Fire Force: How Obi’s Rescue Arc Failed To Hype Season 3

The first arc of Season 3’s first part, taking up half of its 12 episodes, is the Obi Rescue Arc (Chapters 179 to 197), which sees Company 8 Captain Akiteru Obi to be executed to end the two seasons of investigations into the White Clad cult, who have now taken over the government.

Sounds like an exciting premise, where the heroes rebel against a tyrannical government and expose some dark secrets?

Unfortunately, there is barely anything to engage you with the content in that direction.

While the arc is good at giving Arthur Boyle and Leonard Burns their own character arcs, with both having great fights, most of the content lacks engagement before we reach the last two episodes of the arc and there is a substantial dip in quality between Episodes 1 and 5.

Prisoner

Season 3 Episode 2 is titled, “Prisoner” and adapts pages 2 to 7 of Chapter 177: “Unwavering Conviction”, Chapter 178: “Prisoner”, where the episode gets its name from, and up to pages 1-10 and 17-20 of Chapter 180: “The Destroyers”.

As established in the first episode, Company 8 are treated as rebels.

This episode does set up a nice conflict with the Tokyo Empire as Obi is kept in Fuchū Prison, although he spends his time wisely by working out like usual.

We are also given the official introduction to Gold, the assassin and member of the Destroyers responsible for Company 4 Captain Sōichirō Hague’s death.

Fans have noted how improved her anime design has been.

Meanwhile, Shinra gets a warning from Company 1 Captain, Leonard Burns, that Akitaru Obi will receive an Adolla Bug so he can become an Infernal.

In the manga, this happens when the group hide in the Nether with Joker but in the anime, it happens as the post-credits scene and the start of this episode, as if to hint that Burns was not 100% on the White Clad’s side.

At the same time, this could also be a threat sent to Company 8 since the White Clad also want to secure the Pillars (Shinra and…someone else).

Speaking of Joker, he brings up a nice concept and it is presented with Viktor Licht and Joker staying in the shadows while Company 8 are in the light of the sun.

Having been persecuted by the Holy Sol Temple, the children of the Sun God, Company 8 enter the darkness, into the Nether that is both stigmatized as a place solely of evil but at the same time is the source of their society.

We also get a nice foreshadowing of Arthur’s confrontation with Dragon as he sees a lizard as a baby dragon and will spare it.

Incarnation of Flame

Season 3 Episode 3 is titled, “Incarnation of Flame” and adapts Chapter 181 of the same name, pages 14-20 of Chapter 182: “Death and Flame”, Chapter 183: “Strike Gold”, and page 10 of Chapter 190: “The Strong”, which is slightly expanded by having Cornhead try to open the door to Hibana’s study.

This is quite a slow-paced episode than usual and once again, this is still setup for the big action and the cracks indeed begin to form.

We lose an iconic moment from Chapter 182 in the form of Shinra feeling the “Press of Death”, which is the trigger for his smile.

We now see that the anime is sacrificing some scenes to keep up with adapting the remaining 130 chapters of the manga for their 24-episode long final season.

The addition of a recap from last episode also did not help things.

The Golden Secret

Season 3 Episode 4 is titled, “The Golden Secret” and adapts Chapter 184 of the same name, Chapter 185: “Battle Experiment”, Chapter 186: “Old Enemies Reunited” and pages 2-7 and 18-21 of Chapter 187: “At Prayer’s End”.

We are now back to Fire Force’s regular pacing as we center on the battle between Gold and Company 8’s Tamaki Kotatsu and Maki Oze, with Victor’s analysis enabling the team to figure out how Gold’s pyrokinetic magnetism works, through her golden gauntlet, and disable it with molten iron from Tamaki’s Nekomata enhanced by Vulcan’s concentrated oxygen spray.

While the episode does a good job at the action, we see another example of the arc’s lack of potential as there is more comedy, mainly in the form of the men taking off their shirts and pants, reminding us that Company 8 goes nude for the calendars they sell.

This leads into Gold’s death, which involves Lieutenant Hinawa targeting the…target sign on her forehead.

With her gone, the other Destroyers prepare to attack but Arthur shows up, having fallen off the truck last episode.

Meanwhile, Shinra continues to be demotivated by Burns, who orders for Obi to receive the Adolla Bug.

Chance Meeting With an Arch-Enemy

Season 3 Episode 5 is titled, “Chance Meeting With an Arch-Enemy” and adapts pages 14-19 of Chapter 186: “Old Enemies Reunited”, where the episode gets its title from, Chapter 188: “Armor of Steel”, Chapter 189: “The Dragon and the Knight”, Chapter 190: “The Strong”, pages 1 to 13 of Chapter 191: “Forerunners and Afterunners” and pages 3 and 4 of Chapter 195: “Sudden Turn”.

To avoid being made an Infernal, Obi flexes his muscles to prevent the Bug from biting, an exhausting exercise only his insane tenacity can maintain for long.

This episode is the awaited fight between the Commander of the White-Clad Destroyers, Dragon, and King Arthur Boyle.

The episode is a massive improvement on the manga’s sequence of events, especially as it moves the reveal of Arthur’s Plasma cape, Plasmantle, towards the moment of Dragon’s Infernalization instead of when the technique failed to cut through Dragon’s scales in his human force.

We also see more additions that improve the fight’s flow, including some new scenes of Arthur’s delusion as a knight king added for every big moment.

More pacing improvements include merging Hibana’s explanation of Infernals with the early parts of Chapter 195 when Huo Yan Li and Karim Flam realize that Rekka had often visited the orphanage where Hibana and Iris are from, to further build up Dragon’s ability to turn into an Infernal at will.

However, we also see Arthur at his limit as, in spite of the encouragement of his comrades, Arthur is utterly broken as Excalibur is destroyed by Dragon.

The fight is filled with more creative color direction and movement that the earlier episodes, barring Episode 1, lacked.

The episode ends nicely with Leonard Burns activating Stage 3 of his Ignition Ability.

At Prayer’s End

Season 3 Episode 6 is titled, “At Prayer’s End” and adapts pages 8 to 17 of Chapter 187: “At Prayer’s End”, pages 14 onwards of Chapter 191: “Forerunners and Afterunners”, Chapter 192: “Hold True To Your Pride, Chapter 193: “The Hero and the Lion”, Chapter 194: “Indomitable” and Chapter 195: “Sudden Turn”

The episode may not match to the standards of the previous seasons in terms of action animation but this is still Fire Force and the quality control is still there, filled to the brim with excellent sound design typical of David Production and impact frames that showcase animator creativity.

We see Burns’ past, as a young man figuring out where all his prayers go, with an anime-original shot of him praying on a cliff, with the Sun behind him.

Meaning even raised as a priest, Burns faced religious doubt, especially after uncovering the diary of Raffles’s wife about her husband being an impostor.

Yet in meeting the Evangelist, the source of Adolla that took away his right eye alongside Joker’s left eye, he found the answer, the “God” where all prayers go, and the solution was that all prayer led to humanity’s end.

Burns realized that prayer itself was the goal of his life and that answer had to be served.

The anime and manga portray this process of Burns’ testing Shinra differently but they both lead to the same end.

In the manga, the flashback takes place before Burns orders the White-Clad to give the Bug to Obi as a way to push Shinra to take him seriously but also to further the audience’s belief that Burns has gone too far the deep end.

In the anime, the flashback happens after Burn activates Stage 3 at the start of Chapter 192, to show that Burns is not convinced by the youth’s ability to give his generation the answer.

The anime continues to make Burns appear less like a traitor and more like a stubborn old man testing Shinra’s conviction, which feels different to the original intent yet the result is the same.

With the tag, “Pressure of Death”, on his face to express the point in the anime (which managed to come here instead of the earlier point in Episode 3), Shinra pushes himself to the limits with his Hysterical Strength combined with the Adolla Burst’s power to bring Shinra to 100% of his strength

The anime also pushes out the hellfire explosion that came out of Burns’ Voltage Nova (Stage 5) form into the sky, which was the likely intent from the manga as well, even as we do not see it dissipate there.

Although Burns came out without breaking a sweat, he is nonetheless impressed by Shinra’s determination to be a hero capable of defying even “God’s” will, the man choosing to give his own meaning to the world and thus have the strength to save everyone.

Akin to Kishou Arima from Tokyo Ghoul, Burns is the protagonist’s father-figure whose role is to be the “Strongest”, the wall that future generations must overcome and break, and thus allow the past to crown the future as kings.

However, a sudden turn takes place as Burns is stabbed in the chest by the emergence of his own Doppelganger, with the anime giving us a first-person look to add to the shock value.

Still breathing after being gored, Burns prays one last time, hoping that this will save Shinra’s life.

Haumea’s intervention has seemingly awakened the Adolla Burst of the Eighth Pillar, who is among those in Company 8 and the reason Maki and the rest were still alive from Dragon’s breath.

Before an answer could be found, we come across a “mysterious figure”, Moonlit Mask, who is actually Benimaru Shinmon in disguise to prevent Company 7 from being tied with rebels and their autonomy interfered with.

Obi’s Rescue Arc As a Whole

Obi’s Rescue Arc does fulfill its primary function of leading Company 8 into a new status quo where they attempt to rescue their center, Captain Obi, from the clutches of the enemy, who has now taken control of the state.

Although some might think it would be too much to expect Fire Force to deal, in some part, with the consequences of Company 8 being fugitives, at the same time, what has been shown of their recent activities, it seems that there is not much discomfort or negative impact.

They have Company 7’s generous support and their friends among the other 6 Companies know their merit, as shown in a later episode with Company 2 Captain Gustav Honda, who was Obi’s superior in the Tokyo Army

However, rather than a political thriller or a simple clash of government and rebel akin to Attack on Titan’s Uprising Arc, most of the arc is overtaken by action.

Again, the character work on Arthur and Burns are at the heart of the arc but do not really make it one of the most impressive arcs and with the lessened manpower of Season 3 Cour 1, we are unsure of how the animation quality can go from here.

It is still good anime and Fire Force quality but as some fans have noted, the fire has started to fizzle out and it had to be when the finale is being set up.

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