Frankly my favorite seasonal of Fall 2023, by a mile. And that's saying something considering how great a show like Frieren is in Fall.
I feel like prefacing this by saying this completely clear, yet somehow still ignored, fact.
Overtake is NOT Initial D/MF Ghost, nor is it trying to be, and thus, it's not fair to compare them with each other, as both shows are completely different
How, you ask? Well, here are some examples I can list off of the top of my head:
-Overtake's story is character driven, Initial D/MF Ghost's story is narrative driven, a very poor narrative, but a narrative nonetheless.
-Characters in Overtake have nuance and a dynamic relationship between others, as well as inhibiting well written themes that are relevant to the story. Initial D/MF Ghost...has none of that, all the characters are static, and they only form relationships to satisfy the plot. Hell, it might not even satisfy that.
-Overtake is focused on open wheel circuit racing. Initial D/MF Ghost is mountain road street racing.
-Overtake is realistic, Initial D/MF Ghost isn't.
-Overtake is sponsored by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the governing body for all European motorsports, F1 included), Initial D/MF Ghost is the machinations of someone who thinks what racing is.
-Overtake's artstyle is well drawn. Initial D/MF Ghost has an artstyle that is stuck in the 80s and modern animators have to work hard to make it not ugly.
-And lastly Initial D/MF Ghost has Eurobeat, and Overtake doesn't. So I suppose that's the dealbreaker for why they prefer those two shows compared to Overtake.
I'd honestly go far as to say Overtake is what a proper racing anime should be. A narrative driven and executed by characters with their own personal motivations, goals, fears, troubles and developments. With some good old racing on the side, which I think is great, even if somewhat limited in the CG animation and music.
But more than that, it's the first modern anime to depict not only realistic racing, but how racing works outside the track. The protagonists and their cast of side characters constantly have to struggle with the financial side of motorsports and how the sport itself is a bottomless money pit that can only be filled if: A) You git gud enough to win. B) Get sponsors to help you fill that pit enough to support yourself for an entire season. Contrast that to the team of the antagonists, Belsorisso, who have enough money to run in other racing categories, fully equipped and trained teams to keep the cars running and maintained, as well as a driver's program, and you can see clearly in the first few episodes how the odds are stacked against the protagonists. It has moments that are realistic in racing, and for that, I applaud it for.
I also applaud it for how it doesn't indulge in the racing unlike other contemporaries. It takes the risk of letting us know the characters and their own motivations, beliefs, and goals and I think it does that pretty well. It's genuinely thrilling and relatable stuff, and it makes all the moments that they do race hit that much harder. Haruka isn't a generational prodigy that drove to deliver tofu. He's a kid motivated to see what his father saw in racing with friends that knew him. And all the other characters have that kind of level of nuance and depth added that makes it compelling to watch even further.
Along with themes I mentioned previously about how hard it is to get to motorsports without good financial backing, you deal with themes like loss, trauma and how it affects someone's passion/profession, the pressure added by others to perform, and the need to prove yourself of greatness. It's all rather compelling and it's pretty amazing on how it manages to be on a well paced story of 12 episodes.
Would I recommend this to someone though? For a fan of racing and a good story, of course. But to your average weeb who might not/won't be interested in racing? I don't know, it's a hard sell.
To it's credit, the show does an amazing job of conveying racing lingo and knowledge to someone who doesn't know it. Hell, one of the two protagonists is basically that, an absolute clueless guy who doesn't know the first thing about racing. But it's honestly hard still to recommend it, especially when it's not something like Initial D. And it's a seasonal, so if it's not popular like Frieren, Bocchi The Rock, or Dress Up Darling, it'll get forgotten, as is the nature of most seasonals.
Still though. For me, this is the best seasonal for Fall 2023, and I wouldn't have it any other way. This won my heart from the moment it was teased, and if this somehow opens the door for more racing anime, fictional or grounded in realism, I'll be more than happy to say I was there when it first started.
I just hope the animation teams come packing with money because I'm sure having all these sponsors and licenses cost a pretty penny, and that's not including the FIA's official sanctioning, which I'm sure put a hole in their budget.</div>
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