FIF#97-Fire Force

Year 198 of the Solar Era.  It is an age where anyone can be a potential target for spontaneous human combustion, causing them to turn into monsters known as “Infernals”.  Generations since the first cases appeared, those who can gain fire elemental powers without becoming monsters form the Special Fire Force, an elite unit dedicated to battling all Infernals and trying to discover the secret behind all of the combustions.  As a child, Shinra Kusakabe, a third generation pyrotechnic, was blamed for the death of his mother and younger brother.  But Shinra is convinced something else was there that day, the true murderer.  By joining Special Fire Force Company 8, Shinra will seek to fulfil his dream of becoming a hero…and bringing his mothers killer to justice.

Fire Force is one of the more heavily hyped Anime of 2019.  It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Anime from Atsushi Okubo, the creator of fan favorite Anime Soul Eater.  And that’s kind of what the previews looked like to me: Soul Eater with a lot of fire involved.  After finishing the first episode, I’m wondering if Fire Force can meet the hype, set well in advance of its arrival.  There are a few things that bugged me about it.  But does that make it worthy of dismissal?

It surprises me that people aren’t more panicked about spontaneous combustion.  After all, if turning into a monster suddenly could happen to anyone, you’d think this would be a very distrustful and fearful world to live in.  Thankfully, humanity has a lot more faith in itself and the Fire Force itself does seem like its made up of a good group of inspiring individuals.  As for Shinra, his pretty standard backstory aside, I’m not sure if his neverending smile is going to become endearing or annoying really fast.  Yes there is a genuine reason why he always has his shark smile.  I just hope he doesn’t become the ever needed trump card Fire Force needs to defeat a single foe a la Katsumi from Silent Mobius.  Company 8 does seem capable without Shinra though and are given a good chance to show off the powers of their pyromancers and the tech those without powers use to kick some ass pretty well.

Ok, the one really bothersome thing about the first episode…why is there a priest?  Even Hellsing doesn’t have a priest on standby when hunting vampires.  So why is one needed to basically be on the battlefield without much protection or skill other than to bless the passing of Infernals and the protection of her team?  Does she have some kind of ability that boosts her teammates skills?  WHY?  The worst thing is, the priest in question, Iris, doesn’t seem like a bad character.  She just seems so out of place in a team full of fighters and fire manipulators. 

Something tells me that, like me, if youre going to check out Fire Force, it’ll be because of its visual similarities to Soul Eater.  The premiere is a bit more serious but does have a couple of moments of levity and serves as a good intro for several of the shows main players.  Some characters stood out more than others (either because they’re pretty cool or because you were trying to figure out why there even here in the first place) though Shinra could use more than a backstory copied from The Flash.  Still, Fire Force has potential to be something good, not My Hero Academia good but still decent enough.  We’ll see, I think I’ll let the community check this out and ill watch based on their reactions.