Review of Fire Force

Fight Fire with Fire. That's probably overused...I visited this anime before (around the time of airing) due to it's sheer amount of popularity but I didn't end up finishing the first episode. I have a thing against anime characters with fangs and the main character, Shinra, has them. He has a bit of an evil smile too. I'm just not into those sadistic mains even if they make up for it in the battlefield. But because I didn't finish it, I never got to notice that they actually give a reason for it in the plot. He smiles when he's nervous, it's involuntary, in fact, hesays that he hasn't smiled for real in a long time. As for the fangs, that's apparently a family thing, he's a 3rd generation fire user and that makes them super powerful. He doesn't like that he has an evil smile, he doesn't like being called "Devil", and in a way he's trying to wash himself in the flames to make up for the way he is by being a hero. I find a sense of nobility in that. Shinra is feeling horrible about himself at first and maybe they are just calling him "devil" and that's a horrible thing on its own but it also matters 'who' calls you that. Someone I knew went through the same thing and it really messed with them and I know if someone kept calling me that, it would mess with me too. But he's no devil.

What made me come back to this series? Well, I actually believe it was Maki...I saw her in the first episode but she was all geared up, I didn't know how much of a bad-a she actually is and I kept seeing appreciation posts of her for her alleged "return" we'll see when we get there but yeah I restarted Fire Force because I saw a potential waifu, ok?!

I'm not the only one though, that's actually one problem I have with this show, they have some pervy moments. Most anime do, don't get me wrong, I'm aware but there are ones for gags and then there are the impossible ones. A popular example I like to make is from Fuuka where they share a jacket and for some reason Fuuka forgets that Haruna's in the jacket too so she tries to run the other way and brings Haruna and herself crashing down into the sand and somehow defy gravity and all laws of physics and Haruna's hand ends up in Fuuka's shirt as they fall. Yeah, there's some of that here especially with Tamaki but at least they're aware of it, Shinra even says so like "She's an exception when it comes to the laws of physics." at least they can joke about it.

With that, the premise is a bit of a mix of firefighting and exorcism which I can tell adds some heart to it. They fight these people that suddenly "combust" and become creatures called "Infernals" which is kind of like Promare and for those who saw my review of that, I liked the animation but I found the plot and characters stale. This series format fixes that initial problem I had with Promare while still keeping the premise because it has time to flesh out the story and its characters. The animation is the best part too, it's HOT.

Now remember how I mentioned about Shinra's repentance? Well that's further explored through Obi, who's kind of the moral compass as well as leader of Company 8, he probably has some of the best moments. With that, there's a sort of Christian or Catholic presence shown with all the crosses, churches, stained glass, and even crusader clothes which I have mixed feelings about since I'm also a Christian. The messages and themes seem to follow that trend which I really love but then they start talking about "Sol" which is a Sun diety (Roman) and there's a whole thing surrounding that where some people believe it, some people don't, and it formed some sort of cult? It's a sort of weird thing for me because it shows one thing but says another, not sure how I feel about that especially since this is only season 1. The ending doesn't exactly finish the story, it's more just getting started so we'll see if it ages well and maybe I'll visit S2.