As you also should know, Fire Forces is a FAR cry from the masterpiece Soul Eater was. Soul Eater had magnificent characters, setting, and story. It truly was ahead of its time. Almost a decade later, I can confidently look back and say that it's still a very good piece of work. But what about Fire Forces? Despite being released in 2019, I really do feel like it was released back in 2011, when Soul Eater was first released because it's so backwards.
I'd like to mention that Soul Eater had much better art, even though it's a lot older than Fire Forces. Unfortunately, that has all to do with the animation budget, as I know that the manga artstyle is consistent with Soul Eater's, and it's just the anime slacking.
However, the thing I hate the most is definitely the characters, and that can't be written up as bad adaptation. Damn, these characters drag the story through the mud. Alright, MC is this very cut and paste sort of "tragic" protagonist that has to figure out the past, and also has a unique power/history. But hey, you don't expect much from shounen MC's, so I'll give that a pass. The other characters, however, do not get a free pass. Random fanservice characters, boring villains, and an overall copy paste main cast at the 8th company. While the 8th company certainly isn't bad, (I found Arthur to be actually quite good) you'd wish that there was something more different, I guess. But of course, the other characters at the other companies and the villains of the story are just so basic. I mean, seriously. The non 8th company characters look like they were actually just taken from some obsolete 2002 shounen one-shot that didn't get high enough ratings to get serialized. Random fan-service girl, glasses guy, "gorilla" girl (you'll be hearing that a lot), and overly righteous captain. All in all, pretty basic. The comic routine is also pretty basic, but I can also say the same for Kimetsu no Yaiba, so it's not exactly the reason why this show is bad.
I'll admit, the OVERALL story is quite unique and not bad by any means. Comparable to Soul Eater? No, but certainly close to the quality of it. The setting is also pretty good. I like the story and setting that comes out of this anime. Firefighters fighting against supernatural fire demons? A unique spin on the "demon/spirit slayer" genre, that's for sure. But it's really not the story or setting that is particularly bad, it's everything else.
Also, despite the story having a great start-- the mystery of the MC's past certainly isn't bad--,the current sequence of storyline is very linear and feels quite rushed. The story arcs are very predictable and as a result, boring. Despite having the 8th company as the main actors in the beginning story arcs, the anime still is boring because the story arcs are just that bad.
Last note about the characters. And I really hate it when this happens. The 8th company feels like they have a moral high ground to be straight up crashing into a base and forcefully taking research documents. The audience is given the perspective that they are the good guys and that the 5th company are the bad guys. In reality, it's just that the perspective is done that way, but looking at it on a neutral viewpoint, the MC's company can't be said to be on the righteous side. Just looking at the sequence of events, the 8th company doesn't seem to have that much of a moral high ground. A motivation of "I can't believe they would make a joke about harming pedestrians" is NOT an actual cause to fight under the banner of righteousness. Seriously, the author had to be stretching the plot thin for that to be a form of incentive for the MC to fight the "bad guys."
And finally, my last gripe about this show is the "fighting." People are fighting amongst other people, but there isn't the actual threat of death. Even the villains don't really fight to kill, but to incapacitate or to make conversation. I know that bad shounen shows love to do this, and Fire forces is no different. Demon Slayer, one piece, Naruto, SOUL EATER, etc, all have their fights to the death, but I really don't see it with Fire Forces.
And so, that led me to drop this series. The combination of an overall weak cast of characters paired along with dull storyline arcs do not compel me to watch more, despite me having a slight interest in the mystery of the fire forces unit and the MC. And Obviously, is this show actually terrible? No, but it certainly isn't great. I wouldn't recommend watching it, but it's honestly still watchable.
