fire-dwelling - Tumblr blog

[fire-dwelling]

"Maka is supposed to [look] boring--"

... ... ...No.

She is supposed to be _typical_: as this person says, "schoolgirl." If you want "boring," that story is Tsugumi--and I say "story" because that is the point, she is a wannabe, she has to find her own way without just copying someone else's look and personality and fighting techniques.

But you cannot say "Maka is supposed to be boring" when her first arrival is, "Long coat, scythe, kills Jack the Ripper."

If the manga started with, "Maka shows up as this typical schoolgirl," then, yes, she is "supposed to be boring," or, more accurately, supposed to communicate, "Slice of life typical school-based manga protagonist." That could have been more engaging, but it was not the vibe of the very first chapter, which, again, is, "Small girl immediately kills serial killer and feeds his soul to her sidekick."

If anything, what this person is describing is Inca--"you thought this was just an average schoolgirl, but really she has more going on"...only that argument falls apart, at least if not for being black and white, once you get her hair color. And even then, Inca's hair color, while unique, is still typical for manga/anime characters, where hair colors come in all shades.

Granted, I'm also the person who never understood, "Izuku Midoriya is meant to look 'average' or 'boring.'" It's hard for me to see freckled kid with messy hair who obsesses about nerd stuff and not think "memorable," not "boring." (Also, his hair color--except I'm red-green colorblind, which has been my problem throughout my life: "Wait, that character is supposed to look bizarre? I didn't realize their coloring was anything out of the ordinary.")

"Fire Force was planned out from beginning to end--" compared to Soul Eater--

... ... ...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha--

[fire-dwelling]

"Fire Force has more great characters, and Soul Eater has more characters that are just sort of okay."

BWA HA HA HA!

(Of course this is the same kind of focus that a lot of the audience members enjoy: it's always Black Star or Arthur just because "flashy animated fight.")

(And of course can't block the ads in this. Always use adblockers--don't give a dime to enough of these garbage web sites.)

"Fire Force was planned out from beginning to end--" compared to Soul Eater--

... ... ...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha--

[fire-dwelling]

"Fire Force was planned out from beginning to end--" compared to Soul Eater--

... ... ...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha--

[fire-dwelling]

Me: "I wonder what the fuck is wrong with Ohkubo that he wasted those chapters about Tamaki's purpose to the story. And what was the deal with Yoshida? Actually, did they ever give her a full name, or is it just 'Yoshida'? Maybe there's some secret meaning behind the name 'Yoshida'--let me check online--"

Wikipedia: "...Well, about that. In our list of fictional characters with that name--"

Me: *reads* "... ... ...Oh, God, _that's_ what he is referencing?!"

[fire-dwelling]

"Half of her beauty is her brain"

[fire-dwelling]

"You got your Fire Force polemic in my My Hero Academia whining! You got your My Hero Academia whining in my Fire Force polemic! Two awful tastes held by one person!"

At least Izuku becoming a teacher was a fitting ending.

Kurono becoming a teacher after he made it clear he just likes abusing people weaker than him is just disappointing.

It's Ohkubo again lapsing into dark humor: "Isn't it funny that the guy who enjoys beating up on people weaker than him is now a teacher?"

Or, it's Ohkubo getting close to a criticism that is mired by bad timing--waiting until the last chapters to reveal--or because it is just plain unclear what the criticism is. "So, is it that the school system sucks because it would hire someone obviously unqualified like Kurono? Or, is it that the schools actually want someone like Kurono because school in itself is violent?"

For all the nonsense thrown at Izuku that his career as a teacher lacked foreshadowing, or wasn't what he wanted to do, or isn't suited to his skills: it didn't have to be foreshadowed; young people have one career idea in mind than change upon adulthood or even long before becoming an adult; yes, he may not have wanted to be a teacher, but we see he is good at it and seems to enjoy it; he is suited to this job.

I can't say the same for any of that with Kurono, but then again Fire Force gave little to work with beyond one arc at the very end insisting that readers misinterpreted who he really was and that his doppelganger shows how off the mark readers were--except, not really, the guy started out as an abusive dick, then Ohkubo paired him up with a character with almost no personality just so the story would stop trying to make child abuse funny, before Ohkubo then decided to go back to child abuse anyway but with Rekka instead. There was no foreshadowing to Kurono being a teacher. There was no indication he wanted to teach, enjoyed working with children for any reason other than to physically beat them up. He demonstrated few skills that make him suitable to work with children, aside from, again, Ohkubo's sick sense of humor that the only one who managed to talk down Nataku happened to be the same guy who was physically abusing him. (Some real Bungo Stray Dogs levels of nonsense: "your abuser is also your father figure." Jeez, this really is a cornucopia of whining about every last manga out there...)

Kurono's last scene was just one last image to leave for an audience starved for closure for characters that were barely developed, as part of a collage that barely answered what did end up happening to the main cast, supporting characters, antagonists, and even minor characters, all flattening their status at the end of the series to vague images that acts like these are all equivalent characters when, no, Maki and Lisa just out shopping is in no way as informative as the more informative but confusing image of Kurono as a teacher. Oh, and his students are Nataku and Sho, so that we can barely develop an idea that maybe Nataku and Sho become friends.

[fire-dwelling]

[Care Characters] Shinra and Dolly

I just finished this drawing of Shinra from Fire Force and Dolly from 101 Dalmation Street, I hope you like it (Wink)

Watch the speedpaint of it on youtube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4XZ1r…

Facebook : www.facebook.com/profile.php?i…

@shinra-enthusiast

@notfireforce

@pardon-my-scifi

@emberfeathers

@kogha

@shinrakusakab3

@itachi-from-the-leaf

@laurenillustrated

@redphlox

@pfpanimes

@lonelytuatara 

@shomybeloved

@bowwackawow

@sunandmoonseisai

@dramatic-disraeli

@lysitheatheglasscannon

[fire-dwelling]

One thing about the Fire Force anime (and manga I assume) that still baffles me to this day is how it has a scene in which it heavily implied (basically outright stated) that one of its male characters was sexually assaulted as a child by a religious authority figure and later gives that male character a chance for revenge that he actually takes with great pleasure (even if the actual reason he fights this guy are unrelated to the sexual assault) but then also heavily features a female character who cannonically has a curse on her that causes the universe to put her in situations where her clothes fall off, are torn off, or both, and she is constantly being groped against her will, and the anime only ever plays these scenarios for laughs.

Like, how do you manage to have a genuinely terrifying scene that makes us immediately understand the male character's trauma without ever directly showing the worst of that trauma on screen, while simultaneously constantly playing every instance of sexual assault the female character goes through as nothing more than a joke.

I really want to do a deep dive into the Fire Force manga because its themes of religion and politics are genuinely intriguing, but I have neither the time or patience to deal with the fan service that the author is hell bent on putting in as much as possible.

[fire-dwelling]

Redesigning tamaki from fire force

(These are more like concept sketches but whatever)

For her fire fighting outfit I wanted to IMMEDIATELY get rid of her bikini top and thong combo bc not only is it icky but very impractical. Her torso and chest shouldn't be exposed ESPECIALLY when she's going into burning buildings. I tried to make everything more light though, since she's running around on all fours and using her cat fire power. I shortened the jacket and just have her a simple v-neck top and boots with grips on the bottom for stability. I also changed her pigtails since she's fucking 17 and should be fairly mature. I replaced her hair with braided sidetails and a pixie/silverfox-esque cut for the rest of her hair to keep that sort of feline theme.

For her casual(?) outfit I replaced the cutesy and short church uniform with a long-sleeved shirt and coat tails with some bell bottom slacks. I thought the sleeved on her of uniform were cute so I kept them and added some long split coat tails to somewhat allude to her double cat tail. It was also partially inspired by nny's shirts in Johnny the homicidal maniac and a little bit of a callback to Blair from Soul eater, since her design has a lot of curls.

[fire-dwelling]

(It would be my luck if it turns out that Lost Island turns also was somehow part of the Evangelist's plans, just to force this ridiculous prequel link.)

[fire-dwelling]

Me: *searches for 'Frankenweenie' on Disney Plus* Disney Plus: "Did you mean 'Fire Force'?" Me: *inwardly screams out of pain and misery*

[fire-dwelling]

by Vishma Maharaj 🌻

[fire-dwelling]

If this crappy prequel was going to set up anything, it should have been the Immortal Clan--the werewolves.

Then again, I have so much headcanon about their history, societal structure, environments, why they were targeted, and why we were stuck with only Free in the manga (and Alone in Monotone Princess), and I probably would be whining a lot when the manga inevitably gives us a less interesting answer (and probably already did: see how we suddenly have horned Burns and snake Huang).

[fire-dwelling]

Inca should have been the antagonist you love to hate. 

I think she was for a lot of readers. 

But she wasn’t for me. 

The best way I can imagine using the character unfortunately would lead to a tiresome gag, but I think she should exist for only two reasons. 

First reason: to show that other antagonists are not as bad as her and hence are people you can trust enough to ally with against bigger threats. 

Second reason: to be what Tamaki unfortunately ended up being, that is, the butt of the joke. But whereas Tamaki was reduced to fanservice-bait, Inca instead exists to be the victim of slapstick. I mean, she’s set up that she can predict and dodge any fire-based attack…so how come someone didn’t just punch her or kick her without using pyrokinesis? Let her fall victim to pratfalls, being shoved off of ledges, and so on. She can still be let to survive this a la Batman Joker immunity, but at least it would be catharsis to see some comeuppance for her rather than the story letting her get off scott free after burning Panda to death, furthering the White Hoods’ apocalyptic schemes, and so on.

[fire-dwelling]

Shinra and his family suddenly forming “Soul Resonance” is also annoying. 

And no, no amount of “The Moon from Soul Eater is here!” will ever act as sufficient setup. 

I’m not saying that “The Moon is now here” isn’t foreshadowing--I’m talking about setup: how does one lead to the other? How does Shinra’s set of powers lead to Soul Resonance? How does Shinra unlock Soul Resonance? How come Soul Resonance in Soul Eater never took the form of non-weapons empowering each other? Even with Chain Resonance, it was each meister empowering another meister so they could more effectively use their demon weapon, not to just give a power up to that one meister sans weapon. 

The most that Fire Force gave us for better understanding of Soul Resonance is what Soul Eater’s final arc already confirmed: familial bonds allow for easier use of Soul Resonance, whether Shinra and his mother and brother, or Maka with her father. 

(But that is a whole other set of problems, so forgive this parenthetical tirade: this comes across more as defining familial bonds through genetics as more relevant than chosen familial bonds. I understand how it is just as likely that Shinra and Maka pulled off Soul Resonance so well not because of genetics but because of actual respect and love for their family--and, bonus, that would’ve gone a long way to helping define Maka’s strained relationship with her dad. But to do so, you would need another example, that being a Soul Resonance between a character and their adoptive family--Benimaru and his village director, Black Star and Sid, and so on. That is not what we got in this story, and it is all the more infuriating when situating all of these examples within how Soul Eater ended, with Crona yearning for maternal love--that can only be represented through the Madness of Breasts--thereby again situating all of this as instinctive forms of familial love as opposed to choosing your own family. Okay, end of tirade, back to the topic of Soul Resonance making no sense in Fire Force.)

How did fire power turn into soul power? It just does--we don’t get a satisfactory explanation. How does your physical power in the pre-Soul Eater world communicate into soul power in the post-Fire Force world, e.g. how Akitaru is physically strong so that means he later gets proportionally more soul power than physically weaker characters? This sounds like it should correspond well with what Soul Eater already told us: “A sound soul dwells inside a sound mind and a sound body.” But the problem is that we also saw that willpower within Soul Eater could make up for seeming physical weaknesses and lack of knowledge: Maka was not as physically powerful as Black Star but was able to perform feats he could not thanks to her stubbornness and courage, while Black Star may not be as knowledgeable or smart as Maka and yet was able to use his abilities in ways she may not have anticipated and with far more physical force. This is why having Akitaru getting so physically powerful is so boring: “He was physically strong before, so now he’s even stronger now!” It’s why Tamaki and Juggernaut just out on a date and seemingly no longer helping protect the world is insulting to their character progression: after the shit the two of them have gone through, the spiritual weight put onto them by societal pressures and their own fears and self-doubt, that neither one of them demonstrated incredible soul power as well is disappointing and seemingly contradicting the message of Soul Eater, even if not technically going outside of the “sound soul, mind, body” message.

[fire-dwelling]

That theory is going around again that My Hero Academia will end with everyone losing their Quirks. 

I really don’t like this idea as an ending, as it doesn’t respond to how people live with different abilities, identities, and so on: it just erases those differences to force people to be homogenous. 

This is also why the Fire Force ending pissed me off. We saw up to that point that, while pyrokinetic abilities were a lot of trouble, I am not certain they were more trouble than they were worth. This is not the same as any real-life examples of weapons that should not be in the hands of people--these are superpowers, innate to these people, that are part of them and that they were using, at least amongst the protagonists, to do good in the world. To erase all of that by Shinra’s whim remains infuriating. 

Plus, it sapped the ending of so much storytelling potential. Shinra unilaterally decided to remove everyone’s pyrokinetic abilities. I expect at least a few people were not happy with this decision, and that was a conflict that could have been a more compelling plot, even if never completed, to serve as an epilogue to Fire Force leading into Soul Eater, that there were still people embittered that Shinra stopped them--and perhaps that is what leads to madness or witches or, I don’t know, some future threat that existed between Fire Force and Soul Eater or, if there was ever a Soul Eater continuation, a detail from Fire Force left to Soul Eater to bring closure to. 

But nope, we had to waste chapters on nonsense like Inca wanting to get pregnant.

[fire-dwelling]

Encore 🥼🎩✨