Enen no Shouboutai

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Fire Brigade of Flames

Japanese: 炎炎ノ消防隊

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 34

Chapters: 305

Status: Finished

Published: Sep 23, 2015 to Feb 22, 2022

Genres: Sci-Fi

Theme: Urban Fantasy

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Magazine (Weekly)

Authors: Ookubo, Atsushi (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.77¹ (scored by 54,040 s)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1486²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #112

: 123,005

Favorites: 3,434

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7.77

Ranked #1486Popularity #112 123,005

Ookubo, Atsushi (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /34

Chapters: /305

Fire Force

Volume 1
$10.99

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Synopsis

Still reeling from the childhood trauma of losing his family to a blaze, Shinra Kusakabe endures both the blessing and curse of being a third-generation pyrokinetic: a person gifted with the ability to freely control fire.

Meanwhile, the Infernals—first-generation pyrokinetics who spontaneously combust into flaming, demonic creatures—ravage the streets of Tokyo. After he is recognized for his abilities, Shinra s Special Fire Force Company 8, one of many fire brigades developed to combat these Infernals.

Although working with the Fire Force seems to have fulfilled a calling, Shinra learns that becoming a hero is not as easy as it seems. Infernal sightings are worsening across the country, and his own fellow brigadiers struggle to unite against these threats. To make matters worse, Shinra's past returns to haunt him after he confronts a mysterious cult. As he endeavors to reach the truth, Shinra soon finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy that aims to engulf the world in flames.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Enen no Shouboutai was published in English as Fire Force by Kodansha Comics USA from November 8, 2016 to October 3, 2023, and as omnibus volumes since August 27, 2024. The series has also been published in Italian by Panini Comics under the Planet Manga imprint since May 5, 2017, in French by Kana since May 19, 2017, in Spanish by Norma Editorial since June 23, 2017, and in Polish by Waneko since December 12, 2019.

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Reviews

Feb 23, 2022

Jollys-Taste

Recommended

Let's get straight to the review and no bullshit.

Great and engaging story with an interesting concept that definitely gives one a "Woah, what the hell" or "That's sick" and a wholesome smile knowing that this all ties in like a bow on a Christmas present for the Soul Eater and Fire Force universe. If you've read Soul Eater it's kinda mandatory to read this if anything. Because, well, Fire Force is the prequel to Soul Eater. Everything about this story is generally great, but one thing that weighs it down just a tiny bit is the characters. God damn, some of the characters are uninteresting ...

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Feb 22, 2022

Monogatarui

Mixed Feelings

Fire Force is an enigma. I've legitimately never seen anything that tried as hard as it did, yet still feels like it's not trying hard enough at the same time.

Fire Force is a pretty standard battle shounen which, to be completely fair, had very interesting ideas. The plot is pretty simple: Shinra lives a world where spontaneous human combustion is a widespread issue, and s a fire brigade to protect others from these fiery monsters that are created as a result, as well as his own motivations of possibly finding the truth of combustion and what happened on the day his mother and brother died ... in a fire as a child. It doesn't go very deep, and it works. Right?

As an action oriented manga, Fire Force brings interesting abilities to bring to the table - 2nd Generations have the ability to manipulate or control existing flames, and 3rd Generations can produce their own. It creates interesting applications of fire that create pretty unique fights... well, half the time at least. The thing is with Fire Force is that after a certain point, the fights and abilities only get so unique and interesting. Eventually the novelty wears off and it's just a bunch of flames, sometimes resulting in two guys chucking fireballs back and forth at each other creating situations like "my fire is just hotter than yours". There's also one particular character who serves no real purpose besides ruining fights. She is literally just there because Okubo wanted to draw tits in his manga, and she ruins the pacing of every fight she's involved in with her in-universe "ability" of having her clothes come off and people running into her tits in unfavorable situations. Hilarious. But when the fights are done well, it's pretty damn good, both in the action and visual department.

The visuals as a whole, unfortunately, are a bit of a mixed aspect on this series. Atsushi Okubo has a very distinct style, and when the art is brought to its maximum, it looks fantastic. However, that level of consistency is non-existent in this manga in every aspect, it seems. Many times the artstyle clashes with the tone, resulting in characters missing certain serious moments and just looking goofy. What was also quite noticeable at times was just the severe lack of detail in s. This isn't to say I'm expecting artistic masterpieces every page; Fire Force just has a tendency to just have characters speak with only their expressionless face in frame and having minimal to no shading or backgrounds. This results in some very awkward ling where there's nothing interesting visually going on whatsoever and frames that mainly consist of dialogue bubbles and half of some character's face.

I don't mind long monologues or conversations between characters. Hell, dialogue heavy series can be found in some of my favorites. Many people will often bring up the tried and true formula, "show, don't tell", and while this is great, there's a difference between that and having zero dialogue. Show don't tell is not about talking less; it's about subtlety in delivery of messages to the reader as opposed to just spoon-feeding them all the details, and this can be done correctly in series with plenty of dialogue. Fire Force is not one of these series.

Fire Force does not have terrible, irredeemable ideas in its writing. In fact, the plot is pretty interesting as a concept, especially in the final act. The problem with Fire Force's writing lies in its lack of subtlety - many times it seems Okubo couldn't think of a way to integrate the messages and themes he wanted to portray organically into the narrative, so he just had a character outright say what he wants the reader to get. This isn't even mentioning that the important characters themselves aren't very interesting to begin with - to be quite honest I don't even what some of these guys' one defining character trait is. The best parts of Fire Force lie in the simple aspects - the themes of hope vs despair, Shinra relying on others to keep level headed at times, the underlying mystery of what Adolla and human combustion is; these are all compelling ideas to me. But it tries to do more than it can handle and ends up shooting itself in the foot.

Reading Fire Force is basically reading what can be summed up as a massive identity crisis. Whether it be the artstyle or its simplistic manga elements, it comes off as a series that's just a simple battle shounen. Yet, it continues to try to sell itself as something greater and can't exactly execute these aspects well. Ideas and messages don't feel properly integrated with the story, they feel like a last minute addition trying to mask Fire Force's simplicity as if it's desperately trying to be viewed as something greater, from the author doubling down on the fanservice character being some deep societal criticism to just straight up slapping PNGs of the real world in frames where properly drawn s should be. None of this comes off as clever, it's painfully unsubtle at best and downright moronic at its worst. I would probably feel less insulted watching the fucking Teletubbies; they don't offer much in of content, but at least Dipsy and Tinky Winky wouldn't show me a picture of the real world on their screens and pretend to be intellectuals. Out of the way, Evangelion! Stand aside, Bakemonogatari! The real pretentious work is here to dethrone all of those popularly debated as weird for the sake of being weird. There genuinely is nothing else I can see from this manga besides the author grasping at anything he could get to make his manga seem as smart and deep as possible. The writing just isn't there to back it up, whether it be the inconsistent plot or the uninteresting characters.

If I could give my general experience with Fire Force, the beginning was mostly an alright shounen with some boring parts, the middle was mostly boring with some alright shounen parts, and the last part just came off as stupid but fun when it wasn't trying to be smart. I'd say the final act, while not without it's stupid moments, was throughly enjoyable to read despite that. The "twist" reveal in that final act as it's slowly being unveiled is very unsubtle, but it just... kinda works? I'm not sure if most people would find it funny or genuinely cool. I personally think it's both.

Don't read this if you're looking for a super deep and serious manga. Fire Force lacks the consistency to pull that part off. If you have nothing better to do though and don't mind reading all of the 300 chapters? Honestly, knock yourself out. At its best moments I'd probably give it a confident 7 or even an 8, but unfortunately the majority of it just doesn't hold up to that same standard. As long as you're willing to sit through somewhere around 100 chapters of what I consider to be pretty boring/mediocre, it's a pretty simple story that has a good payoff ending in my opinion, and despite what the manga would have you thinking, there's absolutely nothing wrong with simple done well.

Edited on 03/09/2022 to fix some grammar issues I noticed as well as fix some details. I should probably stop writing these drafts so late at night.

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Feb 28, 2024

djseoz

Not Recommended

A very promising premise, a world of "fire," human combustion, mysterious events, and a growth worthy of a good Shonen. However, shortly after the halfway point of the story, it loses the essence that envelops you and invites you to keep reading. It becomes boring at times and too lengthy towards the end.

There are moments that attempt to be comedic, but within the series' context of sadness and seriousness, these moments feel out of place and are not amusing; they can even be cringe-inducing.

Certain characters have nonsensical moments that are used for their growth, but because these moments lack coherence, their development loses strength.

Despite the ...

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Enen no Shouboutai
Fire Force
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