DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionEnen no Shouboutai
MUSIC Psychologicalveil
ANIME ActionEnen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou
MUSICporte
ONA Slice of LifeChiyuki no Fashion Check
ONA ComedyEnen no Shouboutai Mini Anime

REVIEWS

• 

  MatteCrystal

  65/100
  Overall the show does a bad job at making the thoughts and actions of it's characters believable or realistic

  REVIEW AFTER WATCHING UP TO EPISODE 8: 60/100

  Contains spoilers for episode 3 and 5:

  It started off so good with the first 2 episodes but i feel it keeps making decisions that are slowly ruining the series for me. The tipping point for me was the part where Arthur literally was losing because he didn't realize he was using the wrong hand. I mean that is just so stupid and immersion breaking that i can't stand it. I absolutely hate Arthur at this point which is a shame because his character design and power is pretty cool. I honestly thought he was going to be one of my favorite characters originally.

  The second big thing that annoys me about the series is the fact that by episode 3 the different fire fighter companies are basically enemies to the point that they would actually attack one another in life or death scenarios. Like wtf, it doesn't really make sense at all, and to top that off our main characters are just on board for literally invading other fire departments in deadly battle.

  It just doesn't seem very realistic or organic within the world they've built. I think the story would probably be a lot better if they just had a common enemy outside of the other fire departments. Or at the very least if they had implemented the conflict in a way that it felt more believable. For example, atm it seems like all other departments are bad or under suspicion of being bad from the get go. The other departments are painted in a negative light immediately when the story was in the early world building stage. Don't you think it would of been far better to actually slowly get to know these other fire departments and then suddenly have a shocking reveal later in the story that they're actually evil.

  Overall, the show does little to change our preconceived conceptions of how a fire department would work in this world beyond handling the infernals. And due to this the actions taken by our group make no sense and are blow way out of proportion. You would expect them to just respond to calls to put out fires or handle infernals. Instead, we have completely weird things that make no sense happening. Example: "you work at burger king. oh your co worker left in the middle of the night, she must be being held hostage at the other burger king! quick grab your guns and crowbars, lets engage burger king in brutal combat!". When in reality you have no reason to believe she's at burger king nor in any danger so why would you take such actions. This is precisely the situation that happens in episode 5 only replace burger king with super power fire department.

  The production quality is pretty high a number of times but there are also moments that really could of done with some more polish. At this point some major damage has been done to the show which will undoubtedly negatively impact the final score no matter how good the rest of the series may or may not be. Which is unfortunate because the series definitely had potential.

  EDIT AFTER FINISHING SEASON 1: 65/100

  After finishing season 1 my overall opinion hasn't changed much. I decided to up my score from 60 to 65. This show had so much potential great premise for world building, great character design, cool action scenes and superpowers. But it completely tarnishes all this for very lazy, unrealistic, and childish writing. The way the characters react to other characters, the world, and situations they're put in seem unrealistic, uninspired, or flat out stupid. The show does have some great action scenes but it also suffers from very poor animation for the many other aspects of the show Including even some low quality actions scenes, so your not even guaranteed to like all action scenes. IMHO It's better to have animation that is consistently above a certain level and then up the fluidity and intensity for important scenes. Instead Fire force opts more for the late naruto idea of low quality animation for as much as possible across multiple and then all budget on one scene. Sure the scene might be cool but everything inbetween is so unengaging that it's hard to watch.

  The last few episodes with the main end of season encounter with main character and bad guy X was very well animated. In particular the early part of the scene where he enters the room is done in a very high quality style with great use of contrast as well as being very fluidly animated. I'm sure these scenes were the main reason I was so unimpressed with other areas of the show when it comes to animation. Unfortunately, while these were some of the best scenes of the show It ends in a way that give me little hope for season 2. The way certain powers that are discovered in the last few episodes work and how OP they are leads me to believe there will be no satisfying and believable way to continue the series without rolling our eye the entire time. And the thing is I'm usually the kind of person that will give some leniency to powers that are op and could end a fight instantly. But that's mainly due to the fact that most of those are edge case that's not immediately obvious unless you really think of it or there are other feasible counters the opponent might be able to use. It's also common when these situations happen that we already have and idea of or know of others in the world that have far stronger powers. However, in the case the powers introduced at the end of fireforce they are so OP that this seems impossible to adequately integrate into the rest of the series. The only possible way they could IMO is to introduce even more OP characters but the thing is these powers are godlike OP. If they introduce any other character capable of going toe to toe it will be up there with the the biggest eyeroll moments in anime history.

  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they do have a way to tie it all together in a satisfying way. But the above paragraph is only my thoughts on the last few episodes and season 2 setup. It doesn't change the fact that this season rated a 65/100 from my perspective.

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• 

  gwenvis

  75/100
  Pretty fun battle shounen with good animation. Story wishes for more, though.

  Let me preface by saying that this review will just be a wall of text for now, as I am at my internship and am not going to look for anime screenshots on here. I will also say that this review is a mix of subjective opinions, and "objective" opinions. Objective being the story quality and such, they're not really objective but I have no other way to differentiate them.

  Scroll down for a TL;DR.

  ＳＴＯＲＹ（5／10）

  I'm not going to talk about the premise here, I like jumping into anime blind so for others who want to do so as well, this is just for you ;).

  It's a very simple story, and very obviously shounen. Mostly consisting of fighting and getting better, really nothing special. The world is pretty interesting though, with fire departments all being completely different and having their own secrets. Like always though, the villains' motives are dumb as hell, and just there to be villains. It's realy nothing special and that's good, I don't care, it's a battle-shounen.

  ＣＨＡＲＡＣＴＥＲＳ（8／10）

  This show is full of characters, and especially the 8th fire department has a great dynamic. Shinra and Arthur are both dumb as hell, and I love dumb characters so their rivalry antics are extremely fun to watch. The other characters in the squad are cool too, although Maki's one and only joke is very stupid. Aside from the 8th department, the other departments also have fun characters, like Hibana. She has big tits.

  (best guy is Benimaru, love him and his squad)

  ＡＮＩＭＡＴＩＯＮ （8／10）

  This is where Fire Force really shines, the fight scene animations are top notch and shine all the way through, in every single one. Just watch the first episode and be amazed. Shinra's jet-fucking-engine feet look incredible and all explosions look beautiful too.

  The reason the animation does not get a 10/10 is because of the scenes outside of combat. This is where it's very obviously the Shaft people animating/directing it. (If you didn't know, many people from Shaft moved to David Productions, and worked on Fire Force.) You've got this awkward conversations where there's just a static image of them far away, blank faces and weird close ups straight out of the monogatari series. There's a lot of talking, so you'll see this a lot. I don't particularly mind, as I love Shaft, but it is still awkward and can be at least decreased to a degree.

  ＳＯＵＮＤ ＡＮＤ ＭＵＳＩＣ（9／10）

  Yes! The sound! It's good. it's good sound. The voice actors deliver their lines well, I really have nothing to complain about.
  Shinra's fire sound are just jet engine how cool is that? Fucking cool. It's fucking cool.

  The music is awesome too, it's got this orchestral feel to it and an awesome leitmotif that keeps coming back and I fucking love leitmotifs. It's hype, the OST is hype. Thank you. Goodbye.

  ＣＯＮＣＬＵＳＩＯＮ (tldr?)

  Good shit, I definitely recommend watching it. The battles are fun and cool, the animation is fluid, the soundtrack is fun, the voice actors are good, the world is interesting, the story is not. Thank you for reading this shitty review!

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• 

  deli000

  50/100
  Fire Force is held back by uninspired characters and a poor story but still delivers in pure entertainment

  May Contain Slight Spoilers

  Human combustion.

  It plagues the world of Fire Force, forcing people to develop a specialized force that serves to protect the people from the dangers of the Infernals, beings that were created from human combustion. This specialized force is known as the titular Fire Force.

  Shinra, the main protagonist of the show, joins a rag-tag team of individuals, the Special Fire Force Company 8, looking to find out about the origin of the plague and to prevent many similar events of human combustion from happening. It’s an interesting premise, but that initial potential is halted by its poor characters and a weak story.

  The protagonists are basic and don’t offer anything fresh to the table; they fit their roles but never develop much as characters throughout the course of the show. Shinra, being the main character, manages to get a significant amount of development as he learns to define his ideals of being a hero. However, his “hero speeches” whenever he fights an enemy feels shallow and empty, and they get annoying after a while. The show does a great job at creating a character who learns and evolves, but we don’t need him constantly explaining to us what it means every time. There are better ways to do it than generic monologues, such as in subtle gestures and slight changes in behavior. It doesn't need to be overt; having a smooth route paints a clearer level of understanding.

  Villains are your cardboard crazy types, and the show makes sure to show you how evil they are with the stereotypical evil facial expressions and obnoxious maniacal laughter. The dialogue is also predictable coming from these kinds of characters, adopting a Darwinian philosophy and taking part in a ridiculous cult. It's easy to show how crazy a villain is, but the show never moves past the surface-level "crazy and that's all there is to it" archetype. Another thing is that the animation shouldn't need to show villains in a sinister light again and again. Their thought process and their actions speak for themselves, and showing villains with black lines along their faces to portray how nasty and sly they are doesn't really add any depth and only points to how lacking they are as memorable antagonists.

  Fire Force's story is predictable and straightforward. It's a hero story about Shinra first and foremost, and it's not exactly a unique take on the concept either. It's plain and adequate enough to direct the course of the show but doesn't lend itself to anything memorable or noteworthy.

  Regarding the fanservice concerning Tamaki, the ecchi-styled comedy feels very awkward, and it begins to be repetitive later on. Humor is subjective, but the jokes with Tamaki get overused past the halfway mark, and it loses its initial appeal.

  With that being said, there's still a lot that Fire Force provides in terms of pure entertainment.

  The fight sequences are great. It's explosive and powerful, the animation and sound design doing a great job at illustrating the intensity of Shinra’s kicks and showcasing the various abilities that the rest of the characters possess. A few issues were that the action-oriented moments could have showcased a lot more aspects on the technical side like hand-to-hand combat, and the monologues that the characters tell as they’re fighting is pretty unrealistic. The constant introductions and info tidbits take away from the immersion as well. All in all though, the animation does an incredible job at giving life to the fights, and it adds a whole new layer of enjoyment and a great level of hype.

  While the cast of characters don’t offer anything new to the table, they still act as sources of entertainment with their interactions being pretty fun to watch. The Special Fire Force Company 8 are a funny group of people with their own quirks. Maki's cute musings while being a completely reliable member of the team, and the running joke of Arthur being an idiot, which serve to create interesting predicaments during his fights, are just examples on how fun they are to watch. Comedy is subjective for this one, but I found myself being amused by a lot of the shenanigans of Company 8, not to the point where I'm laughing out of my mind but enough to create some moments of relaxation and breathing between points of dramatic tension.

  At the end of the day, Fire Force isn't fresh and is far from special. It lacks in a strong story and well-written characters, but it does have a place in being a fully serviceable piece of entertainment. That's enough for a lot of people, and I can appreciate it for what it does.

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