Mar 18, 2021
Fire Force is a show that introduced an interesting world, story, and themes, but comes across as childish and fails to resonate any meaning. When watching the show, I felt that if it was intended for a more mature audience, it wouldn't have to hold back as much. Some moments feel very dark for a show like this but they are few and far between all the unfunny comic relief. It doesn't start off strong but gets a little bit better as it goes on.
Characters:
Character development excluding the main character is quite awful. Shinra's development throughout the show is interesting with twists and turns along
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the way. The other characters are painfully static. Their first introductions are pretty much their only development and some of the "villains" only change by becoming friendly to the 8th. No character ever really changes and grows throughout the show (other than Shinra's strength I guess). Shinra claims what he wants to do from the start, while what he overall does changes, he never deviates from "being a hero." While I don't think this was bad for the overall show, I think there were many opportunities to let him question his motives and think in a different way. While conversations with friends about Shinra, his "bland" character is intentional and gets better later in the manga. His character isn't
Comedy:
The comedy of the show follows pretty standard themes for other shonen. I don't think I even smiled at many of the jokes. The worst part of it all though is the off-putting fan-service. Kotatsu, Tamaki is the first character that comes to mind when someone asks "When has fan-service done a show wrong?" Tamaki's character solely exists to be groped and become naked. One of her powers is literally "Lucky Lecher Lure" and does more for her than her other power. There are many shows that do fan-service right, take High School of the Dead for example. That show was able to balance the fight scenes with the service well and it never felt like they clashed. But with FF, it just felt entirely out of place. Whenever a scene involved Tamaki, I honestly felt like just turning it off. It might be a little unfair to compare an ecchi with a shonen of fan-service, but I think that FF stretches itself too far when "adding a little plot." There was also the fight between Arthur and Shinra that served as comic relief but never made any sense and just made them seem excessively childish, which I guess makes sense for a show like this.
Sound:
Overall the sound for the show is pretty good. They do like using a lot of bass drops though during the fights but don't subtract from the overall plot and impact of the fights for me. I think the 2 intros and endings serve the theme nicely and are all decent songs.
Animation:
The animation was fine and nothing overall stuck out for me other than the strange close-ups of people's faces and some weird cuts from the action. The fight scenes were very good and are what give my rating its current value. But something that I didn't like was the second intro's animation. It did not match the song and felt way to slow for a song as fast as MAYDAY. It almost seems like they animated it for another song and changed it last minute.
Overall, I feel the show lacks in many ways because it was unable to decide between a comedy and a dystopia. I wouldn't blame anyone for dropping it early in the season. Some people might be able to find the show more interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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