*Chibi is in the backyard practicing her wind magic and not being satisfied with the results*
(Chibi): *Sigh* No, that’s no good either.
(Nitsuj): Hey there Chibi, what’s going on?
(Chibi): Just practicing my wind magic but having trouble coming up with new moves. I’m in a creative slump.
(Nitsuj): Maybe I can help. When you’re in a creative slump it’s best to look at others for inspiration. One man who’s always creative is Atsushi Ōkubo-hey wait a minute I gave this speech before! Like I’ve said before Atsushi was never one of these groundbreaking artists with his work but it was different, creative and fun to read. Soul Eater was kind of a head of its time and made him famous that people checked out his next work Fire Force. I’m not sure if the series reached the same heights as Soul Eater but when it came to work outside of Jump this was a series everyone thought about.
(Chibi): After a successful and intriguing first season, Fire Force would return in 2020 for a second season. Done once again by David Production (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Undead Unlock) along with a new director the season was met with excitement.
(Nitsuj): And with the third season around the corner now seems like a good time to watch this series and remind ourselves what happened.
(Chibi): Let’s put out some fires. This is Fire Force S2.
Opening and Ending Theme
(Nitsuj): The first opening of the season is “Spark-Again” by Aimer. So I already talked about being one my favorite openings from 2020 and my thoughts are still the same, it’s a great song. Actually, you guys are going to find this crazy, but this was my introduction to Aimer. No joke, this was first song where a recognized her voice. I want to say I’ve heard her songs in the past before this one but nothing comes to mind. Still, this song did made me become a fan of her work.
(Chibi): The ending is “ID” by Cidergirl. A great ending song with cool animation. It’s so simple but yet so cool at the same time. The singer just sounds so calm and determined throughout the whole song that you can’t help but bop your head along with the beat.
Episodes 1-4
(Chibi): The new season of the anime starts off with an anime-made story in the first half of the episode. Shinra finally has a day off and gets invited to go shopping with Maki, Iris, and Tamaki (Mr. Popular). While shopping, a giant Infernal appears and they have to take out. The whole 8th shows up where in order to take down the Infernal they have to destroy all 5 of it’s cores located in the arms, legs, and chest. Through their combined efforts they manage to take down the Infernal (Nitsuj: In record time. Scene here: https://youtu.be/7CTflReVW8Y?si=8VUXAFMns-7MDQyX). In the second half of the episode we get fanservice for the female audience. The time has come around for each company to make an all-male nude calendar (scene here: https://youtu.be/in8_qE-motU?si=tOpB0Tp5YJ7QHMLE. (Nitsuj): Good God, all the males in this anime are secretly Jojo characters). This is a good opener for the new season. It does a good job re-introducing the characters as well as getting a good laugh out of us in the second half while also giving the female audience some fanservice.
In episode 2 Shinra is going to meet Hague the captain of the 4th company. When he had a flashback to when he got the Adolla Burst last season, one of the people he saw in the flashback was Hague. The questions now are does he know about the Adolla Burst and if so where does he fit in with the story? We go to the 4th company’s firehouse which also serves as the Fire Force academy. We find out that this is where Shinra and Arthur trained at (Nitsuj: Good to return to the old stomping grounds) and meet his good friend Ogun (scene here: https://youtu.be/nUCguiLcgvk?si=g3tbQ2_7R9P2EOGI). After this the episode gets. . .weird (and for an anime that has people with pyrokinesis and spontaneous combustion that says a lot). When Shinra goes to meet Hague (Nitsuj: Who is a straight up masochist) he performs an Adolla link with a being known as the First Pillar who looks like Iris. She takes control of Shinra and uses all the anger and hatred he’s kept in check over the years to make him go on a rampage and fight the others. At first Hague fights him and actually does seem like he could control this situation (if he wasn’t such a masochist) but chooses not to. Arthur and Ogun show up to help where Arthur goes deep into his role-playing mode and becomes more than a match for Shinra. We actually do get a glimpse into his past (kind of random when you think about it) where we see his active imagination came from his parents before they abandoned him for some reason. Arthur manages to return Shinra back to his senses and the First Pillar retreats (scene here: https://youtu.be/b6rm5CdIJSg?si=C7szHHhPs3k0JktH). Before going however, the First Pillar tells Shinra that a new Adolla Burst has been born.
Episode 3 introduces us to Inca the Fifth Pillar (who looks a lot like Kim from Soul Eater), a school girl who at first seems innocent but in truth she’s a sociopath. She has the ability to sense and see heat lines as well as when a fire will start. She uses this ability to arrive onto a fire scene before the Fire Force arrives and coerce people into giving her money or other valuables in order to save them (Nitsuj: Well that’s morally wrong but at the same time brilliant). Like I said before she’s a sociopath who loves the thrills and chills of fire and being caught up in disasters. After doing another successful coercing, Inca senses a number of fires about to go off in the area courtesy of the Evangelist. The 8th arrive onto the scene where Shinra gets put in charge of finding the Fifth Pillar before the Evangelist, but it’s too late as Charon, a member of the Evangelist, finds Inca and tries to get her to come with her peacefully (Nitsuj: After killing one of her friends right in front of her? (Chibi): Yeah, she’s really going to go along with you now). Inca discovers her pyrokinesis which is being able to trigger explosions by running her fingers across the heat lines. She attacks Charon but her attacks have little to no effect on him, so she runs away where she gets saved by Shinra but not even he’s a match for Charon’s power stone-like defense (have you tried going down south?).
So not much happens in episode 4. We see a lot of infernals popping up including a demon infernal (it’s a regular infernal. Only more demon) and the 8th receive help from other companies. We see that Inca doesn’t want Shinra to save her (Nitsuj: She cray-cray). For Inca life is only worth living when there’s thrill and uncertainty involved. A life of safety and security is boring to her and would make her feel dead inside. That’s why for her, she will resist Shinra’s rescue for as long as she lives. Shinra and Charon continue to fight where Shinra is still no match for Charon until he remembers a new hand sign he received from Akiteru.
Episodes 5-8
In episode 5 Shinra finally manages to damage Charon by countering his second generation ability to control fire and throw it back at his opponent, but Shinra’s victory is short lived as it still wasn’t enough to keep Charon down (scene here: https://youtu.be/rxOIt6vNKEY?si=_Ue3uJwvsDBTAEL-. (Nitsuj): I think it might be time to tag out Shinra). The real highlight of the episode is with the demon Infernal which gets defeated by all the side characters (minus Tamaki of course. I’m convinced that see is just boobs). They have all the second-generation soldiers gather all the flames from the fires around them and send them to Maki who uses them to create a firestorm. Wie get a funny scene with them trying to get the demon into the firestorm where they succeed and then destroy all the infernals while putting out the fires and as well as the firestorm.
At the start of episode 6 Inca decides to be a tramp (I can say tramp, right? (Nitsuj): You can on this site. Personally, I’d rather call her something else) and go with the Evangelist saying she’d rather live a life of danger and uncertainty than live a boring safe life where she has no say in what she can do. She even kills her other friend cutting her ties with her former life once and for all. Shinra tells the others what happened where they realize that they know nothing about the Adolla Burst or what the Evangelist are planning and decide that the next step is finding out what these things are. In the second half, the 8th are doing a joint operation with the other companies to investigate the Great Cataclysm of the past to find clues about the Adolla Burst and stop the Evangelist who want to trigger another Great Cataclysm, a tragic event from 250 years ago that nearly destroyed the entire world and destroyed the land of continents. Shinra, Arthur, Victor, and Tamaki (why are we sending her? (Nitsuj): For the fanservice) are chosen to represent the 8th and their destination will be the Chinese Peninsula. The next day we see Ogun will be joining them on this trip along with Takeru from the 2nd company who used to live near the Chinese Peninsula, and Purt a trainer at the Fire Force academy.
(Nitsuj): Episode 7 goes by rather quickly. The group arrives in Avalon (aka China) where they drive through the wasteland where everyone except Victor gets high from the natural gas because they didn’t wear masks (scene here: https://youtu.be/X7JrPAQbhzc?si=g6iLx2zMAJF4AVL4). They return to their senses when they get attacked by a rock worm and save a talking mole named Scop. Shinra and Ogun lure the worm away where we get to see Ogun is a third-generation fire user and uses his flames to fly around on a skateboard like Marty McFly from Back to the Future and can create fire spears which he can launch at others (Chibi: Now that is cool). Scop reveals that he came from an oasis but was chased out by Infernals. Since the oasis is the location where the group is heading to, they decide to travel together and joining them is a talking crow named Yata where not even he knows why he and Scop can talk (Vulcan would be having a field day with them). Along their way to the oasis, Shinra and Ogun come across a valley of Infernals who have been living for 250 years and are unable to put them to rest as the ground is unstable with lava. The next day they reach the oasis where they find an out of order Amaterasu or the Tabernacle as Scop and Yata call it. As they walk through the oasis (which I’m pretty sure used to be a city), Shinra hears a voice asking him to protect the forest of the oasis.
At the start of episode 8 Scop talks about the Tabernacle where he says it was around long before him and the other animals and was out of commission. This however changed when a mysterious woman came who taught them how to talk, gave them food, and restarted the Tabernacle all by herself resulting in the oasis. After she restarted the Tabernacle, she just vanished never to be seen again and the animals have since then been guarding the place for her return. After this, the group gets attacked by Infernals who can talk (Chibi: Not all that well, but progress) and want to destroy the Tabernacle saying that it is a tool that will destroy the world (I can see that happening. It does look like a metal volcano). They managed to fight off the Infernals (where Takumi didn’t lose her clothes. (Chibi): Is that something worth noting Nii-chan? (Nitsuj): Yes. For every scene this girl has been in she’s given us a fanservice scene for no reason and looking like the most useless character ever. Here, she actually offers up a prayer for the Infernals so that they can pass up peacefully. It doesn’t do much but she’s at least doing something). They decide to investigate the Tabernacle with Purt, Viktor, and Arthur going inside while Shinra and the others remain outside to cover them. Shinra and the others soon become surrounded by Infernals led by their leader a demon Infernal named Tempe who may or may not have been an Evangelist. Meanwhile, Purt, Viktor, and Arthur get trapped inside and find a bunch of walls and tablets with numbers on them. Viktor has no idea what these numbers mean but Arthur does and can translate them.
Episodes 9-13
In episode 9 Ogun gets to show off big time (he may just have the coolest power of the bunch). In the episode, Purt and the others continue to explore the Tabernacle where they reach the core of it and can sense that something powerful is inside but not sure what. Viktor theorizes that the Tabernacle and Amateratsu are both being powered by a pillar (Chibi: Energy is people~) meaning Shinra and the other pillars are sacrifices. Meanwhile, Shinra can sense the mysterious woman that Scop and the others were talking about in the Tabernacle meaning she’s powering it. While Shinra tries to perform an Adolla link with her, Ogun and the others (mostly Ogun) keeps Tempe busy. Ogun takes his shirt off (Chibi: Oh la la. That means his power has doubled) and embeds his body in flame tattoos he calls Flamy Ink. This move increases his strength, speed, and agility which he uses to unleash a flurry of attacks on Tempe (it’s cool and gives an insight to his character as we see him dribble around the Infernal like a basketball at one point and even throws a fireball at it. This is clearly a guy who likes to skate and enjoys sports. Scene here: https://youtu.be/QZBEpACC_Gw?si=7lNO7GgRErGE8ZdF). Shinra finally performs an Adolla link with the mysterious woman and speaks to her trying to get her help in providing the fire power needed to defeat the demon Infernal. Unfortunately, she says she only has enough power to sustain the oasis. At best, she could only provide enough Adolla grace to Shinra for one second which Shinra says is more than enough time (an anime time, yes. (Chibi): Really? (Nitsuj): Yep, remember in DBZ when Freiza said Namek would explode in 5 minutes and it took like 10 episodes for it to finally explode).
So in episode 10, Shinra enters the speed force (or in this case Adolla force) and destroys Tempe (scene here: https://youtu.be/HrV0SK-Vvjg?si=zavo_Yu4uOfivlMk. (Chibi): Wow, one second was really all he needed). As he destroys Tempe he sees his past where he was a corrupted man who lost everything after the Great Cataclysm and just wondered the land hopelessly. One day he came across the Evangelist (that’s a big woman) who came out of a spatial rift. Tempe mistook her for God and begged her to give him grace. He received grace by being turned into a demon Infernal vowing to become a god himself and preach the greatness of the Evangelist that bestowed this power upon him (scene here: https://youtu.be/Sp1-RCB0z00?si=M_EcU1HGGSitATck). After Shinra destroyed Tempe, he continues to speak with the mysterious woman who also came from the spatial rift. Just like Tempe she was once human, until she was bitten by the Evangelist’s bug and gained the power of the Adolla Burst. The mysterious woman followed the Evangelist where she found all the animals, repaired the Tabernacle (which was here long before she arrived), and created the oasis as a means to help the animals. She goes on to say that the various religions of the world were all inspired by the Evangelist who gave people visions using the Adolla Burst (so, we’re going up against the god of our gods? Starting to think Kratos should have joined us. (Chibi): He is an expert when it comes to god slaying). Shinra reunites with the others where they compare notes, and Viktor theorizes that the First Pillar was forced to go into Amateratsu as opposed to the mysterious woman who went in willingly. With all this information the mission is a success, and the group says goodbye to their animal friends (Chibi: No~, take them with you) as they make their way back to Tokyo a thought occurs to Viktor. If everything that they’ve found out is true then that means the whole theology of the Sol Temple is wrong. It was all made up by the Evangelist to develop the country and if that’s the case, why is she trying to destroy what she built (Chibi: The answer, too much Minecraft. (Nitsuj): The scary thing is you could be right. That idea makes so much sense).
Not much happens in episode 11. After Shinra and the others return, they tell the rest of the 8th what they discovered and pass this information to the higher brass who decide to keep this under wraps for the next 3 years (making Shinra and the others’ mission, totally pointless). Luckily, a dark hero may reveal their findings for them. Joker has teamed up with Benimaru (Chibi: The two most interesting characters in the show so far) and are attacking the HQ of the Sol Temple. Benimaru has always had his suspicions about the religion of Sol and Amateratsu, so him attacking their temple was something he had no problem with. They go for a frontal assault where everything goes fine until Benimaru gets hit with a blow dart and goes down (well. . .this is embarrassing).
Episode 12 delivers. We see that Benimaru got hit with a poison dart from last episode, but he gets back up totally fine and ready to fight as the poison did seem to affect him. After that, they enter the HQ of the Sol Temple (Chibi: Latom to these lost sheep) where they enter a part of the Nether that seems to be under the control of the Sol Temple (shady religion. Not surprising). As they explore the Nether, we learn that Joker once used to be a member of the Sol Temple. He worked for a group called The Shadows, the Sol Temple’s personal assassins (meant to take down anyone who got close to the truth). Joker was a orphan taken in to be an assassin. Of course, Joker wasn’t interested in serving Sol, but rather wanted to get stronger and figure out why this world is so messed up. Right away he was ahead of the others at young age, too bad his commander didn’t think he was all that special. His commander made his life a living nightmare as he constantly abused, beat him, whipped him, took his eye and may have possibly raped him (don’t know, don’t want to know, let’s move on). Joker finally had enough and ran away where he got taken in by this family who were shortly killed by the Shadows later on. Joker soon found himself alone and became a rogue (Chibi: He’s not a part of the Evangelists, but rather a lone wolf exposing the secrets of the world to everyone). Back to the present, the Shadows led by the commander surround Joker and Benimaru forcing them to fight. Benimaru takes the lesser Shadows, while Joker takes on the commander giving us an awesome fight scene (Chibi: As well as allowing Joker to unleash years of pent up anger). Joker kills the commander in flawless fashion (https://youtu.be/FfvTXACPv30?t=3. (Chibi): Wow, you haven’t used that in a while Nii-chan. Scene here: https://youtu.be/bAgqtecyHEk?si=SZAYnGISwIGQbCFF) and gets ready for his next challenger (Street Fighter Announcer: Here comes a new challenger), Burns.
So if you were hoping for an all-out fight between Burns, Joker, and Benimaru (you know, like they advertised in the opening) get ready to have those dreams dashed away because Burns didn’t come here to fight, he came to help. It turns out Joker and Burns go way back and the two even performed an Adolla link together in the past. It happened a couple of years ago when there was a mass outbreak of Infernals at Amaterasu. An Infernal let out a screech that caused them to perform an Adolla link where they were transported to a higher plane of existence known as Adolla. It was in this dimension that they met God (Chibi: I was expecting him to look like Morgan Freeman. I’m disappointed). They soon returned to their plane of existence where they each lost an eye to eternal flames, but Joker brought back a souvenir, a rock that burns forever. Burns hands Joker a diary which was written by the wife of Raffles I. In the diary she talks about the change her husband went through after returning from a trip believing him not to be the same man she had been married to for 30 years (you don’t spend time with a man that long and not know everything about him). We cut to the Evangelists where we find out that one of the members named Yona was Raffles I. He killed the original Raffles I and started the Holy Sol Temple religion 250 years ago by order of the Evangelist (Chibi: You mean their religion is based on a lie?). Back with Joker, he takes his leave with Benimaru and Burns promising to cover this whole mess up. Joker decides his next target is Haijima Industries. Since they worked so closely with the Holy Sol Temple, they must know a great deal about Raffles I and could lead to a connection with the Evangelist. In the second half of the episode we return to the 8th company (Chibi: Everyone’s favorite company) where Lisa is a new recruit sent there to recuperate and we get a funny moment where Shinra and Eris both try to poke her breasts to make sure she’s real (I don’t think people ship them, but they would be an interesting couple). Konro comes by to tell them what Benimaru found out at the Holy Sol Temple and the 8th decide to start investigating the Haijima company as well but they don’t know where to start (seeing as how Haijima is like a fusion of Walmart, Amazon, Disney and Google all rolled into one. Everyone seems to work for them even if they don’t know it). All we know is that Viktor works for them and he was just called in by Gureo, the president of Haijima (Chibi: And a fan of the Gameboy). We find out that Viktor was sent as a spy (no surprise there) to keep an eye on Shinra for the company. They order him to bring in Shinra so they can experiment on him and see if his report was true as well as kill Viktor.
(Nitsuj): And that’s the first half of the second season. Feeling inspired now Chibi?
(Chibi): Yes. I need to go practice right now. Is that okay?
(Nitsuj): Of course. We’ll continue the second half next week. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.