Sunday, September 8, 2019

Fire Force - Fighting Fire with Fire

Fire Force is an anime series based on the manga written and illustrated by Atsushi Okubo that was published by Kodansha since September 23, 2015. For those unfamiliar with Atsushi he is the mangaka responsible for making the hit manga and anime Soul Eater. 


Unlike Soul Eater however the anime Fire Force will be produced by David Production, an animation studio known for anime such as BEN-TO, The Book of Bantorra and the Jojo animated series among others. Oh and minor also spoilers on this one as well.


In a not so specified future exist the Fire Force, a group of Fire Fighting Soldier who fight Infernals. Nobody knows how the Infernals come to be aside from they are former humans that turn into fire creatures often hell bent on killing and destruction. Here Shinra Kusakabe joins Special Fire Force Company 8 to help stop these Infernals but soon finds a lot more than what he bargained for.


The great part about Fire Force as a story is that despite starting off as your typical shonen series it stirs away from the typical monster of the week cliche and concentrates moving the plot along. It chooses to dive into the character and the mystery surrounding the Infernals itself rather than jumping from one Infernal monster fight to another making the story tight and fast paced.


The animation is done well, specially the fight scenes. You can easily tell what was going on despite how fast pace a lot of the fights could get. Sure the animation quality drops on certain scenes and some scenes could probably cut out that didn't add much to the plot or story as a whole but overall the action scenes hold the show enough to make each episode as entertaining as it is. It not perfect but it sure as heck a lot better than most of the shonen series out there now.


The character development in Fire Force is nicely done as you learn about each characters strength and weaknesses as all of the main character has their time to shine as the story progresses. Some of the minor characters have short battle scenes but these short scenes is enough to make each of them memorable. Like how for example they show Maki incredible athleticism, strength without her being too OP and annoying.


The music is decent enough although not as memorable as I have hoped it to be. Still the visuals during that accompany the music whether it be the opening or when there's a big fight is good enough to balance everything making for an exciting sound and visual spectacle. if I was to compare I'd say the music is something you would expect on an action shooter game.


As much I'd love to praise this anime, Fire Force isn't perfect. There are some scenes that appears a bit rushed and at times feels out of place that it makes the flow of the story detached. "Remember that big fight we had yesterday where some of us nearly died? We are going to act like it didn't happen and just mention just to get some sort of continuity going." The character seem to be going into one big fight after another in a span of just a day. I know they are all tough but it just seem unrealistic in terms of story pacing.


Also all the characters look the same with the same fireman inspired outfit. Sure it's a unit uniform but would it kill the series to make the characters a bit more different? Most of them are all covered up with minor character design differences. And the one that actual looked different is a fire neko girl Tamaki with a bikini that looks like a rip off of Black Rock Shooter. Why? Fan service of course. And one of Tamaki trait is accidentally landing into perverted situations because...clumsy?


Then there's even a scene where the girls bond together in a shower. Then they have this nun looking like girl Iris take a shower for reason while she goes into some flashback scene. I get the flashback idea but to do it while she's taking a bath definitely more fan service than story. Seriously I like fan service as much as the other guy but they could have at least done it in a more sensible way. But I guess this flaw is minor compared to how good the series is.


Overall Fire Force is a really entertaining anime. Sure it has pacing issues and a lot more fan service than what is probably necessary for shows of this caliber but pass all that it is a solid series with good character and plot development to make nearly any shounen fan happy. If you are a fan of Soul Eater, shounen anime  and love a good action anime with a somewhat deep story and don't mind the extra fan service then this is definitely a series you should watch.





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