Review of Fire Force

"Fire Force" is a fun watch that does a great job encapsulating the themes and emotions of actual fire fighting, without actually doing any real fire fighting. Anyone that has been a fire fighter for a decent amount of time has seen some horrendous things. As the show mentions in a lot of their openings, death by fire is one of the most feared ways to die as it is the most painful and agonizing way. Most firefighters have to see that death firsthand. Despite having this trauma, firefighters continue with the profession as they hope to save people from thishorrendous fate and ease the pain of the family members of those they cannot save.

The show itself is kind of like a rollercoaster. It starts off sluggish as it has has to give Shinra's backstory (mostly through flashbacks), but once the premise of the show is set, it's like it can't stay in one spot for any amount of time (for better or for worse). Each character is overflowing with personality and determination (except for Tamaki, which is just there for comic relief).

This show does get mislabeled as a "fan-service" anime. Yes, there is fanservice (mostly by Tamaki), but it's actually really sparse in the show (especially compared to actual fan-service anime like High School DxD and Heaven's Lost Property). The problem the show has it that it utilizes fan-service during very serious plot-altering battles in the show. It does help lighten the mood of some dark scenes, but it can also be objectively seen as tactless and shameful.

Not to spoil any events in the show, I was actually really excited to see Edo period Japanese firefighting tools and techniques brought up in the show. The show actually shows "matoi" (Japanese firefighting flags) to warn civilians of the fire site. The show also uses matoi as weapons, which isn't historically accurate, but is still cool nonetheless. Firefighters of the Edo period would also tear down surrounding (mostly bamboo and wood) houses instead of fighting the fire directly, as they didn't have access to high-pressure water pumps. This gets shown in the show as well.

Overall, Fire Force is a really fun watch with entertaining characters. If you are a fire fighting history buff, there is a lot to love, as there are a lot of homages to current and past techniques and tools.