Review of Wangan Midnight

The "other" racing anime, following the enormously popular Initial D. There is a MASSIVE contingent of the anime-watching car community that has seen this anime up to episode eight. At that point, it pretty much seems to be a cycle of Akio crashing the Z and spending long hours fixing it up again, and it's very easy to quit. I did it myself once, but going back I found that the series comes into its own after that point, producing a truly excellent series about the lives of car enthusiasts. It doesn't hurt that the racing and tuning picks up substantially then, too. Half the point ofWangan Midnight seems to be the way the characters are willing to sacrifice their lives, families, and careers for the sake of an ultimately pointless hobby; the series opens with Akio about to drop out of school because of his weak Z31. The emphasis on characters in this series also means that you care quite a bit more about them throwing everything away than you do when, say, a minor character in Initial D begs his girlfriend for money.

But if that's half the point, the other half is what they're willing to sacrifice all that for. This show portrays a whole string of passionate tuners with elaborate backstories about turning wrenches on classic Japanese iron, and even more drivers with an all-consuming thirst for speed. The question of whether the Devil Z has a soul or will of its own hangs in the air clean through the series, but watching Akio develop a relationship with it may be one of the finest depictions of what a sports car means to its driver. Every shot of every racing sequence is pure car porn, which just drives the point home even more.

The racing action is more subtle than Initial D, and is much more concerned with the mechanical aspects of the cars rather than purely with the driving. The soundtrack follows suit, switching from Initial D's manic eurobeat to some kind of orchestral thing, which I think has its own charms.

The art didn't generate any complaints out of me, since I spent my formative years watching Speed Racer dubs and Initial D's horrifyingly-animated First Stage. Someone with a more discerning eye- and more familiar with current animation- may take slight issue. I don't really know.

Sound was excellent. Period. The cars sound great, the soundtrack is moody and awesome, and you don't watch a car show for the voices, but these were pretty good.

Overall, this is a truly great anime for the serious-minded car enthusiast, and I regard it as being on par with such classic car films as "Le Mans" or "Vanishing Point". It takes its technical background seriously and then puts a bunch of great people around a bunch of really fast cars.

PS- No, no one's making 600rwhp on 3,100cc without fuel injection or cross-flow heads. I don't care how many scars your tuner has on his face.