Hello and welcome to our weep there yet in exploration and education in anime, I'm your anime idiot, Patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenna mccullough, your anime sexy firefighter. And I heard it's getting hot in here.

It's Mr. August.

Oh, God. Oh, no. Don't like this.

No one wants this.

That was too much.

This doesn't work in an audio format.

Believe me. Believe me. With my body, it doesn't work in a visual format.

So this is the best of both options.

This is the best you're going to get. No one has to see my body, right?

Sexy fireman ASMR role play.

It'S just a lot of, like, rubber of taking off the boots and being like, hold on. These are actually tricky. Oh, God.

Oh, no.

It's not the stripper costume. It's an actual firefighter uniform and actually takes a few minutes to take it all off.

Yes.

Oh, God.

I have £40 of gear.

While I'm so glad I saved you from this fire, let's get down.

Where in the hot days of summer, everyone's sweating. everything's gross. If you're in California, everything starts to catch on fire. And we got a thematic anime to help us fight these fires. We're watching Fire Force for once, we're.

Topical because it's a newer show.

I believe this came out July 5.

Wow. Yeah, I saw there was only a few episodes out right now, so I don't think the season's even done yet.

Wow.

I think six are out as of right now.

Our finger is on the anime pulse.

We're on this hot trend. Going to be a lot of hot puns. A lot of fire puns.

This is a super new show, so I assume we haven't seen it yet. But what do you all know about this show?

Not much. I know that tate was excited to watch it because he saw that it was on Adult Swim and he was like, oh, a new anime. I'm going to get in on the ground floor. And then he recorded it. And then it turned out that it was episode three, so oops for him.

Not that new.

Yes.

He'll listen to two thirds of this episode to catch up.

Yes. I've seen, like, screenshots and stuff. I heard about it when it first came out, but I never followed it too much or didn't see too much. And then it seems like as more characters are being introduced or so people are getting more into it. I guess people really like the designs of them. And with every bit of more information I get about the show, I am more and more confused about it. First I was like, oh, it's firefighters. And then I'm just seeing these characters. I'm like, what is this show? This is not a firefighter show, so I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I was the same way going into it. I was like, oh, firefighter is cool because my dad is a firefighter. He's currently a fire chief. And my mom's dad was a firefighter.

What?

So I'm the combo breaker in this generous family career.

I love finding out about that.

But you work with Anne, my friends that I didn't know in front of other people on a podcast in front of our audience.

But yeah. So I always hold firefighter, media and things near and dear to my heart. And when I saw this came out, I was like, cool, this sounds fun. And then I watched the trailer, and it was bonkers bananas, and I was.

So on board, as is anime tradition.

So, yeah, we are going to watch the first three episodes. So basically half of what is available to watch right now as of recording at least, we got a call. Everyone in your turnout gear.

Shit.

This one spicy.

We got spicy hot takes. Hot takes. Lots spice. Hot feet.

Yeah.

Every time I saw I mean, we'll get into it, but the character doesn't wear shoes a lot because they burn off. And every time I just saw him walking around barefoot, I immediately thought of, like, running out to get groceries from my mom's car in the driveway and bare feet and the asphalt of the driveway is super high. She's like, and they're running back in.

I did that last week. I went to a friend's pool party and just destroyed my feet.

Yeah. I don't know why, but seeing him barefooted brought back a very visceral memory of that.

Just taking two steps and being like, well, I'm in it now. I regret everything.

I can't feel my feet.

Trying to find your dad.

Okay.

This is my life now, finding your dad's.

Big old clunky sneakers in the garage. I got to wear these. Wow.

Right?

Episode one, trip down memory lane.

So, yeah, we we are in the far future.

Past.

I don't know.

Question.

We are reality. Solar year 198. This is Tokyo. I love the aesthetic just off the bat, because we got sort of that legend of korra.

That's what I saw.

It future past, like industrial aesthetic, which I love.

It kind of feels like the past, but if it went into a different direction for the future of, like, the main energy source isn't coal or that steampunk baby something else? Yeah, I guess so. Actually, yeah.

It dips into the back story a little bit later on in a different episode, but this is sort of like a post global warming world where the rising sea levels ate up a whole bunch of land. So Tokyo is like all of Japan.

That'S left too real. I don't like it.

It's too close to home anyway. We see a man just riding on a train, have a pleasant time, and he spontaneously combust as you'd normally get.

On public transportation mondays, am I right?

I got to get to the water cooler at work quick.

Put me out.

So this train catches on fire. It pulls into the station. Everyone's running around screaming. And we see a boy. He tries to step in this big fireman. The man who is on fire I cannot say fireman.

Fire demon.

Yeah. They are referred to as infernals. So I'll start saying that this boy is about to kick this Infernal's ass. But a team of firefighters arrive. And I mean that literally because they are there to kick ass.

Put out the fire with your fist by punching it to I'm going to.

Punch the fire in the face.

Pretty much.

So, yeah, we get a little fight scene. This fire force has, like, water cannons. There's a nun firefighter saying prayers as you do.

Why.

Right off the bat, we get a naruto run. So that's there. And then they win. They stab into the heart of this infernal and kill it. So, as everyone's celebrating, a light falls from the ceiling of this train station. And this boy jumps in, ignites his feet. He has basically rocket boots. He can fire bend just in making rocket boots for himself.

My feet are the firebenders weird.

And he pushes the nun out of the way.

Only the feet?

Yes. My hands are too precious. So, yeah, he pushes the nun out of the way. The falling white misses. And introducing the new member of the fire force. This is shinra. He was on his way to join up with the team. And what a coincidence, the team met up with him. We get the opening credits, which are baller.

Yeah, it's a good tune. It's a good dude.

Yeah. It very much felt to me like unravel from Tokyo ghoul. I liked the music a lot.

I think the ending song is just an extended cut of the opening song, I believe.

Oh, really?

I don't know. They sound the same if they're exactly the same, but whatever. But yeah. So we come back, and he's arrived at the headquarters special Fire Cathedral Eight. Because this is like House Eight, and we're introduced to the team. We're introduced to Captain Aquitaro obi. The second in command are EDA character takehisa. hinoa. But ida is fine.

EDA is simpler.

So, yeah, he meets up with the captain and he's like, you got some devilish smiles there. Yeah, because shinra has some spiky soul from Soul eater teeth.

And there's an instance in the next episode where you see a skull. And I was like, Wait a minute, I've seen that skull before. And sure enough, it's the same creator as Soul eater.

Yeah.

So that's why they look too similar.

Oh, dang.

The style is very he has a type, Soul eatery.

Yeah, he's sharkboy and lava girl.

My fan fiction. Their child.

All in one anime. I mean, it was anime to begin with.

We don't need to argue about that.

But yeah, basically, he reflexively. When he's tense, he just smiles and he can't stop it. So he's grinning like all the time. I like that they had to explain why they wanted the evil grin main character rather than just having an evil grin main character.

Yeah, that definitely seems like it was, like a style of choice first. And they're like, all right, what's some weird excuse we can make for why he's doing this all the time?

It comes up narratively as well. But they're like, yeah, we want him to have shark teeth and just show him off all the time.

Yeah.

So, yeah, basically, we're introduced to the team he joined because he wanted to be a hero, because he has the reputation. He's called devil Feet because of his fire walking stuff. We're introduced to the women in the firehouse, of course, naked in the shower, of course. Where else would we need them? They're talking about how shinra swooped in and saved her. And this is mackie, and I forget the nun's name. I don't know the nun sister most of the time.

Okay. I thought I was going to look it up. Excuse me.

Very loud key.

Yeah, they say it once. I think they say it once.

Yeah. When they're suiting up, you get, like, a little snippet of everyone's, like, name information, powers and all that. And I think that's the only time you see her name.

Got you. But, yeah, they call her Sister, so.

I'll call her yeah, sam.

We're simple folk, so, yeah, of course they're talking about, Is he the one? Are we in love?

Because we're sweating your feet. Because we're girls.

That's why we're here. So the whole gang gets together. maki, who's the taller, buffer female firefighter, is being all romantic and flirty with shinra because she's, like the hopeless romantic one. And they start their meeting, and we basically get our info dump of there's these cases of spontaneous combustion where people are turning into basically fire demons, where they will just wreak havoc until they burn out. So the fire force was created to kill them, which is needed, which is done by destroying the heart of the infernal. And they're also looking for a solution to stop it and why this is happening. But, yeah, that's basically our info dump. Later on, shinra is in bed, and he has several flashbacks throughout the episode. But just for clarity and context in describing it, I'll just sum it all up now, but this is sprinkled in the rest of the episode. So Shinrob is a cute little boy, and he's there with his mom and his baby brother. He's talking about how he wants to be a hero. There is a fire at his house, which is he sees an infernal that is not his mom. So he knows there was, like, foul play involved. Everyone believes he started the fire because he has fire feet. So naturally, he's the first suspect, and his grandma doesn't want to take him in because he'll burn her house down. And look at that devilish Smile. He feels no remorse, even though he's just stressed out. So, yeah, basically he's on a quest to redeem himself, make his name synonymous with heroics and not killing his family.

Yeah, he's a good boy. He's a good boy.

He's a third generation pyrokinetic, so it seems like they get stronger with each generation. So that's why they're kind of like, oh, he's a third gen, you can't trust him. They can just make fire appear out of nowhere.

Yeah, basically, third gen, you can control stuff at will. Second gen, you can manipulate it, but not at will. I guess it's sort of just case by case or something.

But second gen people, the fire needs to be there already. They can't make the fire.

Yeah, got you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, they can control it but not conjure it.

Yes.

So, yeah, those are the flashbacks and his motivation going into it. And now we get his first fire on the job. There's a factory that's burning down the, like, owners or the factory manager's wife combusted and is burning stuff down. So everyone gets into the engine. They nicknamed the matchbox because fire do you remember that? They work with fire.

I feel like that's an inappropriate name for a firefighting force of like, it's the matchbox. Things that start fires, that'd be like calling an ambulance, like the death mobile. It's like, hey, maybe don't call that.

But we're here to stop death, remember?

Yeah, I understand your logic, but no one else will.

Satan'S coffin. So they get to the fire, the manager is like, please just put her out of her misery. Make it quick and painless and all that. They get inside, shinra is having more flashbacks and he's starting to break down because it all is reminding him of the fire that killed his mom and sister brother. And Captain obi is like, hey, pull it together. It's literally your first fire. You cannot wimp out immediately.

This is your job, get used to it.

So, yeah, they find the infernal, they hunt it down and they kill it. They use their fire axes, way more literal war axes. They just use machine guns.

Yeah, edith's got just a straight up gun. I thought that was weird.

I mean, I assume it's a proven method.

I suppose it's just weird, like, we're going to go fight this fire.

Give me my gun this time.

This fire killed my dad.

My favorite gelato shop. Now I have no cold summertime treats.

You have no cold summer period. Global warming. Anyway.

So, yeah, shinra finally snaps out of it. He jumps around with his fire pogo stick feet, hot feet, and kicks a hole in the heart of the monster. And they managed to put out the fire. And then the husband, the manager thanks him profusely for giving, like, a dignified death, I guess. And all the crowded people there to watch the fire are cheering. And he gets his first taste of being a hero. And that's where we end up with episode one.

Yeah.

And then we get the ending and it's like a montage of the nuns backstory.

Oh, yeah.

I don't know why I only watched it always just the nuns backstory.

Yeah. I thought this would have been really cool if it was like everyone's backstory for every episode. Like, it was a different one. And this is how you conveyed the backstory. I'm like, oh, that's a neat way of doing it. And when I watched the other episodes, I was like, oh, it's always the non cool.

Maybe they just don't address it in the show.

Maybe. Yeah.

Here's hers.

We cover everyone else. She's not as important.

We don't even really say her name at all.

She's a nun. She's sister.

She's there to be hot, as evidenced by the end credits. She dumps water all over herself and wet T shirts.

Yeah, I won't dump it too much, but I feel like the women in this are just, like, filling the fetish rolls. Like, here's this one, here's that one, here's this one. And it's like, okay, cool.

We got a nun. We got a witch. We got a cat girl.

Got a cat girl.

What else?

I will say, though, maki is the best girl. She is my new wife. Who. I love her.

All right, so it worked.

It worked.

Let's explore her some more.

I'll allow it.

So in episode two, we start off kind of like how later not later episodes of Soul Leader, but some episodes of Soul Leader start off with death, talking about what the world is like. And that's kind of how episode two starts of just like a little fire force. People do this, and this is why.

Man, people are afraid of burning to death. I was like, yeah, my dude, yeah.

Yes. I assume this was a concept before infernals you still had fires, but what.

Were the chances that you would burn alive before this?

I mean, for us, pretty good.

Sure, you accidentally microwave a fork, but at least you don't have to worry about someone punching your heart out spontaneously combusted, suppose.

So we're outside of their base, which is like a repurposed church, and a blonde, cocky boy shows up and he's like, oh, so this is my castle. A.

We got a surprising amount of Jesus and catholicism in this anime podcast.

Sorry, like this episode or just in general?

Just this podcast in general.

Yeah, there's some heavy religious themes in the show, but yeah, we do touch on it a lot.

Yeah. So I think that we get the opening. Yeah. It's a blur. I don't know why I had so much trouble focusing and taking notes on this episode. It doesn't seem like a lot happened, but I was just, like, all over the place. But so the captain is telling Sheena about this thing called the Rookie Games, where all of the new recruits from the different fire forces come and they like compete and show off their moves. And he says that, oh yeah, you and the new recruit, who we assume as the blonde boy will be representing us, and I will also be there cheering you on. And I thought it was very funny because while they were having this conversation, the captain was like lifting weights and like pulled back from him. And then when it got back to him, he had a weight on his head. And I thought that was funny.

Yeah, he is always working out every time he's in the station.

Yeah, we see while they're suiting up. It shows all their powers. And everyone's a pyrokinetic except for the captain and the nun. So he's like working out constantly because he doesn't have powers.

Yeah. So then we're shown shinera walking the halls of the base and recalling his tragic past. He's worried that the other fire force people will have heard of him because I mean, people have heard of him, so he's worried that they'll judge him before they even get to know him.

I'm kind of a big deal.

I burned my family to death. Have you not heard of me?

And then the blonde boy greets shinera by saying, hey, devil. And then he's like, what are you doing here, you dang night? He says, I'm going to slay a devil.

What are you doing here?

I work here. What are you doing here? So they know each other.

That's what you are.

That's what you are. So yeah, they know each other. woo. They have a past. who'd.

A guest rivalry.

Got to have it. And then maki and iris, now that I know her name, are up on the roof hanging out. And maki makes a little calcifer looking little fire friend, calls them splitter. Yeah, just a little bud.

And iris is going to have an animal mascot check.

Iris is impressed. She's like, oh, how cute. Wow. And then that's when maki explains that second generation pyrokinetics have to have a source of the fire and third generations can make it themselves. And then the iris has like a weird vision of fire flowers. And she like reaches up toward them. But maki like snaps her out of it before she touches sputter so she doesn't burn herself. Thank goodness.

He's cute, but he still made a fire. Don't touch.

Yeah. And then as I wrote in my notes, sheena and Blonde bust onto the roof. We don't know his name yet. And the blonde boy says, I'm here to show you the difference between our powers and mocky. Is like, who are you? And he's like, my name is Arthur. Hello. And he is also a third generation pyrokinetic. And his whole gimmick is being a knight and a king because his name is Arthur.

Do you get it?

I get it. It's so funny. And he calls maki and iris princesses. And maki is like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Me a princess. And then she's like, well, how do you guys know each other? And they know each other from the academy, but they don't get along. I loved sheena says that Arthur tries to seem like he's, like, the silent, stoic type and he's, like, really cool when in reality, he's just an idiot, so he doesn't know what to say. I love that. That's my favorite character.

But then he says he's still more popular than Sheenra, so it's like well, it works. Like, if he doesn't know what to say, it still works.

Yeah. And then iris is like, don't worry, sheen ray. You're cool too. See that? The nun says, I'm cool. My mom thinks lieutenant. And then EDA. It hadn't even crossed my mind when I was watching it that he was the EDA character for some reason.

He's got a glass.

He has glasses. That's all that's also, like I guess.

So he's got the personality. Yeah.

I'll say this, he's definitely got a different personality than the traditional glasses nerd character. But yeah. I just wrote you didn't know his name for a while. He doesn't.

I feel like he doesn't. Oh, I thought you said he does.

No, he's much meaner.

I guess that's true. Yeah. So he gets there, and maki kind of fills him in on what's going on and Sputter goes up to him and he pours his coffee on it and he's like, fire. Soldiers don't play with fire. And it's like that's a good point.

A good point. It's still mean.

Yeah. He doesn't seem to like maki very much at all.

I would disagree with that because we get a shot in the first episode where maki goes up to shinera. It's like, oh, yeah, I made your pants shorter so you don't burn them off. And we get a nice old titty shot from above and shinera gets flustered and then comes off to him and kind of pulls away and pulls them back or throws his clipboard, I think, into the wall or something. And he kind of just does something very intense to kind of break the tension. And it seems like he's protective of Mike.

I think he doesn't like her. He's mean to her. He's, like, meaner to her than anybody else.

Yeah. I think it's just that trophy nonsense of, like, he doesn't know how to show his feelings. So it comes off as, like, Ukraine. We don't see a lot of them in these three episodes, so it's hard to tell.

Yeah. So Arthur greets the lieutenant super casually and they're like, don't talk to the lieutenant like that. But he's kind of like, whatever. He's just like, okay, if you want to pretend we're equals, that's fine.

Sure.

And then he's talking about the rookie games, and he tells maki to train Sheena and Arthur. So let some training commence. maki tells Sheena to fight her, and iris is like, oh, no, but what if she can't hold her own? Because he can make fire and she can't. And the lieutenant is like, she used to be a soldier. She knows how to destroy men. And I was like, Hell, yeah.

God, I bet she does.

So they're fighting. I didn't write down the details of the fight because it's a fight, and she's doing great. She's really holding her own. And she can turn off his powers, which is pretty cool. She turns them off, and he falls through the sky, and then she turns them back on right before he's about to hit the ground so he doesn't die. And the lieutenant mentions that being a third generation makes Sheena a little too confident, little too cocky. And now it's arthur's turn to fight her. Yeah. And he pulls out his sword, which is called excalibur.

Do you get it?

Because it's, like, the thing it's a.

Reference to an old book. I don't think you'd understand, actually.

It's an old mythos. It's not technically up.

I'm leaving that's for the best. You don't know anything about it.

No one should be around.

So he gets out of scalibur, and it's, like, made of plasma instead of fire. So maki, they mentioned that she has more trouble controlling it. And so he goes to lunge at her, and then he's like, oh, but a knight can't harm a princess. And then I loved this. This was great. maki forces him to the ground, and she says, I can speak. She says, You've forgotten your manners. A knight kneels before a princess. And then she knees him in the face.

No shit.

It is amazing. And he calls her an ogre, which is, of course, once a girl is aggressive with you, she's disgusting. She was a princess before, but now she's aggressive and mean, so she's not a princess anymore. Now she's a bitch.

Princesses can't be strong.

She gets mad, and rightfully so. And then Sheenra, like, gets up on top of the building, and he's like, Why do you look so mad? And then that just makes her more mad. So then she takes control of their flames, even though they said that her taking control of his plasma blade was hard. That kind of confused me, where I was like, Why? They just said that she can't.

But now she's got anger and she's got power, is tied to emotion.

I suppose so. Yeah. And then they both give up because they can't control their flames anymore. And she kind of balls all of their flames up into a big fire creature. And then the lieutenant takes a fire hose to it, which makes her sad, but also big fire in hot environment. Maybe get rid of it.

It had a big smiley face. It was a friend.

Giant mushroom. Maybe. It's friendly. And then it's ramen time. Sheena and Arthur are eating ramen with the captain, and they're even competitive while they eat, they're slurping up Ramen. And the captain's like, hey, chew it before you swallow. And then they're like, chewing really hard to try and beat each other.

I could chew more times than you.

And then they're walking back and Sheena thinks to himself that the captain seems so nice. And he wonders what could make him angry. And then we jumped to some training where Sheenra is training with like, an axe gun that I hated. I just thought it was so awesome.

Remember the Power ranger? The Black ranger had an axe gun.

There's something about it that I just hate. It's just an axe head on a gun. Like, it's not creative at all.

We wanted this to, A, be a gun and B, look cool.

I thought you say b. That would have been better.

Dang it. Let's take it back.

Just kidding.

Edit out this whole podcast. This one's canceled the whole show. We're done.

Yes. So Arthur is like, I don't need one of those. I have my weapon. And then the captain's like, yeah, you don't. You're good. And then he says something about wishing they had an engineer because the lieutenant is the one that keeps track of all the weapons and such. So he wishes that he could take some of that pressure off of the Lieutenant. And the lieutenant is like, no, I like it, actually.

I'm good.

And then it's fire times.

Don't take away the only thing I have.

It's my identity.

And then the alarm goes off, so it's time to go find some more fires. And they get briefed on the situation on the way there. It's just in a house, and I think this is when the captain tells shinera and he gives shinera the axe gun. And he tells shinera and Arthur not to draw their weapons until they're inside. And they get to the house and there's like, not really a fire. It's just chill. The infernal is just inside, so they have to go take care of it. And there's a girl outside who is very upset because the infernal inside is her dad and her mom turned into an infernal before. So she not only is upset about her parents being dead, but also I don't know if becoming an infernal is like genetic, but she's like, oh, this is going to happen to me too. Oh, no.

Yeah, they don't know the origin of infernals, but it's pretty good. Odd.

Yeah. So they're getting ready to go inside, and then Sheena and Arthur pull their weapons out, which is exactly what the captain just told them not to do. I was like, are you kidding? He literally just said that in the car on the way here.

Five minutes.

And so he pulls them aside and he's like, I just told you the.

Fuck I should do this.

What the hell? And then he kind of explains why he doesn't want them to do that. It's because infernals are humans. He reminds. Them that they are essentially murderers. So showing off their weapons in public, especially to the daughter of the infernal that's inside, can be very upsetting. They know what they're about to do, but it's different to see how they're going to do it.

Don't worry, man.

We want to remind her that we're about to kill your dad.

Yeah, don't worry, man. We got this. We're going to go murder your father. You're going to be an orphan now. See you in a bit.

Hey, at least you have the mystery of was he killed with the gun or the axe?

You never know.

Or the sword.

Either way, not great options.

Good luck. Either way, definitely dead. You're no longer having parents.

You have no parents, zero parents. You're over 20 parents.

Congrats. You're an anime character now.

And then there's a small crowd that gathered outside of the house, and there is a creepy guy with a bandana that has, like, a little jar of black ash. And he he like, does something with it that we don't really see that causes some fire to erupt from the house in the shape of a smile. And it's like smirking at the captain and sheena and Arthur. It's teasing them. It's taunting us. We have to go in. sneering so they go inside, and the infernal is just sitting there waiting for tea. And it is at this point that this gets sad, because the captain sees a picture of the family, and in order to feel a little better about the situation, he turns it down so he can't see it anymore. And Arthur is like, all right, I'll do it. And sheen was like, well, he hasn't done anything yet. He's just sitting there. He hasn't hurt anybody. And Arthur says, yeah, but he's literally being consumed by flames, so we should probably put him out of his misery. So it's just iris starts doing the prayer, and it's just very sad because it's just a man who combusted, spontaneously combusted. And he wasn't hurting anybody, but they got to get rid of it.

Yeah.

So they do the thing. He stabs him with the sword, and they all say they're amen word low tum, something like that. And then they're about to leave, and then the house starts coming down with that black ash. Oh, no. So they're rushing to get out, but the captain stays behind to grab that picture. And then some debris falls on him, and he's like, what the heck? What's happening? He gets out of things. Odd. nut. Why did I say that? Oh, God.

Happens. nut is if something good happens.

Oh, man, I shouldn't have drawn attention to myself.

How dare you. Give us the episode title.

Damn it.

I do that a lot.

So then there's some smoke, and the smoke spells out joker, and the creepy guy is off in a corner, smirking to himself, and he's like, hey, I did this.

It was evil, man.

And then the daughter is shown again, and she's very upset because she's still dwelling on the facts that this is probably going to happen to her one day as well. And the captain goes up to her and gives her the photo that he took, and he's like, hey, your parents were really brave, and they loved you very much, and I am sorry this happened to you. And then she cries a lot, which is fair. And then the captain talks to shinera about being there for the family members because it's very important to make them feel better. And it's nighttime, and Arthur and shinera are in their bunks, and Arthur says something cryptic. I don't remember what it was. And then they have some friendly banter. They talk about how neither of them can sleep. And then sheena thinks, we got to stop this spontaneous human combustion thing and fast, stat. We got it.

Yeah, my dude, they've been working at it for a while.

They have an enemy for fast. I know that's episode two.

Yeah. And then we go right into episode three, and it opens with that ash vial again that the guy had in the last episode. And it's a scientist kind of guy that looks like the main character from Catherine, that video game. And I'm assuming he's just a shitty. That character is also shooting, and he's holding it, talking about the state of the world and how everything has changed and countries have changed and the landlines have been divided and stuff because of the rising water and because of the fires, and basically just saying how the Japanese empire that currently exists that they're living in is like one of the strongholds on the planet. Because of this company I forget his name. I wrote it down further down.

Hajima, something like them.

Hajima Haijima walmart. Walmart. Japanese walmart created this, like, fuel source, I think he was saying, and that's kind of what kept them safe and advanced their technology to fight these infernals and all this fire and stuff, and just kind of more of a lore dump about the world. And then the camera zooms out on them, and we see the Johnny depp character from last episode talking about how you use that ash stuff and saying like, oh, yeah, the stuff you made is great, doc. I'll be sure to use it again next time. It's time to say, oh, yeah, I used it. I gave it to you especially for the Fire Force Company Eight, because I've been looking into them. Do you know the captain had his medal stripped away twice because he defied orders, but the order was to do something, and he was saving human lives instead. So he's like, oh, nasty captain.

Terrible, evil.

Yeah. So the Johnny deputy, I guess he's still kind of a good guy even though he defied orders. So he's defined the establishment. He's going against the hierarchy.

Stick it to the man yeah.

Eat the rich. Fire catchphrase. At this point, we say so much.

Be a team. Be a teen.

Be gay, do crime.

I sent dana a picture of fucking way back, and it was just this really bad shirt of spiderman in space. And it just says, like, be gay, do crime. Kill your heroes. I'm just like every day I'm like, I want that shirt more. That's a good shirt. Giant looking at shinra's file as it cuts to the opening and a place opening sequence. And then we cut back to Shinra in front of the building shouting like, the Rookie Games, I'm here to prove myself. Or just some exaggerated statement of bullshit. And we see a girl stand up next to him. And she's got big tails. She wearing a bikini top. And she's presumably the character from the opening. So I'm assuming she's going to join his fire force at some point. And she yells, Tomaky katusu.

Her name is Tommy's. It's fine.

Tommy Key, and I'm here to kick butt. So it's kind of like she's the up and start. Like, go getter. She's that high energy one and ready to take action. Kick butt. And we also see a little info screen grab of like she's also a third generation pyrokinetic, so she's on level with Arthur and Chinra. And sheena immediately stares at her tits because he got it. And machi introduces introduces the fire force mascots to them. She's like, all kind of, like, blushing. Like, oh, look at them. They're adorable. You got, like, the dog. You got the cat. You got the little old man. She was like, oh, why is there like, a little old man? People thought it was weird that we just had animals as Moscow, so we wanted to try and show, like, a human face for it. But he's also kind of dog looking. He's still kind of cute. And so she's kind of, like, gushing over them a little bit. And we see the scientist, katherine Guy, sitting in the background in the crowd watching the Rookie Games.

Not suspicious at all.

No, I'm just here to watch a friendly competition.

I'm here to watch each other.

I'm hoping someone dies. Okay, so sheena is walking around and he sees another person from the fire company, One, which is the fire company that saved him when he was a kid after his house burnt down and his family died. So he was like, oh, maybe that guy knows. I don't know if he recognizes just the patch or he recognizes the person himself as being the guy who saved them both.

He recognizes him because he is very distinct looking, has white hair and like an eye patch with eye patch. Too many strap.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So he recognizes the captain of that firefighters, and he's like, he's the one that saved me when I was a kid. And he goes running up to me. He's like, excuse me, sir. Can I talk to you? I got a few questions for you. And.

What character just possessed your body? I have never.

It is that Shinra ham? Shinra fire spreads out on my feet, and I murder families. So he runs up to the captain. He's like, excuse me, I got questions, kevin's. Like, I'm busy. That fire happened twelve years ago. Fuck if I remember. And the games are about to start, so I don't have time for it.

Do you remember that one fire that happened twelve years ago, sir? What?

And so he like, goes walking off, and shinner goes running after him, but then while he's running after him, tommy's pops out and cuts him off, saying like, hey, you leave my captain alone. And she never just grabs her tip because you got it. It's anime.

I don't get it.

And then what else do you interact?

I had to look this up. So he grabs her boob, like, underneath the top, like, full skin, and then she goes to slap him and he steps away. And then as he steps away, she kind of like, trips and falls into his arms. And when she falls into his arm, his hands just go into her pants and grabs her ass. And it's just like, what the fuck is happening? And we see her fall down, and she's kind of crying a little bit and screams like, damn it, why does my lucky lecture lore act up at moments like this? And I looked it up, and apparently it's just like a character trait of hers of just she's real clumsy and has bad luck, and that just happens to put her in compromising positions where she's either naked or someone's fondling her all the time. It's like, oh, she's so it wasn't sheena grabbing her at any of those times. It's just that she happened to position herself where I guess her bikini top came up a little bit and is handling it in at that exact moment. That's what it seems like they're trying to say by saying, like, Shinra is not a pervert. It just happened to be this way.

And it's like, that's not malicious. It's not malicious at all. I accidentally groped you in front of everyone you work with, but like, it's.

Not underneath the clothes too.

Sheenra touching her titty and ass because that's my problem. I feel like sheena is a good boy. This is the animator's fault.

That's what it seems like. It seems like they just gave her this weird curse where she's just like, naked all the time, or someone just groping her all the time. It's like, oops, what a weird characteristic. It's like you're literally just fan service incarnated. Like, you were just the personification of fan service. You don't serve other purposes. So it's like, wow, what a choice. Like, wow, okay. And so after that weird confrontation, I guess she rep ditches her, and he goes running after the captain again. This is where he says, I've seen so many fires. The games are about to begin. Like, leave me alone, kid. And then it just cuts to we see all the rookies lined up in front of the building. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's a mock fire. You have to go and save the rescuers and kill the infernal. But the infernal is just Kevin dressed up. Hey, Kevin. He's like, so it's just like a.

Guy in a dumpling waving.

I love him.

Yeah. They're like, he's not real. Don't hurt him. He's just kind of an idiot. And then we see all the rookies lined up, and it's easy to point out which rookies are going to be important for the story because everyone's a fucking giant, except for Arthur Shinra, tomiki, and, like, one other character. So it's just kind of like, oh, weird. Like, they just have children against these, like, full last adults in this competition. And then we see them all run in, and sheena holds back a bit, and they're like, oh, wonder why he's, like, taking a slow. And he's like, ha ha, suckers. And just, like, flies up like astro Boy into the second or third floor. She's like, what the fuck? That's cheating. I mean, no, but yes.

I can do this in a real fire. It works.

Yeah. I don't know if these abilities they can do are just unique to every person or if anyone could learn how to do this. It's not sure or it's not clear. So she andrew just flies up, and he's walking around. He's like, hello, I need survivors here. He really put in the effort, even during the practice. It's cool to see your enthusiasm, Shinra. And as he's walking, he turns a corner, and he sees Johnny depp. He knocked out two of the survivors that are inside that he's supposed to rescue. And he's standing there, and he's smoking a cigarette. And the smoke is going up and forming the symbols on cards, like Diamond Club, spade, heart. It's like, oh, okay. You're that character. I get it. And he says he's like, oh, he wants to talk to Shinra about that fire way back when that killed his family. sheena is like, what the fuck? What are you talking about? What do you know about me? What do you know about my history? What do you know about my family? Shinra also tells him to stay away from the firefighters. He's like, I want to know more about what you know about me, but also don't kill people. Like, don't stop it. And giant depp is like, oh, if you're so worried about these firefighters, maybe I'll just get rid of them. That way you can focus on our conversation. It's like, sure, that's super logical. Why wouldn't you do that? societal flies in, fights them off, and is able to push them away from the firefighters. And they're kind of able to rotate around the room and then giant depp, pulls out the vial of ash and shakes it around. And he's like, well, maybe I'll try out some of these. And just throws some ash in front of Shinra. And then they just pockets just start exploding. Like, I didn't see that. Yeah, it's basically explosive pocket sand. It just starts going off and just goes off in these big explosions. And the fight continues a little bit, but with the ash, he's able to keep Shinra at a distance instead of flying at him with his jet feet. So we get more, like, kind of like, encroaches upon him. And it's kind of like, I got you now. And we just get, like, super detailed shots of him and Shinra, just, like, a lot of detail put into these still shots. And Shinra is smiling because he gets nervous, and he smiles. And Giant debt, he's like, I'm about to kill you, but you're smiling at a time like this. And that earns him some brownie points, I guess, for some fucking reason. And giant depth.

You're fucking crazy, kid.

I like you pretty much.

And he's like, Because I like you, I'm going to give you a hint about your backstory and your origin story for how you became a fucking hero. And he says, Shinro's one year old little brother still alive. Your little baby girl is not dead.

What?

What a twist. I don't know. Maybe being a private kinetics genetic. So maybe he did survive. And Giant up suggests that someone's hiding something from you, someone within your fire organization knows more about that fire. And shinner immediately thinks of the captain from the first company with the eyepatch, and he kind of gets, like, flustered and emotional, and he's like, what are you talking about? What do you mean they know what's going on? Backstory? What do you mean? My brothers live and just start to really get immersed into questions and wants to know more. And Giant is like, oh, I'm glad you're curious. Now. Now I have your attention. He's like, I'm happy, though, because you show promise, Shinra. You show promise, kid. And he says, if you want to know more, you got to choose a side hero or a devil. You think you could join my team, being a full on devil, and I'll let you know more about what I know? And shimmer just starts flying at him, trying to attack him, saying basically saying, like, nah, fuck that. I'm a hero through and through. Like, I'll never join your side and just start fighting. And he says, flying kicks are a mark of a true hero, which was weird to me.

Okay?

I'm thinking that's just, like an old sentiworks thing where the Power ranger characters would fly in with a kick. I don't know. I don't know why else you would say that. And then we cut to Arthur, who's cutting his way through the building instead of, like, running around the hallways. He's literally just cutting through it all. Mall with the plasma sword. And as he's running around, he hears something from above. He's like, oh, what's that? And there's an explosion. And the Cat girl falls on him because, of course, and she's on top of him. And he's like, hey, I'm not a pincushion. She's like, how are you doing? She's like, embarrassed again because she's so clumsy. And these things just keep happening to her.

Face. I can't believe it. It's so weird. Oh my God, I'm so quirky.

Yeah, it's a rough character. So they're walking down the hallway and they walk in on shinra's fight with Giant Debt. And he's like, go, go outside and tell the organizers. Like, someone snug in here and beat up everyone. And like, this isn't part of the training practice. And they're like, yeah, yeah, sure. We totally got you.

Psych.

And then they jump into the fight themselves. He's like, what the fuck did I just tell you?

You want all the glory? You want to win the games? We're not doing that because we don't work as a team, apparently. Teammate hey, you see how the guy.

I'm fighting isn't in a fucking uniform? He's not part of this. He's all the fucking scarves.

See how he is not the guy we saw earlier that was shown as the infernal?

Yeah.

And the guy is on the floor unconscious.

And so when he gets ganged up, giant up releases a bunch of ash and just kind of like, breaks open. I think he has two vials telling shinra, if you're going to be a hero, then you can save all these people all at the same time. See nerds. And each guy disappears and he still throws up the offer. He's like, hey, if you ever want to change sides and become evil, hit me up. I'm your boy. So they're freaking out. arthur's like, oh, I'll just cut through the roof. But he can't quite make it, so it cuts through. And then the Cat girl flies up and hits and they will break out through the ceiling. And everyone piles up on shinra to fly out. And the ash that we saw before that seemed to go off within seconds of being released, taking a good good while now to explode. conveniently. And everyone's able to jump on Shinra, and they're able to get the unconscious guys, and they're able to fly out. And right as they fly out, it all explodes. Like, oh, okay, there it is. It was on a timer that delayed ash. Got you. And as they're flying up, the explosion kind of knocks them all apart. And they're falling. And they're like, oh no. What do we do? And the captain of the First Force jumps up and catches the Cat girl. He's like, oh, yeah, thanks for saving one of my guys. And he flies back down. sheena still has the two unconscious people with him and see Arthur falling by himself. He's like, oh, fuck. What do I do? And we see Company Eight with the sheet underneath the building underneath of him saying, like, ah, just relax. Fall like a hero, and we'll catch you. And he's like, the fuck does fall like a hero or whatever. And he falls into the sheet. And even though they catch him in the sheet, we still see him, like, hit the ground, and a bunch of rocks and dust flies up. Like, he's still impacted really hard. And he's like, oh, man. Thanks for catching me, guys. It would have been a problem if you guys weren't all so strong and machi, is there? What I mean? Strong like a goddamn gorilla psychologist. And he's like, whoa, didn't say that. So she's clearly got a hang up about people calling her, like, I guess strong or muscular. And then we see Force Captain says, captain, the first company tells jenner, he's like, yeah, you did well for saving everybody. He showed a lot of promise, kid. As he walks away, he tells Captain obi. He's like, you got some good soldiers on your team. And obi just looks pissed. So it's kind of like tension. I love it. And then we just cut to later that night. They're still at the exercise building, and we see shinners all patched up and stuff, and now they're investigating exactly what happened. And Shinra tells obi. He's like, oh, the man he met inside the he tells him about the guy inside the building. He talks about all the stuff that happened. And he asked about, like, are the Special Forces hiding anything? Like, are we real legit about just putting out fires, or is there more to it? And it would be like, yeah, we are fighting fires, and we are fighting infernals. But the Special Fire Forces was founded basically by the church, the army, and the firefighters, essentially. And all the different companies are kind of loyal to different people, if not all one cohesive unit. Like, they're kind of their own independent companies. So some people answer to the church, some people answer to the most people answer to, like, the army, and then some people answer to Hajjima Industries, which is their sole supplier of all their equipment in gear. So it's kind of like maybe a monopoly. Yeah, maybe the people that are making money off of all these fires don't want these fires to stop anytime soon.

Like global warming.

Planned. obsolescence and so the fire companies are seeing more as, like, rivals rather than United Group. So he's like, yeah, I can't super trust everyone except for the people that are in my company. So he said the Company Eight, the company that they're a part of, was actually created by someone within the organization to investigate other companies, basically. So they're kind of like Internal affairs and trying to figure out he's like, I think somebody inside the Special Fire Force organization knows something about the origins of the internals, and I'm trying to root it out and figure them out. And I'm glad you're on my team, Shinra. He's like, wink. Thanks, dad.

And that's pretty just what firefighters needed.

Cops. You know how cops and firefighters go so well together. They always work. They love each other so good. So, yeah, that's episode three.

Yeah, half of the.

If you want more episodes, bad news, but you're going to have to wait. But yeah. How are you guys feeling about Fires and anime?

It was fire was liking it.

You were digging.

I'll say the firefighter angle is doing a lot of heavy lifting for me because it's not my type of show typically. But yeah, I am liking it. It's fun. They don't take it super duper seriously, which is nice.

How about you, dana?

Yeah, it feels very my hero academia esque, which I do like. But I don't know. There's just something about it that I was just like, this is fine, I guess.

I don't know why I got to.

Agree with you, though. Yeah, there wasn't anything I disliked about it strongly, but it's kind of like there's nothing that made me like it. And immensely I mean, besides maki, she is the best wife who but besides that, there's nothing that really hooked me in of like, oh, boy, I wonder what happens. I'm like, there's probably a company within the organization that knows the origin of infernals or yeah, they're making more to keep the business going or this or that. Nothing felt super unique besides the premise of Firefighters, so nothing really cooled me in too deeply.

Also, I assume Arthur is his brother. I'm going to put that out there.

Really?

Of course. They're going to establish his only rival as long lost family, so they patch things up.

I would.

He's the only other third generation fire user which would line up with family stuff. So that's my guess.

Tomicy is also a third generation pyrokinetic.

Well, isn't she a different house?

She's in company One, but she's also in the opening for the show, so I'm assuming she's going to transfer over at some point. And then Shinra was in the same class as Arthur in the academy, so presumably they're close in age. Unless Arthur is so gifted. He was moved up, like, five years because his brother was one years old in the flashbacks, and shimmer was at least, like four or five. There was a few years difference.

Let's just debunk DUGAN'S theory.

I don't know. I feel like they'll throw some bullshit at it.

It's a possibility, but I also yeah, I feel like he's probably going to be evil. I feel like that's the move. Fine.

Yeah. Kind of buy the books. There's nothing too engrossing, I guess, would be a better word.

Yeah.

It'S a strong mess.

Yeah, a hard end. Okay.

I think this might be the first show that duggan liked more than either of us, though, because he likes all right, so we found out if we want to get dugan invested in an anime, we just have to get a very personal backstory for him.

Something to help me overlook all the stuff I normally don't like.

Yeah.

Has your dad ever thought about making anime? Is that going to get you invested?

We'll find something.

So, yeah, I guess we aren't there yet with this one. It's still never hated it. No, that's hated it. Maybe it'll get its footing and maybe it'll pick up in later episodes.

Only time may tell.

Yeah.

But yeah. What do we have going on next week?

Next week is one of my picks, and the last one I did made everyone mad. So this time I'm going in blind and picking something I've never seen before. And it's called polar Bear Cafe. And if you can get a good idea what it is from that title, it seems like just a bunch of animals that work in a cafe and I'm like, done, we're in.

This is going to be a good thing.

There's like, 50 some episodes. It's not like a little one off thing. It goes for a while.

Damn.

So I'm kind of curious to see what story they could set up to keep it going.

But, yeah, I guess we'll find out next week.

Yeah.

Well, if you have a show you would like us to watch, you can send us suggestions on social media at arweevariat, on Twitter and Instagram. You can also reach us at our email arweebeveriat@gmail.com. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. dugan.

You can find me on Instagram at queen. Period. Weebu and on Twitter at Queen Underscore Weebu and Queen underscore Weebu. Art.

You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan it stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is a video game podcast I do.

And thank you to camille ruley for our artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for our theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Stay cool, keep it hot.