Trying to keep up with seasonal anime can be a monstrous chore. Depending on the season that is, that previous statement certainly wasn’t true for the summer of 2020. Most of the time though there’s a variety of stuff coming out and you never know what’s shit and what’s quality. You can wait for reviews but by the time people have enough material to work with for trustworthy impressions, most anime are already on their third or fourth episode. Then it becomes a real chore in itself to merely catch up. This creates many situations where I pick up anime and have to decide whether to drop it. Sometimes this is easy, and sometimes there is Fire Force.
The first season of Fire Force was the most split I’ve been in a long time on whether or not to drop an anime. On one hand it seemed liked the anime had an interesting premise and some of the action was animated beautifully. On the other, a lot of the comedy had horrible timing in my opinion and the characters were all pretty surface level. Our main character is THE SHOUNEN DEMON BOY who must SAVE THE WORLD by showing everyone he is NOT A DEMON ACTUALLY. The worldbuilding had potential but the plot wasn’t revolving around its elements enough to make me interested. By the time season one wrapped up, I thought to myself “welp that was okay, hope they don’t make a season two though. I don’t want to have to watch more of this shit”. And thus season two was born.
"Bitch the show wasn't lit, because I wasn't here yet."
Then season two hit. Some amazing characters were fleshed out more and I ended up caring about side boys like Licht WAY more than I ever thought possible. Hell, Charon was so awesome in the last few episodes. I like him more than half the damn cast and he’s only a mere side villain. Motivations for characters have been shown and explained and they run a bit more interesting than “boy is sad he’s called demon”. Fuck the church, fuck corporations, Licht just wants the TRUTH baby! On top of all that they reduced how much comedy was going on during the fights. A tense moment usually stays a tense moment. No more randomly killing people’s hype by having Tamaki’s Comedy Central start up right before a huge conflict. There are still a few exceptions to that rule, like anytime that damn Arthur is on screen, but for the most part the comedy is more separated and I appreciate that a lot. Speaking of which, on the most recent episode they COMPLETELY separated a comedic scene from the rest of the episode and it worked amazingly. I actually ended up smiling my ass off at Tamaki’s antics for the first time in the show’s history. And don’t get me started on how much more engaging the world has become. The three factions (Fire Force, Holy Sol Temple, Haijima) have had their goals fleshed out and their relationships to each other expanded upon. We learned a lot about what each cares about and what they’re in control of and why it matters. We learned the Holy Sol stuff was built on lies. We learned the huge generator is running on someone’s sacrifice. So much cool shit.
Don't worry Tamaki, I was shocked too.
Usually when I think “Maybe I should drop this…” but don’t end up doing it, I later come to suffer and regret that choice. Fire Force has been one of the rare instances when sticking with a series has paid off tremendously as it’s now one of my favorites this season. Here’s to many more. Have you stuck with a series that you didn’t like at first? Are you watching Fire Force? Burn it up, and leave a comment below!
