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The Winter 2023 Anime Preview Guide
The Fire Hunter

How would you rate episode 1 of
The Fire Hunter ?
Community score: 4.3



What is this?

In a world in the chaotic aftermath of humanity's apocalyptic Last War. A great forest, infested with flameling creatures and other fallen beasts, covers the world, and pockets of humanity live in small protected communities. Due to a special weapon used in the Last War, human beings spontaneously burst into flame even when merely getting close to a small source of fire. The only safe energy source for humanity lies within the bodies of flamelings, and the duty to hunt them falls to the sickle-wielding firecatchers who brave the depths of the great forest. Among the firecatchers, they whisper tales of one who would be "Firecatcher Lord," an individual who will be able to harvest the fire of the thousand-year comet, the "Wandering Spark" that has flown in the sky since it was sent up before the Last War, but is now returning to earth.

The Fire Hunter is based on Rieko Hinata and Akihiro Yamada's fantasy novel series and streams on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.


How was the first episode?

Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

I've got to hand it to Mamoru Oshii. The man came back to anime after over a decade's absence and has exclusively worked on weird stuff totally unmoored from the current industry. Vladlove was a weird, sporadic shitpost of a show that felt like a lost 70's comedy, and now we have The Fire Hunter, a production that feels straight out of the 2000s Studio Madhouse oeuvre despite being based on pretty contemporary source material. It's gnarly, a bit esoteric, and totally unlike anything else airing this season or year.

That certainly gives this first episode some novelty, but I suspect it'll also lead a lot of viewers to chafe against its approach to storytelling. This is an episode almost entirely about mood and world-building, centering the viewer in this familiar yet alien world where humanity has been forced to abandon all forms of combustion for fear of being consumed by uncontrollable fire. They exist in scattered villages only vaguely connected to a far-off Capitol city, eking out lives at the edge of wild forests. There are references to “treefolk” and the central fire fiends that aren't fully explained, but imply a more elaborate and supernatural world just out of frame. What little character work we get from any one person is more about establishing the grim mindset required to survive in this world. There are also oblique but unsettling moments, like the girl from the family Touko lives with seeing her off with an ominous mask, the meaning of which we're left to discern without any guidance from the show itself.

It's a strong, confident approach to opening a show that you really don't see much these days, and that will either be a boon or a dealbreaker for anyone watching this. Personally, I found it refreshing, and wanted to immediately see the next episode to learn more about this world and the people in it. I also wanted to just see more of this art and the character designs, which are striking while capturing the strange appeal of early Digipaint anime in their simplicity and flat colors. But I can also see how the inconclusive, almost scattered storytelling and antiquated aesthetic could alienate people. It's almost impossible, at the end of this episode, to pin down what this story is about or who our central character is. Heck, we only have a vague idea of what fire hunters are, and that's the whole title!

All that's to say that I can't be sure if The Fire Hunter is good, yet. But it's interesting in a way nothing else airing right now is, and certainly has the building blocks to be a fascinating and memorable creation. Whether or not it actually will do that is as mysterious as the rest of it, but that's a mystery I'm happy to follow through.


James Beckett
Rating:

I knew I was probably going to love The Fire Hunter just based on the look of the show, and the aesthetics of its setting. The art has a decidedly more robust and textured style than a lot of shows go for these days, and I love it when post-apocalyptic stories like this can find cool ways to meld the technology and fragmented remnants of the old world with the almost mythic nature of a reborn society. That goes double for when you have the kind of iconic imagery and cultural touchstones that an anime like The Fire Hunter has to work with, seeing as Japanese artists are no strangers to that wonderful clash that comes with mixing the modern with the ancient.

So, as far as world-building and tone-setting are concerned, The Fire Hunter is a top-notch production. All that remains to be seen is whether the story will be able to match the high standards of this series' animation, direction, sound design, music, and so on. As of yet, we really don't have much to go on; this first episode is so preoccupied with simply explaining what this world is like, and what the dangers of fire are for this new breed of human, that Touka isn't afforded much opportunity to establish herself as a protagonist. The show does have strong character work - Touka's mother is an immediately compelling figure, for one, and we do get hints about Touka's fraught relationship with her sister, among other things – but this is not the kind of premiere for folks who need to get their plots started right from the very beginning. It is, if you'll pardon the pub, a slow burn.

That said, with a legend like Mamoru Oshii in charge of the adaptation process, I'm inclined to give this one the benefit of the doubt. The Fire Hunter's first episode is a gorgeous, melancholy, and very intriguing start to what could well be one of the best shows of the season. Keep an eye on this one, for sure.


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