Name: An somewhat interesting premise crippled by tasteless fanservice and tonal whiplash.
Item: Fire Force
Rating: 30
Author: DarkArcher207

Waifra

An somewhat interesting premise crippled by tasteless fanservice and tonal whiplash. · Waifora

A mess of a show. Characters feel like they have no more depth than their design sheet; an aesthetic and a brief list of quirks or key features, no more. As a result the plot only ever seems to interact with characters at a superficial level. Every conflict has some simplistic cause and somehow fighting manages to make them come around completely. Rather than complicated and living characters that exist within the story, it feels more like a collection of characters crafted specifically to create the scenes desired by the writers. It feels backwards.

But the thing that really gets me about this show is the tone-deaf fanservice. It's hard to express in words how trashy this show is with it's fanservice. I'm not at all opposed to some lewd humor, but this ought to be a textbook example from now on for how not to do fanservice. At best, it's just a moment of irrelevant flashing before the scene remembers that something important was going on.

The worst case I saw was Episode 9. In short,

Spoiler, click to view

a person Tamaki looked up to as a role model ends up being a villain. In addition to being responsible for the deaths-and-or-ignition of several children, he ruthlessly beats Tamaki, emotionally and mentally abuses her, and raves at her like a madman while she's vulnerable, in shock, and alone. And this isn't me making it sound worse than it is, the show goes out of it's way to emphasize how damaged she is both physically and emotionally from this.

Spoiler, click to view

And then Shinra shows up, some fighting happens, and he ends up doing the faceplant-into-boobs trope, complete with a "Baka hentai!" and a "S-sorry!". And then somehow he walks off with her skirt? And then it's back to the fight and the girl's engulfed in flames, but this time the fire doesn't hurt her, it just conveniently burns away her clothes to expose more of her ~~to the audience~~. And the protagonist takes a minute to perv out, because who wouldn't take a mental snapshot of an abuse victim you came here to save, right? And then he gets punched into her and kisses her ~~by accident~~ and she pushes him away, but wait, then she grabs the back of his jacket and shakily asks him to defeat the baddy for her with a emotionally vulnerable voice, and now horny mode is off again.

Sorry if it seems like harping on the point, it just baffles me that such a tonally jarring scene ever made it past the drafting stage. This scene goes on for most of the episode, and a bit of the prior as well. And it's not an isolated example, I only made is 11 or 12 episodes in and this sort of sacrifice of tone for a cheap laugh or a booby shot happens all the time. What is the audience supposed to take away from this? Emotionally damaged women are hot and should be lusted over? Good storytelling and worldbuilding should take a backseat to opportunities to oogle the cast? Am I supposed to feel sad or disgusted or angry or horny when characters go through bad things? I'm fine with either in suitable context but the show cannot seem to pick a lane.

Maybe the most disappointing thing is that nobody seems to really be talking about it. Most people I know recommended this show, and most comments on that fight in particular are about how sick the choreography is, or how good the music or animation is. Those qualities of the show are good, and the premise and setting overall has potential, I just found myself unable to care about a show that seems so insecure in it's own writing that it thinks it has to constantly distract you with boobies every episode to keep you interested.