I’ve never been a big fan of anime, I generally find it to be a bit of a strange phenominon where unskilled artists are rewarded for not increasing their skills. However, Wangan Midnight features an s30 as its main ‘character’ (car) so I had to at least check out the show. As with most anime, there is also a printed comic that preceeds the show, but I haven’t looked at it myself. Lately, I started watching the TV series.
Series
Not quite as popular here in the US as InitialD became, Wangan Midnight is essentially about a group of street racers who race on the ’Wangan’. The main car is a twin-turbo l28et-powered s30, and it essentially has a personality of its own in the show. Thankfully, most of the tech-talk is accurate and they don’t use any made-up words or theories. As with most anime, the character art is sub-par and most of the show is made up of two characters giving each other dire looks and spouting hyperboles in melodramatic tones.
Games
I didn’t realize it when I first tried it, but one of the most fun racing video games I’ve ever played was originally based on Wangan Midnight, titled Tokyo Xtreme Racer. In the game, you tune your car in the garage, swapping parts and even engines when you get to higher mileage, then take it out on the streets at midnight. Every ‘battle’ is won by depleting your opponents’ health bar, by staying as far ahead of them as possible. One of the things that set the game apart was the fact that all the cars are identified by their chassis, rather than production model. It’s a nice twist, and hilights the focus of the game: make the fastest car you possibly can using any means possible.
A few follow-up games have come out since, each refining the scope of the original game and keeping true to the original goal. Nothing really exemplary has happened with the series, but there’s been talk of a new installment (bear in mind, this trailer was released in 2007):
In addition to the comic, tv show, and video games, there’s been talk of a new live-action movie in the works! Japanese Nostalgic Car has more on that here.
