Moé Moé Rabu

Damn it certainly has been a long time since I last blogged about Wangan Midnight. The last post was WAY back in November, but I certainly haven’t forgotten about the series, I just been somewhat lazy to blog about it that I had to watch this episode again to remember what happened. Not that it’s a bad thing or anything. Anyway resuming from where episode 6 left off, Eriko stole Akio’s Z and decided to drive it to the harbour, hoping to take it to the bottom of the ocean along with her, but Tatsuya managed to ram the Z with his Porsche just in time to save Eriko.

Another day, Tatsuya meets Kitami and asks him to tune his car for him, which he agrees, and after taking a ride in the Porsche, he already decides on what needs to be done. As days go by, Kitami has finally tuned the Porsche enough for Tatsuya to reach over 300km/h. One night, Tatsuya finds out that Kitami has also tuned Ishida’s Testarossa and finds that Kitami also prefers the Testarossa over his Porsche. Though Kitami explains that Ishida is different from Tatsuya. Later on Akio is heading to the Wangan with Tatsuya, Ishida, and Reina waiting for him to arrive, but all goes wrong as we hear a crashing sound.

The next morning, Hiramoto Kouchi wakes up and reads in the newspaper that a car accident had occurred on the Wangan the previous night. Eventually he is interrupted by his wife who informs him of their current bank balance is finally over 4 million yen. Meanwhile after Reina has finished her show, she speaks with her colleague and tells him of how the Devil Z got into the accident and was literally burning away, but Akio made it out alive. Meanwhile back with Kouchi, he joins his co-worker Harada for a ride in his Z31 (Nissan 300ZX) through Wangan later that night and they come across Reina’s GTR, which is now white. Although they try to catch up to Reina, she simply speed away.

The next night, Reina comes across Tatsuya and he informs her that he knows where the Devil Z is. The both go driving to Kitami’s workshop, and Kouchi who happens to see them drive by decides to follow them. Kouichi hides behind the open door whilst Kitami reveals to Tatsuya and Reina the damaged remains of the Devil Z saying that it can’t be fixed.

Impressions

I still find it rather strange who Wangan Midnight is one of the few series that I actually sit through raw and try to pick up most of the dialogue, since that’s what most of this show has other than the little racing scenes we get. Yet I do manage to pick up most of dialogue quite well. Anyway I found it rather surprising how Akio has crashed the Devil Z once again as I really thought that the car had finally accepted him as the driver. Of course this can’t be the end of the series since the Devil Z will make a comeback, but from the look of things, it won’t be for a little while.

The pacing of this episode seemed to really fly by as the first half was focused on Tatsuya getting his Porsche tuned, whilst the second half introduces a new character, Haramoto Kouichi. It somehow felt a little disjointed but I guess he will kind of be like the filler storyline until the Devil Z gets fixed. Still, a little weird how he just follows them and eavesdrops at Kitami workshop. Kouichi himself was also a street racer, but I can guess that he’ll be making a comeback since he now appears to be involved with the Devil Z.

Another thing this episode, Reina’s GTR is now white, and no explanation was given for this. Though I’m sure the reason would be because of the Devil Z’s crash and with Reina being a popular icon, she can’t have her reputation ruined because she is a street racer. But that’s my guess anyway. Hopefully I can churn through some more Wangan episodes in the next few days.