English Dub Review: MF Ghost “The Challenger from England”

Overview

Based on the Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. It is a sequel to the Iconic Initial D Franchise, and is also focused on the Japanese street racing scene. and follows Kanata Rivington who arrives in Japan from England with the intention of racing in a relatively new motorsports category that’s taken the world by storm: MFG.


Our Take

The story begins with the MFG racer of Shun Aiba racing through the mountainous regions of Japan, but the real focus and the heart of the story is the England foreigner of Kanata Rivington (under the racing identity Katagiri) meeting Ren Saionji, who out of sheer happenstance is secretly working as one of the MFG Angels who Shun is trying to get with Ren despite not knowing her real age, and given Kanata’s boyscout appearance, she is already enraptured by his appearance. Kanata, on the other hand, goes to Ogata to ask about the regulations of the MFG races, which he wants to experience it for the first time. And surprisingly Ogata lends him his Toyota 86 for a test drive.

Ren of course doesn’t completely behave like some giddy fangirl and makes an effort in getting to know the dude better, as his purpose aside from being a racer is quite legit since he’s mostly in Japan to locate his missing father. With the only clue being his only picture of his father leads him to believe that he’s still somewhere in Japan and just wants closure. While Ren helps Kanata locate his father in Kamakura being as close to the location in the photo as possible.

Overall, a decent start to this new sequel-series. Ren seems like a decent schoolgirl and I don’t know if their romance will bloom at some point or not. And honestly, I never watched any Initial D before this, so I don’t know what to expect, but at the same time I do understand the impact that franchise had when Street Racing was popularized, and It seems like it also had a compelling plot. Plus, the dub shows some level of effort by giving Kanata a English accent to emphasize that he’s from England. And as far as I can tell, it’s trying to find this balance between being a racing show for those who want to learn the ins and outs, and for those who want a more traditional plot in terms of character interactions and potential romance. Hopefully we can see more of this later on.

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