At this point, I’m pretty convinced everyone in this show is totally freaking insane. I just don’t know yet whether it’s for the sake of comedy or it’s an actual plot point. It’s fun ride either way though, because things escalate pretty damned quickly in episode 5.
The episode begins with a flashback to Iris’s tragic backstory, which has been painted rather obviously during the ending credits so far, brought on by her shared childhood with the Princess of Special Force 5; Hibana. Which actually is surprising. After the brief clashing of head’s between Force’s five and eight at the end of the previous episode, Iris goes to confront her old friend and is immediately taken hostage.
Force 5’s pretence that they’re a science division doing everything completely above board seemed flimsy at beast, now they’re just taking other force members hostage; it’s almost like they’re trying to get caught. Not to mention with force 8 already on their asses and their own non too secret objective of overseeing their fellow departments.
I mean, if there’s supposed to be all this subterfuge, off the books research and scheming going on, the fact that nobody remotely tries to keep their intentions a secret leads me to think that 80% of pyrokinetics in this world are bat-shit crazy.
Between the Lieutenant’s sadistic, team shooting hi jinks, Hibana’s demented masochism and Arthur’s bewildering state of self delusion that extends to him thinking sparrows are griffins and to the point he forgot he was not left handed, I want to believe that this is a world in which everyone’s dwindling sanity is going to lead the world to ruin, one way or the other.
After Iris get’s herself captured and victim to a second case of fan service in the space of a few minutes, things escalate rather quickly and Special Force 8 straight up launch a four man siege against their much larger, much better funded and staffed counterpart. All without any provocation either. It’s not like they were sent a ransom note or anything, they just assumed that’s were Iris was and showed up spitting fire. Literally.
It is the correct move though, considering Force 5 are a corrupt as my old Macbook, having taken the Infernal from the previous episode and painting a big ol’ number 5 on his forehead and powering him up some. Thing is, this entire army of soldiers/fire fighters are all rather easily defeated by two second generations and a nutcase who forgot his dominant hand.
Leaving Shrina to confront Hibana himself and rescue Iris. With the currently absent Captain Obi showing up dramatically out of nowhere at some point no doubt.
Fire Force continues to be a lot of fun, but it’s already taken a pretty severe swerve away from what I was expecting of it given its initial premise. The Infernals seemed to be the main threat given the show’s first episodes, but in actuality, we haven’t seen that many of them and there have been two major antagonists introduced already who seem way more dangerous than the small handful of fire demons we’ve met.
It’s like watching the first four episodes of Attack on Titan and then skipping right to them overthrowing the government in episode five. The show still doesn’t feel like it’s settled, throwing a lot at its audience right off the bat and then going in a totally different direction than I was expecting.
The show still looks great in broad sequences. It’s got a ton of great visual flair going for it thanks to the character designs and the fire motif that carries throughout the entity of the show. It’s just seemed nonstop since it got going and I kind want to get a better feel for the characters, because other than Shinra himself, everyone feels like they’re held up their main gag and some blue high vis tape.
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 