English Dub Review: Fire Force “With the Sun at His Back”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As the sixth and seventh pillars arise on the coast, Benimaru must gather all his strength to face off against an Adolla Doppleganger of his dead mentor and father figure, Hibachi Shinmon.

OUR TAKE

The final stretch of Fire Force continues firing on all cylinders with an episode that is…pretty much not about Company 8 at all, but instead giving Company 7, and specifically Captain Benimaru, a chance to shine. Benimaru has always been a stand out in the cast of how much of a badass he is, as well as being one of the most powerful pyrokinetics in the show. Company 7 is basically the equivalent of Squad 11 in Bleach where it’s all muscleheads who just care about fighting, along with some cute mascots and level headed guys to even it out. And the Asakusa arc was probably my favorite of the first season, so I’m glad they’re getting a highlight episode before the show is over. It kinda makes me wish that we got to see more of these Pillar Infernal fights give other Companies a highlight episode for them to go out on, since Pillars two through five just kinda got skipped over, but Fire Force clearly doesn’t want to drag all of this out any more than it already has. So, Benimaru’s final personalized opponent is the former head of Company 7, Hibachi. Someone I’m pretty sure we’ve never heard of before, but most certainly makes an impression right away as his Infernal self proves to be a match for even Benimaru, something that is apparently caused by the increasing closeness to Adolla making Beni and Konro’s memories of Hibachi more powerful than he actually was.

As mentioned, there were some concerns about this last batch of episodes having to adapt nearly ninety chapters worth of material in what was feared to be too short an amount of time, and apparently the chapters in this episode were a victim of that, having a lot cut to keep this fight within a single episode. Thankfully though, it seems what was trimmed was chosen well, as despite this introducing a new character and focusing on his backstory and death, all leading to him being defeated shortly after, it all manages to flow pretty well. I think the main thing working for it is that this is all in service of giving Benimaru one last hurdle to finish his own character arc, so it’s less about introducing a whole bunch of new stuff and then getting rid of it, and more adding a cherry to something that’s more or less already done. And as always, the fight looks phenomenal, so that always helps, and has given more people faith that the rest of the season will be adapted well. Since the previews have stopped showing visuals, the audio hints that next time will be about Sho trying to learn more about his family, so we’ll likely be getting some big revelations there. We’re getting into the real REAL final stuff now, so hold onto your butts.