What we see here is a show with an interesting premise, superb action,fair world-building, decent characters, attempts at comedy and fan service. A promising action/comedy shonen that should have been way more than it is.
I'll elaborate more on each topic respectively,
Starting with the action and world-building, to me it felt like this was the strongest part of the show.
The combat and fight scenes ( especially the arc with Capt. Benimaru ) are very well done. I really took note of the way they imagined the sounds effects.The sound an adolla link makes, the sound when a plasma blade scrapes a demon's horn,the absolute thicc bass when a demon is obliterated, all sound exactly like they should. That being said it's not always like that. Some fight scenes inject comedy into them in a very tone deaf way, shows can handle comedy and action and even comedy during action without completely disrupting the tone that they set( Mob Psycho is a brilliant example).Other fight scenes sometimes don't take their time to really make the viewer understand the dynamic of the fight, and sometimes they are straight up disappointing. Every fight scene involving Dr. Giovanni turns into a lame version of him being inspector gadget.
The captivating mysteries surrounding the flames and the truth behind the incidents is what kept me watching. However, the show was so hesitant to let me have answers in a consistent fashion. Many other details like the life style of the civilians, the shift in work force , how society adapted to this change are all left for the viewer to speculate upon. There are certain aspects of the special fire force and their lives that the show touches upon but that's about as far as it goes.Most of the reveal happens during the last few episodes in a rushed manner to give the next season some steam.
The character design in this show is very cool, Captain Burns is like a pyro version of solid snake from the metal gear series, Dr. Giovanni looks like a plague doctor etc,although I wish they did more with these characters. They give some characters quirks and quips but no real personality.As of the ending of the first season we still don't know the identity of the antagonist or even the purpose of characters like Joker.The show has a sizeable cast but doesn't give them the time to breathe and make the audience take notice of any of them.The last thing is the women.It's disappointing that this show has no impressive female characters.Look, i'm not the kind of person who catalogs anime based on whether or not a show has a female cast, it can have 0 female members or an all female cast as long as they serve a purpose.The purpose here seems to be to fetishize a fit girl, a shy girl, a dominatix, a neko girl etc and that's why it's disappointing.
Lastly, Comedy and fanservice. I have intentionally clubbed these two together because most the comedy in the show is fanservice in disguise or running gags like "gorilla cyclops" and Arthur isn't smart.They quickly lose their charm.
The comedy is pretty hit or miss ( I guess they sometimes miss huh), its a lot of "How dare you touch me there,b-baka" moments.The fanservice in this show is in so much excess that I just simply skipped over them ,which is saying a lot coming from a perv like me.
At the beginning of the show, I fully expected that I would rate this very high,but as it went on and I saw more and more shonen tropes,stale jokes,more questions than answers,"oops,I somehow became naked again" scenes and sometimes straight up bullshit that it started cutting into my enjoyment of the show.Things that were used to make a show lively when nothing much was happening were starting to butt into sceen during important scenes/fights/explanations in a way that feels odd.My rating gradually got lower and lower finally landing at a high 5 or a low 6.
