Review of Wangan Midnight

It's not your typical Initial D anime, if you think about it. However, when it comes to popularity, it was heavily overshadowed by it, but Wangan Midnight is still one of the rarest gems you should try to watch out for. Wangan Midnight is the Street Racing equivalent of Initial D without Eurobeat. And unlike Initial D, it was not set on a canyons and mountains across Japan, but only from the real-life Bayshore Route of Shouto Expressway (also known as the "Wangan-sen") and on the latter episodes, in Osaka. Also, the cars that represented here are not just Japan-made, but also some came from Europe aswell. From a Ferrari Testarossa (which is very rare given that Ferrari is very strict to use rights of their cars for entertainment purposes) to the Porsche 930, better known as the "Blackbird" and as the rival of the Protagonist's Nissan Fairlady Z, also known as the "Devil Z" in both the manga and the anime.

So, as much as how positive the manga is, the adaptation, however, is not excellent or great as how Initial D executed. Even without the Initial D mentioning in this review.

(SPOILERS on the Story)
The story starts up to the protagonist, Akio Akiyama, who is a Senior High School as he is about to graduate only to repeat a grade due to his outstanding absences, even though his grade is good enough to move on to college. But as humble and gentle as he can be, he still shows his delinquent side of him by not going to school, even though he was been told by a teacher that he should go back or else, he's going to take another year again in High School. But he does not concern it as he do some part time in a local bar and he tends to do street racing more often after he bought the "possessed" Nissan Fairlady Z, best known for its' moniker "Devil Z" known for its' wicked power and handling,that few of its' owners died because of it, one of which is the original owner of the Z, also named Akio Akayama, who is the rival of Tatsuya Shima, driver of the Porsche 911 Turbo/ when he was crashed during their race. But the present and non-related to the original owner, Akio did not stop there and continues to drive it until he get the hang of the car to control it. He also faced tons of characters, ranging from Nissan Skylines, to Mitsubishi Lancers, to even its' rial, Tatsuya, and his Blackbird, to know who owns the "King" in Wangan Highway.
(SPOILER END)

The story is just focusing on one goal, to know who is the fastest on the Wangan Highway for both the rival (not to be confused, by the way, to the antagonist as there is actually no bad blood between them) and the protagonist, it's very plain and kind of anti-climactic. But if you are looking for some heart-wrenching backstories before the set of the race with a good yet expecting ending, then the other minor characters from the other episodes will try to tell their stories with some progress for the major characters in the story. With some major stories also from minor characters will reveal their intentions and relations to the Devil Z.

The Art for the anime is what you expect to the 2007 - 2008 anime, except they make the characters look a little realistic from their hairstyles to their clothes as well. The cars and the races on the hand, is surprisingly, they tend not to use too much 3D CGI animation unlike... you guessed it, BERSER--, I mean, Initial D, which are well known on their PS1 to PS2-graphics Artstyle.

If you don't like the OP and ED on this anime, then maybe you might like the Songs from their Car Engines whenever they installed their new turbos and modifications from the following episodes of this series. Because that's how I do feel about the OP and the ED as well. ED especially, but despite that I do have some love-hate relationship with the OP song, Lights and Any More, I felt kinda likable to the point that it felt too catchy to be likeable. It's like you hate the song, but later on, you start to like it a little until you just sing it out because who cares if you hate it though. The voice actors, one of which is Takumi VA, Shinichiro Miki, performed here in this anime is well-performed as well.

The characters in this anime, is actually very immersive and realistic that tends to compliments to the watchers as well. There are some of the characters stopped racing before until they later start to race again and promised that this will be their last time in exchange of the trust and promise related to the other characters after encountering the Devil Z, A character left to his respective racing group in order to chase his dream and defeat the Z on his own, the group would follow suit and also try to defeat the Z, a retired racer who later then encounter and heard the Devil Z and try to defeat him and others. I've already mentioned on the Story part of this review that they have different storylines but they are all connected and wanted to defeat the Devil Z. And for those who did not watched the anime yet, who do you think are the individuals that finally defeated the Z? Who are the victims that was loss against the Z? And yes, Z was defeated in this anime and there is no "Takumi Complex" from Initial D where the opponent wins until some miracle s*** happens to the opponent causing Takumi to get the win by default. Annoying isn't it? Maybe it was one of the protagonist's notorious cliche in animes. So... yeah. So don't expect Akio will suddenly win because SOMEONE THEN PUKE N THE MIDDLE OF THE RACE AND DECIDED TO TAKE HIS W BECAUSE THE AUTHOR OF THAT "MANGA" SAYS SO. I'M TALKING TO YOU "GOD HAND" AND SHUICHI SHIGENO. Weak b*astards. But I still love you, Initial D.

The fact is, this anime has some deep poetry that talks about the personality and the philosophy of cars like on Initial D. But unlike the latter, it has more dedication and understanding more in their cars than what they have in their lives. Yeah, it's deep. It's not just they talk on how fast their car was and talks about the specific specification used. But also on how the cars feel and the relationship between the driver and the car as well. Also, the battle climax is great as well with the help of the character's dialogue that tells about how they are doing and the cars they've using might have a lot of effects on it similar to how Initial D depicted. But unlike Initial D, the music used are the OST made for this anime. But it's not that bad, ranging from latin orchestra with some heavy-rock composition and it's piano composition which sounds like it was came from a horror film.

Overall, this anime is really recommendable to watch. It might sound boring at the first few episodes, but expect something very interesting at the following episodes to come. My cousin even liked this anime after for about few weeks after I recommended this anime to him since he is playing also the Wangan Midnight games in the arcade near us. So when he watched, he liked it... until the final episode shows up and it's ending. Whcih is skeptical.