MF Ghost is the most garbage seasonal anime of Fall 2023 and a disservice to not only the anime that came before it, but racing in general. Here's why:

The worldbuilding is as shallow as it gets. If the narrator didn't tell you that the automotive industry went fully electric and self-driving at episode 1 you wouldn't have guessed it. The author makes no conscious effort to remind you of that fact, and it gets forgotten the moment that it is mentioned. You might as well consider the setting as basically mid-late 2010s Japan because that's basically all there is to it. I find it completely hilarious how the MFG race is one of the last bastions of fossil powered racing, but motorsports like Rally and open wheel series like F3 are mentioned and the author makes no conscious effort to say that they are electric powered, hell, you can even see in a flashback that there is in fact an F4 car still powered by a combustion engine, it's a joke.

The MFG race, where most of the racing will come from, is nothing but glorification of a 12 year old inner thoughts of Fast and Furious or the author's glorification of his shitbox 86 taken to the extremes. Rules that are just inane for no reason, all to ham up the MC car against what are essentially supercars, a ban against electric cars and the crippling handicap for hybrid cars, and the fetishization of grid girls with the Angels, and you essentially have what the author thinks is the "good ol days of racing" mentality, and what I can only assume is a hatred for the modern innovations of the automotive industry, a notion all too shared by car enthusiasts with a single braincell. But that's no surprise, given the author hasn't learned a single thing about racing, or how cars work from his time making Initial D, and that he has no one to advise him about it this time.

The characters are the worst offenders, along with the story, if you can hardly call it one. The MC is a total joke and a complete mary sue, but that's to be expected, the author couldn't write a compelling MC to save his life in Initial D (an MC he crippled off-screen, btw), and he couldn't write one now. His main motivations of finding his parents in Japan are instantly forgotten in favor of just getting him to race and wipe the floor off of other drivers in cars that far exceed his in performance. But it's okay because he can drift and therefore he's the fastest driver in the track. Yeah, it's that kind of show. Oh yeah, how could I forget the other colorful cast of characters like:

-Forgettable racers with one personality trait
-Haughty racer with superiority complex meant to be an antagonist but is quickly forgotten by the first race
-Side character that falls in love with the MC for no other reason other than to fall in love with him
-Supportive cast of characters meant to help the MC and nothing else, might be creeps on the side too.
-A racer with a creepy obsession over a grid girl that is a high schooler, while said racer is at his 30s.
-Cameo characters from Initial D that serve nothing to the plot but make the audience go "YOOOOO IS THAT HIM? THAT'S HIM, HE'S THAT ONE GUY!"
-And last, but not least: The rival character that dates underage girls (or as he likes to correct others, dating girls that are age 17)...and then dumps them once they become of age because they become "unlucky" for him.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Credit where it's due though. There are two characters that are siblings that co-ordinate each other's driving, but they're quickly forgotten the moment the MC beats them. This caveat doesn't save it from the main takeaway that the author can't write characters at all. They are merely there as either obstacles for the MC, or to help him, and nothing more. They're not compelling, they're not even likeable, and they don't serve any purpose to the story.

I don't wanna lambast the show that much though. The animation and sound department did a good job trying to salvage this broken mess. The CG is phenomenal and as always one of the best when it comes to CG animation as a whole, I'll always praise them for it, and while Eurobeat is an overrated genre of music, it serves the purpose of making the races watchable- I mean, entertaining, well. Does it save the anime? Hell no. But at least it salvages the part where most people who come to watch this show are interested in, even if the races themselves are unrealistic.

We need to aim for better though. MF Ghost unfortunately, isn't better.