Story:
After the Great Cataclysm some time ago, the world has been burned and split apart, and a new phenomenon known as 'Spontaneous Human Combustion' rears its ugly head as out of nowhere, people start exploding into flames and become creatures known as Infernals. To combat this, a special force of firefighters known as the 'Fire Force' was formed, armed with soldiers of different 'generations' capable of different forms of pyrokinesis. After an incident in his youth involving the death of his mother and the disappearance of his little brother, Shinra Kusakabe arrives as a hero of justice and swears to keep his promise to his late mother of finding and keeping his brother safe.
The biggest boon of Fire Force is the series's vast amount of worldbuilding and its corresponding mystery elements, as each arc of the series introduces new (and quirky) characters while gradually moving itself towards the series's goals. The worldbuilding is extremely solid, outlining the different limitations on the various generations of pyrokinetics, as well as the structure of the Fire Force Companies themselves, escalating to the later terms of Adolla Burst and the different levels of Infernals. My favorite is really the limits of what constitutes as 'Pyrokinesis'. Each character wields 'fire' in a different way, sometimes just resulting to them manipulating thermal dynamics and heat to formulate their various powers, even if some of these powers need some hard liberties to be taken into consideration.
In order to explain all of that though, the series falls on some VERY strict arc setups with many of the show's stories focusing a new character in one event, adding them to the 8th Fire Force Company's cause, then repeating the same plotline a couple times over again, about five times before the show's planned two cours are finished. By in large, this story setups services the story VERY well and puts the worldbuilding on an even pace that helps keep the show's intrigue and juggled plot elements in line without seeming like a confusing mess. But because of that, Fire Force feels very ordinary; nothing really all that exciting since it falls back on such a reliable and safe cookie-cutter method that doesn't try enough to go beyond this particular formulaic shonen story style. As a result, the plot ends up feeling predictable with not enough twists or wrenches I feel that give the show enough of a kick to rope the viewer in to wanting more from it.
The show's comedy also often sticks up in the most awkward of times. Usually in moments of tension, stupid aspects of the characters involved or some quip makes its way on the battlefield and gets rid of any amount of serious context the show had prior, which variably sours the show's viewing experience or boosts it depending on who is involved when.
All of this results in an ending for (what I believe is) the first season to be...subpar, at best. The series basically powercreeping itself at what's possible with fire/heat manipulation at the very end because...reasons, and the last episode resulting in being a massive loredump that sets itself up for a part two doesn't really sit right with me. Fire Force as a whole benefits far more from its interesting setup rather than its story, and having the former rather than the latter only gave me reason to watch the show for its lore rather than its characters or plot. "Bringing about the Apocalypse" stories don't really do it for me either, but that really was only the cherry on the top for a series that relied exclusively on the same arc type in order to tell its story.
Characters:
Branded as the Devil for gaining the nervous tic of smiling whenever he was nervous, Kusakabe Shinra is a boy who wishes to become a 'Hero of Justice' and help people as a way to stave off that bad image of himself. Beyond that of course is keeping his promise to his mother that he would find his brother, Sho, and bring him home safely. With only the ability to shoot fire from his feet, Shinra is an interesting protagonist due to how close he keeps these character traits as well as how commonly he repeats himself when explaining what his purposes in life are. Unfortunately, his character remains pretty static because of this since none of his goals have actually been achieved or met, which ends up becoming a common thematic amongst the rest of the cast.
The biggest example of that comes in the form of Shinra's Lancer, Arthur. (Though I guess in this case, he's more of a Saber.) Randomly coming into the series early on, Arthur describes himself as a knight, his plasma cutter is called Excalibur, and he will make sure you know this fact throughout the rest of the series. That's it. That's his entire character. The best the series does to elevate his character is through the use of jokes and comedic moments involving his stupidity and stature as a knight, though it gets old really fast because having one character have half his lines claiming that he's 'a knight' barely constitutes as a character to begin with.
Unfortunately, much of the recurring cast follow a similar character structure. Maki constantly beats those that she thinks calls her a 'Cyclops Gorilla' and adores her little fire sprites, Tamaki always ends up in fanservice scenarios because reasons, Captain Obi always thinks of the good of the people, and the Lieutenant always has some weird hat. The style of character writing Atsushi Okubo does slowly fizzle away as more and more characters of varying importance get introduced, but the more prominent ones always seem to have this strange need of needing to repeat the same things over and over again as if to remind themselves of what their character is.
The antagonists fare a little better due to a majority of their character traits bordering obsession and other heretical aspects, but usually all fall under the umbrella of the 'Evangelist' and the desire to burn the world (again) and create the world anew. Which, not really quite sure how that works, but sure, apocalypse is fine.
Aesthetics:
Thanks to the power of the Jojo people, Fire Force comes off as a clear, stylistic show that really comes into its own. Due to the expansive worldbuilding of the series, the combination of religious imagery with industrialized/scrappy buildings give the Empire of Japan a unique look to the setting of the series. My favorite little detail are the blue rings on the heavy jackets of the Fire Soldiers. They provide a nice contrast to scenes swathed in red and orange, and stand out to give scenes a bit of color when there just sometimes aren't any due to the scene being dark or because of some other reason.
Character design also deserves praise, as each character has a unique aspect to them that gives them readability even if names don't come to mind. Shinra's shark-like teeth, Haumea's crown-like visor, and Tamaki's awful excuse for a combat outfit (literally just a bra) are several examples that come to mind, and the different silhouettes are things that I definitely appreciate. Atsushi Okubo's style of character closeups where we see characters' faces from very weird (and creepy) angles also comes back, which is at least on-brand to say the least.
Animation is also one of the series's strong points, as the waves upon waves of fire that spray and burn the series's landscapes and battlegrounds really create a spectacle to watch. The sound design for these scenes where laser sounds and crunches in addition to typical whooshes and crackles really help elevate the action. Shinra's ability to spurt fire only from his feet are a main contributor to how good the animation can be, as his fighting style lends itself to creating action from all angles involving both the air and ground.
Of the four opening and ending tracks, Mrs. Green Apple's "Inferno" stands out to me as the best of what the series got with its ED sister of 'Veil' standing out as a close second due to it contrasting the upbeat energy of its rivaling OP. The high energy of Inferno feels like a 'Shonen' song just fits with the overall thematic of Shinra and the bouncing comedic tone of Fire Force. It's one of those songs that I didn't think I would give much care for at first, but quickly became one of my favorites of the season and definitely has an interesting memorability factor to it that I didn't expect.
coldrain's "Mayday" by contrast is a song that...I'm not that big a fan of. Honestly, with this song being metal, I'm not surprised it attracts the niche audience it does. I don't know why there's a decent count of shows that get a metal song as its second OP, but hey I guess that's just how the industry works. Definitely a recommendation for metalheads, but not really anyone else if they're not a fan of the genre. Lenny code fiction's "Nounai" feels almost like a callback to the first OP and is definitely the least memorable of the four tracks. It's decent, but it's kinda generic, especially when comparing to the other tracks of the series.
Personal Enjoyment:
I remember watching Soul Eater so many years ago and finding it...not really my cup of tea. The way that Atsushi Okubo did characterization really boiled down to a number of the series's cast audibly repeating the same lines that explained their characters over and over again ad nauseam and I felt really tired finished the series because I didn't feel enough for the characters to really care about whether or not they succeeded in the end. Where they were living in because of the stylistically drawn setting and soul-eating concepts were drastically more interesting by comparison.
Fire Force falls on a very similar spectrum where the potential and intrigue of the world vastly outdoes the execution and plot of the series, leading the end result of the series to feel like it's good, but lacks something in order to complete it. Watching Fire Force, I always felt the want to learn more about the series due to the interesting concepts and the mystery of 'Spontaneous Human Combustion', but not enough to really care when I was going through episodes since after the loredump, there wasn't really anything that kept me gripped into the series. Interesting character concepts are lost when there's not much to anyone aside from a small bullet pointed list, and the slow, uneventful crawl to the end with the last episode left a bad taste in my mouth since it's clear they're revving up for a second season, so they can't do anything drastic or else it's doing too much too fast.
As such, my recommendation for Fire Force really falls to those either interested in a new shonen series to get their fix, or those who really, really liked Soul Eater. The two series have way too many similarities that can't be ignored, and I lament having to compare the two together since I kind of wanted something new instead of a rehash of something I've already seen with a new coat of paint on it. Fire Force is still a serviceable show that does have a lot of great points to it, but nothing about it is monumentally groundbreaking, which to me means that it ultimately squandered its potential.
