English Dub Review: Fire Force “Unaware”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Shinra awakens to find three months have passed and four more pillars have sprung up. He reports what he saw in his Adolla Link vision about the past, but also gets caught up on what HE’S been doing while he was gone.

OUR TAKE

After an extended break, Fire Force is finally back for the final thirteen episodes of the series, needing to stuff EIGHTY EIGHT manga chapters into a baker’s dozen of of episodes, which understandably has some fans of the manga concerned that things are going to get cut or brushed over. Stranger things have happened in cases like these, both surprisingly good and shockingly bad, though as only an anime watcher myself, I’ll only be able to judge on how it works for this show. And as we open the story’s final act, we start with a rather slow start than I was expecting, with Shinra having apparently slept through three months of waiting for the pillars to rise. Though while he was sleeping, his body wasn’t, as it turns out the Adolla Doppleganger version of him took over in that time and decided to play into all of the bad rumors he heard about himself over his childhood. Bleached hair like a street punk, pierced ears, tattoos all over, and worst of all…laying his hands on Sister Iris, which is mortifying for him to learn about. Thankfully she, and surprisingly Arthur, were aware from the start that he wasn’t himself, and everyone else just kinda thought he was going through a delayed rebellious phase which they are glad is over now.

And this isn’t happening without cause, as the rising of the pillars is apparently causing the link between their world and Adolla to get stronger. Not only is the temperature rising, but pyrokinetics are seeing their powers increase, and even those like Iris are finding themselves with their own smaller flame powers despite previously being unpowered. Iris specifically is getting strange vibes, and as we saw last time, is looking to be the eighth and final person Pillar that the White Clad need to finish their ritual. Well, it seems they’re going to need to hurry up and capture her and Shinra, because we’re running out of episodes here. Luckily, it looks like we’re headed right back into the action next time, as an Infernal version of Captain Benimaru’s old teacher is gonna rise from hell to give his pupils one last lesson. I’m definitely hyped for it, though also worried how we’re going to fit all of this AND the stuff we see in the OP into the remaining dozen episodes of the show. Clock’s ticking, both in and out of universe.