About Fire Force
Fire Force (En'en no Shōbōtai, "Blazing Fire Brigade") is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Atsushi Ohkubo, the creator of Soul Eater. It ran in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from September 2015 to February 2022, 304 chapters collected in 34 volumes, and Kodansha USA publishes it in English; by May 2022 it had more than 20 million copies in circulation. David Production adapted it as a TV anime with music by Kenichiro Suehiro. Yuki Yase directed the first season and Tatsuma Minamikawa the second and third. The anime ran to 73 episodes over three seasons, from July 2019 to April 2026, and its final season adapts the manga through to its last chapter.
The story is set in the Tokyo Empire in Year 198 of the Solar Era, 250 years after the Great Cataclysm, a fire that swept the world and left Tokyo as the one stable place to live. Its people are at constant risk of spontaneous human combustion, which turns them into burning monsters called Infernals. Others come through it with powers instead: second-generation pyrokinetics can control fire, and third generations can create it. The Special Fire Force, formed from the Holy Sol Temple, the Tokyo Army and the Fire Defense Agency and split into eight companies, puts Infernals to rest while a Sister prays for their souls. Shinra Kusakabe, a third generation who ignites his feet, joins the newest and smallest of them, Company 8, which also keeps watch on the other companies. Twelve years earlier a fire took his mother and his baby brother, and Shinra, who grins when he is nervous, was blamed for it and called a devil. He wants to prove he is a hero.
From there the story widens out. Shinra learns that his brother Sho survived and now commands the Knights of the Ashen Flame for the White-Clad, a cult led by a figure called the Evangelist that is creating Infernals on purpose. The cult is gathering eight people who carry the Adolla Burst, a rare flame that Shinra has too, in order to bring about a second Great Cataclysm. Company 8 picks up allies as it goes: Benimaru Shinmon's Company 7 in Asakusa, Princess Hibana's Company 5, the engineer Vulcan Joseph and the outlaw Joker. Its investigations lead into the Holy Sol Temple and Haijima Industries, the two powers behind Amaterasu, the plant that supplies all of Tokyo's energy, and in the final season Company 8 ends up branded as outlaws by the empire it serves.
Want the archetype rather than the character? The dere type quiz scores you across all eight anime dere types — tsundere, yandere, kuudere, dandere and four more — and explains where each word comes from.
What the Fire Force Quiz Tests
Our Fire Force quiz covers the anime's three seasons, all 73 episodes, which adapt the whole of Atsushi Ohkubo's manga. It does not ask about the stage plays or the mobile game. Easy levels cover the premise and the core of Company 8: who made the series, what an Infernal is, Shinra's flaming feet and nervous grin, Arthur's plasma sword Excalibur, Captain Obi, Sister Iris, Maki and Tamaki. The middle levels move through the story in order — the Rookie Fire Soldier Games, the raid on Company 5, Rekka's insects, Asakusa, Vulcan's workshop, the Nether, the truth about the Kusakabe fire, the Fifth Pillar, the Chinese Peninsula and Haijima Industries — along with the abilities and generations that keep the fights straight. The hard levels go to the details a real fan remembers: the year the story begins, Joker's old code name, whose gun Hinawa carries, what is carved inside the Tabernacle, the name of Burns's ability, and how the story ends.
Key Characters
Shinra Kusakabe is a third-generation pyrokinetic who can ignite his feet and fly on the flames, and who has been called a devil since childhood because of the fire that took his family and the grin he cannot help when he is nervous. He joins Company 8 to become a hero and to find out what really happened that night. His rival from the training academy, Arthur Boyle, is convinced he is a knight king, and the more he believes it, the stronger his plasma sword Excalibur becomes. Their captain, Akitaru Obi, is a former regular firefighter with no powers at all, who founded the company with his lieutenant Takehisa Hinawa, a stern ex-soldier whose bullets go wherever he steers them. Maki Oze, also from the army, controls flames rather than creating them; Sister Iris prays over every Infernal the company puts to rest; and Tamaki Kotatsu, transferred from Company 1, fights with cat-shaped flames. Around them stand Benimaru Shinmon, the short-tempered, offhand captain of Company 7 and the strongest of all the Fire Soldiers; Princess Hibana of Company 5, who grew up in the same convent as Iris; the outlaw Joker; and, on the other side, Shinra's brother Sho and the White-Clad's Haumea.
Available Quizzes
Fire Force Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Fire Force Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which member of the Special Fire Force matches your personality!
Random Mix
Questions from all 47 anime including Fire Force. The ultimate challenge.
Characters
Shinra Kusakabe
Arthur Boyle
Maki Oze
Tamaki Kotatsu
Benimaru Shinmon
Fire Force Fun Facts
- The prayer Company 8's Sister says over each Infernal ends with the word "Látom". The magazine Gadget Tsūshin put it on its list of the most popular anime buzzwords of 2019.
- To promote the anime in March 2019, Gakuto Kajiwara and Kazuya Nakai, the Japanese voices of Shinra and Captain Obi, were made firefighters for a day by the Tokyo Fire Department's Kanda station and took part in a drill at the Akihabara Radio Kaikan.
- Fire Force was Atsushi Ohkubo's first weekly series, and in May 2020 he announced that it would be his last manga. One of his former assistants, Kei Urana, went on to create Gachiakuta.
- The first season's opening, "Inferno" by Mrs. Green Apple, and its ending, "Veil" by Keina Suda, were both nominated at the 4th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2020.
- Shinra's name comes from shinrabanshō, a Japanese expression meaning "all of creation" or "all things in nature" — a name that turns out to suit him by the end of the story.
- Viktor Licht, Company 8's scientist, echoes Franken Stein from Ohkubo's Soul Eater: both are mad scientists in lab coats, and both names nod to Victor Frankenstein. "Licht" is German for "light".
Fire Force Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes of Fire Force are there?
Seventy-three, across three seasons. Season 1 has 24 episodes and aired in Japan from 6 July to 28 December 2019; season 2 has 24 and aired from 4 July to 12 December 2020. The third and final season has 25, split into two parts: 12 episodes from 5 April to 21 June 2025 and 13 from 10 January to 4 April 2026. The episodes are numbered 1 to 73 straight through.
Is Fire Force finished?
Yes. Atsushi Ohkubo's manga ended in Weekly Shōnen Magazine on 22 February 2022 after 304 chapters, collected in 34 volumes. The anime's third season was announced as its last and as covering the manga to the end, and its final episode aired on 4 April 2026.
What order should I watch Fire Force in?
In release order: season 1, season 2, then both parts of season 3. The story is continuous and there is nothing to skip. Ohkubo's earlier series Soul Eater is connected to it, but you do not need to have seen Soul Eater to follow Fire Force, and the stage plays are separate adaptations rather than extra story.
Where can I watch Fire Force?
Crunchyroll holds the licence; the series was first streamed by Funimation, which has since become part of Crunchyroll. In the United States the English dub of the first two seasons also aired on Adult Swim's Toonami block, and in South-East Asia the series has been simulcast on Aniplus Asia. Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services.
What is Fire Force about?
It follows Shinra Kusakabe, a teenager who can set his feet alight, as he joins Special Fire Force Company 8, a team that fights Infernals: people who have spontaneously combusted and turned into burning monsters. He wants to be a hero, and to learn the truth about the fire that took his family twelve years ago. That search leads Company 8 to a cult that is making Infernals on purpose, and to secrets kept by the church and the companies that run Tokyo.
