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EP. REVIEW: Fire Force


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a_Bear_in_Bearcave



Joined: 14 Jan 2019
Posts: 485
Location: Poland
PostPosted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 2:46 am Reply with quote
Cave wrote:

How DARE she not be this super strong woman. How DARE she be a damsel in distress. How DARE she be weak when the guy she respected suddenly turns traitor and literally beats her up so much that she can barely move. How DARE she not have the typical shounen "I got beat up and now I've suddenly become stronger trope"! How DARE she be shown sexy. How DARE she not live up to MY expectations.

It's not about "how DARE she", she is fictional character, so about how her creators made her character and decided what will happen to her. When every guy around her is super strong shounen determinator guy, and she is supposed to be their equal, and the show already made "damsel in distress" plot with the nun just before, then yeah, how dare they pull that BS on every female character that didn't almost disappear like Maki. They even make her ask Shinra for help against senior and stronger firefighter, then go back to her pillar. Also the biggest problem with "sexy" was that she was shown sexy when she was in her shock we were supposed to empathise with, and then we are reminded that she is just a designated fanservice character, no need to take her seriously.

Cave wrote:

Just stupid. And this is why I don't like to read ANN reviews. smfh This is the kind of thing that is actually really sexist. You think it's sexist because a female character is shown as weak and has her clothes torn off? NO. This article is sexist because it's saying how a female character is supposed to be. That a female character is not allowed to be weak or sexy.

This is sexist because the way the're made sexy is the old trope from B movies and trash books covers showing hero and his reward in form of rescued girl, and it was already applied to two female characters without any in-show reason, one of them supposed to be a soldier roughly equal to Arthur and Shinra. The other female characters either fell in love in Shinra immediately after unconvincing shounen hero speech that un-villained her, or in case of the only one consistently shown as strong - mostly disappered. Maki barely did anything in the assault on 8th.
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3ngag3



Joined: 16 Oct 2015
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:48 pm Reply with quote
You should probably mention that the show is going on hiatus for three weeks due to some kind of sports event in Japan.
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Tanteikingdomkey



Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Posts: 2345
PostPosted: Sun Sep 22, 2019 1:42 am Reply with quote
I continue having obi be my favorite character in fire force...
that said though holy shit they actually have a strong and great character in Hinawa. I have not seen an actually good version of this type of character since ouran. Normally they just get tried as a justification for the reason the plot can happen (I mean even in ouran he almost never came about) so having one who actually is more then just the smart straight man who actually makes a lot of sense for why he is there is a massive plus in term of character dynamics in my book.

And that is one thing I think people tend to ignore but is actually super important. and that is something that the mangaka (except for one big misstep) does really well I think. When you look at soul eater for example one thing you could never say is that you don't know exactly who everyone of the main cast are. and you actually do totally buy into their relationships and that they genuinely are close to each other. the same goes for this series as well I feel.
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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
Posts: 598
Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:43 am Reply with quote
One neat thing I realized at the end of episode 11 is that the 7th Company and the term hikeshi (fire extinguisher, as an action/profession, not the modern household object) that they call Benimaru's squad, are tied together with a stylized character that can be read as both 7 (七) and "hi" (ヒ).
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:05 am Reply with quote
Shinmon has actually saved the show for me. He's fun to watch in action.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 11:10 pm Reply with quote
Since it's the first post, I always keep seeing this idea that Fire Force would end up like Darling in the Franxx or that fans would react to it like that. Not that anybody seemed to agree, but I can't think of a more obtuse comparison and at Ep12 the two are not even close (thank the Great Sol)...At least the Homura aren't being made as part of a vast conspiracy by ALIENS... Confused

Ep16- The English VA for Dr Giovanni was off the charts brilliant with his speech delivery. Looks like the show decided to get more serious (or at least didn't distract so much from the drama with Arthur)
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Ashen Phoenix



Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Posts: 2904
PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:19 pm Reply with quote
Holy cow, this series sounds like it's doubling down on everything that... just isn't my cup of tea. I'll refrain from name-calling; anyone who's still enjoying FF, good on them. Have a blast.

I'm sad it didn't go the way I'd hoped it would based on the first couple of episodes. Sad
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 12:28 am Reply with quote
Since adult swim is only one week behind the Funi/CR release (Turkey Day marathon will change that), I've just been watching the dub for the last couple of episodes, but it sounds like it's better in the dub. Instead of "look before you leap," it was "knock on the bridge before you cross," which isn't a big change, but his manic "I've knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked ANDKNOCKED ANDKNOCKED!!!" meltdown while he pulverized the sphere was decidedly not funny.

Not sure still how I feel about what they did to poor Arthur. A lot of his stupidity feels a little mean spirited and over the line, story-wise, but it was still sad when he was confronted with the ridiculous reality.

I still don't get why Shinra was up in a tree apparently not looking over the compound. It wasn't clear to me whether he wasn't looking in the right direction (the camera placement and transition gave the impression he had his back to the compound) or if the illusions weren't visible from his vantage, or if his confrontation with Giovanni took place before the previous scene where Arthur et al were wondering why he hadn't warned them, to explain the why to the audience. Really poor execution, I think. Or maybe I'm as stupid as Arthur.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 12:41 am Reply with quote
Hey James, where did the "weeks without the Lucky Lecher Lure" stat go? I'm not sure if this week qualifies as week 5 (?) since it was mentioned this week (Ep17) but with the new OP sequences laying out what seems a rather different history than what the first 12 Ep disclosed, it may be that the writers are attempting to turn this into a different show than they started. We can only hope the LLL absence is permanent if so...BTW the Arthur schtick was about too much for me on Ep16, but like Gina says, Ep17 has aired on CR so the Donkey Head is a more distant memory thankfully...
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 2:09 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Finally, I have to ask: Why the hell did Vulcan have that robotic donkey head to begin with? Between this and the nightmare squirrel from last week, I have some questions about Vulcan that might be better left unanswered.

Forgot to address this. I can't recall - was it ever said that Vulcan made them? Could they be leftovers from his father's and grandfather's early, failed attempts to recreate the hologram animals, and he can't bring himself to discard anything of theirs? He seemed as shocked as anyone at the peeing squirrelracoon. If it was his creation, why would he be surprised?
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 5:27 am Reply with quote
Have we fallen so behind in the update process that we're now reviewing episodes based on their Toonami airdate instead?

Judging from how this episode aired on the block literally yesterday, that's what one would believe...
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Skyletv



Joined: 11 Dec 2017
Posts: 81
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:20 am Reply with quote
Quote:
The internet tells me that Atsushi Okubo is 40 years old at the time of this writing, but are we sure that Fire Force wasn't actually written and drawn by a bunch of boys stacked on top of each other in a trenchcoat?


Jesus Christ Mr. Beckett, now all 40-year-old men have to be grumpy guys like you? This is a very bad way to criticize something.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:07 am Reply with quote
James doesn't sound like a grumpy old man to me (I'm not grumpy either BTW) and the squirrel and now donkey bits are as juvenile as they come. It's the sort of thing that boys I remember were going off on when they were eight years old. The Luck Lecher schtick seems like a junior high schooler's fan-fic attempt at "fan-service" too. Those aren't disgruntled slams, they are accurate (if colloquial) criticism. These items in the story are oddly laughable and out of place additions to an otherwise intense drama which by itself isn't too bad actually. As comedic relief, they are really poorly done but if you just love that sort of humor, it seems the writer of Fire Force (and Soul Eater) is the same. Bevis and Butthead was popular in some circles too...
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Scion Drake



Joined: 25 Nov 2017
Posts: 941
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:35 am Reply with quote
Ashen Phoenix wrote:
Holy cow, this series sounds like it's doubling down on everything that... just isn't my cup of tea. I'll refrain from name-calling; anyone who's still enjoying FF, good on them. Have a blast.

I'm sad it didn't go the way I'd hoped it would based on the first couple of episodes. Sad


We are on episode 17-18 & you are just saying that now? You are pretty late to the train.
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Kuroi Ren



Joined: 09 Dec 2018
Posts: 143
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 1:35 pm Reply with quote
I mean, seriously. Whoever is reviewing this anime clearly doesn't look at the show as a whole. Keeps hating it on it for ridiculous reasons

For example, He labels "lisa" and "Giovanni" as "bad" like they're both the same. From what we've seen, it's clear that Lisa isn't simply evil and to be honest, after her backstory, it caught me by surprise when she turned out to be working for the evangelist as a fire soldier

This show is aimed at young boys so it only makes sense to have stupid jokes although they take it WAY too far. There are very serious moments too and seeing that the audience score is 4/5, it's clear that I am speaking for most people when I say that this anime is not "underwhelming" or "mediocre"
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