MF Ghost

As electric vehicles dominate everyday life in the 2020s, interest in traditional combustion engine cars is maintained through a motorsports series known as the MFG. Hundreds of ambitious drivers, with a staggering 30 million viewers online, fiercely compete for a spot in the Godly Fifteen—the leading 15 racers—and a chance at the grand prize of 100 million yen. Among these individuals aiming for the top is 19-year-old Kanata Rivington.

Having attended a famous racing school in England, Kanata sets his sights on the upcoming MFG tournament and enrolls in the competition under the alias "Kanata Katagiri." In comparison to his opponents' flashy vehicles, Kanata's Toyota 86 GT, passed down from a former MFG contestant, puts him at a considerable disadvantage. Kanata receives guidance from a Godly Fifteen member, but he still treats the MFG as only a stepping stone for his true goal: locating his estranged father. Meanwhile, Kanata's appearance sends shockwaves through the scene as his driving style eerily resembles that of a once legendary racer.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Katagiri, Kanata Main

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Saionji, Ren Main

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Takahashi, Ryousuke Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Takahashi, Keisuke Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Takeuchi, Itsuki Supporting

Iwata, Mitsuo Japanese

Iketani, Kouichirou Supporting

Yao, Kazuki Japanese

Akiyama, Wataru Supporting

Matsumoto, Yasunori Japanese

Kenji Supporting

Takagi, Wataru Japanese

Kogashiwa, Kai Supporting

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Fumihiro, Hiroshi Supporting

Hosoi, Osamu Japanese

Kurosu, Nobuhiko Producer

Naruke, Yoshinori Producer

Kikuchi, Yuuta Producer

Ogo, Hirotsugu Producer

Reviews

Oct 18, 2024

skull_squadron

Recommended

Can an entry level Japanese sports car beat the best of the European supercars? Maybe: If all cars are made equal by a weight-to-grip ratio rule. That's part of the premise of MF Ghost. Some other details are that it's a future where all cars have gone EV, so there is nostalgia for racing the classic petrol cars of 2020s. I'm not sure why it had to be set in the future - maybe it's to preserve the timeline since this is a sequel to a previous racing series called Initial D.

This anime follows Kanata Rivington, a young half English, half Japanese man who has ... travelled to Japan hoping to find and reunite with his father. He also happens to be an incredible racing driver and soon enters the Japanese MF Ghost competition as an unknown rookie.

Kanata is staying with a host family who had a connection with his late mother. Their daughter Ren immediately develops a crush on Kanata. She is secretly an Angel in MF Ghost which is a group of models who provide "fan service" for the race. When not in her makeup, the Clarke Kent affect kicks in and no-one recognises her as the mysterious Number 7.

Other characters include the top fifteen racers (dubbed the Godly fifteen) and Kanata's mechanic Ogata.

The cars are all pretty classic, including three Porsches, a Lamborghini Huracán, a Ferrari and more. Then there's the Japanese cars: a Nissan GT-R, a Honda Civic RS, a Honda NSX and Kanata's car: a Toyota 86 GT. All of these are lovingly animated with the details that make them special. The races show these cars from many angles and they become characters themselves.

The races are really fun and exciting. They focus on many different battles going on throughout the pack. Kanata is an underdog so has to battle his way up from the bottom. The drivers all have seemingly super-human abilities when it comes to knowing their cars - but Kanata especially has many tricks up his sleeve. The races are commentated by the actual commentators of MF Ghost, the mechanics and drivers talking over headsets and also the inner dialog of the drivers as they strategise through the course.

Off the racetrack, there are plenty of character moments as Kanata builds friendships with the other drivers and explores a nearby town with Ren in search of the location of a photograph of his father.

In the overall arc, there is Kanata's search for his father, the mysterious machinations of the races organisers and Kanata's progress towards the finishing podium. I'm assuming that Kanata will eventually become number one with his incredible skills but maybe they will drag it out over a number of seasons.

The downside for me is the sexism portrayed by the MFG Angles. It sometimes seems like the show is critiquing the objectification of these women but then they undercut it by frequently panning the camera over their bodies. It's like the producers of the anime are afraid all the teenage boys will stop watching if they don't get an eyeful of hot teenage bods every ten minutes or less. It's just too much.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this series and currently waiting each week as the second cour is being simulcast.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 3, 2025

bigsecretofind

Mixed Feelings

Take this with a grain of salt, as I've never seen Initial D. As a motorsport and car fan, hearing that a new racing/motorsport/car culture anime was being made and available to watch was amazing to hear. The story is more of an underdog going pro, which is basically a feel-good story where our main character gets a shitbox car, a Toyota 86, and goes all out with his knowledge and skill from a European driving school. Oh, and not to mention, he wants to know his father, which is why he's joining this racing series.

However, the series lacks world-building, particularly with regard to the ... fact that the world has gone electric, as the MF Ghost announcer has hardly mentioned it. Most of the cars you see are internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, and the cars on the road don't look electric.

The romance side quest is boring, and I'm not sure why it's necessary to include romance in a series for it to be good. The main character is hardly interested in the girl, with whom he lives with her family. The girl is basically doing anything to try and get the main character to like her, including helping him find his father.

There's also too much fan service, with panty shots that are annoying and feel forced. The camera is being shoved up a 20-year-old or underage girl panties. This leaves people who came for the racing content, as shown in the poster, and trailer, feeling disappointed and distracted by the fan service.

If you can get past these three elements I've described and only care about the racing aspect of the series, then go for it. I really enjoyed the underdog story of a rookie going pro quickly with a shitbox car, competing with cars that have over 500+ horsepower. I also like the fact that the cars in the series aren't as advanced and have insane track performance; they're just ordinary sports cars or cars with a few track modifications. Overall, I still enjoyed the anime despite the annoying fan service and romance side quest.

I would really like to hear more engine noise in these races. Unfortunately, the only engine you're likely to hear is the Boxer-4 of the Toyota 86, rather than the Ferrari 488's V12 or the Audi R8's V8. There is some engine noise in the anime, but most of the time it gets masked by the music.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 18, 2023

Greekie

Not Recommended

Funny

MF Ghost is the most garbage seasonal anime of Fall 2023 and a disservice to not only the anime that came before it, but racing in general. Here's why:

The worldbuilding is as shallow as it gets. If the narrator didn't tell you that the automotive industry went fully electric and self-driving at episode 1 you wouldn't have guessed it. The author makes no conscious effort to remind you of that fact, and it gets forgotten the moment that it is mentioned. You might as well consider the setting as basically mid-late 2010s Japan because that's basically all there is to it. I find it ... completely hilarious how the MFG race is one of the last bastions of fossil powered racing, but motorsports like Rally and open wheel series like F3 are mentioned and the author makes no conscious effort to say that they are electric powered, hell, you can even see in a flashback that there is in fact an F4 car still powered by a combustion engine, it's a joke.

The MFG race, where most of the racing will come from, is nothing but glorification of a 12 year old inner thoughts of Fast and Furious or the author's glorification of his shitbox 86 taken to the extremes. Rules that are just inane for no reason, all to ham up the MC car against what are essentially supercars, ban against electric and the crippling handicap for hybrid cars, and the fetishization of grid girls with the Angels, and you essentially have what the author thinks is the "good of ol days of racing", and what I can only assume is a hatred for the modern innovations of the automotive industry, a notion all too shared by car enthusiasts with a single braincell. But that's no surprise, given the author hasn't learned a single thing about racing, or how cars work from his time making Initial D, and that he has no one to advise him about it this time.

The characters are the worst offenders, along with the story, if you can hardly call it one. The MC is a total joke and a complete mary sue, but that's to be expected, the author couldn't write a compelling MC to save his life in Initial D (an MC he crippled off-screen, btw), and he couldn't write one now. His main motivations of finding his parents in Japan are instantly forgotten in favor of just getting him to race and wipe the floor off of other drivers in cars that far exceed his in performance. But it's okay because he can drift and therefore he's the fastest driver in the track. Yeah, it's that kind of show. Oh yeah, how could I forget the other colorful cast of characters like:

-Forgettable racers with one personality trait
-Haughty racer with superiority complex meant to be an antagonist but is quickly forgotten by the first race
-Side character that falls in love with the MC for no other reason other than to fall in love with him
-Supportive cast of characters meant to help the MC and nothing else, might be creeps on the side too.
-A racer with a creepy obsession over a grid girl that is a high schooler, while said racer is at his 30s.
-Cameo characters from Initial D that serve nothing to the plot but make the audience go "YOOOOO IS THAT HIM? THAT'S HIM, HE'S THAT ONE GUY!"
-And last, but not least: The rival character that dates underage girls (or as he likes to correct others, dating girls that are age 17)...and then dumps them once they become of age because they become "unlucky" for him.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Credit where it's due though. There are two characters that are siblings that co-ordinate each other's driving, but they're quickly forgotten the moment the MC beats them. This caveat doesn't save the fact from the main takeaway that the author can't write characters at all. They are merely there as either obstacles for the MC, or to help him, and nothing more. They're not compelling, they're not even likeable, and they don't serve any purpose to the story.

I don't wanna lambast the show that much though. The animation and sound department did a good job trying to salvage this broken mess. The CG is phenomenal and as always one of the best when it comes to CG animation as a whole, I'll always praise them for it, and while Eurobeat is an overrated genre of music, it serves the purpose of making the races watchable- I mean, entertaining, well. Does it save the anime? Hell no. But at least it salvages the part where most people who come to watch this show are interested in, even if the races themselves are unrealistic.

The only reason why I think the show got a second season (supposedly releasing some time next year), is the same reason why Morbius got re-released to theaters due to supposedly "high acclaim from viewers", it got memed to hell and high heaven. The community has memed the show and Initial D so much that they deemed this garbage fire of a show applicable enough for a second season.

Never mind the fact that this show is a poorly written excuse of a sequel to an already decent to turned bad (imo) show. Never mind the fact that the author is a hack that copies scenic shots of Japan's mountain roads from Google Street Views and pastes them to his manga panels with no changes whatsoever. And never mind the fact that characters are written to be uncompelling or just downright creepy. No, this show will live and die by the community's meme attitude and poorly conceived notions of drifting.

And to that I say to the racing anime community, however small it may be:

My brother in Christ, why are your standards so low that you'd praise a show like this?

I get it, the racing anime scene is frankly non-existent. Initial D, despite how bad it is, is the only one that managed to hit the mainstream viewership. But for the love of god, don't let MF Ghost turn into that too. Anime like Overtake and Wangan Midnight deserve that attention much more, they're shows that actually care about racing or cars, not this, not this sorry excuse of a sequel of an author trying to cash his last few bucks as he slowly gets to retirement.

We need to have better standards, because we deserve better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: MF Ghost Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Fortress_Maximus - Nov 12, 2023	56 replies	by Swizze »» Jan 4, 12:57 AM
	Poll: MF Ghost Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) KANLen09 - Oct 8, 2023	136 replies	by IWatchedThese »» Dec 25, 2024 7:43 PM
	Poll: MF Ghost Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) KANLen09 - Dec 17, 2023	76 replies	by Rainm4v »» Dec 24, 2024 11:50 AM
	Poll: MF Ghost Episode 11 Discussion Fortress_Maximus - Dec 10, 2023	39 replies	by Rainm4v »» Dec 24, 2024 11:24 AM
	Poll: MF Ghost Episode 5 Discussion deg - Oct 29, 2023	49 replies	by Rainm4v »» Dec 24, 2024 9:12 AM