Welcome back to this week’s look at Fire Force! Following on from the more grey area focus of the last episode, we look at some more complicated themes of what being a hero involves and what a monster truly is. Plus, we get our first look at a character who is an unashamed dom, and that both terrifies me and thrills me. Have I revealed too much about myself in this first paragraph? Read on, and ignore everything I’ve previously said!
1. Break my back, senpai
Even only four episodes in, Fire Force has had the most intriguing cold opens. I was expecting it to sink into a comfortable monologue about how Infernals run rampant in this setting of Tokyo and whatnot, but the show has effectively used each episode’s prologue to seed the themes and major characters coming up. In this case, it’s the aforementioned dominatrix-esque leader of Company 5, Princess Hibana. Princess Hibana is a character who looks like she could easily fall into the creepy Waifu stereotype with her sexualized appearance. However, Princess Hibana is she also is a character who sits on a throne of human workers and has a red carpet of the same workers in front of her to step on as she walks from her throne, all of home say the word “Crunch!” when stepped on because she refers to them as gravel! Princess Hibana is great.
We find out later in the episode that she has some interesting agendas too, which is intriguing in light of what Obi said about the other companies’ alignments in the last episode. When she finds out the new Infernal being sentient, she decides to capture it. An unprecedented reaction to an Infernal appearance so far!
2. Savin’ puppies
Shinra and Arthur get to do a little bit of Hollywood-style fire fighting this episode, in so far that they get the call to go and save a puppy from a tree. The lead-up is kind of fun since they are technically not allowed to go and do this job without getting the official go-ahead from their seniors, yet Maki basically peer pressures the pair into doing it. It already creates a fun character dynamic between the three, and shows that Shinra and Arthur are already working well together despite their rivalry. Fire Force does a clever thing here, however, and subverts the puppy-in-a-tree archetype and actually has one of the Fire Force’s mascots, Mamoru (who dresses like a dog) stuck in a tree after being heckled up there. It’s a neat bit of dry comedy and works well with the show’s pacing.
What’s even more interesting is that Mamoru then reveals that the heckling came from the idea that the Fire Force is not totally publically viewed in a good light, in contrast to how Shinra sees himself. It’s a great general worldbuilding story beat, but also relates to the Infernal of the Week also!
3. Talking Monster of the week
Every episode I worry that Fire Force is veering into a formulaic Monster of the Week narrative pattern. However, with this episode especially, it has made each monster incredibly unique and uses them to expand the world in some specific way that it toes the line comfortably. In contrast with other weeks that had monstrous or tragic Infernals, this week’s case sheds a little more light on the nature of the transformation. The subject in question, Miyamoto, used to be a corrupt Fire Force member and combusted in the middle of his trial for his morally ambiguous actions. Once Miyamoto is changed, he still retains the same twisted sense of self rather than devolving into a mindless monster, so much that he pokes fun at his lawyer before killing him. This is the show’s way of telling us that a strong-minded person can still retain a human personality in a transformed state.
Not only is he an interesting new concept in this world, but Miyamoto looks creepy as heck. His head is hollow and blazes like a lantern, with fire leaking out from the top of his head. He’s also adorned with a massive rictus grin which is a terrific way to make a foe unpleasantly intriguing to viewers.
Continued below4. Arthur and Shinra: Dream Team, feat. everyone else
I touched on this briefly before, but I’m really glad that Fire Force isn’t dwelling on Shinra and Arthur’s resentment towards each other, and moves forward with them bouncing off each other as an infectiously fun duo. Once they hear about Miyamoto from the Mamoru they rescued, the two speed off to the scene. The way they do so is the best part; with Shinra blasting off from his feet in Superman pose, whilst Arthur rides on his back like a true Arturian knight, much to the former’s disdain. On the way, they catch up with the Lieutenant driving the Matchbox towards the scene, who cutely promises to punish the two for going out on a mission without proper clearance. It’s a nice little character beat that doesn’t need to serve the overarching conflict.
Once they get there first, Arthur and Shinra are the first to wreck shit up, which they do so incredibly well. The rest of the team arrive too, but they feel like an afterthought, especially when Shinra proceeds to leap up to a skyscraper height and fire-kick a car down into the Infernal.
5. The Princess has arrived
Princess Hibana arrives to interrupt the fight and announce that they plan to capture the Infernal. Of course, the show has spent plenty of time with Shinra overcoming his conflict of killing a sentient Infernal and getting revved up to fight, that Shinra can’t help but pushback against this mysterious newcomer. Power levels are quickly established, however, as our Princess promptly deals with Shinra and give him the full brunt of her domineering personality and her human gravel speech (we simply must Stan!). Before things get too out of hand, Daddy Obi arrives and brokers peace between the two hotheads, although questions what right Hibana’s company have to capture him when the 8th was sent to purge him.
There’s a moment of conflict between the two as some of the 5th’s flunkies attempt to put down Shinra to no avail, but it does a good job at deepening Obi’s suspicion with the other companies and the mysterious true motivations of the Fire Force at large.
