I know there are a lot of Fire Force fans in the comments section of the blog, so I had to think twice before writing this article. The problem is that Kinky had come up with the title in advance, and it was just too good not to use. Now there are plenty of things to like about Fire Force. I enjoyed the animation whenever large portions of fire are on screen and blazing away. I really enjoy the fights and some of the epic moments (Shinra flying into the sky to chase a bullet which was chasing a captain who was fighting an Evangelist was fucking sick). Really there’s only one thing that drives me crazy about the show, and that’s the god awful comedy during the action.

My complaints take form in two folds. Number One: trying to write comedy into action sequences is hard as fuck and I’ve seen very few instances where it was done in a way that added to the scene in a positive way. Demon Slayer’s moment with Giyuu and Shinobu is the only one that immediately comes to mind, and the main reason it worked in my opinion was because the action was already over. The episode continued to de-escalate after the comedic moment, so the jokey lines between Shinobu and Giyuu were more of a signal that the tone was shifting, rather than trying to interject this type of writing in the conflict of the episode overall.

This made for a good scene, and for good memes.

 I mean think about it, the whole point of an action scene is to build tension between the combatants and add suspense to the story. Who’s going to win??? Is someone going to die?? Yo this fighting is crazy, I’m gonna lose my mind!!! Meanwhile comedy is the exact opposite. It’s normally used to lower the tension in a scene. That’s why funny characters are called “comic relief”, because they relieve you from the stress of serious events in the narrative. So trying to slap action and comedy together can be very difficult because if you are not careful, all tension can be ruined. This doesn’t matter if it’s supposed to be a low-stakes scene, but if this needs to be a serious fight, it can screw a writer over fast. And let me tell you, that’s exactly how I feel about characters like dumb fuck Arthur breaking the tension by saying some lines about being a samurai-knight or whatever the fuck he thinks he is.

Somebody fucking kill me.

This leads into the second half of my reasoning: the shit just ain’t funny to me man. How many fucking times is Tamaki gonna trip and lose her clothes? It's nice to see a trope getting drug through the mud in the beginning, but it’s happening so damn much I forget that it’s supposed to be satire. And then there was this scene where Sister Iris gets confused because an Evangelist does a horrible ass attempt to copy Tamaki’s looks (not getting the voice or fire-abilities right in the slightest), and she still takes forever to figure out the real Tamaki. I’ve been waiting for this raid on the Evangelist basecamp since learning about their existence, but now that we’re finally here the tension keeps getting ruined so much that I don’t really care. I know it’s nowhere near the end of the series or anything, and there’s still the upcoming fight, but holy fuck I still would of liked a serious tone for this important confrontation in the anime.

Gee, I just can't figure it out. How COULD you tell???

Do you enjoy the comedy in Fire Force? What shows kept the tension high while still using comedy? Get some water and put out the fires in the comments below!