Characters
Women get some nice airtime with Tamaki, particularly getting a good fight. However, the “lucky Letcher” bit persists much to my chagrin and it continues to pollute with its presence.

As far as everyone else I think that if you had previous opinions on the Fire Force cast I don’t see those changing. A lot of characters lack significant depth with my enjoyment of them depending largely on if they enjoy their bit. For example, I find Arthur’s mix of cluelessness and reliability to be delightful but I find the Hibana gravel and in love with Shinra traits to be uninspiring.

Animation, Visuals, Sound design
Animation is lackluster compared to previous entries with poor integration of CGI. While, I don’t have a problem with CGI, -- see to be a hero X (review pending) for a series where it looks great -- The issue is when it’s badly done by teams not used to working with it during a major fight scene. Combined with the now infamous first fight of the season which continually utilized nearly still frames of characters standing and it makes for a poor experience. This isn’t to say that it’s all lost as there are still decent scenes especially as the season moves on past its early hump but it falls far below the standard set by other seasons. In particular, I found a lot of the flame effects to be far less exciting and interactive with a terrible stock graphic being used in certain cases.

In a similar vein to the animation, the sound design is generally fine and I wouldn’t complain about it in any other context but is so far below the previous seasons it’s embarrassing. Gone are the unique effects that I remember watching the show in part to enjoy. Together they serve to create an acceptable experience that fails to impress.

Themes
There’s an attempt to pull on the contrast between duty and righteousness and it somewhat works but feels very rushed. Perhaps this would feel better if you watched all the seasons back to back and it is one of the more standout moments of the season yet it still left me feeling lacking.

Fights
Fire Force has never had the type of tactics-based fights you may see in other series which has always been fine as it’s been buoyed by gorgeous animation and an interesting power system. Certainly the latter remains in play for this season with my favorite fight revolving around it but the aforementioned reduction in animation quality serves to harm things. I cannot imagine anyone excitedly talking about any of the fights this season in 5 years.

Pacing
The pacing feels very odd, especially in the opening of the season. Things feel rushed but at the same time excruciatingly slow as it crawls through a fight where nothing of interest is happening but without the good sense to skip through.

Plot
The Plot of Fire Force was never its main draw however as well get closer to the set of answers teased over the course of the series it reveals itself to be more threadbare than I had anticipated. It serves to be a reason for characters to act and thus accomplishes its basal purpose but it doesn’t inspire much contemplation.

Final thoughts

Fire Force season 3 Cour 1 represents an output that is certainly watchable and often enjoyable to various degrees but fails to reach the heights of previous seasons. It is encapsulated by the word “fine” which is a real shame. In particular, the baseline sound design and animation were a real disappointment for me as someone who loves fire effects and thinks a lot about them in their art and enjoyed the first season’s sound for the love of the game. Considering the moderate improvement at the tail end of this season I’m hoping that part 2 will show more promise but that remains to be seen 6/10