Pantsu shots in my racing anime? No!
Summary:
- MF Ghost anime is a successor to Initial D, but it has less fans because of the shift in the mood.
- Fans are not happy with the amount of fanservice in the show.
- The abundance and uselessness of fanservice became apparent with the anime release.
MF Ghost has been conceived as a successor to Initial D — the racing manga of all time, one that set the trend for popularizing street racing in media and served as an inspiration to the franchises like Fast & Furious and Need For Speed. But MF Ghost has a different mood than its original, and that is one of the reasons why it's less popular than Initial D. We've covered the differences between these two works in a separate article, but with the release of the MF Ghost anime, one of the most distinct specifics of this story stands more obvious — and it's making people angry.
We're here for the cars, not for the girls!
If you look in the comment section on Crunchyroll or in a Reddit thread discussing the latest, 5th episode of MF Ghost, you'll see people disappointed with the fanservice in the show. While the series in general feels like the old school Need For Speed Hot Pursuit or maybe modern Forza Horizon, where cool looking expensive cars are speeding past the picturesque sceneries, and following them actually makes the viewers’ blood boil in anticipation for whatever's gonna happen at the next corner, the racing aspect of the show is not all that is here.
The beautifully made shots of the cars and terminology-heavy narration explaining the intricacies of driving are interspersed with the shots of Angels — grid girls who, as grid girls do, wear skimpy clothes and are supposed to serve as eye candy. But in a show like that, the cars themselves, the thrill you get from seeing them speeding on the straight and slide perfectly through the curve with the ear-shattering wheezing of wheels is what serves as an eye-candy, and these pantsu shots of girls who cannot be even called pantsu shots, because that's all the clothes the girls are wearing, aside from a crop-top, break the pace and destroy the mood. They take the viewer's attention away from the chilling tension of the races and feel extremely out of place.
The shift of the focus ruins the mood
You can't say that Initial D was devoid of fanservice, but the way it was incorporated in this story was much more organic, and when the story was focusing on the humans outside of cars and races, it was exploring their behavior rather than zooming on their specific body parts.
The racing aspect of MF Ghost is amazing: the speed is palpable, even if you watch it on a small screen, the tension can be cut with a knife, but the transition from street racing to legal racing and all its attributes is what breaks the magic that made us adore Initial D. And this legalized fanservice is one of the aspects that is at fault at this.