The Truth Is Finally Revealed
It’s been a long, wild ride over the previous 23 episodes. With several story arcs, lots of character drama and plenty of action to digest, all of this has led to the final episode where truths are revealed and the questions we’ve been plagued with over the course of the season are finally answered. The season 1 finale of Fire Force begins with Captain Burns and Shinra together on the roof standing face to face. As they both power up, Shinra and Burns go toe to toe. It’s an intense affair and Captain Burns is clearly impressed with Shinra’s abilities, especially given he managed to singe his arm. In doing so, Burns agrees to tell him everything that happened the night of the fire. We then cut back in time to Solar Year 198 where Haumea and Charon, Evangelical’s trusted warriors, happen to perched on a rooftop awaiting the arrival of the “third one”. It turns out the reason they’re blindfolded is because the sunlight burns their eyes when they look directly at it. As Burns continues to unveil the truth, it turns out the cause of the fire wasn’t actually Shinra after all – it was Sho. A flashback shows exactly what happened that night, as Sho is consumed by the flames and Shinra knocked back against the front door. This happened to be the trigger point for his third generation abilities to manifest after Sho’s Adolla Burst. As Shinra listens in disbelief, the truth bombs continue. The horned Infernal Shinra saw that night was actually his Mother. Captain Burns and the rest of his squad arrived 15 minutes after the flames began to engulf the house and, prying open the front door, they managed to find and save Shinra. Despite bursting into the house and trying to save Sho and the boys’ Mother, he was unsuccessful and as a result, ended up with a right eye refusing to relinquish the angry flames raging within. Even worse though, his Mother plunged her Infernal horns deep into her eye sockets after seeing the fires of Hell. Burns lied to Shinra 12 years prior to try and protect him incase the Evangelical came after him. With the truth told and Captain Burns done for now, he leaves Shinra full of unanswered questions – where is his Mum? Can she be brought back? And will he be able to save Sho before he’s lost forever? We’ll have to wait and see! Going into the second season there’s a lot of big plot points still to be resolved but with the truth now finally revealed, there’s lot of scope for this anime to really capitalize on these higher stakes and deliver an action-packed second season. The fight between these two sides is far from over too and the question over just what the end-game is for Captain Burns remains to be seen. There’s plenty of reasons why Fire Force has been as enjoyable as it has been over the season. The world-building has been great, the lore and slow trickle of exposition has been nicely handled and the pockets of action help to keep the pace consistent. If the second season is half as good as this one, we should be in for a real trip. With the wait nearly over, Fire Force has plenty of potential to turn those fires into raging infernos as the tension is cranked up a notch for the fight ahead.
