It’s time for another week of close-examining our favorite fire-themes Shonen anime, folks! Yes, we’re looking at Fire Force once again this week, and things are really starting to move ahead nicely for this series. The status quo is well-established, the main players (that we are aware of so far) all have conflicting motives and interests, and the anime world has been built enough that after only five episodes in, the narrative can play and have fun with it. Let’s dive in!
1. Iris’ Cold Open
The show has settled into a comfortable opening narration that forbodes viewers about combustion and the Infernals, which manages to be fun enough to give you a good idea of the tone of the show going forwards. It also allows more time for the cold opens to feature a little bit of build-up for characters that might have an arc to be expanded upon within the episode, which happens to be the case with the 8th Company’s resident Sister, Iris. Whilst meditating, we see that she actually has a connection with the previously established Princess Hibana from when she was training to be a sister, which is such a quick payoff from the latter character only just being introduced in the last episode.
She’s interrupted by Shinra and the moment has the potential to be pervy and nearly veers in that direction, but instead, we see Shinra merely express his concern for the sister as she was so lost in her moment. Shinra’s creepy nervous grin also feels a little more endearing now, which I do appreciate the show working to get it to this stage.
2. The thing about 8th Company
Once we get into the meat of the episode, we get a short but sweet training sequence with the whole 8th company that sets up a lot of the action to come within the episode. I like that Obi re-instates to the company as a whole that they exist covertly to monitor the activities of other companies, especially since I was unsure if this was just between Obi and Shinra. In a classic Fire Force fashion (we’re five episodes in, I feel like I can say that now), the seriousness of the moment is offset with Obi balancing miscellaneous items on top of a medicine ball, which is a great bit.
We see Lieutenant Takehisa take a more prominent role in this episode from this point too, where he decides to shoot Shinra in the kneecap. Luckily, we learn that Takehisa can control the firepower that is released from his guns, thus making him a non-lethal Punisher type, making him another gloriously unique member of the company. More on this later.
3. A dangerous relationship
Since Iris had her moment in the cold open, she naturally gets to play center stage in the drama that unfolds this episode. We hear from the 8th that she’s gone over to the 5th, Princess Hibana’s company, to discuss the capturing of the sentient Infernal last episode. There’s a segue moment around this time where we see Hibana exuding her dominatrix act over the Infernal in some bizarre experiment to both control him and empower him further, which creates a great amount of tension for when Iris decides to roll up to the 5th’s joint. The confrontation between Iris and Hibana is obviously terrifying, but we learn a very interesting detail when Iris refers to Hibana as her sister. There’s an important differentiation because when they mean Sister as in the job that Iris plays within the company, they pronounce it in English, however, when Iris says it at this moment, she says it in the Japanese pronunciation, which was a great way to inspire theorizing within viewers.
Hibana neither confirms nor denies this, and I like the ambiguity at this stage in the narrative. What she does do is assume a classic villain role and use Iris as bait for the rest of the 8th Company to come and get their shit wrecked. Little does she know that this anime moves at a breakneck pace, and Shinra and the gang are already inside the doors.
4. Why we joined the Fire Force
Continued belowFrom here, the 8th Company bust into the 5th’s base with their truck in tow et al, and each character proceeds to match up with a different foe from the 5th. It’s a little formulaic but it’s already over by the time you even notice, again showing how well this show handles pacing. We get to see Lieutenant Takehisa go full throttle as teased earlier in this episode. It’s a great moment of action animation, with Takehisa utilizing a ridiculous amount of artillery to go ape shit on the 5th Company’s goons all around him. But at least we know that all this shooting is non-lethal, thank god! He also shows a great rapport with Maki where they both admit to enjoying being able to let loose, which is a great moment of character building.
Shinra is basically carving up ground like an ice-skater to get to Iris, whilst Arthur meets up with Infernal from last episode, who’s now been powered up and works under the 5th Company’s control. What’s really important, however, is that Maki and Takehisa fight a guy who shoots exploding bubble gum that he announces as “Backdraft Bubblish Gum”, before being promptly shot in a Matrix-style ricochet barrage from Takehisa. Do I need to say any more?
5. Right-handed
Our gang continues to make their way through the base, and what I love is that each fight scene sticks very much to the theme of ‘make it cool but also make it a gag’. Arthur seems to be struggling against the Infernal for a hot minute, which does create genuine tension considering that this Infernal has stuck around for more than one episode now. The seriousness is immediately offset, however, once Arthur realizes he was holding his sword Excalibur in his left hand when he’s actually right-handed. What follows is a delightfully flashy scene of Arthur making short work of the Infernal and his literal cone-headed controller. Fire Force balances comedy so well with a sense of stylishness that each of these kinds of moments never feels heavy-handed.
The episode ends on a great cliffhanger with Shinra, as he didn’t get to fully shine here, arriving at Iris’ prison room, ready for a big-ass confrontation. It’s classic baiting to bring us back for next week, and I’m here for it.
