No. 142009.3.18
Dear Wangan Midnight-obsessed friends, how are you?
Spring is coming, so it’s the season for graduation. I’m sure the male players of Wangan Midnight, people leading the era, are chased by cute female juniors and called back with questions like
“Ex…excuse me, can I have your … second button on your uniform?” But after enjoying sweet moments like that, it’s got to be “the spin in Wangan Maxi 3DX”!!
Since we, the development team, are Man G(eek)roup*, totally removed from the abovementioned sweet moments, the main parts of our conversations are always “cars and jobs.” The Wangan Maxi 3DX event was held in Hong Kong, and we, being of that sort, were invited. So, we descended on Hong Kong this time while excitedly dispersing a Japanese male-geeky smell!
*Man G(eek)roup: the phenomenon where hopeless male car geeks get together.
The Wangan Maxi series is actually very popular overseas, and there are lots of fans in Asian countries such as Hong Kong and Indonesia.
The event had match-up games involving players from Hong Kong versus our development team. Our development team consisted of 5 members, starting with Yamamoto (me), Uchida, Jufuku, Takenaka, and *Maeda*. We played bruising race battles with Hong Kong players!
(Picture showing Yamamoto forced to take the Hakone course against his will.)
Our development team was totally defeated. The lead-off player Yamamoto was forced to take the Hakone course according to one of Hong Kong’s ‘common rules’ (the unspoken rule?): “A guy whose potential is unknown should be tested out on the Hakone course to see his actual performance…”
Regardless of Yamamoto’s cries of “NO! HAKONE NO!” the Hakone course was selected by a majority vote of one to three. The battle resulted in the humiliating reality of “100m behind in 4th place.”
After all, you can’t compete through ability with players whose mileage class is tens of thousands of kilometers!
(Although I secretly used my strong-arm tactic of forcing down the shift lever of the player next to me to the 2nd speed.)
*Note: DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS! This was purely a stunt for the event.
During the fuss, I saw Mr. *Maeda* using a strange card.
(It doesn’t look like Aristo, does it?)
It reminded me that Mr. *Maeda* was creating a new car, somehow moving around the shift lever on the screen to select a car of the Wangan Maxi 3DX overseas edition before visiting Hong Kong!
Could it be the first hidden car mentioned in the rumors?
As I recall…
“1, mumble, mumble, 2, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble.”
Choked.
Sssorry! The chief director put a seal on my lips!
I apologize for not being any help to you. Good luck with your search for that!
Then, going back to the event, the autograph session was held after the race battles. We signed our names on posters and gave our autographs to the players. This lively session brought the curtain down.
All the people who participated in the event seemed to have very much enjoyed it, and I newly realized that we owe the success of the Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX to all the players.
Well then, see you again!!