This should be the street racing manga with the heat on it and not Initail D despite the multitude of movies and games based on Wangan Midnight. Both may have a problem with length but Michiharu tale gets a way more compelling story going early on and i liked all the major players where i couldn´t name one in the main rival besides the lead and the horrible first love interest. Thus i dropped it to never return (i read the vapid ending though) but stayed behind the wheel here. The calm art is nice and the action scenes are as dynamic as one could have hoped for. It is also highly realistic and a lot of care went into the driving/tuning aspect while the danger of the thrill is strongly acknowledged. Akio is further a very deep character even if he doesn't look like that at first and the series has a highly developed female counterpart for him who could have supported her own series despite being a love interest. That is highly noteworthy for a series about a male dominated scene.
The entire series is obviously too long with a whopping 60 volumes if Wangan Midnight: C1 Runner which is both a sequel and a bit of a spin-off due to the different focus is factored in and a true finish would have been preferable but i take what i get here and the Kodansha win is deserved. I don´t care about cars as motorcycles are way more fun and only play arcade racers as Burnout but this inside in a different world was intriguing and the shonen Capeta (7,5/10) is the other racing series i could get behind till the finish line which has somewhat similar problems and is about a legal career. The authors Shakotan Boogie is a borderline prototype of this manga and both deserve a full translation. The anime is a well done too and i love the soundtrack so check it out as it adapts more volumes that one would suspect despite skipping material later.
Update: Michiharu started Ginkai no Speed Star that will be the "final stage" for the series. I would like to get some actual closure this time around.

... Last updated on June 6th, 2015, 6:47am

the cars look kinda weird... they all look like a VW beetle or something which makes it kinda hard to distinguish them from each other, initial D is a great example of detail on the car so you can simply look at it and see what type it is but here you dont stand a chance in that. Other than that its a great manga with a lot of story just too bad it ain't scanned actively : /

... Last updated on November 1st, 2012, 7:35am

it's realistic street car races with lots of accidents, and there's no superhuman stunt like Takumi did in initial D, perhaps that's why I like it.