Forza Horizon 6 is packed with all kinds of references, big and small. But one fits the theme like a glove.
One of the biggest improvements inForza Horizon 6compared to its predecessor: It truly immerses you in the car culture of its setting. You hang out at the famous Daikoku parking lot, drift through the narrow Touge mountain passes, and most importantly: You get behind the wheel of the famous Toyota Trueno.
Excuse me? Famous? That thing?
Hold on a second, because we’re going to explain the reference and, in the same breath, reveal why a tiny, puny paper cup is the coolest Easter egg in the game.
A famous cup
If you reach a whopping 5,000 points in your “Discover Japan” booklet (to do this, you must complete 10 out of 16 challenge cards), the game rewards you with theToyota Trueno GT-Apex Forza Edition, a special variant of the regular AE86.
And if you take a look at the dashboard, you’ll spot a small filled water cup that even physically sloshes back and forth in a reasonably accurate way as you slide around the curves.
AE86 FE has a cup of water with physical animation on the dash
byu/DearCaregiver3952 inForzaHorizon
Both—the Trueno and the cup—are references to what is arguably the world’s most famous racing anime and manga: Initial D. Initial D is about Takumi, a young man who has just turned eighteen and has been secretly delivering tofu orders for his dad since childhood.
Because he drove down a mountain a few hundred times for these deliveries, Takumi (without realizing it) became an absolute drifting master. And his father pushed him even further by clamping a full cup of water to the dashboard on every trip: Takumi had to make the deliveries as quickly as possible, but without spilling the water.
From an educational standpoint… somewhat questionable, but it’s the basis for a famous manga and anime series, because in Initial D, prodigy Takumi takes on Japan’s greatest drift masters in his Toyota Trueno. The manga ran from 1995 to 2013; and if you click on any video with Eurobeat music online, you’ll very likely see the Trueno or Takumi himself as a wallpaper in the background.
So Forza Horizon 6 is a direct homage to Initial D here, especially since the touge races (i.e., Japanese drift courses on mountain serpentines) are an integral part of the game. So if you’re really up for a challenge: Unlock the Trueno FE and skid down a mountain at top speed while keeping an eye on the water cup in your cockpit. Dance, dance, dance!
