From the get go the main downside of the show is the lack of originality in it, and I'm not talking about the racing/street racing/whatever racing aspect of the show, but the characters, the premise, the stakes and the structure itself. Didn't read the manga as to be honest reading a racing manga feels quite boring without the noise and animations. So I'm mostly going blind here.
This time around MC is a hot genius racing driver who is mixed Japanese (which implies the hot aspect if you aren't aware) that travels to Japan to take part in MFG racing and in the background to search for his father that left him and his mother in the past. He meets a girl who is very hot but somehow nobody recognizes her without her MFG attire and MC has a low boiling romance going on in-between. Generally speaking the rest of the cast matters very little. You have a mechanic who gives you Initial D flashbacks of "he can't do it", "how can he do it" in the background. Senpai who is average but tries hard and is there to be a medium explaining basic things to the audience and the rest of the cast who are unimportant at all. Generally speaking the only people you might recognize you will remember because of Initial D which might be the whole point.
Is the fan service done well? Mostly it is. It portraits what characters have been doing since the Initial D era in a rather adequate manner. The thing is though that MFG doesn't work if you remove the Initial D part out, it won't be able to stand on it's own.
Does it make even remotely any sense when you drive a GT86 with some suspension tuning against a 911 GT3, GTR and so on on a track that is twice as long as Nordschleife and end up somehow remotely close to them? Fuck no. A GT86 is 1.45 minutes slower than any of those cars when all of them are driven by drivers who know them in or out. Double that for the track length and this sounds as stupid as you can imagine when with the help of magic powers, internal genetic genius and the training by Lord himself (Fujiwara) he will push this slow can beyond the limit.
All of this worked fine in the illegal street racing scene of the 80-90s' where you had cars that had an adequate amount of tuning ran by amateurs with not that much tech and horsepower involved on the tights mountain roads. But the premise itself shows us professional drivers who run specifically prepared vehicles without a budget limitation. This shit simply doesn't work.
Is the romance good at least? Well.. In 12 episodes there barely was any and if it goes like this nothing significant will happen by the end of 24. But if you remove all the chicks this show will simply end up 12 episodes of cars driving around without much going on.
The only part that I should mention is that MC is so perfect that all chicks in Japan go wet whenever he enters their vicinity. Which is annoying.
Initial D was a relatable show and I speak as someone who was tuning cars, building them and had to earn what I spent. You would get typical characters, typical jokes and typical outcome. But MFG is as relatable as watching Goodwood festival.
Will I keep watching it? Yeah why not, but unless there is a major shift in story and overall production the outcome will be the same.
