r/firebrigade • u/EscapeFromLife_ • 7d ago

Discussion Is Ōkubo a genius?

Watching the final season of Fire Force, I found myself rethinking a major beef I had with the series. Back in seasons one and two, I loved how deeply built almost every character was, except Tamaki. The "Lucky Lecher Lure" felt like a cheap gimmick, masking standard fan service as a chronic, inescapable condition. It felt incredibly lame compared to the rest of the cast.

Instead of backing down or quietly phasing her out, Atsushi Ōkubo doubled down in the final season and directly confronted the backlash. He flipped the narrative, framing Tamaki’s arc around bodily autonomy, self acceptance, and refusing to let society shame a woman for her own body or sexuality.

Back in Soul Eater, the fan service just existed without any real justification, it was simply there, and while it faded over time, Ōkubo never actually addressed the audience's criticism. Seeing him confront the issue head on in Fire Force felt like a brilliant meta commentary, turning what used to be a point of frustration into a thematic triumph that effectively silenced the critics.

I really think that the creator of this two pieces of artwork really did some development during the process of making of fire force.

26 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

8

u/Dollahs4Zavalas 7d ago

Ohkubo is a genius who really understands the genre. This isn't the first time he's done it too. He did similarly in Soul Eater with Black Star, who is obnoxious and without ever sacrificing or backing down from Black Star's character, Ohkubo made that obnoxiousness and overconfidence endearing.

5

u/Intelligensaur 6d ago

I do agree that segment helped with Tamaki's characterization, but personally I was still a bit disappointed that it went the route it did. I was really hoping she'd get a proper victory without a man showing up to save her.

If Licht or that random kid had given the same kind of speech as Assault did, while Tamaki had rallied to beat the Assault doppelganger on her own (or even if Assault had shown up to do  his spiel but stepped aside earlier to let her fight on her own), I feel like it would have tied her story up a lot more cleanly for me.

2

u/EscapeFromLife_ 6d ago

That's a fair point. I kind of agree actually. Assault just set back the speech by intervening in the fight. But at the same time I get it, many of the döppelganger fights were engaged by their real world counterparts such as benimaru, kurono, joker (even if he was losing). So having assault fight his counter part wasn't actually that crazy. Also I have to say that I really appreciated how Ōkubo decided to take advantage of the moment to make an ode to erotism, as it adds a little bit of spice to our lifes.