Reviews

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 further in their adult life is the entire plot, with the legendary car and its young, new driver at the center of it.

Like some of you perhaps, I came to Wangan Midnight after having watched Initial D. And though there are similarities, the two happen to be quite different from each other. Initial D is more thrilling and shounen and it offers some sort of a storyline nonetheless, whereas Wangan Midnight has an initimate vibe, a slower pace, and leans definitely more on the seinen side without any real plot. That being said, Wangan Midgnight does not fall into melodrama or pathos and remains mature and appropriate to its characters, which is great. No eurobeat either, but a sparsely-used score that fit the atmosphere and action very well, including a few mystical touches of Enigma-like music.

All in all, it is an excellent anime but one that can ben quite difficult to binge-watch because this is roughly 26 episodes of more of the same. But if you fancy its theme and its cocooned atmosphere, if you get hooked on those adult characters that get together as a friendly community of people united by the same passion, then it becomes an odd delight to watch.