MF Ghost

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. It is a sequel to ''Initial D'', and is also focused on the Japanese street racing scene. It was serialized Kodansha's manga magazine ''Weekly Young Magazine'' from September 2017 to February 2025, with its chapters collected in 23 volumes as of June 2025. An anime television series adaptation by Felix Film aired in October to December 2023; a second season aired from October to December 2024; a third season is set to premiere in 2026.

Plot

The series takes place in 202X, where self-driving electric cars have replaced internal combustion ones. However, in Japan, there is a large organization called MFG, founded by Ryosuke Takahashi (from the ''Initial D'' series), that is focused exclusively on street racing with internal combustion cars. , a 19-year-old Japanese-British man who is competing under the pseudonym , has shown up on the scene driving a Toyota 86. He manages to work his way through the ranks of MFG, beating top-tier cars such as the Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4, Ferrari 488 GTB, Lotus Exige, Alfa Romeo 4C and Porsche 911 Carrera (991). Kanata has been trained by legendary downhill and rally racer Takumi Fujiwara (the protagonist of the ''Initial D'' series) at the Royal Donington Racing School in the UK and is a Formula 4 world champion. He has only one motive: to find his long-lost father.

Media

Manga

''MF Ghost'' is written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. The manga began in Kodansha's manga magazine ''Weekly Young Magazine'' on September 4, 2017. The series is connected to Shigeno's previous work ''Initial D''. The series finished on February 17, 2025. Kodansha has collected its chapters into individual volumes. The first volume was published on January 5, 2018. As of June 6, 2025, 23 volumes have been released.

Kodansha USA and Comixology announced that they would publish the manga digitally starting on January 11, 2022. The series was added to Kodansha's ''K Manga'' online platform in May 2023.

A sequel series by Shigeno, titled , is set to start in ''Weekly Young Magazine'' in July 2025.

Volumes

Anime

An anime television series adaptation was announced on January 4, 2022. It is produced by Felix Film and directed by Tomohito Naka, with Kenichi Yamashita supervising the scripts co-written by Akihiko Inari, Naoyuki Onda designing the characters, and Akio Dobashi composing the music. The series aired from October 2 to December 18, 2023, on Tokyo MX and other networks. The opening theme song is "Jungle Fire" by Yū Serizawa and Motsu of Move, while the ending theme song is "Stereo Sunset" by Himika Akaneya.

Following the ending of the twelfth episode, a second season was announced, which aired from October 7 to December 23, 2024. The opening theme song is "Rock Me Kiss Me feat. Motsu" by Yū Serizawa, while the ending theme song is "Side U (Prod. AmPm)" by Himika Akaneya.

A third season was announced after the final episode of the second season. It is set to premiere in 2026.

Crunchyroll is streaming the series. Medialink licensed the series in Asia-Pacific, streaming it on its Ani-One Asia YouTube channel.

Episodes

=Season 1 (2023)

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=Season 2 (2024)

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Reception

By January 2019, the manga had over 1 million copies in circulation; over 3.2 million copies in circulation by January 2022; and over 4 million copies in circulation by January 2023.

Anime News Network (ANN) had four editors review the first episode of the anime: Rebecca Silverman was put off by the fan service depiction of Ren and felt disappointed with the racing being relegated to "only about thirty seconds of actual race footage"; Richard Eisenbeis felt betrayed by the lack of "awesome dirfting car races and killer eurobeat music" throughout the episode, but gave it credit for being a "solid introduction" and had decent stories involving Kanata and Ren, saying he will check out the second episode; James Beckett critiqued that "automotive-illiterate viewers" may enjoy the series through Ren and Kanata's potential romance but was unsure of its racing anime appeal based on the brief snippets it shows, saying that fanbase "will have to wait another week to get a real taste of the action." The fourth reviewer, Nicholas Dupree, was unimpressed with the "mild-mannered and matter-of-fact" main cast (outside of Ogata) but felt that viewers will get invested in them during the long run. He added that the visuals were a mixed bag, commending the details to the CG vehicles and the "distinctive character designs", but was critical of the environments being "(barely-)edited reference photos," saying "the make-or-break detail will depend on how well they can capture the speed and intensity of racing in the next episode."

Fellow ANN editor Steve Jones chose ''MF Ghost'' as his pick for the Worst Anime of Fall 2023, criticizing the "paper-thin characters, shoddy presentation, and almost nonexistent story" compared to ''Overtake!'', and added that it fails as a continuation to ''Initial D'', saying "Yes, it brings the Eurobeat back, and that's absolutely the best creative decision this sequel makes. But in all other respects—setting, character, stakes, direction, storyboarding—the classic ''Initial D'' anime runs laps around this one." Monique Thomas chose the series as her pick for the Worst Anime of 2023, feeling the races lacked storyline stakes and contained "long technical explanations", and felt the overall production away from the tracks was "sterile with very little expression," saying, "It feels like someone took all the worst parts of ''Initial D'' and cobbled them together into one vehicle. It's a reminder that we're no longer "running in the 90s" and have left them behind a long time ago." Kennedy, also writing for ANN, reviewed the complete first season in 2024 and gave it an overall C grade, praising the racing segments but felt it lacked ''Initial D''s "over-the-top elements" that made it fun and criticized the bland characters throughout the disjointed story, concluding that: "On its own merits, it's (no pun intended) pretty middle of the road—exciting race scenes, which are weighed down by just about everything else. Overall, I wouldn't readily call it a particularly good or bad anime. But, it's the ''Initial D'' you have at home: it may also be a racing anime set to a Eurobeat soundtrack, but it lacks the over-the-top fun of ''Initial D''."

Kennedy reviewed the complete second season in 2025 and gave it an overall C– grade, commending the "serviceable" production and various Eurobeat-soundtracked races, but felt it was "another middle-of-the-road racing anime", criticizing the secondary storylines for lacking progression and "connective tissue" involving the central plot and said races for being repetitive and monotonous throughout the episodes, concluding that: " is series is starting to drag, and I'm ready for it to reach the end of its road—which, incidentally, is in the process of happening in the manga, so at least there's that."

Notes

References

External links

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{{Felix Film

Anime series based on manga
Crunchyroll anime
Felix Film
Fiction set in the 2020s
Initial D
Kodansha manga
Medialink
Motorsports in anime and manga
Seinen manga
Tokyo MX original programming
Upcoming anime television series