English Dub Review: Fire Force “Birth”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As a familiar looking moon hangs in the sky, the Fire Force prepares for the final pillar’s arrival, while Sho and Arrow investigate the mysteries behind the Kusakabe family, uncovering strange truths that open Sho’s eyes.

OUR TAKE

It feels like I’ve said something along the lines of “okay, now we’ve gotten that calm before the storm and we can truly begin the final battle for the show” at least a few times by now. I genuinely thought that we would be starting some sort of race to the finish for the final batch of episodes, but it seems we keep finding moments to slow down and focus on tying up some loose ends. Last week was about Benimaru getting one more big fight to himself, while this week puts most of its focus on Sho, Shinra’s brother taken by the Evangelist and the Third Pillar (the human kind, not the stone kind). It’s been awhile since then, but late in the first half of this season, Sho and his bodyguard Arrow went AWOL from their evil teammates and decided to search for answers about Sho’s family on the surface, and it seems that in the three months that Shinra was on autopilot, they’ve been doing just that, eventually tracking down the Kusakabe records and finding out that Shinra and Sho…have no dad. Like, not in the sense that they don’t consider their biological father their dad, but that their mother had two virgin births. This is further confirmed when Sho has an Adolla Link with his mother (who became a Demon Infernal when Sho’s Adolla Burst manifested as a baby), seeing through her memories of that time.

Understandably, many were skeptical of her being a virgin when she was suddenly pregnant with Shinra, with the common assumption being that she was messing around so much that she just didn’t know who the father was, and so her family disowned her. But she kept her spirits up and raised Shinra, and eventually Sho, to the best of her ability, thinking they were angels sent to her. But it’s also a bit more complicated. In the wake of Benimaru’s fight, the shape of the moon changed into a creepy grimace, which fans of Soul Eater may recognize, and for good reason. Well, apparently that’s how a lot of people already imagined the moon, and now the increasing link to Adolla is making it look that way based on most people’s imaginations. Similarly, because everyone in the post-cataclysm world had a general idea of a savior born from a virgin in their minds from the old world…apparently that was enough for Shinra and Sho to be born. So yeah, Shinra is basically this world’s Jesus, which I would normally find hammy and unbelievable…but I’m honestly still way invested in how the remaining ten episodes will go! Yeah, we are beginning the countdown to the end, and now we’ve gotten that calm before the storm and we can truly begin the final battle for the show!!!