Fire Force 2 Episode 12 – Beni-J

Whelp, I was wrong. Last week was not my favourite episode of Fire Force. This show has really been on a roll for me. And If I’m to really be honest It has been since about the halfway mark of season 1. And actually, the first few episodes were fantastic as well

All in all, there were a number of episodes I wasn’t very fond of somewhere before the middle of the last season but that’s about it. For the rest, I have been consistently enjoying the series. And I don’t think I’m the only one. The screengrabs I upload for the show tend to be very popular. It’s not much to base myself on but hey, someone is enjoying the visuals at least!

And why wouldn’t they?? Fire Force Looks fantastic. Especially this week! As they let a bit of surrealism slip into the story, it seems the director had a grand old time adding in all sorts of wild visuals to match. It had a fantasia vibe going on. And honestly, I thought it was a wonderful watch. I just sat back and enjoyed just the pure art of animation. It almost didn’t matter what the story was I was in it for the colours!

Fortunately, the story was decent. It did raise a bunch of questions though.

As I mentioned, I had looked up Benimaru’s faith so it was no big surprise to me. I really do like how they shrugged off giving us an explanation for his miraculous survival with a simple, I dunno… Beni’s a beast, got it. We knew that already but there was something glorious about seeing just sweep away all armies with a wave of the hand.

Also this opening scene had one of my favourite lines:

Now that is exactly how you answer an enemy fishing for information in the middle of a battle. Why isn’t this the standard response? Too bad it didn’t quite work out for this guy, he has to be one of the most reasonable antagonists I’ve seen. Well, it’s not really too bad. We did get to see the rise of Beni-J. I haven’t laughed this hard in a while. I desperately want to see one alternative ED with these two as an idol duo, lipsynching and dancing to the song.

I noticed a lot of fisheye effects. There were some more subtle ones during the action sequences as well. It makes characters seem sort of elastic. You know how sometimes anime makes characters deform unrealistically during dynamic action. I like that a lot. And as always, the framing was great. For example, the before last image in my gallery just above, the one with Joker coming back from the groceries, is a stunning composition.

Younger Joker is actually sort of adorable. We see him in the opening credits so it wasn’t a big surprise but for some reason, I thought he looked a bit more like Shinra. He does not.

Those opening credits also highlight that current day Joker looks like Burns. During the flashback, they did establish that the two have some sort of link. Joker did mention his eye hurt so “Burns must be…”. And they do both have an eye patch. Yet Joker’s origin story, which went into all kinds of gruesome implied details, didn’t reveal why Joker has an eyepatch. He didn’t have it when he was young and then suddenly, he did. Is it directly related to Burns, or does the church have some type of ritual that leaves people minus one eye?

This is a little thing but I really liked that he was 52 and then decided to reinvent himself as Joker. We are never told, but I’m assuming all the kids taken by the church have a number designation. Sure isn’t looking like the church is the good guys…

I loved the trippy drug-induced sequence. I also really love that Joker came up with that plan. How did he know Benimaru would be immune? Or maybe he didn’t know and just found out when he survived the poison. Lucky how that worked out! We all agree that Joker’s friend who is skilled at hallucinogenics in gas form is probably Victor, right? I want to know more about those two. Victor can be in the ED boy band idol group as well!

We found out a whole lot about Joker this week. Most of his origin story aside form his connection to Burns was revealed. We have a good idea of what he’s been up to and what his motivations are. Except not really. I am now even more curious as to why Joker would help Shinra and company 8. He really risked his own skin for them.

I understand fully why Joker would go to Benimary for help with an infiltration of the church and I get the timing. Everything that is currently happening makes perfect sense with what we learned about Joker, but everything in season 1 seems even more confusing now. Was he doing it as a favour to Victor? Maybe to have as a future bargaining chip? Victor does seem like a useful ally and an ongoing informant.

This is an example of good confusion. The episode raised more questions than it answered but in a way that makes me think the answers do exist. And I want to watch more to find out what does answers are! I can’t wait for the next episode.