(CR) MF Ghost

[HandofFate]

lol, that brother/sister racing duo, kind of a gray area.
can see how in some other sports, it can be seen as cheating, that's some major colluding when they're suppose to be separate racing entries.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by HandofFate

lol, that brother/sister racing duo, kind of a gray area.
can see how in some other sports, it can be seen as cheating, that's some major colluding when they're suppose to be separate racing entries.

It's no different from how team mates work together in F1 and other sport categories where multiple entries per team are allowed. It seems to me like MF Ghost is kind of a descendant of the street racing we've seen in Initial D so it's no surprise to me that there are no explicit rules to prevent this sort of thing. It's mostly an "anything goes" category it seems. It wouldn't work in real life but for a fictional series it works wonders.

Meanwhile this episode, while great on the racing side, had me facepalming hard at the angels bit. Initial D was already a bit... not great let's say, when it came to female characters. But MF Ghost seems to bump that up an uncomfortable notch. It's not bad enough to diminish my enjoyment of the show in general, but it does guarantee I'd never recommend this show to anyone other than those already heavily invested in Initial D. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aside from that great episode. The author again managed to keep the racing believable inside the unrealistic confines of the MF Ghost premise. If you look at it, you'll see that most matchups are generally well thought out. The 86 is weaker than cars like the Alfa 4C, Lotus Exige or the Type R but it's still in the same class roughly, and would be able to probably keep up in a tight technical course under an exceedingly proficient driver so that's what we see here. The R8 and the GT-R are comparable AWD beasts that feel roughly comparable in a race. And the two Porsche's up top are also not that unreasonable. While the GT3 RS is the better car, the Caiman is more balanced and it works to show that Beckenbauer is a force to be reckoned with by making that car keep up with the 911. The Caiman is also a feasible target for the GT86 if some mods are done to the later (mods that were teased in a previous episode). Good stuff all around imho.

I still feel like Initial D's premise worked better to normalize car performance differences (given the focus on technical downhill racing), but this still works. Also there were more hints to the idea behind the weight-to-grip rule. It does make sense if the idea is to give less grip to those with more power. That's 100% going to make them slower in corners, especially coupled with tight and twisty technical tracks (as the lambo showed us here). It's a great premise to let the drivers outshine the cars (and to get some big and expensive supercars destroyed by a humble hachi roku ).

[magnumcyclonex]

Episode was fantastic on the racing side. All the battles were fun to watch. I'm no car geek, I just like seeing fast cars go head to head haha.

That near 7 second gap got eaten up fast by Kanata. Sure, we saw him take corners really fast, but there's no way he's winning this right? He's so far behind the top 2 drivers, one of whom is the German.

As for the bro/sis combo, that was some real shady and dangerous move to force the sandwiched car to slow down. Could have gone very wrong. It's very unlike F1 where teams may order their drivers to switch positions. I will say that in Cyber Formula (Zero/Saga?), the comedic duo of Franz Heinel and Jackie Gudhelian did something similar to slow down Kazami Hayato, but I forget if Hayato had already become so OP he caught up and beat Gudhelian in the race.

Back to MF Ghost, we now get the first mentioning of the legendary tofu delivery driver who taught Kanata. Kanata was slated to have a bright start and future in racing until his mother (passed away?)

On the other side, we are getting a lot of "fanservice". Did Initial D go to this level? I don't remember. Next week's preview is even more fanservicey with that wedgie...which probably is a real thing that can happen!

[larethian]

With the reveal of Takumi by the commentator whose name I can't be bothered to remember, we'll definitely get Kogashiwa's input on Takumi next episode and might even get some recap on his past encounter with him

[Decel]

I don't see him winning on the very first race, but I could fathom a spot on the podium.

[HandofFate]

So the information about Takumi's accident and retirement, did that happen in the first series, or is it stuff that happened in between.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by HandofFate

So the information about Takumi's accident and retirement, did that happen in the first series, or is it stuff that happened in between.

In between. Initial D ends with the final downhill race in Japan if I remember right.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by HandofFate

So the information about Takumi's accident and retirement, did that happen in the first series, or is it stuff that happened in between.

He hadn't even gone pro yet at the end of Initial D.

[Guardian Enzo]

I think the major difference between Overtake! and MF Ghost (aside from the extreme poles of character design quality, and insane product placement and Australopithecine gender politics in the latter) is that Overtake is equally deft at both racing and storytelling, whereas MF Ghost tanks when the racing ends.

Still, the racing stuff in MFG s very good and very fun. Kinda wild to have two shows doing this not just in the same season, but on the same day.

[Decel]

Coincidentally I dropped Overtake after the marathon episode. Too goody-two-shoes happy-happy-joy-joy. And not enough -vehicle- racing.

3-way marathon win nailed the coffin.

With MFG, I knew what I was -mostly- getting into, having watched the previous series and all.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I think the major difference between Overtake! and MF Ghost (aside from the extreme poles of character design quality, and insane product placement and Australopithecine gender politics in the latter) is that Overtake is equally deft at both racing and storytelling, whereas MF Ghost tanks when the racing ends.

Still, the racing stuff in MFG s very good and very fun. Kinda wild to have two shows doing this not just in the same season, but on the same day.

Fully agree. I have winced almost every time one of the "angels" shows up on screen these past episodes. It's just too cringe seeing this type of character portrayal that was already dated back in the early 00s. On the other hand, the racing itself is still top tier, it just means I won't be recommending MF Ghost to anyone but the most seasoned anime watcher.

Originally Posted by Decel

Coincidentally I dropped Overtake after the marathon episode. Too goody-two-shoes happy-happy-joy-joy. And not enough -vehicle- racing.

3-way marathon win nailed the coffin.

With MFG, I knew what I was -mostly- getting into, having watched the previous series and all.

I'd recommend you take a second chance at the episode after. It really went hard with the racing and the drama aspects of the show. The marathon episode was really just a breather, it was def. not sign of a trend.

[Decel]

Originally Posted by Dextro

I'd recommend you take a second chance at the episode after. It really went hard with the racing and the drama aspects of the show. The marathon episode was really just a breather, it was def. not sign of a trend.

I'll see if I can muster up the will/time for one more chance.

[Dextro]

Wait wait wait. Did that new character at the start really say what he said? WTF?!?!? This show had some massive eye roll moments but this one was more of a "WTF, call the cops" one. 17? WHAT THE FLYING <non-family friendly word>?!?!?

[Guardian Enzo]

The ass fetish here is over the top to the point of being creepy.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

The ass fetish here is over the top to the point of being creepy.

I'd say the underage fetish is worse...

Initial D wasn't that bad, I think. It was no feminist piece, but it wasn't... whatever this is. Maybe because Ryosuke hadn't gone legit and therefore didn't have a creepy eye candy budget.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Huh, whaddya know, MF Ghost really turns into MF Creeper, eh?

I might jump ship and stick to the other racing anime for this season.

[magnumcyclonex]

Wow...way to deter from the actual racing. It's just really bad. I don't care if this was how the manga was written. If it's following how it was written, then the manga would have icked me out as well. How do you have a character that's supposedly on another level of driving that doesn't participate simply because he's out with his 17 year old "girlfriend"? And the whole organization making it a point to really get up in the angels' assets is just really bad. Oh, and the father of the angel is terrible too.

Aside from that, the racing scenes were top notch. Loved all the overtakes and driver interactions. Loved the commentator's announcements.

[Uribatake]

Episode 8 was my favorite yet, because it felt the most like Initial D, focusing on Kanata and getting inside his head a little bit, instead of splitting its focus between different battles and having the announcer and commentator spell everything out. Poor Kai was at loss for words after Kanata pulled off two miracles in the death zone.

Also, we got another nice Initial cameo at the end. Here's hoping they'll tell us what Keisuke's been up to.

[Decel]

This episode was fire! I like how it demonstrated the utility of Ogata's role in the races.

One of the things missing though is that I have no clue about where on the race's timeline we are. Would have benefited if the show dedicated a couple of minutes on the course. Only found out last episode that it was more than a single lap (of 2? of 3?), and aside from revisiting the fog section, I can't really clearly situating it on the overall track.

[larethian]

Goosebumps from Seki's voice perfectly replicating Keisuke from 20 years ago. VAs are amazing.