Okay so let me try and explain the situation here. Fire Force is a semi-popular anime that gained a sizable following thanks to season 2 completely stepping up the quality in terms of pacing, world building, and character development. However, one character that seems to be a hot issue for people is Tamaki. She’s a member of the fire squad who has a unique quirk: due to her lucky lecher ability she will sometimes randomly end up in sexual situations. Her clothes falling off, her slipping during battle and exposing her ass, her tripping onto a dick. Okay maybe not that last one but you get the idea. Basically you have two camps of people unhappy with the idea. You have Group A which thinks that her oversexualization is the pinnacle of what’s wrong with the anime industry’s portrayal of women and the author should “fix” her as soon as possible. Then you have Group B which thinks that the gag is just stupid and is used WAY too much in the show. I personally fall into the second group because god damn her slipping on a banana peel and shoving her ass in my face during what’s supposed to be a battle got old hella fast.
Man I forgot just how dumb it got.
The problem is Group A got really upset with a recent chapter where Tamaki has a fight with a recurring “villain”, Assault. Assault has been training to resist her sexy ways and instead starts making fun of her for being a heathen and a crowd of spectators join in. Eventually Tamaki has had enough and basically learns to be confident about her sexiness and not worry about exposing her body as much due to the lucky lecher. Now if every female on the cast acted like this I could damn well see the cause for concern. But they don’t. Fire Force has plenty of females that are very desexualized as well, like Mako for instance who is very tomboyish and muscular. Not at all what is typically depicted for females in anime. Which makes it really hard for me to understand the outrage from Group A, especially since this situation with Assault and Tamaki fighting in this manner has happened several times already. Hell, I remember watching a few scenes of it in the anime. I wouldn’t call it comedic genius but it didn’t make me viscerally angry.
Oof I see why he's called Assault now.
I guess what’s different this time is the author has basically doubled down and reassured readers that they will continue to have Tamaki get lewd and end up in fanservicey situations, but in exchange she’s going to learn to be more confident in her body and not let it get to her as much. Fire Force also has multiple plot points and commentary about religion, and considering the villains are called the Evangelists I wouldn’t be surprised if her character is a direct attack at churches and people who think that women who show a lot of skin are heathens, impure, dirty, and the like. Tamaki is lewd and proud dammit.
At the end of the day I don’t have a problem with this character arc and I don’t think the mangaka hates women or whatever considering the other female characters in the show are quite different from Tamaki. I just need Tamaki to calm down and stop memeing while I’m trying to watch intense fights on my screen. Hoping this lucky lecher shit happens less in the third season. Did you watch Fire Force? Do you think Tamaki is an example of bad female writing, or are people just overreacting because sexy stuff = very bad? Put out these flames in the comments below!
