i watched the anime a few days back and finished all 26 episodes. I agree that the anime isn't as well developed as initial-d, but heck, i'm a car guy so anything to do with cars, i'll watch it anyway. In the anime, the story focused more on the akuma Z, seemed like it was haunted or something. But as the story developed, u see how akio matures and becomes a better driver and less focus on the car. Yes, i agree that akio looks similar to takumi... and they are both in high school and drive an 80s car. There's also another similarity that the opponents are hell bent on trying to defeat the akuma z... kinda like how everyone was trying to defeat takumi's AE86.

i just finished watching the whole movie today and firstly i am very disappointed, not only with the changes to the cars, but they did not even focus on kitami jun who was the person who built the akuma z in the first place. The other disappointments were as u mentioned, the newer cars instead of the original as the anime. I liked Reina in her R32 instead of the R34 used in the movie. Ko chan definitely should not be driving an FD and there were characters missing from the anime, which gives it the complete plot.

overall, wangan midnight is interesting to watch, it gets a little draggy at some points but u still get a whole lot of different cars running on the freeway. Yes, it may not seem as interesting as downhill drifts but there's still an interesting side to the race, which is chasing the magical 300km/h and of course defeating the akuma z... the whole anime is based on people with the obsession to chase and defeat the z, only to realize what they should do in life. I'm still pleased that u get R32, R33, R34 GTRs, FC3S, FD3S, Lan EVO, Supra and a Ferrari Testarossa. Of course u don't get the other characters that appear in the manga, but it'll be interesting if they decide to do a second season