I found a Honda I never thought would be a competitive time attack vehicle and also found some visitors that came from the Kanto region to compete with some of the best in this area…

Well, I figured there would be no better way to put a bow-tie on this fun project than to actually provide you guys with some footage of it in modern-day 4K. This has been such a fun project. After starting it one-day randomly two years ago and then rehashing it all with much more content in late 2023. It all started with the basis of just having fun and being creative, imagining an alternate timeline where The Chronicles would have had a 16-bit racing game on a Super Nintendo console. Obviously there were some liberties taken with how much I could actually make look ’16-bit’ but I think for the most part, it pulls off the feel of an old racing game faithfully. There was a lot of inspiration taken from some of my favorite games like Tokyo Xtreme Racer, Option Tuning Car Battle and some more obscure titles from Japan that I discovered over the years.

Finally after 3 years, Yasu is finally back in America! It feels like it has been forever since he’s been back and he even brought our friend Ryuji from NO GOOD RACING with him. A lot has changed over the last few years so he definitely had a lot to catch-up on. With it being Ryuji’s first-time in America, we wanted to make sure he had the best experience here in California. Luckily, there seemed to be a plethora of automotive events happening every week here. That’s just one of the many perks of living out here I suppose. Whatever they wanted to see, we found it whether it be car shows, meets, lowriders, the American Honda Collection Hall, etc. We did it all. This episode consists of our many adventures during the past few weeks with bits and pieces of everything we experienced. I know it seems like Yasu is typically the one showing me around Japan but it was time to return the favor and catch him up on all the amazing things our car culture has to offer…

Adobe just released this new AI-based noise reduction feature for their Lightroom program and it is just ridiculous in how good it works. This isn’t even an ad or anything, I just think it’s noteworthy to show you guys. Photos shot with mirror-less camera bodies tend to produce quite a bit of noise, from my experience, but the amount of megapixels nowadays create such large digital images that you don’t really see the noise when the photo is compressed for viewing on say, a smartphone…