Review of Fire Force

I say this as a major Fire Force fan: This will not be everyone's cup of tea. I always tell people you have to get to episode 6 before you can really judge if you're gonna like it or not. It's not that the first few episodes are bad, they're just not very gripping. They're kind of derivative of other anime tropes, but there are interesting concepts. It doesn't really pick up the pace until around episode 4, but even then I would say viewers should get through episode 6 to really see what the show is about, because at that point the story beginsto scratch the surface of the main themes the show will follow.

Some of its cons are the fan service, particularly surrounding Tamaki (whom I despise), is incredibly forced and destroys any tension. But I noticed that after Tamaki showed up, the fan service mostly revolves around her so the other female characters are allowed to stand on their own without being the subject of oversexualization. I mean, this is Fire Force we're talking about so they do get longing stares occasionally but it's not as egregious as with Tamaki. I always tell people to just roll their eyes through those parts because they're inevitable, but you don't have to let them ruin the scene for you. And at some point, the men get a decent amount of fan service. Some of the characters and plot beats are a bit derivative. Every single character without fail has their "thing." Hinawa has terrible fashion sense, Hibana calls everyone "gravel," Obi bodybuilds, just to name a few examples. Some character's "things" are more prominent than others which can lead to one dimensional characters, but the people in the main and supporting cast are fairly well developed. Not complex by any means, but developed enough to be considered actual characters. The only downside to this is that the manga included character profiles and I wish the info from those got better incorporated into the story. Some of the small things like favorite foods and their "self-proclaimed" titles would have added just a little more depth to the characters in small ways.

With that said, it took me until the point I mentioned above to realize I liked the show, but what kept me going was the world building. The way religion is incorporated into the world is done really well to the point where I would guess the original author was probably Christian/Catholic, or at least spiritual. And the way the series uses fire as its base power is really interesting. You can tell the author spent a lot of time building pyrokinesis out into all of these interesting abilities. There are some powers where my kneejerk reaction is "That's kind of stupid," but then the characters explain how their ability works and it not only makes sense, but it's really really cool. Some of my favorite abilities come from the characters Hinawa, Sho, Yona, and Maki. But all the individual abilities are so memorable and unique to the characters that you likely won't get them mixed up with one another despite them all being fire powers. The themes of the show really shine with the world building and eventually the story gets to be really interesting. For me personally, this show is awesome, but I definitely understand why some people DNF'd it. But if you DNF'd before episode 6, I recommend giving it another shot.