Audience reviews
19 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Purlox
If you're coming in to watch another Initial D, then I'll have to disappoint you. It's very different in focus despite both being about racing. While Initial D focuses on the races almost exclusively, WM (Wangan Midnight) focuses a lot more on the characters, tunning, improving your car and making it as fast as possible. There are still races, mind you. But in WM they seem to be way more about who has the better car than about driving skills or drifting. At first, the races are very short and you barely see anything before the race is over. But after about 1/3rd of the way through, the races started being longer and have captivated me despite them feeling simpler than in ID.
The story is fairly simple. It's about Akio, Tatsuya and various characters racing for the title of the fastest on…
Read at the sourcexshiraori
I saw this series on a Youtube video about Wangan-sen and Japanese street races. Heard there is an anime featuring the infamous road and just gave it a go.
First few episodes are interesting, you see that the MC's car is almost made to be a main character throughout the story, sadly for this series none of the characters get the same development as that car does. They feel like NPCs in those cheap RPG games.
The plot is very much predictable, for about 20 episodes you are going to watch a guy racing and crashing then fixing or improving his car just for everything to happen all over again.
It has good animation for its time and kinda gives that nostalgic vibe as I was watching Bleach during my childhood so that part was sweet. Sadly that's the only good thing I can say about this show…
Read at the sourceoipi
The animation is gorgeous, so good that each frame during the races can be screenshotted, printed and hung up on a wall. The car models are accurate and the physics are pretty realistic as well. The intro music is a banger and keeps you wanting for more car action.
The story on the other hand, is boring, bland and repetitive, Every 3-4 episodes a new character is introduced with a similar backstory and they let their opponents win at the end of the race everytime, stating some pseudo-psychological as the reason when they let go of the gas pedal. The first 6 episodes and the last 2 episodes were really fun. However the same thing can't be said about the rest of the series.
The "Devil Z" having a will of it's own was a nice touch and had the potential to be expanded greatly into the story,…
Read at the sourceBurrZurrCarr
Wangan Midnight is a very interesting anime, but not a very exciting one. 4/10,
Before I even begin with this review, I would like to say that while I'm MASSIVELY into Initial D to the point where I scraped together my paychecks to buy and modify a 90s JDM shitbox for the touge, I have a love for all things car related and if anything my bias towards Wangan Midnight was working IN its favor rather than against it. If the show's message and story was told though the lens of anything other than high performance sports cars I would have tuned out a long time ago and wouldn't have forced myself to finish this anime, as I was burnt out of it long before the halfway mark but powered through because as a car guy I felt like I kinda NEEDED to see this one through till the end. While it wasn't a…
Read at the sourceVenom_waz
If you're watching it now and are hoping that it gets better, it doesn't. You can stop watching around episode 11, because it's the same thing on repeat past that point.
It had some really good moments here and there, which was the main reason why I ended up watching it until the end. Hoping it was actually going to amount to something. But it just ended up disappointing me.
Of course, if you're planning to watch this show it's 99% likely that you're coming here from Initial D. Just so you know, the "races" in this show are just guys riding in a straight line to see who has the faster car. So don't be surprised. It's more of a car tuning show anyway.
Every 4-5 episodes, the same exact arc repeats itself. A new racer with a JDM car shows up. They race against the MC and lose. They decid…
Read at the sourceDonQuigeek
Wangan Midnight chronicles the lives of people whose passion for speed, street racing, and tuning is reignited by the return of a legendary car on the wangan, which is the part of the highway that runs alongside the coastline outside of Tokyo. And nothing else, really. The passion for race cars is palpable throughout the anime and as far as the protagonists are concerned, every scene is related to that passion and to the impact that legendary car had on them, as well as the life-altering choices they make or not after that.
I insist on the fact that it is more a chronicle than a story: the protagonists tuning their cars to beat that legendary car on the wangan, examining their motivations for doing so, and struggling to reconcile their youth passion and the shackles of getting older and f…
Read at the source_Lazaroth_
A 3/10 anime that occasionally reaches 6/10 with it's amazing soundtrack and CGI. But is a boring slog outwith that.
Wangan Midnight offers a different and unique spin on Racing anime. Set primarily on the Wangan route of highways but dabbles in others. As such, straight lines are the name of the game, and the need for speed is more necessary than the drifting techniques of Initial D, the anime this is most compared to. I will also be making this comparison.
The CGI is amazing, and holds up well today. The cars are very well detailed and the backgrounds provide a beautiful backdrop as the speed intensifies. Great lighting and weighty physics make the cars feel satisfying.
Characters:
Characters are extremely boring. Practically everyone has the same personality, that being none at a…
Read at the sourceJDMOverlord
An amazing anime for those who are into Tokyo's car culture! Wangan Midnight takes inspiration from a real street-racing club: the Midnight Club, that races on the Wangan highway on Tokyo.
The main character is Akio Asakura, driver of the legendary Nissan 280Z (Akuma no Z - Devil's Z) a twin-turbocharged L28 beast from the late 70s, he is a very cool guy who always skips school to drive his beloved car.
His rival, Shima Tatsuya, drives a Porsche 911 - 930 (the BlackBird), which took inspiration from the Yoshida Special 930. He is a doctor who has the hobby of street racing.
The story itself contains a few plot twists and unexpected scenes and it is overall very entertaining. The races are breathtaking and unpredictable!
The soundtrack might sound a little bit unusual at first, but it ac…
Read at the sourceSaijoSan
Story 5/10
Characters 4/10
Sound 8/10
Animation 7/10
Enjoyment 6/10
Score 6/10
Unlike Initial D (https://myanimelist.net/anime/185/Initial_D_First_Stage), if you are not a car person, or interested in automobiles. You will not enjoy this show, because that's what this anime is all about. The surrounding story is utter crap, they keep introducing new characters that show little to none emotion and they just look really stale, and then they get little to no screen time after their part.
The purpose of this anime is very unclear, the concept has no true ending or legacy, and that's what led it to this embarrassing performance of a show. Sure it's a cool anime, unique and all, but as in story-wise... Even I could write a better one.
But if you like car stuff, I would give this a try purely…
Read at the sourceBRANDOSIS
If your the type of person that enjoys driving cars fast or watching other people do it then this is your best bet.
Where initial D is all about going fast and setting times in the mountains, Wangan Midnight is all about racing on the highways of japan with cars that can drive at speeds of 300kmh+ for long periods of time in some cases the battles between drivers would exceed times of 10+ minutes which is not ideal for cars that aren't designed or built for it.
But with this said I highly recommend this anime to anyone that is looking for a good watch that involves cars
Read at the sourcekonogeo
Ok so I am not going to write a whole essay about this anime because I wouldn't read it and I assume neither do you.
I want to start this "review" talking about a misconception about this series.
I saw a lot of people on the internet comparing this anime to Initial D, I mean, they're not wrong, both are about cars and take place in Japan...and there is where the similarities stop. Both anime show a different part of the car community in the 80-90's Japan. Initial D is very good at portraing the beginning of the drifting community while Wangan Midnight is very good at portraing another piece of the japanese history.
The whole plot of this anime is based on a bigger story, that of the Mid Night Club, an outlaw group of racers that used to race on the Bayshore Route in Japan, known as "Wa…
Read at the sourcePedroDante199
Wangan Midnight is a must watch and play (for the videogames and Tokyo Xtreme Racer series games) for anyone who's into car culture or into the old Shutokou battles that still happen to this day.
The story lacks a lot in comparison to both the manga and games, as it jumps a lot of arc, the pacing is quite bumpy as characters or even races just happens out of nowhere, being so noticeable as (SPOILER) one of the main racers at the final race just appearing 2 episodes before and be inclueded because Yes. The ending was super lack lusting as it gave no conclusion to no points and being as rushed as to give us short lined realisations and a Haikai about the car.
The art is very good for someone who enjoys car culture, as many cars are built with real world parts and are aesthetically pleasing.…
Read at the source_GX_
TLDR Review - one point is removed for each negative aspect.
Story (-1) : even though street racing genre is self-explainatory, the same formula of tune/fix and race again becomes boring when it occurs for the 3rd time (and more to come)
Side characters (-1) : every 5 or so episodes, 2-3 supporting characters get replaced with new ones, with almost nothing but personal background being different.
Races (-1) : police is nowhere to be seen, other traffic drivers act like props, neither road nor weather conditions don't change. Races end within seconds with one driver letting go of the throttle when facing personal contradiction for a moment - or if something breaks. Winning the race seems neither rewarding nor interesting.
Plot holes (-1) : Devil Z (the cover cars) "curse" on the main p…
Read at the sourceGunterLOL
As a car guy who both love cars and watch anime, this is probably the most realistic a car anime could get. I'm probably gonna get a lot of hate towards this, but I would definitely watch this over Initial D any day, and I love Initial D. The determining factor?
Realism.
Without giving too many spoilers, the story is about a young boy named Akio Asakura. One night, him and his friend were out on the Wangan Highway with two girls when suddenly, a black Porsche pulls up from behind and completely leaves him in the dust. Baffled by how fast the car was going, he tried to keep up the pace and tried to race the Porsche. Little did he know, he found out that the black Porsche was titled the "King of Wangan".
We follow through Akio's life as he finds an S30 (240z) in the junkyard and immedia…
Read at the sourceVaasMontenegro
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 as well. 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 "Blackbi…
Read at the source-Ikki
Ok then. I am gonna start saying that "Wangan midnight" isint just a dumb car anime, like people think.
Wangan for who dont know is basicaly highways in japan, who are famous beacause its the stage of A LOT of ilegal races.
Most of the people want to compare wangan to Initial D ... and belive me, its a huge mistake.
Initial is about drifting, but wangan abord races in high speed ... like 300km ( curiosity ... 300km its the dream of all wangan racers )
But ok ... lets talk about the anime.
------------------------
Like i said before, wangan its a highway, and the anime explores it ... in the best way possible.
The races are to good, and with de OST in the back give such emotion that i can describe in words.
The characters .... hmm, they are pretty ok.
the protagonist ( Asakura Akio…
Read at the sourcekseries2497
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 of Wangan 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 s…
Read at the sourcelisnoire
In the beginning I wondered if the star car was going to be possessed ala Stephen King's Christine, and although that question was never exactly answered, that is not the direction the story took. Wangan is a heartfelt look at street, rather freeway, racing, the people caught in the lifestyle and the cars that obsess them. At times it is almost a tutorial on how to rebuild an engine.
For one reason and another, I've not finished Initial D so I'm not going to make any kind of cross comparison other than saying Initial D didn't capture me the way Wangan Midnight did. I dated car guys, handed them tools and torqued down timing chain covers . . . .until I broke a bolt or two . . . I drove fast cars and owned them myself. Occasionally, I pretend my sedate Subaru Forester is really a WRX. Cons…
Read at the sourcejmoriarty84
Obviously, your 1st reaction so far will be you’re thinking Initial D. I don’t blame anybody for doing so, but if you’re going to watch this with expectations based on Initial D, then you’re going to watch it for all the wrong reasons. The 1st portion of this series will be repetitive and slow, but it’s done for the purpose to build suspense, motivate development, and establish the story. I felt that things got exciting way too much at the end and it leaves you wanting for more, but I guess there’s the manga to make you satisfied which I’m now getting into. Depending on how you get into it, it will be either hard or easy to accept, but I feel this presentation was done for the right reasons even though it will take awhile to get into this anime. Ye…
Read at the source