Fire Force Season 3

Episode 21

Last week, Fire Force finally answered the long-burning mystery of “Why are Tamaki's tits always popping out like that, and how are we, an uncritical mass of bleating sheep-fools, actually the stupid ones for questioning if said tit-poppage was truly necessary and appropriate?” With that crucial pillar of Fire Force's lore resolved, the show can commit some of these final minutes of runtime to the conflicts that remain (as meager as they may be in comparison to Atsushi Ohkubo's Fanservice Apologetics). There is, however, at least one more story beat that Fire Force can exploit to hype its audience up for the grand finale to come. The Knight King, Arthur Boyle, has one last Dragon to slay, and their battle will surely become the stuff of legends.

I'll be honest: For as much as I've genuinely loved the weird, metafictional angle that Fire Force has been committing to in its final act, we've reached the point where I wouldn't mind if the show toned it down a bit with all of the ramblings about despair and mankind's collective unconscious. I promise you, Fire Force, we get it. Besides, the endless monologues and barely coherent pontifications are really just here to set the stage for an apocalyptic showdown that is meant to literally be the stuff of legends - as in, “These characters are all powered by humanity's need to comprehend their universe through the framework of narrative, and their conflict has been preordained by the fundamental laws of this storybook reality.” It's fun enough as a storytelling concept, but it's even more fun when it gives these ridiculous cartoon characters a pretext to hit each other really fucking hard with their magic weapons and fire powers.

Even if Fire Force's script will always be limited by its essentially silly and honestly pretty dumb nature, its story benefits greatly from the excuse to let Arthur weaponize his delusions to kick even more Dragon ass than he ever has before. While Season 3 has had its share of ups and downs so far, as Studio David's ability to keep up with the demands of the manga's spectacle is concerned, they've really pulled out all of the stops for this last batch of episodes. “Dragon and Knight Surge Toward the Heavens” delivers exactly what that title promises by letting the titular rivals escalate their battle to the cosmic reaches of space as they pulverize each other into atomized dust.

Even though he does defeat the mighty Dragon once and for all, the cost of victory seems to have been Arthur's life, since I honestly don't know how the guy can recover from being reduced to a mangled torso that is floating adrift in the vacuum of space. I'm not torn up about it, though I don't think Fire Force expects us to be, which is smart. Arthur's dedication to his quest was his entire life, and a glorious end in a battle for the ages is exactly how he would have wanted to meet his maker. Shinra may be the archetypal savior who is destined to bring Fire Force's tale to its conclusion, but he would have never made it even half this far if it hadn't been for the dogged, insane stubbornness of the Knight of Company 8.

Rating:

Fire Force is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.