Alright, we’re down to the final Heavenly King!
Just as a reminder, this is not The King, who is rank number 1, this is the last of the heavenly kings, who is rank number 2.
This is not confusing in the slightest.
:
There’s a race today. I have to go to the circuit.
:
Today’s opponent is number 2 in the rankings.
:
Ryoichi Sato.
:
Let’s go say hello.
Sato appears to be inspecting the boot lid on his car. Hey it's that one that's been in the background this entire time!
:
Umm, are you Sato-san? I’m your opponent today. Hiro.
:
Best regards.
Very formal of you Hiro. You should ask him to consider the environment when printing this email.
: ……..
:
Umm, this is Hiro. Nice to meet you.
: ……..
:
Umm…
: ……..
Well this guy is clearly a delightful communicator.
He just stares at the wall, not showing us his face.
:
Got it!
He seems to have come to some sort of revelation about his license plate.
:
What is it? That looks like a big guy…
:
Please let me see the car.
:
That mecha-tuned 240Z is a real beast. Maybe it’s because of the Weber triple carburetor. This is a car not to be underestimated!
Ooh cool, a 240Z! A real classic, and the first of the infamous Datsun / Nissan ‘Z’ series that is still in production today.
First introduced in 1970 the ‘Datsun’ 240z took the world by storm, in a world where the sports car market was dominated by expensive European manufacturers such as Porche, Lotus and Ferrari - it proved Japan had the chops to make a real, affordable sports car at a time where Japanese cars were seen as cheap and nasty in the west.
And just because 1970’s commercials are amazing, check out the whole Datsun range.
Why don't they make cheesy theme songs for cars anymore?
The 240z is also, incidentally is the hero car featured in a manga / anime / line action movie called ‘Wagnan Midnight’
This series predated the more well known Initial D series by a number of years, and is a story about a young man who drag races people on the Tokyo Shutoku freeway on a quest to become the fastest racer in Japan.
Sound familiar?
Ironically, the same way I discovered initial D - I know about this thanks to the rad arcade games of my youth - the ‘Maximum Tune series’ - chances are you've probably seen these arcade racers around too. It's only recently I found out they were based on a manga / tv series.
So, anyway, we’ve meet this mystery Sato guy, who barely says anything, drives a 240Z and we don''t see his face. Could this guy be a reference to Wagnan Midnight? I was curious, so I got to googling.
The manga was released in 1990 and swiftly turned into a live action movie in 1991 around the same time the game was released (See trailer) - so it could have been in the zeitgeist of Japanese car culture at the time…
However! - it turns out that a Sato Ryoichi worked for Media Ring (Developers of this game) as a programmer.
…So, I’m guessing this guy might just be a developer self-insert?
… We’ll see how well he can race, next time…