Review of Fire Force Season 2

We all know the timeless adage of "the sequel is in every way", right? Unfortunately for such run-of-the-mill Shounen series a.k.a Fire Force, Season 1 provided mangaka Astushi Oobuko's signature touches from Soul Eater, and it's more cliche boringness with pacing that hurts the first impressions of both anime and manga fans. Fast forward a year later, and with this sequel season, David Production has improved a lot of the shoddy practices with Season 1 by taking them out and replacing them with better pacing and storytelling, How? Let's pursue and SPARK-AGAIN once more. Continuing where Season 1 left off with Shinra findingout the real truth of the dealings of the Evangelist and White-Clads', and as such with the tragic tale of his family and brother Sho (who's pretty much a puppet of the spokesman figure), the hero boy of Company 8 continues to dive deep into the world of Infernals and Adolla Links, and figure out a plan with the other suspicious Companies (not covered yet in Season 1) before the plan of the Evangelist ultimately takes precedence: being to gather the "8 Pillars" of Adolla Bursts to repeat the events of the Great Cataclysm once again, all while clearing out nuisances and stubs along the way.

And right here, where Season 2 has a more grounded back-to-form storyline, is thanks to fellow David Production director Tatsuma Minamikawa who's replacing Season 1 director Yuki Yase, and pulling double-duty with doing both director and series composition duties. Though much-needed slower pacing than Season 1, you can tell that it's following the mangaka's storyline quite well, and although some areas were not quite as succinct as I would hope, at least it's a much better effort that while isn't helping fans both old and new click with and away from the overly-Shounen tropes, it is what it is, and paired together with David Production's stellar quality, makes for a much more enjoyable watch IMO.

New to Season 2 is of course, more characters that may have varying levels of screentime in Season 1, but their character developments are fleshed out for the better. The stories and characters as follows:
- The innocent schoolgirl-turned White-Clad Inka, to the Chinese Peninsula arc of Company 2's Takeru Noto a.k.a Juggernaut's home country and the weird case of talking animals with more Amaterasus/Tabernacles popping in their original case of creepiness.
- More of the elusive and controversial practices of the Holy Sol Temple with Joker and Benimaru's investigations, to the reveal of Victor Licht's spy role that sends Company 8 off to the Haijima Industries arc of child experimentations gone awry with fire wielder Nutaku Son (under the influence of Rekka) and trainer Kurono (dubbed the Uncle Reaper).
- Going deep into the personal stuff with Sister Iris's intentions of the recent happenings and her affiliation with the Church, THAT ONE hilarious but stupid short chapter on Assault and Tamaki's "battle" of fanservice, and Maki's family upbringings that caused a huge family rift of over-protection for such a valuable comrade in Company 8.
- To end things up, Companies 2 and 8 again collaborating in the Nether and facing off the creepy Dr. Giovanni and White-Clads, to more training sessions, along with Juggernaut's and Tamaki's breakthrough of "my character is stupidly weak, so I wanna surpass my limits here and now!" (You can count on the former, but definitely not the latter, unless you want her to thank you in her "Lucky Lecher" syndrome.)
Personally, I found it easier to stomach this season's same 2-cour offering that's densely packed into a fine package that only gets better in its progression. Still not great, but at least everything this time around is refined.

And of course, how can I talk about the sequel season without the animation and OST to back things up. If you know David Production by now, their recent works (and YES, including Season 1, no matter how much love-hate relationship this show gets) have been pretty good and not having the studio commit to more than 2 shows simultaneously airing (plus Fire Force, duh) is a good predicament of the high-octane consistent quality that's being pumped out and giving the animation staff some space to breathe and deliver some amazing scenes and shots throughout. In the sound department though, while Season 1's OST is infinitely better than the offerings we got this time, at least there are some quality songs that are great on repeated listens on Spotify (a.k.a Aimer's "SPARK-AGAIN" and PELICAN FANCLUB's "Desire", but sorry KANA-BOON, "Torch of Liberty" gets a pass from me).

If there's one thing I can take away from this sequel, it's that IMO, Firecat Tamaki's "fanservice" was "birthed out of necessity" for character development, and though haters will lament this, it kinda services as "justice" for the tremendous amounts of hate thrown at her from her very first nauseating reveal in Season 1.

The anime is much recommended over the manga, but that goes without saying how watchers would recommend people for this show to experience Fire Force at its very best. All in all, Season 2 is the definitive version of the show and a definite improvement overall. Certain expectations met or not is up for debates, but I'd like to think that we all know what to expect by now.