Takumi's past revealed, which happens to be his future for us. That was hard to go through, no wonder Fumihiro cried seeing a 86 drifting using Takumi's secret technique. So much for all those who called him Gary Stu. (He has plot armor, that's all!)
This episode showed what everyone is capable of, and their weak points too. Beckenbauer and Ishigami's duel consolidated what I said about the Godly Fifteen having many racers who are sheltered rich bois/old men who never had real challenges. It is easy to be a big fish in a small pond, specially with a powerful car bought by moneys.
Meanwhile Kanata keeps surprising, he is a monster in the reverse way of what Takumi used to be at first, after all he is his disciple so we could call him his legacy? Honestly I am really hyped to see how much can he grow.
If something hit me way later than I thought is how lame the ending is, I really miss those ED's Initial D had.
PD: I just decided to stop mentioning the Angels, because it is beating a dead horse.
I completed Initial D First Stage, so now, MF Ghost is "other" anime for me. I had a lot of spoilers for Takumi's future but is really, really cool, see Tanaka as a "new Takumi". They tell the same story but with any kind of unique touch. Man, I so hyped/excited with animes about car lol
Would strongly recommend watching the entire (original, not remakes) Initial D series before watching MF Ghost. Once you get a grasp of basic togue racing culture, you can realize MF Ghost is an absolutely dogshit sequel to Initial D. I'd also recommend Wangan Midnight, but there's not much else besides that to really do car culture justice in the form of anime, sadly.
My life was never the same after watching Initial D. No, I didn't become a racer or anything but It showed me a lot about cars at that time. Eurobeat became a part of my daily life, I started to appreciate even the trashiest of cars (my country is full of economy family vehicles and CRAPPY roads).
In many ways Initial D got me interested in cars way more than the early Fast and Furious movies ever could.
I hope you have a good time watching the show
Still set in the opinion that this is getting worse with every episode. The racing has absolutely no sense of speed, especially in the cabin views of the drivers, completely stoic with no body movement or so much as a bead of sweat on their forehead. Watching this alongside re-watching the original Initial D series, these differences are highly exacerbated.
I've given up on hoping for a race with any cool moments in it, I'm 100% just hate-watching at this point. Initial D and car culture as a whole is truly just a soulless husk of what it used to be, and it will never get better.
If this eternal dogshit race isn't concluded by the next episode, I'm just going to drop this. Even watching on 4x speed is a waste of time.
Ghost is less about spectacle and more about technical pro-racing. And for all your claims you really seem to like more the take Initial D went with, which isn't bad at all. If anything I agree that the cabins takes feel less alive, Initial D showed a lot of actions from the racer, especially when the race itself had a specific like the tape or Hand/Foot of God. In this last episode they showed how Kanata let the accelerator for a while which was a bit more refreshing than just only seeing how they change gears. But again, I don't think MF Ghost it is that bad, just different and the anime is also done by a minor studio who never did anything big either. I am rewatching Initial D too, currently on the end of 4th Stage before Purple Haze race.
for actual technical, pro racing, OVERTAKE's your show—
the amount of things this show has gotten wrong or misrepresents has honestly gotten annoying to me


this is the wrong way around : rear engined cars are good under traction, as the rear-biased weight-distribution adds to the natural squat the suspension undergoes when accelerating hard—it's a byproduct of the car's inertia, but it helps to force the tyres into the pavement & produce more grip
BUT, this reverses under braking & deceleration—the weight shifts forward onto the front axle when braking heavily (which is referred to as dive), and the front brakes handle more of the stopping than the relatively unloaded-rears
with less grip on the rear axle to control the weight of the car/engine's inertia, rear-engined cars can be very nervous & difficult to handle under braking in anything other than a perfectly straight line—the heavy engine wants to keep moving with all its inertia, and can and will spin the car around to keep itself moving