Welcome to a battle of two families: Vulcan vs Lisa and Shinra vs Sho. These two episodes pair nicely and feature quality fights befitting of a late season shounen. While not big on emotional payoff, Fire Force delivers clues as to the world’s mystery…and a nice hair cut!
Lisa vs Vulcan is the first up. I love Obi pulling out the wrestling moves here – it’s been hinted at before, but there have been quite a few WWE overtones with the captain of the Eighth. Nice strategy and a decent fight, but…Giovanni felt off. It’s a foregone conclusion that Lisa’s joining the good ones, so there wasn’t a lot of tension. Every interaction with Giovanni was a formality to transfer some world knowledge and former Femme Fatale Feeler to Short Hair Hottie Lisa….okay, actually, that was worth.
Second up is the bigger fight between the Adollah Links. I’m not 100% clear on how this is all working, but I’m starting to get the picture – I actually like the introduction of alternate dimension spookiness. It’s reminiscent of FMA’s alchemy source; I didn’t like that as much (felt like lazy writing), but here it feels right for some reason. The physics are so far out the window, maybe? We have…heating the universe and going faster than light to reassemble a body. Guess with Dr. Stone wrapped up, someone’s got to supply implausible physics.
For a big fight, this felt pretty good – both sides improving and improvising as the fight went on. We’ve had adequate power-ups (I laughed when Victor was like, “Did you get faster??”), so all my shounen proclivities are sated. Speaking of Victor, I thought he was an odd, but probably necessary narrator. I’m curious if Joker will show up, since they’re connected – would be a nice Deus Ex Machina.
Also the First is involved? And earthquakes? I feel very suspicious of eye-patch captain.
Fire Force has been ending its first half strong. There are still hiccups and missteps, but I really feel the pyrotechnics and better fight choreography have smoothed over the problematic bits. Also, it just feels fresh – despite this episode’s obvious Lisa transfer, I haven’t felt like I know exactly how this will all play out. It’s been a while since I’ve had a shounen especially give me that – I think that’s what keeps bringing me back week after week. Here’s hoping for a strong finish – a doubleheader at that. I can’t wait!
Merry Christmas from Spooky Shinra!
