Enen no Shouboutai
Fire Force

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Fire Force is an enigma. I've legitimately never seen anything that tried as hard as it did, yet still feels like it's not trying hard enough at the same time.

Fire Force is a pretty standard battle shounen which, to be completely fair, had very interesting ideas. The plot is pretty simple: Shinra lives a world where spontaneous human combustion is a widespread issue, and joins a fire brigade to protect others from these fiery monsters that are created as a result, as well as his own motivations of possibly finding the truth of combustion and what happened on the day his mother and brother died ... in a fire as a child. It doesn't go very deep, and it works. Right?

As an action oriented manga, Fire Force brings interesting abilities to bring to the table - 2nd Generations have the ability to manipulate or control existing flames, and 3rd Generations can produce their own. It creates interesting applications of fire that create pretty unique fights... well, half the time at least. The thing is with Fire Force is that after a certain point, the fights and abilities only get so unique and interesting. Eventually the novelty wears off and it's just a bunch of flames, sometimes resulting in two guys chucking fireballs back and forth at each other creating situations like "my fire is just hotter than yours". There's also one particular character who serves no real purpose besides ruining fights. She is literally just there because Okubo wanted to draw tits in his manga, and she ruins the pacing of every fight she's involved in with her in-universe "ability" of having her clothes come off and people running into her tits in unfavorable situations. Hilarious. But when the fights are done well, it's pretty damn good, both in the action and visual department.

The visuals as a whole, unfortunately, are a bit of a mixed aspect on this series. Atsushi Okubo has a very distinct style, and when the art is brought to its maximum, it looks fantastic. However, that level of consistency is non-existent in this manga in every aspect, it seems. Many times the artstyle clashes with the tone, resulting in characters missing certain serious moments and just looking goofy. What was also quite noticeable at times was just the severe lack of detail in panels. This isn't to say I'm expecting artistic masterpieces every page; Fire Force just has a tendency to just have characters speak with only their expressionless face in frame and having minimal to no shading or backgrounds. This results in some very awkward panelling where there's nothing interesting visually going on whatsoever and frames that mainly consist of dialogue bubbles and half of some character's face.

I don't mind long monologues or conversations between characters. Hell, dialogue heavy series can be found in some of my favorites. Many people will often bring up the tried and true formula, "show, don't tell", and while this is great, there's a difference between that and having zero dialogue. Show don't tell is not about talking less; it's about subtlety in delivery of messages to the reader as opposed to just spoon-feeding them all the details, and this can be done correctly in series with plenty of dialogue. Fire Force is not one of these series.

Fire Force does not have terrible, irredeemable ideas in its writing. In fact, the plot is pretty interesting as a concept, especially in the final act. The problem with Fire Force's writing lies in its lack of subtlety - many times it seems Okubo couldn't think of a way to integrate the messages and themes he wanted to portray organically into the narrative, so he just had a character outright say what he wants the reader to get. This isn't even mentioning that the important characters themselves aren't very interesting to begin with - to be quite honest I don't even remember what some of these guys' one defining character trait is. The best parts of Fire Force lie in the simple aspects - the themes of hope vs despair, Shinra relying on others to keep level headed at times, the underlying mystery of what Adolla and human combustion is; these are all compelling ideas to me. But it tries to do more than it can handle and ends up shooting itself in the foot.

Reading Fire Force is basically reading what can be summed up as a massive identity crisis. Whether it be the artstyle or its simplistic manga elements, it comes off as a series that's just a simple battle shounen. Yet, it continues to try to sell itself as something greater and can't exactly execute these aspects well. Ideas and messages don't feel properly integrated with the story, they feel like a last minute addition trying to mask Fire Force's simplicity as if it's desperately trying to be viewed as something greater, from the author doubling down on the fanservice character being some deep societal criticism to just straight up slapping PNGs of the real world in frames where properly drawn panels should be. None of this comes off as clever, it's painfully unsubtle at best and downright moronic at its worst. I would probably feel less insulted watching the fucking Teletubbies; they don't offer much in terms of content, but at least Dipsy and Tinky Winky wouldn't show me a picture of the real world on their screens and pretend to be intellectuals. Out of the way, Evangelion! Stand aside, Bakemonogatari! The real pretentious work is here to dethrone all of those popularly debated as weird for the sake of being weird. There genuinely is nothing else I can see from this manga besides the author grasping at anything he could get to make his manga seem as smart and deep as possible. The writing just isn't there to back it up, whether it be the inconsistent plot or the uninteresting characters.

If I could give my general experience with Fire Force, the beginning was mostly an alright shounen with some boring parts, the middle was mostly boring with some alright shounen parts, and the last part just came off as stupid but fun when it wasn't trying to be smart. I'd say the final act, while not without it's stupid moments, was throughly enjoyable to read despite that. The "twist" reveal in that final act as it's slowly being unveiled is very unsubtle, but it just... kinda works? I'm not sure if most people would find it funny or genuinely cool. I personally think it's both.

Don't read this if you're looking for a super deep and serious manga. Fire Force lacks the consistency to pull that part off. If you have nothing better to do though and don't mind reading all of the 300 chapters? Honestly, knock yourself out. At its best moments I'd probably give it a confident 7 or even an 8, but unfortunately the majority of it just doesn't hold up to that same standard. As long as you're willing to sit through somewhere around 100 chapters of what I consider to be pretty boring/mediocre, it's a pretty simple story that has a good payoff ending in my opinion, and despite what the manga would have you thinking, there's absolutely nothing wrong with simple done well.

Edited on 03/09/2022 to fix some grammar issues I noticed as well as fix some details. I should probably stop writing these drafts so late at night.

To be fair I have to say I dropped this pretty early on because I have zero tolerance for certain stuff in anime/manga, but I will try to confer my thoughts as best I can. This is my opinion as someone who doesn't waste time watching Shonen nowadays, just seinen and the exception of a rare Shonen (such as Boku no Hero Academia, the only one I consider out of the box along with Kimetsu no Yaiba). This review also has some spoilers. Just the basic gist of the first arc I got to read.

Story — 6

Up until chapeter it is pretty simple and bland. ... You have your standard MC who lost their parents in a fire and decides he's going to be a hero. He also has exceptional powers. So he decides to join some op and badass firefighters. Then he finds that there's a bad smell coming from within the firefighter corps and decides to take a look only to find there's some corruption goin on between and within squads. Pretty cliche. It also has a tournament, by the title of one of the chapters. Another cliche from your typical shonen. If you like that then, by all means, go ahead and watch it.

Art — 9

This is extremely upsetting because it has an amazing art and an amazing character design. I loved Joker as a villain, I loved how the characters had something to them that defined them. Obi's soft eyes, for example, are something I loved. This too has something that backfired: FANSERVICE.

The fanservice is almost downright vulgar. I don't want to watch a character groping another. I don't want to see genitals in a shonen that is clearly aimed for young people. It has so many good moments but the fanservice is a little bit TOO much.

Character — 5

A standard shonen cast. The fanservice girl(s), the brooding older woman (basically a Tsunade), the innocent girl, the one who's constantly sexually harassed, and then you have the boys. The MC who's basically Naruto and can (and will) use the infamous "talk no jutsu" to overcome everything that gets in his way, the soft mentor (which is the only thing I like. I love Obi.), The strict teacher, and the MC's rival. I felt I was watching Naruto all over again.

Enjoyment — 6

I spent half of my time reading cringing and trying really hard not to cry out of frustration. This story had such a good potential and the author threw a lot of cliches and a lot of disgusting fanservice just for the sake of capturing his audience. It gets me sad because a lot of shonen stories with nice ideas get dumped because of mangas like this, full of repetitive, overused tropes and pointless fanservice.

The only thing I will say I like is the corruption part.

Overall — 5

I just cannot day anything else that's good. The art is amazing, the story is mediocre and cliche, it has a lot of fanservice and some glimmers of a good story that doesn't really connect that well due to the excessive use of recycled tropes in shonen—like shows.

Fire Force… The second big hit of Atsushi Ookubo. To tell the whole story, when I started to read this manga, I did not know it was the same author as for ‘Soul Eater’. Which is important, because I was literally traumatized by the ‘fist of friendship defeating the biggest evil of the whole universe’ of the Anime… So I have never read the manga, (even if I know it is different in many ways than the Anime), and after I realized it I was a bit shocked, because it was really good! However, I soon experienced my fear was not unfounded!

Short version
- Overall (6/10):
This ... manga has big epic moments just as often as total trash ones. The mangaka said several times that this will/is his last work. It definitely felt just like it. He took all his positive as well as negative thoughts and puked it in this work… To put it very simply: Completely meta and fourth wall breaking themes, total crazy action, epic art these were the perfectly chosen ingredients to create a great manga, but Ookubo (not so) accidentally added a massive stupidity in it… BOOM! And so was ‘Fire Force’ born!

Long version
- Story (3/10):
To go into the details, let us begin with the most controversial part, the story. Just as usual in a shounen manga, we follow the life of our main hero, Shinra, who literally calls himself a hero. But everybody else says he is a devil because of his evil smile instead of other emotions (for example crying). His ability is to blaze flames from his feet and fights fire demonic creatures. For this purpose he joins the name giving ‘Fire Force’, which is no more than a fire department who fights fire with fire. Soon we get our first antagonists and build-ups for the further story.
Until yet, nothing special, literally very generic and a bit stupid… I mean who tries to extinguish fire with fire?! But as we go deeper and deeper into the building, we see that the author tries to ignite the house… To heat up the story he throws a lot of crazy (e.g. time travel, the number Pi, space fights etc.) and meta (e.g. chapters long discussions about the necessity of ecchi in the world, fourth wall breaking talks with the reader, REAL life pictures etc.) stuff in! This not just creates a bunch of plot holes and unlogical story parts, it scares off (casual) readers, especially with the sheer amount of these. If you know ‘Soul Eater’, which was already partly crazy, then imagine the 3 or 5 times of that. You will totally lose the focus of the story, and it doesn’t even matter, because it just has to be wild and stupid at the same time!
So we get a hard to follow story, full of craziness, stupidness and plot holes. If you like Ookubo’s style or what you read ‘till yet, you may enjoy it, especially the Soul Eater references, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

- Art (8/10):
But gratefully, a manga is not just about a good story, or at least it is not indispensable. How the author infuses his craziness into this work is really artistic. For example, when he throws real life images in the manga, it follows a clear (but crazy) art concept. These make this work partly really artistic. On top of that, we get hell of good character designs, especially the fire demonic creatures, powerful action scenes, dynamic paneling and amazing creative settings. With such joyful visual enjoyment it is hard not to stay until the end, even if the story often lacks logic.
On the other hand, shades were almost non-existent so missed the depth in the images. Backgrounds were a bit too often just empty. The unnecessary ecchi scenes disturbed me too. And sometimes it felt like the author had a hangover so he just did half hearted work.

- Characters (5/10):
To the characters there is not much to say. Most of the female characters are there to be saved or to show some boobs. Or if they have some kind of use, their part concludes too fast. The male characters are all strong, but somehow stupid. The villains never felt like a real threat and missed substance for their stories. So, they are all very generic. And yes, they all get their backstories and developments, but even if they wouldn’t, nothing would change, except for the mc.
But there are 2 highlights: Arthur, the kind of rival of our protagonist Shinra, and Benimaru. Due to Arthur’s silliness he brings extremely hilarious moments, while his backstory is way too dramatic and funny at the same time. And at the same time his chemistry with Shinra works very well. So every time he successfully refreshed the tensions in a good way. A really excellent character for Ookubo’s crazy manga. But a warning! He could be sometimes too stupid to bear.
Meanwhile Benimaru is the character for totally epic fight scenes and to give us the insight for the power-levels and system. The kind of teacher for this shonen manga. But while in other manga the senseis/masters are somehow restricted, this one is full power and still balanced! The author used this character very well for his story.

- Enjoyment (6/10):
Altogether I have to say, it is hard not to enjoy and not to hate it at the same time. For the epic and hilarious moments it is definitely worth a try. And including the great art and action it seems to be the logical decision to read this. It is a truly crazy and enjoyable manga. However, as I said, the story is way too weak, way too stupid and sometimes it could be down to trash, especially with the fanservice scenes/chapters. What I can say, if you liked ‘Soul Eater’ you will like this one too, and if not then you should miss it. And if ‘Fire Force’ would be the first manga you read of Ookubo and you like a wild, crazy action story, then you may enjoy it, but be aware of the high amount of stupidness.

Look, they spoiled me, I already know the ending without finishing the manga, in these cases I'm very lucky, I'll make it clear to you, it's entertaining, as they say, it had potential for independent work but I really wanted it to be a prequel, the good and the bad. The bad thing about this is solving the questions of the soul but never its own questions, and opening others only to force it to be a prequel to a story that ended badly about friends of witches and shinigamis.... yes, I like that they expand their universe but I feel that it could have ... been another way and not forced to be a prequel, it could have functioned as a work apart from the author since he has a management of ideas that could come up on their own and not be tied down by soul eaters, well, I already read the manga until I was able to go and watch the two seasons of anime and as if it's already over, it had an ending that didn't know how to take advantage of shining, it's bad because I know I'm acting like a parrot, repeat, repeat this question but it bothers me, I wasted its potential, this spoiler ended with save me from an ending that does not agree with the author's vision, being both as a whole except I liked the ending of soul eaters

Each character is visually distinct, with detailed facial expressions that add depth to their interactions. The portrayal of fire as central element is especially compelling, with everything from calm blue flames to striking red explosions showing Ōkubo’s skill in animating visual elements.

However, behind this visual achievement, there are some notable drawbacks. The storyline, which starts out engaging, can feel somewhat drawn out, especially in the middle to latter parts. Although Enen no Shouboutai is set in an interesting world, some subplots feel underdeveloped and merely decorative. Supporting characters, for instance, often lack depth, and their backgrounds are not explored thoroughly, which leaves some parts without ... the emotional richness that could have enhanced the overall story.

In terms of comedy, Enen no Shouboutai features a unique sense of humor, though it can sometimes feel excessive. The comic relief placed amid serious situations often disrupts the tension, undermining the intensity that had been built. While this humor may appeal to some readers, those who prefer a more consistent tone may find these comedic interludes distracting.

On a positive note, the themes of friendship and determination in facing fears are consistently reinforced throughout the narrative, offering a meaningful moral depth. Character interactions, though sometimes underdeveloped, still positively impact the protagonist, Shinra’s, growth. Shinra’s struggle to confront his past while forming strong bonds with his teammates is one of the manga’s more emotionally resonant aspects.

I'll keep this review short so maybe you can save yourself some time. Have you ever heard of Bleach? To summarise, Bleach was a great manga with a terrible ending arc, in essence it had great ideas to be an amazing ending but it wasn't and that's how crappy I felt back in 2016.

2022, 6 years later, and the same feeling, Enen no Shouboutai had a great story, it was a bit rushed, not gonna lie, but it had shown promise. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver, skipping spoilers there is a moment where they go visit "China" if you reach that point, stop reading, make your ... own headcanon ending and be happy.

At some point it felt like the author was convinced or had the bad idea to change the concept of the story, because out of nowhere he changes stuff; that's a risky move for a writer, breaking the whole universe he took years to create, for whatever reason.

The only good thing I take from the manga is Maki Oze and Arrow.