Fire Force (Episode 20) - Wearing His Pride

The members of Fire Force 8 find themselves scattered and alone in the Nether. One by one they come face to face with the Knights of the Ashen Flame who are determined to capture Shinra and kill the others.

What did you watch?

It is full steam ahead in Fire Force as the battles continue to come thick and fast. Admittedly, it’s long overdue and while it’s falling squarely into the shounen tropes of everyone facing off against their opposite, it is thoroughly enjoyable. Will episode 20 be able to live up to the brutality of Maki’s fight? It’s a tough act to follow, but I’m hoping for more. Yomu from Umai Yomu Anime Blog is back and presumably ready for more too. You can expect spoilers and speculation, although, with only four episodes left, we may have to focus the speculation a little.

Fire Force Episode 20 Shinra Rapid-man Kick

What happened?

Shinra had a brief stand-off with a Knight of the Ashen Flame that had Victor Licht hostage. Victor seemed less than worried though and told Shinra to be “rapid”. Finally, Shinra understood what he meant and took out the Knight in the blink of an eye. There was a little discussion about his new move being called rapid-man! It turns out there is a reason Shinra adds -man to everything…

Hinawa finds himself on an old underground station where he is attacked by Arrow. They end up in an epic shootout with neither giving anything less than there best. Arrow’s attacks are fast and furious, but they are nothing compared with Hinawa’s rifle shots that destroy the barrel and create a sonic boom! That said, he was struggling to pinpoint Arrow’s location, but finally found her and took the shot, utilising her flaming arrow to boost his own shot to an even more powerful attack.

With Arrow down and Hinawa on his last legs, Mirage and Yona stepped out of the shadows to finish him off. Hinawa had one last trick to play as he had spotted Arthur peaking through a crack in the ceiling. He blew a hole for him to drop through and let Arthur take on the fight with Mirage as Yona ran away. Arthur utilised his training with Benimaru to become the Knight Samurai… or was it Samurai Knight. Either way, he was able to ignore Mirage’s fakes and cut him down as he tried to stab Hinawa.

Finally, Obi and Vulcan came face to face with Dr Giovanni and Lisa, who now calls herself ‘Feeler’ of the Ashen Knights.

It was another action-packed episode and I had a lot of fun, but it’s Yomu’s turn to go first, so I’ll have to hold back for a moment. Hey, Yomu thanks for stopping by and as usual, you will be in bold.

What did you think?

Well, I appreciate being in bold, even if I don’t have anything bold to say this time!

I thought this episode was great, it was exactly what I had expected – a continuation of the conflict between Fire Force 8 and the Ashen Knights. Maki and Tamaki had their fights last episode, so naturally, we were going to get some action from other characters, which ended up being Hinawa and Arthur. And the action was great. A definite step up from some of the previous episodes.

You’ll hear no arguments from me. I loved this episode and I thought the fight between Arrow and Hinawa was possibly the most impressive thing I’ve seen in a long time. The imagery was spectacular and I’d like to echo Mirage and Yona sentiments. I was fine watching from a distance and definitely didn’t want to get in the middle of it.

Fire Force Episode 20 Hinawa's Last Shot

What was your favourite moment?

While Hinawa’s fight was awesome, I really enjoyed the moment where Arthur was fighting Mirage. When he brought us back to that rushed training episode with the “feel the life of your opponents” lesson, I actually had an “oh, he did learn something like that, didn’t he?” moment. Here I had thought that Arthur didn’t gain anything from the training, so it was nice to see that little throwback.

See, Arthur’s not a complete idiot… I loved it when Hinawa decided to get serious and unrolled something from his bag. At first, I thought they were massive bullets, but then he attached one to the end of his gun and fired, unleashing a sonic boom and leaving the barrel of the gun in a mess of molten metal. What an insane shootout. I was also impressed that they didn’t try to make Arrow switch sides which I was sure they would with her looking like a normal person.

What was your least favourite moment?

Very minor, but I didn’t like how Licht acted when he was captured. Just something about the way he demanded Shinra save him made me feel like he didn’t care for Shinra’s personal safety. I guess he’s not the combat type, so he was probably quite shocked to have a knife to his neck, but I don’t really love the guy anyway so I’d rather he die than Shinra get hurt.

Mine is also a fairly minor quibble and that is Lisa’s Ashen Knight name. Feeler… really? They couldn’t have come up with a better name than Feeler! Saying that Feeler definitely seems the most uneasy about her situation and Giovanni seems to be getting crazier and crazier. I think we’re going to be in for an interesting next episode.

Fire Force Episode 20 Lisa as Ashen Knight Feeler

Who was your favourite character?

Speaking of… Lisa was my favourite character. I know I had said earlier that they should just treat her as a proper enemy and take her down, as her crime was premeditated over several years and she still went through with it… but man, she looks GREAT in that Ashen Knight outfit. I see Lisa in a whole new light now, she needs to be preserved.

Haha! That’s how I’ve felt about Arrow from the beginning, even though I didn’t want them to make her switch sides. Still, I am going to go with Hinawa because of the epic shoot out and the way he pushed himself on because he was worried about how Obi would be able to run the company without him. Plus his face when Arthur finally attacked Mirage and narrowly missed him was excellent.

Fire Force Episode 20 Feeler versus Obi and Vulcan

Who was your least favourite character?

Victor Licht. He was fairly useless this episode. Nothing much else to say about him!

I knew that was coming. I’m going with Yona, he’s the Ashen Knight that can change people’s appearances and much like Licht, he was utterly useless in this episode, but I guess him running away means that we can still have some doppelgangers running around.

Fire Force Episode 20 Shinra Saves Licht

Would you like some more?

Yes, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of Lisa. Also, that whole engagement looks like it’ll be exciting, with Captain Obi. It’s always fun watching Obi’s resourcefulness allow him to overcome not having any flame abilities of his own.

Agreed and I’m sure Giovanni has a few more tricks up his sleeve. I am going to predict that Giovanni gets the upper hand and is about to crush Vulcan when Lisa steps in and redeems herself and I don’t even mind. That would be a great moment and as long as she keeps the outfit, I don’t think anyone will complain.

Fire Force Episode 20 Arthur Surrounded by Mirage

Normally I would, but if she keeps the outfit, I won’t.

So, by my calculations, we have Giovanni and Lisa versus Vulcan and Obi which will probably take most of the next episode, then the group will start to come back to together again in time for Shinra versus Sho. That fight is bound to last a couple of episodes, which only leaves one for the Evangelist… Plus, there’s no way Joker isn’t going to crash the party at some point. Basically, I think we’re running out of time!

Who is the Evangelist? Joker? Or that powerful eyepatch guy from way back? The way they mentioned him this episode, and his vision, made me wonder about that. Of course, my personal desire for crazy twists would make me with for someone like Obi being the Evangelist, but there’s just no way that’d happen.

Haha! I still think it’s Ruffles III, but I would love a major surprise. That would be one way to end the season with a bang.

They keep mentioning that power plant at the beginning of each episode, and Ruffles with it, so I think you’re probably right actually. Even though we’ve barely seen him in the series.

Yeah, I feel like there’s something more going on too, especially the way the church had made the Nether into some sort of demon-infested hell-hole. What don’t they want them to find?

I guess the source of that power plant is going to be a twist of sorts. Perhaps it’s powered by an infernal or something like this. I’ll bet whatever it is, it’s “taboo”, and would expose the hypocrisy within the church.

Well, they did say that it was an Adolla Flame similar to Shinra’s so it could be a person that powers it one way or another. I can’t help but wonder if they’re also somehow responsible for what has happened to the rest of the world if anything has actually happened. The area outside of the city just looked like it had been abandoned following some sort of destruction, but it didn’t appear to be unliveable.

Well, as much as you keep bringing up the outside world, something tells me we aren’t going to learn much about it. They don’t seem very interested in that, even if you have been haha.

That’s true and we just don’t have the episodes left to really do it justice anyhow. Let’s just have a big and exciting fight and find out who this damn Evangelist is.

Conclusion: Shinra beats Sho into somehow joining the good guys, and then Sho reveals the Evangelist as the final cliffhanger.

You’re probably right, although I don’t care if Sho joins the good guys. I think it would be better if he didn’t.

Agreed, but this is shounen, and no one is allowed to die or stay evil, especially if they are family.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough!

Yep!