Manazuru Peninsula (真鶴半島)

Manazuru, JapanOpen all year¥200 Blue Line toll

Overview

The Manazuru Peninsula is a small headland in the town of Manazuru, on the western Kanagawa coast between Odawara and Yugawara. In MF Ghost, Shuichi Shigeno's sequel to Initial D, it becomes The Peninsula Manazuru, the third race of the story's fourth MFG season: a 17.4 km lap run five times on the Manazuru Road and National Route 135, with the tunnel lighting dimmed for the race. The anime starts the race in episode 22, and the town counts itself as one of the settings of the MF Ghost 3rd Season anime.

Initial D fans meet it only in Initial D The Arcade, where a simplified version arrived as part of an MF Ghost collaboration. The arcade course runs two laps instead of the five in MF Ghost, and it is drawn as a loop that does not cross over itself.

Route 135 reaches the peninsula on the Manazuru Road, called the Manazuru Blue Line, a 4.5 km toll section run by the Kanagawa Road Public Corporation, with the old road section beside it toll free. The tip of the peninsula is the Ohayashi forest: pines planted on shogunate orders in the Edo period after the Great Fire of Meireki created a need for timber, later an imperial forest, and now a town owned mixed forest of pine, camphor and chinquapin.

What to Expect

The MF Ghost lap starts at the Manazuru tollbooth and runs the Blue Line to Fukuura interchange, then Route 135 to a U turn at the Yoshihamabashi junction in Yugawara. It comes back on Route 135, cuts past Manazuru Station on Kanagawa Route 739 and rejoins Route 135 to the tollbooth, through the narrow streets of the town, tunnels and long, sweeping corners.
Michael Beckenbauer wins The Peninsula Manazuru in his Porsche, and Kanata Katagiri's Toyota 86 is second.
The Manazuru Blue Line is the newer toll section of Route 135, 4.5 km with a 60 km/h limit, and the old road runs alongside it.
Only AM radio comes through inside the Blue Line tunnels.
The tip of the peninsula is covered by the Ohayashi forest of big pines, camphor and chinquapin trees, with a forest walking trail.
From the lawn at Cape Manazuru, at the tip of the peninsula, the view takes in the Mitsuishi rocks and Sagami Bay, and in clear weather the islands off the Izu Peninsula.
Walking routes from Manazuru Station take in the Ohayashi trail, Cape Manazuru and the Mitsuishi rocks off the cape.
Best way to experience it: driving it yourself in your own car or a hire car.

Things to Note

The Manazuru Blue Line toll is ¥200 for a car and ¥150 for a kei car per trip, paid at the Manazuru Road toll gate, where ETCGO also works. Ticket books are sold at the toll gate office from 8:30 AM to 8:00 PM.
Motorbikes of 125 cc and under, mopeds, bicycles and pedestrians cannot use the Blue Line between the Yoshihamabashi junction in Yugawara and the toll gate.
Kanagawa Prefecture closes Route 135 between the Manazuru tunnel and Ishibashi in Odawara in heavy rain: 50 mm in an hour, or 200 mm over a spell of rain.
Cape Manazuru has three car parks, No. 1, No. 2 and Banbaura, all free and open 24 hours. Banbaura holds about 90 cars. The Cape Manazuru building has a cafe, souvenir corner and rest area, open 10:00 AM to 3:30 PM on weekdays and 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM on weekends and holidays, closed Wednesdays.
Manazuru Station on the JR Tokaido Line is in the town.