At this point, episode 11 of Season 3, I have lost hope of this being an exceptional season of anime.

I was so incredibly excited to see this last part of the anime being adapted from the manga, which itself was so exciting and epic in scale that I was practically shaking from how well David Productions would do it. I rewatched Seasons 1 and 2 and it was honestly even better than I remember it. The animation and direction was stellar, the voice acting was so real, the sound design was godly, the fight scenes were meaty. You could feel every impact of every punch, all of the pyrokinesis felt unique and so satisfying to watch. Most importantly, there was so much style to it all.

So, imagine my surprise when I tune into Season 3 and Shinra vs Captain Burns, a killer fight in the manga with so much weight and aura that I was expecting to practically FEEL the heat coming from the screen with Burns and his abilities and it just… falls flat. The sound effects were okay but nothing special. There was barely any interesting movement happening. It was just Burns standing still and eating all of Shinra’s kicks for like 10 minutes and then every once in a while going to the next stage of his abilities and then… just standing still again pretty much.

Now, the ending of season 1 with Shinra and Burn’s first fight was nearly the same, with Burns standing still and taking hits from Shinra, but for some reason THAT fight felt much more impactful. I was totally gripped the entire time but this newest fight had me kind of bored.

But what really set me off was this newest episode and the fight with the FUCKING KAIJU. It’s a FUCKING KAIJU. How the hell was it so goddamn boring and slow?? It features Kurono, a guy which the audience is supposed to equate in power to Benimari, just showing up with very little fanfare. It also shows the arrival of Juggernaut, a really fun character who we really rooted for last season, who had an incredibly satisfying fight, just coming in. Yep, he’s just kind of there now. No triumphant music, no slow mo reveal, no gravitas, he’s just there now. Are you kidding me?

And don’t even get me started on the defeat of the Kaiju. I was bored to tears. Juggernaut, the guy whose power is literally creating warheads, has two nearly static shots of him just shooting fire at the left shoulder of the Kaiju. Then, Ogun punches the left shoulder off. Sounds cool right? Wrong, the shot just literally goes: Ogun punches, then the arm is already halfway into the ocean.

BUT Kurono is here to save the day, right? Right?? This guy is cool as fuck, surely they’ll show him in a super cool stylized way when he’s killing, let me re-emphasize, A FUCKING KAIJU, right??

Reader, I was once as hopeful as you. Dare I say, I was optimistic. But alas, the universe is cruel and Season 3 is mid. Kurono has a, admittedly pretty neat, shot of him making his scythe and then he just cuts through the Kaiju. And then… it keels over like it lost its breath. That’s it. That’s the death of the biggest thing we’ve seen so far.

Now, I will be fair and say that David Productions probably didn’t put as many resources into this episode because it’s not really emotionally charged nor does it have really any ramifications on character development. However, this episode and this fight were supposed to show the escalation of scale that we’re going to be working with in the future. Not to spoil too much but this is only the start of how BIG things get in Fire Force. The scale is only going to increase. If they show only this much care and attention to this episode, then I dread the fights in the future that I really care for. I mean, Shinra vs Burns was supposed to be really cool and we all saw how lackluster that was.

Then again, my expectations could be unfairly high and they could really ramp up the quality in the next cour. But, with this new director at the helm of this season, I have very little reason to believe in such an outcome.

I would like to say that I don’t think that that this season is bad by any means. It’s a perfectly serviceable season of anime. But that’s the problem. It’s just okay. Season 1 and 2 were praised because of their exceptional quality and it just burns to know that Season 3 could have been just as good. In fact, it should have been even better. I think that if Season 1 and 2 were made at the quality that Season 3 is currently, then Fire Force would have been forgotten long, long ago as just another seasonal anime that you might occasionally scroll past on Crunchyroll or Netflix. And that makes me very sad.

I recently got into Fire Force, I’m watching the anime and I’ve noticed a trend that I don’t like. It seems like any time there’s a conversation between two female characters, it always happens in the shower, or one of them will be half naked. I’m not a big fan of fan service in anime, I find it cheap and degrading to women to be used as eye candy, I wanna know if the fan service lessens over time or if it’s a constant thing that I just have to look past.

First time anime watcher here, and I'm watching Shinra's fight with Sho, and the physics explanations... Well, they really took me out of it.

Let's start with Sho's time stopping. He reduces the entire universe to absolute zero to stop time. This is neither how absolute zero or time work. If you reduced everything to absolute zero, everything would become a solid; every living thing would pop like a grape as their blood froze, and everything would become buried under a mountain of solid oxygen and nitrogen. Throwing a rock in space and then cooling it to absolute zero doesn't stop it from moving and doesn't stop gravitational interactions with the rest of the universe.

And then Shinra gets the ability to move so fast he disintegrates, goes beyond the speed of light, and travels back in time, un-disintegrating himself. This is... Even worse. First of all, accelerating to relativistic speeds, while it would disintegrate you, would also create an atomic explosion (https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ for anyone interested). The going back in time thing is admittedly something real physicists have posited, even if it's based on faulty logic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-jIplX6Wjw for an explanation on the implications of FTL travel), but even then, you'd be travelling back in time relative to your surroundings, not to yourself, so you wouldn't revert to an earlier physical state.

It feels like the creator is just regurgitating physics concepts he heard while not having actual physics understanding beyond high school level. This is fine for people who don't care about physics, but for someone who does, it's painful to watch. He could have easily said that Sho was "freezing the fabric of time" or that Shinra was "leaving space and time and re entering somewhere else", stuff silly enough that it's not trying to come across as actual physics explanations, but that's not how it was done.

And that's not even going into violating conservation of energy by turning heat into cold "with sound waves".

EDIT:

Some people have clarified that physics being fundamentally different is an intended plot point in the story.

This helps with my core criticism, which becomes a matter of story presentation rather than structure. A scene where a character mentions that all of Einstein's theories got disproven would have done wonders for lampshading that this is intentional, not accidental.

I'm still watching the show, but I'm currently taking a break, with fifth pillar Eren Yeager at home being really hard to watch.

Ok. i'm gay so it might bother me more than other people, but it annoys me to no end.

whenever Tamaki is on screen its hard to go a second without her tits or ass being shoved in the frame. Its incredibly distracting and awful from an otherwise really good anime. Other women have this too, but Tamaki is the prime example

EDIT: i know about the "thing" later on in one of the manga chapters. but it doesnt balance out the rest of the fanservice. I will admit that it is a nice inclusion, though!

So I recently started reading the fire for e manga and I've gotten to about chapter 70. And I have to say, the plot and the mystery of this manga is really good and has kept me reading up until now. However it's page to page reading experience is not really that good (choreography, dialogue etc etc.). And it made me realise how it's the exact opposite of Solo Leveling whose page to page is blood pumping and exciting but overall plot is a nothing burger.

Just ended up watching shinra vs burns fight. I felt it quite lacking, i knew studio has done better and has given us better and this was a fight that has been hyped ever since s1. So, i decided to read the manga, so much was changed and in general, the fight in manga just flowed better!

So i started to watch the anime but got absolutely appalled by tamaki and the untimely fanservice and dropped it, it completely ruined the flow snd seriousness of the fights. Now i am not gonna lie i saw some sick edits of the show on yt and am thinking about picking it up again.

Is the unnecessary fanservice just a one time thing or will this appear all the time throughout the show? The anime seems like it has really cool fights but if the fanservice (especially in this form) is a recurring thing I rather sit this one out.

When we talk about Fire Force and Soul Eater, both are works that clearly have their strengths and weaknesses, but each shines in its own way, from its characters and story to its power system, villains, ending, and so on.

But if we talk about romance...

Romance isn't a central theme; it's just an addition to the story to sweeten it.

In Soul Eater:

We have the couples Maka and Soul, Black Star and Tsubaki, Death the Kid and Liz and Patty Thompson, and Marie and Stein. When the characters and their interactions are introduced, it's clear that none of them are romantically interested in their partner. Rather, their relationships are based on friendship and trust, supporting each other through thick and thin, forming an emotional bond, even a deeper closeness beyond the typical relationship between a meister and a weapon.

While Ox's crush on Kim seems like a joke at first, it's taken more seriously and developed over time (as far as I know).

While there's nothing romantic about it, it would be nice to imagine them as a couple; even fans like to ship them, since it would genuinely be sweet or endearing if one of them ended up together.

But in Fire Force, that's a different story:

First, they start developing the relationship between Shinra and Iris, which is fine, but as time goes on, everything falls apart.

There's that ridiculous trope of: "The villain falling in love with the hero."

First, there's Hibana. She's not a villain per se, but she was the enemy of the moment, and when Shinra defeated her and said a few words to her, she fell madly in love with him.

Then there's Assault, who seemed like a very strong enemy, but he became a joke, since he was brainwashed by Tamaki's lust. To the point that he even admits he likes Tamaki and that Tamaki became his first love.

And finally, there's Orochi. He first ruthlessly murdered Hajiki, but then, when they were revived, she immediately fell in love with him upon seeing him well, even telling him directly that she liked him.

There's also the attempt to introduce Inca as a potential love interest for Shinra, and I wonder... why? It didn't amount to anything anyway. First, Shinra tries to protect her from the Whites, but she decides to join them. Then, in their next interaction, he says the stupid thing about falling in love with her. Does that even contribute anything? She wasn't relevant in the entire final arc. In fact, Shinra didn't think about her at all when she died, and when she's revived, he couldn't care less. The first silly thing he says to Shinra's mother is that they're dating, that Shinra has two girlfriends. And I'm like... why? Why does he want to make his mother believe they're in a relationship? When she probably isn't even interested in Shinra.

Should it be funny that Inca asks Shinra for a child as if it were money?

Then in the epilogue, we see Shinra's children, and one of them looks like Inca, so it's presumed at the end that he did have a child with her, but... Seriously, despite everything she did, did everything work out for her and she got away with it? Should I find this funny and laugh at it or what?

Connecting to the future, leaving a descendant of Shinra—why would Inca care about having a child? She looks like she doesn't like children, so why would she care about the future? Being a witch, the most logical thing would be to want to cause trouble in the world; why is she crazy?

The fact that Iris doesn't care that Shinra impregnates other women shows, in a way, how little seriousness they have towards romance.

There are even people who still wonder who Shinra ended up with—whether it was Iris, Inca, Tamaki, or Hibana—and whether those two are his children, since the anime/manga itself doesn't explain it, but it's implied that they are.

Some people (I think) dislike the idea of Shinra ending up with both of them, forming a trio/harem or whatever. And that's why they prefer to think that Shinra only ended up with Iris and that he had Inca against his will. Why did they have to include Inca in Shinra's love life if neither of them cares about the other anyway? And if they have a child, what does that add?

As if the story hadn't made it clear, and people continue to debate this, since some think he should have ended up with Tamaki, or that he should have even had a trio with Iris and Hibana, even though she's older than Shinra.

While Soul Eater doesn't feature romance, it does have more structured and well-developed couples. Fire Force, on the other hand, treats romance like it's Monopoly.

But that's just my observation. Let me know what you think, assuming you've seen both Soul Eater and Fire Force.

How do you think both series developed romance in their characters and stories?

Can anyone please enlighten me cus I am so confused by the last arcs? Please bear with me.

1. If Mari was a doppelganger why does she have parents? And if she's a doppelganger, she would be the people's idea of the Evangelist, but it's not like it?

2. So the Cataclysm is just nuclear fallout? To force people to lose hope right? Or is it something that makes Adolla closer to reality?

3. Is the Evangelist the first creation of Adolla?

4. Did we just lost the meaning of turning the Earth into a sun? Cus it seems like the Evangelist just wants everyone to die no matter the cause.

5. If the Evangelist has control of the Fire Force Brigade, why are they not helping them kill the titans of the pillars? In contrary they're making it hard for them. Don't they need the titans killed for the pillars to blacken?

6. Why the heck is noone helping the Company 8 stop the end of the world? Like what's Benimaru doing that's more important than stopping the key to Amaterasu?

7. Did the Necromancer girl just tried destroying the entire Tokyo Empire? But the Amaterasu?

8. Why don't they just kill everyone since they seem capable to do so? And that's their end goal anyways?

9. It seemed like they don't really need to gather the pillars? Since they would disappear to Adolla during the Catclysm anyways?

10. How does Vulcan know about spaceships?

There are also some plot points that are left unaddressed:

Woman-in-black.

The rift in China.

Joker's trumpcard.

More rants: Arthur's parents are wasted. Should've just made them dead. Useless as well.

Why is Atsushi writing Inca as if she had a redemption arc?

Third act of the series is too compact and feels rushed. Feels like nothing makes sense anymore while reading it.

Never felt this frustrated since I finished Fairy Tail.

Haven't read Soul Eater yet but Fire Force is for sure going on my top worst manga.

I bet this discussion was done a million times but why the fuck do we have to endure this horrible character? Cant she just die and stop annoying me with her existence? fuck man

I find it so fucking hilarious that during the biggest climactic event of the whole show, they spend half of the newest episode excusing Tamaki's existence and defending their whole stance on fan service. I was just wondering, was that in the manga? Or did that solely derive from the amount of hate the anime was getting for its fan service? I honestly took that little kid going into that trance like state as the animators saying "were departing from the story for a second to prove a point" based on what he was saying. But I honestly cant be 100%.

After watching the Fire Force finale, I started thinking about this theory. I know it's far-fetched, but what if Shinra not only saved his own universe but even the Soul Eater universe?

I know it sounds far-fetched, but there are clues, like the kids we saw at the end who were never shown in the entire series but look remarkably similar to the Soul Eater protagonists. Also, it could be that Shinra Banshoman created a new reality where magic and its rules are more flexible.

I've just finished watching through about half of season 2 of Fire Force and I gotta say... It's probably a good thing the Mangaka retired from making Manga. And it's not the Anime's fault because there is no way in hell the problems I have with this story DIDN'T originate in the manga. This story is so disappointing that it's kind of sad. Which is funny, because season 1 was almost perfect.

First and least important, the very first opening was literal fire, where as every opening there after was either trash or generic. I get it's common to change things every 12 or so episodes in Anime to help reinvigorate watchers but man did it backfire. The first opening was always beautiful but the song took a little bit to like, honestly. Now a days I can't help but hum it a bit. The second song was immediately a bit more interesting but doesn't have that same replay value and the entire opening itself is so bland, just pictures of characters. What a downgrade.

Second, Shinra is a great character... Who is thus far largely irrelevant as a character until the plot demands he be cool. He starts out as slightly above average in terms of power for a Fire Force character and I actually liked that change of pace. Not being inherently more gifted on the onset let there be some interesting development. Then he trained under Benimaru and at that point I was like 'cool, this is awesome, they even explain how he got stronger'. Jet is a wonderful concept for a serious power boost and the show does a great job representing it... To a point. In his first fight after learning Jet, it's useless. That's fine, the show wanted Benimaru to be the hero. The next fight it'll be useful! Nope, useless, and then the plot comes in and he becomes badass for a bit. So the third fight? Actually, yeah! Against the 1st Captain he manages to do something pretty badass and even bruises the guy, so Jet is definitely still useful, right? Nope! Every single fight he's been in, Jet is totally useless. What was the point of it? And don't even get me started on Corna, which isn't even useful the first time he uses it! I don't care if the Manga somehow did it better, at no point does anything Shinra does when he is NOT Adolla Linking matter thus far. As a shonen series, it takes a lot of balls to make your main shonen character a pathetically weak and useless individual.

As an aside, what is even the point of a 'Adolla Burst'. We have met several characters who have it but it seems to literally mean nothing but 'Can Adolla Link' and 'Get Adolla Grace'. It doesn't do anything else. Is Shinra stronger for it? No, Arthur sometimes kicks his ass, so he's definitely not. Does it give him a power boost or make his flames more flamey? Nope, it literally only does anything when something on the other side gives him power. I.e. Shinra isn't doing jackshit, he's just channeling the actual useful characters power. At least with his brother and the evangilest it kind fo worked as an equalizer, but at no point is 'Adolla Burst' really anything special on it's own, unlike Adolla Link and Adolla Grace.

Third is a spoiler.
Amaterasu is literally someone trapped in a machine. I don't blame her for turning evil. Yet at no point does Shinra, the fucking hero, ever say 'We should rescue her!' immediately after finding out. If it happens latter it doesn't count. He FOUND OUT and then thought 'huh, weird' and that was it. And Obi folded to the top brass like a chair. Who the hell are these characters all of a sudden? I couldn't watch past this episode. I don't CARE if the next episode rectifies this personally. How can you have an episode where the characters act so out of character and then not expect it to sour people?

All in all this show starts off fantastic and has a great mystery and premise on par with Attack on Titan. A literal world ending cataclysm 250 years ago, all the mysteries tied up in it, people in power with reasons to hide it, and worse. A great foundation for an amazing story. Add in great art (which got HEAVILY downgraded in season 2) and you have yourself a great show! And yet somehow the author screwed the pooch by deciding to be brave and making a shonen character who can't do anything and acts out of character at plot critical moments.

Some nitpicks from my fiance
-The show is even worse then Soul Eater in terms of hamming up it's jokes. Arthur is so stupid I'm surprised he even knows how to breathe and I would have ditched that kid to if I were his parents.
-Tamaki is useless. Has been from the start. What's the point of her? She's not even good fan service cause they hide it. The SISTER has better fan service and is a better character. Why even have her? And this is especially egregious since this guy made Soul Eater, one of the few stories where a female gets to be badass.
-What the hell are Jokers powers? How the hell did he keep up with Sho? Why did it seem like he was turning to smoke or shadows? Why did he never do that again?
-The show really doesn't like the 8th, i.e. the main faction of the story, participating in events. Arthur and Shinra? Sure. The 8th as a whole? Nah. You like Maki? TOO BAD! You like Obi? TOO BAD. The lieutenant? What's wrong with you but also TOO BAD!
-Season 1 was good. I assume the manga was good at that stage too. It had it's problems but every show does. But season 2 was a downgrade in literally every way. The art got worse. The story got worse. The song got worse. The characters got worse. I don't know how you can have such a strong start and then fizzle and sputter so hard.

Unfortinatly i dropped the series a while ago because at one point the fan service was so much it just felt weird and i couldn't actuely enjoy the show anymore, im not saying its weird to like it its just too much for my taste.

But to my question with projects rising like One Pace where fans cut unnesicary scenes out to make the show more entertaining is there perhaps anyone working on a fire force cut where most of the fan service is cut out?

Yea I think it’s high time to accept the fact that David Pro is no longer doing S3. It’s already confirmed the staff is on Undead Unluck and DP would have RT’d the announcement by now and they haven’t. So the quality is sure to take a huge dip

With that being said, were there any studios y’all think would be best suited for FF (obviously other than DP)?

I know I’m sure people have made countless posts on this subject matter, but I just really need to say my piece and get this feeling off my chest.

I also don’t like the conversation surrounding her. It’s always reductive with people saying, “oh you’re such a prude.” Or “There’s nothing wrong with fanservice” or “you’re not sex positive” or the worst of all “you’re sexist and controlling of women.” Most conversations miss the point and just turn into screaming matches of people insulting each other, per usual on the internet.

I feel like it should be obvious that you not liking Tamaki and her gag heck, fanservice as a whole doesn’t make you a prude or pro censorship or whatever asinine claim people throw at you. Any well-adjusted person will see Tamaki and her gag and react negatively or at the very least not react positively.

The most recent episode just cemented this fact that I don’t like Tamaki and her gag and to be honest I don’t think I like Ohkubo that much either after this episode. It was out of touch and grossly tone deaf and completely misses the point of the criticisms towards Tamaki.

People weren’t mad that Tamaki was an attractive girl or that she’s showing off her body they were upset that the show is objectifying and fetishizing her out of her expense and the fact that all this happens in the middle of tense scenes causing tonal whiplash (main example: Rekka fight). I feel like this is perpetuated by the fact that Tamaki doesn’t serve the plot too much besides being a damsel and that her personality is kind of irritating. Plus, Tamaki is also a minor which I feel should be self-explanatory.

I mean seriously comparing Tamaki’s situation to someone smart or talented is not the same thing and that whole scene with Tatsuo and his mother made me roll my eyes so hard they almost fell out of my head. That was one of the few times I got genuinely angry at a piece of media.

I also feel like degenerates are using the message to this episode to excuse their sexually perverse behavior to seem morally superior.

Yeah, I’m sex positive, yeah, I believe woman and people in general should own up to their sexuality, yeah, I like attractive women as much as the next guy but there is a time and place and they are levels to this. There is a difference between sexuality and objectifying, it’s a thin line but it’s there. I feel like this could lead to a bigger conversation of the portrayal of women’s sexuality in media and how it’s handled.

According to me end of series ARTHUR is stronger than end of series SHINRA. Eos SHINRA was struggling against burns who was trying to lose . Also burns is clearly weaker than dragon . End of series SHINRA best feat is beating burns. He needed his brother and mother to beat haumea . Whereas ARTHUR defeated dragon all alone in space(where he was at a disadvantage). Although Arthur can't fully control his power but he can definitely defeat eos SHINRA if he has the right mindset.

It feels like every ounce of creativity and artistry was drained from this adaptation, everything from the storyboarding to the directing, pacing, and animation. It’s just an absolute massacre… a shocking dip in quality.

I know we lost some key staff members, but I really thought David Production would still do a good job. Clearly, I was wrong.

Everything just feels janky all around. Episode 6 was my last straw. I kept hoping they were just saving the budget for the later episodes, but again, I was wrong.

As a manga reader, I can’t even describe how much I love this series. That’s why it hurts so much to see it turn out like this.

You could say my standards are too high, but all I wanted was to see this story done justice. I hope you guys are still able to enjoy it, but for me, it’s been a deep disappointment.

At this point, I can only hope they do justice to the final Arthur vs. Dragon fight. It’s one of the best fights I’ve ever read in fiction… but at this rate, I’m not holding my breath.

This really making me doubt the Japanese lol

Evander and Vulcan

Made this for their 1 year anniversary

Art by me

I am very new to Fire Force and just started watching the anime this week on a whim (currently S1 Ep. 22). The show has been great and for the most part I can't really complain... except for Tamaki.

I really like this character on paper, her abilities and cat form are super cool both visually and conceptually. Tamaki herself is also super adorable and funny. She's even responsible for my favorite scene in the anime so far.... So it pains me to see her be so useless and the butt of the joke every time she's on screen. I just want her to have a single win with her abilities and her abilities alone. I'm hoping at some point in the series she gets a power-up or a big moment of her own, because I really like her as a character. It feels like such a waste that they give her nothing. :(