Welcome everyone, to another week of Fire Hunter! This was an interesting week, lots of lore drops, and a possible shake up of the status quo. Was it good? Will it save the series? I don’t yet know. But at least I have plenty to talk about. Now lets dive right into it!
Starting off, credit where it’s due, Fire Hunter has some incredible lore. We learned so much this episode. From the Flickering Flame being a satellite in space put there by the previous civilizations to the Treefolk being experiments created by the Divine Clans, with only the “successes” being sent out into the forests to act as benevolent helpers to the villages. Meanwhile the failures are left to rot inside the city, unloved and uncared for by their creators. There’s even some backstory regarding how humans came to be this way, along with the Flame Fiends! It’s all pretty interesting stuff. Which makes Fire Hunter’s ability to deliver it in the most dry, uninteresting way imaginable all the more egregious. Despite the lore being inherently interesting, all I could think of while watching the episode was if I could get away with skipping forward or not. And that sucks.
That said, one part in all of this did land for me, and that was the reveal of how the God’s themselves were responsible for the Flame Fiends and why humans are the way they are now. The God’s, AKA Ancient Human’s as I now believe them to be, in the quest for war and power released these pathogens that made humans combustible. This lead to fire “forsaking” humans and “returning” to the beasts, creating Flame Fiends, which then resulted in the creation of the Sickles to allow humans to fight them. Does it all make sense? Not really, not yet. But it does start to throw a wrench into our previous idea of “Good” and “Evil”. Are the Spiders really evil if they are seeking to tame the Flame Fiends and overthrow those who did all this to begin with? Maybe they are the true, rebellious, heroes all along!
Getting back on the disappointment train though, did you see that fight with the spies? Or the spies at all? Once again Fire Hunter proves itself a complete and total mess any time someone tries to move faster then 1 frame per second. The whole thing just looked incredibly jank. Again, we got a few interesting tidbits in there. Akira seemed to heal unnaturally fast, though whether that was her or the God guy being in their presence is up in the air. As for the God guy himself, he definitely gave off some “Villain” vibes with his arrogance and general attitude towards everyone. Now why was he here to begin with? No idea, since people work around here it doesn’t seem bad for them to be here to. But Fire Hunter isn’t doing much to help me care about the show, so maybe I just missed something there.
Finally we have Touko, who is possibly getting written out of the story. Personally, I don’t see it. She still has the Sickle, the Spiders are attacking soon, I expect her to get caught up in the attack and for them to be reunited after that’s all over. I just don’t see how, or why, Fire Hunter would build up so much around her and her group, what with Akira and Kun, just to have them disappear right after delivering Kanata. That said if Fire Hunter DID do that, it might be for the better. No more weird cut-aways or oddly split stories. Just a singular focus on Koushi and this rebellion story arc. Would probably help the story in the long run I feel.
Anyways that’s it for this week. Another largely disappointing episode, though maybe that’s not entirely true since you have to be expecting anything to be disappointed. Fire Hunter is an interesting story being told in the most dull, visually unfinished way I’ve seen in a long time. It’s taking a lot of energy to force myself to sit through it each week and write these. If I suddenly stop, you’ll know why. A review will be done, I swear it. But I may need a break from this shit one of these weeks.
