Story
The story gets its roots from the street racing that occurs on Tokyo's Shuto Expressway Bayshore Route. 'Wangan' (literally bayshore in Japanese) is the endonym of this longest, straightest road in the entire country. There is also road traffic to contend with, including a fair number of heavy trucks. Because of this, the action is inherently hazardous, and wrecks are common. Blown engines are also a frequent hazard, especially with the extremely high power engines.
One day, Akio Asakura, a high school student in his last year of study, is driving his Fairlady Z when he challenges Tatsuya Shima, a doctor, in his black Porsche 911 Turbo (964), dubbed as the "BlackBird". With his friend in the passenger seat and two girls in the back, Akio attempts to win, but is defeated. Determined to drive a faster car, he goes to the junkyard because his mechanic friend tells him he saw the scrapped body of a midnight blue Nissan Fairlady Z just like Akio wanted. When he sees the scrapped body of a midnight blue Fairlady Z (S30) in the junkyard, he remembers seeing this car a few years ago with a nice girl in the passenger seat. Intrigued as to why such a classic Japanese performance vehicle is about to be junked, he convinces the junkyard owner to sell it to him. The junkyard owner was told by the previous owner to scrap the car because it is cursed. He soon finds that the car is unnaturally fast due to a tuned L28 engine, bored and stroked to 3.1 L and fitted with twin turbos. He also finds that one of the car's previous owners shares his first and last name, and had been killed in a horrible crash on the Wangan. Every person who takes possession of the Z ends up spinning out of control and crashing, as if the car is rebelling against its driver. This gives the blue Z the nickname "The Devil Z". The manga follows Akio's various encounters with people on the Wangan, though the central plot revolves around his constant battle with the BlackBird for Wangan superiority.
The new story arc, Wangan Midnight C1 Runner, features the new adventures of the new main character, Shinji Ogishima (which debuted in the last chapters of the original story), and his friend, Nobu Setoguchi, both who driving Mazda RX-7s around Shuto Expressway.
Read more about this topic: Wangan Midnight
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“Of all the rides since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme,—”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.”
—Will Durant (1885–1981)
“Personal beauty is then first charming and itself, when it dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an end; when it suggests gleams and visions, and not earthly satisfactions; when it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness; when he cannot feel his right to it, though he were Caesar; he cannot feel more right to it than to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)