If you’re reading this review, and especially if you’re a 90s anime fan (which is the closest I can come to gracefully fitting into this sentence – sorry, I tried my best), there’s a good chance you’re still Remembering the iconic racing animation (with an equally iconic soundtrack), Initial D. and looked at MF ghostyou won’t get a sense of déjà vu – there’s a good reason why it looks so similar to that series at first glance. Another work by Shigeno Shuichi, MF ghost It’s a sequel Initial D. Or more specifically, it’s a series that takes place in the same universe, but now several years later and focused on an entirely new protagonist.
I’m sure many of you are wondering: Do you have to watch/read this? Initial D watch MF ghost? No, you don’t know. There are a lot of nods and references Initial Dbut MF ghost It’s self-contained enough that if you’re unfamiliar with the original, you won’t be lost. That being said, I inevitably know another thing that many of you are definitely wondering about is how MF ghost stack to Initial D. The short answer is, in every measurable way, MF ghost It pales in comparison. Long answer needs checking MF ghost outside Initial DLong, Eurobeat-loving shadow.
A lot happens in this fragmented story MF ghost. Our protagonist, Kanata Rivington, has just arrived in Japan from England. Ostensibly, he came to find his Japanese father. Also, he was a very talented racer, so he competed in MFG. Do these games have anything to do with his search? The prompt has been removed, but MF ghost Hesitant to address this issue. Meanwhile, Ren, the daughter of Kanata’s host family, lives a double life as MFG Angel (the animated version of Grid Girl) and falls in love with Kanata, who not only fails to recognize Ren when wearing the MFG Angel uniform, but also has a relationship with him in MFG People who fall in love with Ren in angel mode become friends. (This friend has no idea who she is outside of MF Angels – for example, he doesn’t even know her real name.)
If this sounds like stories are often more complicated than they need to be, that’s because they are. I don’t think this would be an obvious problem if these storylines had any connective tissue. But even at the end of season one, we still weren’t 100% sure exactly what Kanata’s game had to do with his search for his father (if anything!). They feel like two completely different storylines, one that doesn’t particularly need the other. So what about Wren’s storyline? Again: it doesn’t feel like there’s much that ties it together with anything else. There is so little chemistry between Ren and Kanata that the potential romance between the two often feels forced or exists just for the sake of having a romantic element.
What makes the possible romance between Ren and Kanata feel even more pointless and out of place is that neither of them are particularly interesting characters. Kanata doesn’t have any discernible personality, and Ren is also very ordinary – seemingly existing only to be beautiful, to fall in love, and to be loved. For Ren, this was particularly disappointing, even wasteful. One might think that her Hannah Montana-esque life would be a simple way to bring some much-needed flavor to her and the show as a whole, but that’s not the case. While this could easily provide rich story/writing opportunities, MF ghost Say no thanks.
of saving grace MF ghost Predictably, the racing part. Accompanied by a Eurobeat soundtrack, the racing sections have all the high-octane excitement you’d expect from a Shigeno production. That being said, although I tried my best while watching MF ghost to avoid comparing it with Initial D As much as possible, this is the hardest part. Because of the many over-the-top elements (strategy/challenge they can only do since they are street racing, reactions, etc.) Initial D Such interesting viewing is essentially non-existent, or at least muted MF ghostit makes the whole thing feel like a watered-down version of Initial D.
To be honest, that feeling kind of sums up the entire experience of watching the first season. MF ghost. On its own merits, it’s (no pun intended) pretty middle-of-the-road – exciting race scenes almost outweighed by everything else. Overall, I wouldn’t call it a particularly good or bad anime easily. But this is Initial D You have it at home: It could also be a racing anime set to a Eurobeat soundtrack, but it lacks Initial D.