English Dub Review: Fire Force “A New Flashpoint”


OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Shinra reports on what the First Pillar told him about a fifth Pillar emerging soon. Haumea, also listening in on, informs the White Clad of this as well. Obi tries asking for assistance in this investigation but is told they’ll have to work on their own. Little do they know that Inca Kasugatani is that Fifth Pillar. She’s always had a sense for when fires are about to break out and pulls extortion schemes with her school friends to make cash helping potential victims escape, but she’s also a desperate thrill seeker who is constantly looking for danger, spurred on by a near death experience she had with fire a few years ago, where he ability to predict fires first manifested. However, this day she is visited in her mind by the First Pillar, who informs her that she’s about to be in all the danger she could want.

Out of…fairness(?), the First Pillar informs Shinra that the Fifth Pillar will soon emerge. Indeed, Inca’s Adolla Burst soon comes forth as a major spontaneous fire breaks out across her town. As Company 8 enters and tries balancing fighting both multiple fires AND Infernals, as well as the likely appearance of the White Clad, Haumea’s lackey Charon appears before Inca and kills one of her friends. She learns her knew skills quick, one of them being that she can create explosions by tracing lines she sees in the air, which she uses to evade Charon for a bit. More White Clad soldiers show up to surround her, but Shinra arrives to protect her and face Charon head on.

OUR TAKE

Okay, I know I said I was expecting delays, but not A WHOLE GODDAMN MONTH BETWEEN EPISODES. Especially after they even got the second episode out EARLY at FunimationCon! But yeah, not only were same day simuldubs DEFINITELY not feasible with Funi’s current state, they apparently can’t even get them out on Fridays either. Not that I’m complaining, obviously. I’m grateful they’re still dubbing this show at all, not only because it gives me more to write about here, but also because I’m glad to see more of their work in dubbing these characters.

Of note among those characters this week would definitely be Inca, played by Madeleine Morris, who’s only recently started getting bigger roles in shows. She definitely brings Inca’s wildness out in her performance, which is good because, as this episode and the OP have shown, Inca is a pretty wild card. She has a very specific outlook on life of wanting to be in as much danger as she can, which she is certainly getting now that she’s the object of desire between the Fire Force and the White Clad. But’s because of that danger seeking that who she ends up with by the end of this encounter is probably going to be surprising to some, at least for the reasoning. But while we wait for that, we also have a lot of action on multiple locations to keep us interested, and if there’s something this show does right, it’s the action…most of the time.

Also, gotta talk about how friggin gorgeous that new Opening is! I forgot to mention it last time and it’d be weird to bring it up later (and we don’t even know when the next episode’s getting dubbed), so here are my thoughts now. It does a great job at showing all the established characters involved in this arc as well as setting up future storylines, and that’s not as easy as you might think. Also the song by Aimer is great, though this is certainly not the show I would expect her to show up in when she typically sings OPs for really heavy shows like Fate or Gundam. But again, not complaining. In fact, I’m rather pumped up for where this season will take things next. We have so many overlapping ambitions and motivations that are also well defined and easy to make exciting conflict out of, which is worth more to me than all the explosions in the world, and if the next few episodes are any indication, we’re in for a lot more of that going forward. Oh yeah, and they’re doing honest to goodness episode previews! So few shows do that now!