Kora
Kanata? Are you kidding me? Is that really him? What are you doing here, Kanata?
The racing subgenre is one that has largely been neglected by both the anime industry as a whole, and more specifically by myself. From my perspective, it’s always seemed like a genre split between the twin-pairing of Initial D titles, and weird eclectic outsider titles like Redline or Appare-Ranman!. I think the full extent of my auto-racing anime exposure might be the first episode of Appare-Ranman! and the show Rideback, which feels like it’s stretching the parameters a bit, since I think Rideback might have turned into a “fighting back against dystopia with racing mechs” show towards the end (Rideback was kinda stupid). So imagine my surprise when two seemingly grounded racing series were announced to be coming out on the same day, and only one of them is tied to Initial D. I say that, but if I hadn’t done just a smidgen of research at the outset, I doubt I would have guessed MF Ghost was connected with the Initial D franchise. So, is this introduction to MF Ghost any good? That’s a little difficult to answer, but I’ve ultimately landed on, “It’s fine.” There is nothing egregiously wrong with the storytelling in this episode, but it’s all set-up, with the payoff being postponed until episode 2. Furthermore, the set-up isn’t implemented effectively, splitting its focus in too many directions without letting any of them breathe. There is some decent promise here, but nothing to hook new viewers, and I can’t offer a recommendation on this episode alone.
MF Ghost takes place in the not too distant future (Next Sunday A.D.) and follows Kanata Katagiri, a 19-year-old half-Japanese man from Britain, who has come to Japan to partake in MF Races. These are official street races using petroleum-fueled vehicles, which have become a rarity since the industry has been forced to switch to electric engines. Kanata isn’t solely focused on racing, though. In fact, his true aspiration is to find his long-lost father. He’s aided in this quest by Ren, a high school girl whose family he is lodging with. She finds herself infatuated by him, much to her surprise, as she finds the basic concept of “love at first sight” shallow and off-putting. However, she herself is also hiding a secret, since she has a part-time job working anonymously as one of the grid girls who start off the races. Oh, and the owner of the company that runs the races has evidently taken an interest in Kanata prior to him ever participating in a race. There is a lot going on in this episode, and I frankly think much of it could have waited until later in the story. Do we need to know about the backstory about Kanata trying to track his father down in the first episode? This is also true of romance subplots. It doesn’t take up much time, but the viewer is still privy to snippets of Ren mulling over her conflicting feelings. Despite these being personal stories, they ultimately do more harm than good when it comes to establishing these characters. We don’t know them yet, and still the show wants us invested in this personal drama without enabling the viewer to connect with them. I haven’t been meeting my quota for driving puns, so I’ll punctuate my point with this. The show should have picked a lane and stuck with it for this first episode. Instead, it weaves all over the place, and never picks up any traction.
If there was one red flag for me when it came to the production, it was seeing Felix Film listed as the studio. Felix Film had previously worked with Liden Films to produce the series Otherside Picnic. While the show wasn’t terrible, I’d describe Otherside Picnic’s visuals as “mediocre at best.” Fortunately, the biggest issue I encountered with MF Ghost was its weird character designs, and that’s due to the original mangaka’s design rather than a lack of effort on the part of the studio. Shuichi Shigeno’s characters frequently look a bit off, most often when they’re at a 45-degree angle. The eyes just don’t look correct. Hilariously, the promo image I saw for this show had almost every member of the cast in that pose. Combine that with the fact that Felix Film is primarily a 3DCG-focused animation studio, and I assumed this would probably be a janky CG series. I’m glad I was wrong. The traditional animation is nothing to write home about, but it doesn’t look bad, and the CG on the cars looks decent enough, even if we don’t see them in action for too long. Honestly, that’s the biggest shortcoming of this episode. Despite being about auto racing, it doesn’t take the time to get new viewers invested in the sport and we only see brief clips of the cars. It just sits at the starting line without ever taking off.
Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:
- There is a subplot where one of the drivers, who is 24, has a crush on Ren, a high-schooler. I don’t like this plot, but I will acknowledge that the show established this driver doesn’t know anything about Ren since she doesn’t reveal any details about herself, including her name or age, so I’m willing to let it slide as far as this premiere is concerned.
- Sometimes, before a show even airs, I’ll start drafting an introduction to establish preconceived notions about a production team or genre, so that I can compare them to my reaction to the finished project. I wasn’t expecting the MF Ghost to come out before Overtake! though, so I had to scrap many of my notes on how I was going to structure that review on the fly, because I didn’t think I’d be seeing this one first.
- Watching all these stick shifts reminds me of an old Steven Wright joke where he states a character “can’t drive an automatic.” That’s legitimately why I almost failed my driving exam.
- One element that seems wildly illogical to me is that the cars are followed down the track by quad-rotor drones. Drones can reach high speeds, but even ten years from now, it strains my suspension of disbelief to suggest the company can have a fleet of drones where each drone follows an individual car, at high velocity, and for lengthy periods of time. That’s not even taking into account the necessary stability to maintain those tracking shots.
MF Ghost can’t seem to decide on its destination, and instead sputters about as its characters pack more and more subplots into the trunk. If it can shift into gear and start moving forward, this might be an enjoyable entry in an often-neglected subgenre, but it’s hard to recommend a first episode that spends so much time spinning its wheels. If you’re fond of racing series, maybe wait until we’re in a less packed season to give this one a test drive. Fuel-injection. Carburetor. U-Joint. Lugnut.
Score: 3/5
Okay
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