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Five Thoughts on Fire Force’s “Shinra Kusakabe Enlists”

By | June 9th, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome, folks, to my summer TV binge! It might very well be looking like a hot season ahead for many of you, but since I live in Australia, I’m technically doing a winter TV binge. So, looking at all the potential shows I could watch, I decided to pick something I could… warm up with… in Fire Force. That’s right, readers: the guy who covered a cheesy action anime over the new year is now covering yet another cheesy action anime. But this one is pretty good, guys! Let’s take a look at the show that made firefighters even cooler, Fire Force.

1. Fire Fighting but make it Shonen
The opening sequence here is a lot of fun, as it starts off right away with pure action. I’ve known a lot of Shonen animes that rely on fantasy-based concepts can tend to spend their debut episodes dumping info that can go over viewers’ heads. Fire Force avoids that super nicely by starting off in media res, expecting you to keep up rather than holding your hand. The show literally opens with a shot of a train moving through a steampunk-esque version of Tokyo, in which one of the passengers spontaneously combusts into a hellish fire demon called an ‘Infernal’. As far as intriguing inciting incidents go, this one’s a killer.

We see our protagonist Shinra get excited over the prospect of seeing an infernal on his first day on the job, but that’s not the best part of the scene. The best part is when the official Fire Force marches in through the platform stairs and take on the infernal like the most fabulous super-sentai-meets-DND-party firefighters you could ever dream of.

2. New kid
Shinra’s dynamic here is a little uncomfortable and offputting, and I get that’s how the narrative wants to present him… but I’m not sold on him yet. We see him after the opening credits (which is a great scene in its own right, punctuated by the terrific theme INFERNO by Mrs. GREEN APPLE) and he’s introduced to the big boys of the team, Captain Akitaru Obi and Lieutenant Takehisa Hinawa. They both put him through the wringer, but not as much as I would like. Honestly, this scene didn’t introduce me to Shinra’s character as much as it teased me with the idea of Akitaru and Takehisa being a cute as hell couple. Please don’t let me down on this one, Fire Force.

Whilst my two dream boys are teasing Shinra, we get the slightly weird plot point that our protagonist only smiles when he’s *checks notes* …feeling large amounts of tension? It’s a weird aside that makes for a good gag from Akitaru and then spins into some more emotional beats later.

3. Welcome to the madhouse
There are some interesting choices in how some characters are further introduced in this episode. For one, we get the classic cringeworthy shower scene introducing the two girls of the team, Sister Iris and Maki. It introduces a comical but contrived subplot in which Maki apparently has a massive crush on Shinra and it’s something I care very little about. When the two finally meet Shinra, Maki reacts in the most typical anime girl-crush way. I will give credit, however, since this part of her is offset by her being the rough-and-tough brawler of the team, which is a clever touch. Sister Iris is a great counterpoint, being the medic but being more of a hardass than Maki is.

There’s some useful information dropped in this scene, in which we find out a little more about the world. What’s most crucial is that for some time, humans have been spontaneously combusting into these Infernals and that it can happen at any time to anyone, but no one knows why.

4. Token tragic backstory
Being the good hero archetype that he is, Shinra of course has a tragic past that motivated him to join the Fire Force. The narrative drip-feeds us this bit by bit. It’s done slowly and cleverly at first, with Takehisa mentioning that Shinra has the nickname Demon and is infamous for being thought of as a demon around his community. Then, it starts to get more personal as Shinra himself has flashbacks to his past, in which he’s telling his mother all about how he wants to be a hero when he grows up. This is where the narrative is doing something especially clever. By setting up the fact that a) anyone can combust into an infernal at any time, and that b) Shinra had a tragic motivating incident involving his mother, we know that something bad is going to happen in this flashback. So naturally, the show takes it’s time to fully tell us, in a very carrot-on-a-stick style of storytelling that works for me here.

Continued below

We see Shinra go out on his first official mission to take on an Infernal at some point as well, which is a great sequence echoing all those great firefighters advertisements you might remember as a kid. There’s no pole they slide down, but I’m also not sure if that’s more of a western trope than something in Japan.

5. Baby’s first infernal
The climactic fight is visually stunning and fun to watch but fairly paint by the numbers considering everything that was set up. Interestingly, the gang has full confidence in Shinra’s fighting ability from the get-go, positioning him in their strategy as the one to deliver the final blow. It takes away any chance of that boring, untrustworthy team dynamic and just delivers nicely on the good stuff, which I fully appreciate. From there, Shinra is temporarily paralyzed by the fire, flashing back to his mother’s death as a child and promising that he will become a hero and seek justice. Shinra stops getting beat up by the Infernal, who has pretty neat charcoal black skin with flashy flame highlights FYI and proceeds to bring the hurt and cement his spot on the team.

It’s all very familiar and doesn’t take any huge risks, but it doesn’t need to at this stage. Everything else in the episode was compelling enough that you should know for sure if you want to continue this series, still making this an effective debut. Plus, a sweet old man thanks Shinra for putting his wife (she’d turned into the Infernal) to rest, and that is something we always love around these parts.

That’s it for the first week of the binge! Tune in next week as we continue with the dynamic and visually stylish Fire Force!


//TAGS | 2020 Summer TV Binge | Fire Force

Rowan Grover

Rowan is from Sydney, Australia! Rowan writes about comics and reads the heck out of them, too. Talk to them on Twitter at @rowan_grover. You might just spur an insightful rant on what they're currently reading, but most likely, you'll just be interrupting a heated and intimate eating session.

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