FIRE FORCE. I love self-explanatory titles. It saves me from having to describe what the show isabout. There is fire and a force that stops it – pretty self-explanatory. Sure, it’sa bit more complicated than that, but we’ll come back to it. Fire Force is an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Atsushi Ōkubo, who, afterspending ten years writing Soul Eater, decided to switch gears and focus on one of the greatestelements known to man: fire. This time, rather than a group of kids whoteam up to fight witches and the like, we instead have a group of kids who team up toLITERALLY fight fire with fire. Fire is, of course, the world’s great solution.There are very few problems that fire can’t solve! Bad hair day? Paper jam in the printer? Light the paper on fire, no more paper jam.Currently on fire? Add more fire and it’ll eventually grow, use up all the local oxygenand snuff itself out. Problem solved. Of course with this being an action shounen, that’snot the route they take. In the world of Fire Force, a new phenomenonmakes random citizens occasionally burst into flame, becoming demon-like beings called Infernals,and it’s up to the new specialized fire defence companies to rush in and defeat thethreat in a timely but humane way. So humane, in fact, that they bring along a priestessto pray for the souls of the recently enflamed.
very Chrono Crusade of them. Not that anybody gets that reference... Unlike a traditional fire department, the Fire Companies are made up of pyrotechnichumans, people who have gained fire controlling abilities instead of just combusting themselves.Their abilities vary wildly, from straight up fire control, to wielding plasma in bladeform, to just having jet feet and giving the Infernals a good ol’ boot to the head. Andthey all have their unique personality traits that set them apart: one whose switch betweentsun and dere is on a hair trigger, a protagonist who smiles with shark teeth when he’s nervous,and OH. MY. GOD. WHY IS THIS GUY CALLED ARTHUR, AND WHY DOESHE CALL HIS PLASMA BLADE EXCALIBUR?! Okubo, you did the King Arthur reference last timewith one of the most annoying anime characters in existence! Just go and write for the Fate Franchise already!Jeeze! So the overall goal of the series is for usto watch the cool fire-centric powers of the protagonists, the Infernals, and the othervillains who will inevitably be introduced as the Infernals probably get moved to cannonfodder status.
We also get to try to piece together the show’s great mystery of wherethe Infernals come from, what happened in our protagonist’s past, and what conspiracyties it all together. It’s also cool that our protagonist is called Shinra, so I canmake FF7 references and not sound out of place. Shinra’s family ended up being burned todeath in a fire that coincided with the appearance of his powers, however both he and the storyat large doesn’t place the blame on that as the cause for their deaths. Instead, there’sa lot of nebulous inferences that there’s something far more sinister going on and noone wants to talk about it, not even the firefighter that saved his life as a child. But it’s hard to get a grip on what’s going on so far. There’s a lot about what’shappening that’s been left purposefully unclear. Thankfully, the production of theseries makes up for a lot. The production is being handled by David Production,of all studios. While I can’t fault the house of JoJo for pretty much anything here,I do have to register my surprise at how well they are emulating Okubo’s style. If I didn’tlook at the production credits for this series, I would have mistakenly bet quite a bit ofmoney that production was being handled over at Bones, considering there is so much ofthe style here that’s identical to their previous work. From an animation standpoint,so much of this show’s style screams that it is from the maker of Soul Eater, yet Boneshas nothing to do with this project, not even for key animation or the like.
It’s actuallyquite impressive that they’ve been able to emulate the style so well. Maybe if thedemand for a Brotherhood-like remake of Soul Eater ever becomes a possibility, David mightbe a viable choice. Sure that’s more of a pipedream.Back to Fire Force though, what’s probably going to happen is that I’m going to dropthe series until it gets some more episodes under its belt. And I know that when I saythe word drop people take it as a negative against the series, but you really shouldn’t.The reason why I would hold off until there’s a decent amount of episodes is because theoverall story is what I’m finding interest in. The cast is so large here that we haven’thad enough time to get to know them and attach ourselves to them. I have no doubt that Iwill eventually find Arthur endearing, but at the moment I can’t stand him being onscreen. Calling in a comparison to Soul Eater, I had this same problem with Black Star. Lovedhim eventually, but couldn’t care less about him at the get-go.So the show is still trying to balance so many plates at once right now. It’s gearingup its overall plot, introducing major and minor antagonists, while also trying to giveits rather large main cast time to breathe, and there just hasn’t been enough time forthat. I suppose the show isn’t utilizing its time as well as it could yet. W
haverather large action set pieces that one could argue are a bit overkill for this part ofthe story, but both that and the gratuitous fan service are things that we unfortunatelywould be stupid to expect them to skip over. The action because my god it looks good, andthe fan service because, well, fan service. You think they are going to skip over whatprobably brings them a crap ton of fan interest and sells them a lot of merchandise? I don’tthink so. Speaking of skipping over things though, whileI haven’t talked about OP’s or ED’s lately in my First Reactions, the ED for FireForce is great! That's all I really wanted to say I've had it on loop for awhile, so don’t skip that s**t.In summary, I really do like this show, but considering it’s probably going to havea significant episode length by the time they decide to cut the anime off, Don't think that it's not going to probably happen, it could, it happend before... I don’t think it’s had enough time just yet to fully get up to speed. The action is superb, the productionis top notch, and the story is coming from one of my favourite shounen mangaka.
So while I will highly recommend the series to people, I can also calmly say that I’ll likely putit on hold until next season or so, just to let it build up some steam.Thanks for joining me in this quick discussion. There will be streaming links in the descriptionshould you require them, as well as a 14-day trial from our good friends over at Crunchyrollfor their premium service if you find yourself in need of it. Let me know down in the commentswhat you have been following this season. Hopefully I’ll talk about it in a futurevideo. A big thank you to my patrons, who make these videos possible. Until next time,WATCH MORE ANIME! – and stay frosty everyone.
very Chrono Crusade of them. Not that anybody gets that reference... Unlike a traditional fire department, the Fire Companies are made up of pyrotechnichumans, people who have gained fire controlling abilities instead of just combusting themselves.Their abilities vary wildly, from straight up fire control, to wielding plasma in bladeform, to just having jet feet and giving the Infernals a good ol’ boot to the head. Andthey all have their unique personality traits that set them apart: one whose switch betweentsun and dere is on a hair trigger, a protagonist who smiles with shark teeth when he’s nervous,and OH. MY. GOD. WHY IS THIS GUY CALLED ARTHUR, AND WHY DOESHE CALL HIS PLASMA BLADE EXCALIBUR?! Okubo, you did the King Arthur reference last timewith one of the most annoying anime characters in existence! Just go and write for the Fate Franchise already!Jeeze! So the overall goal of the series is for usto watch the cool fire-centric powers of the protagonists, the Infernals, and the othervillains who will inevitably be introduced as the Infernals probably get moved to cannonfodder status.
We also get to try to piece together the show’s great mystery of wherethe Infernals come from, what happened in our protagonist’s past, and what conspiracyties it all together. It’s also cool that our protagonist is called Shinra, so I canmake FF7 references and not sound out of place. Shinra’s family ended up being burned todeath in a fire that coincided with the appearance of his powers, however both he and the storyat large doesn’t place the blame on that as the cause for their deaths. Instead, there’sa lot of nebulous inferences that there’s something far more sinister going on and noone wants to talk about it, not even the firefighter that saved his life as a child. But it’s hard to get a grip on what’s going on so far. There’s a lot about what’shappening that’s been left purposefully unclear. Thankfully, the production of theseries makes up for a lot. The production is being handled by David Production,of all studios. While I can’t fault the house of JoJo for pretty much anything here,I do have to register my surprise at how well they are emulating Okubo’s style. If I didn’tlook at the production credits for this series, I would have mistakenly bet quite a bit ofmoney that production was being handled over at Bones, considering there is so much ofthe style here that’s identical to their previous work. From an animation standpoint,so much of this show’s style screams that it is from the maker of Soul Eater, yet Boneshas nothing to do with this project, not even for key animation or the like.
It’s actuallyquite impressive that they’ve been able to emulate the style so well. Maybe if thedemand for a Brotherhood-like remake of Soul Eater ever becomes a possibility, David mightbe a viable choice. Sure that’s more of a pipedream.Back to Fire Force though, what’s probably going to happen is that I’m going to dropthe series until it gets some more episodes under its belt. And I know that when I saythe word drop people take it as a negative against the series, but you really shouldn’t.The reason why I would hold off until there’s a decent amount of episodes is because theoverall story is what I’m finding interest in. The cast is so large here that we haven’thad enough time to get to know them and attach ourselves to them. I have no doubt that Iwill eventually find Arthur endearing, but at the moment I can’t stand him being onscreen. Calling in a comparison to Soul Eater, I had this same problem with Black Star. Lovedhim eventually, but couldn’t care less about him at the get-go.So the show is still trying to balance so many plates at once right now. It’s gearingup its overall plot, introducing major and minor antagonists, while also trying to giveits rather large main cast time to breathe, and there just hasn’t been enough time forthat. I suppose the show isn’t utilizing its time as well as it could yet. W
haverather large action set pieces that one could argue are a bit overkill for this part ofthe story, but both that and the gratuitous fan service are things that we unfortunatelywould be stupid to expect them to skip over. The action because my god it looks good, andthe fan service because, well, fan service. You think they are going to skip over whatprobably brings them a crap ton of fan interest and sells them a lot of merchandise? I don’tthink so. Speaking of skipping over things though, whileI haven’t talked about OP’s or ED’s lately in my First Reactions, the ED for FireForce is great! That's all I really wanted to say I've had it on loop for awhile, so don’t skip that s**t.In summary, I really do like this show, but considering it’s probably going to havea significant episode length by the time they decide to cut the anime off, Don't think that it's not going to probably happen, it could, it happend before... I don’t think it’s had enough time just yet to fully get up to speed. The action is superb, the productionis top notch, and the story is coming from one of my favourite shounen mangaka.
So while I will highly recommend the series to people, I can also calmly say that I’ll likely putit on hold until next season or so, just to let it build up some steam.Thanks for joining me in this quick discussion. There will be streaming links in the descriptionshould you require them, as well as a 14-day trial from our good friends over at Crunchyrollfor their premium service if you find yourself in need of it. Let me know down in the commentswhat you have been following this season. Hopefully I’ll talk about it in a futurevideo. A big thank you to my patrons, who make these videos possible. Until next time,WATCH MORE ANIME! – and stay frosty everyone.
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