So I just watched Fire Force...

...And I would like to personally recommend it to anyone who sees this.

At first, it looks like bog-standard anime with all of the trappings: annoying characters, wildly inappropriate fanservice, and heroes that don't really get very interesting. However, before the anime is even half over, it reveals its good parts:

• The main character is a hothead, but not to annoying levels, and is actually balanced by patience and a decent amount of brains. He doesn't enjoy fighting at all, but he does it to save lives.
• The fight scenes are god-tier. There's absolutely no power of friendship or heroic will at play, and there's almost no use whatsoever of "he's just that good". There is always a creative reason as to why fights play out the way they do, and while the physical logic might not always be there, the effort carries it the rest of the way. None of the fights feel even a little broken, and none of the villains feel like they were set up to lose, but rather feel like the characters who beat them actually earned their win.
• FIRE DADDY
• VULCAN
• To stress this, most of the characters are pretty lovable. The ones that initially aren't take a while to become passable but all of them eventually do. Even Arthur, who I found largely a drag and insufferable, eventually came to be someone I appreciated.
  
• Akitaru Obi, aka fire daddy, can bench press you, your family, and your house in one go.
• VULCAN!!!!

To a fan like me who learned to distrust anime and not really be engaged with it without serious effort, this thing won me over. It really did. I went into it not expecting much and left it very, very satisfied.

Are there bad points? Yes, but each of them sizzles out.

• Arthur seems like he was aiming for "eccentric" and just got "annoying" since he won't drop the knight bullshit and just act like a normal person. It feels like most of the matters he's involved in could be solved without him, although he eventually comes into his own. He also feels like Okubo saw Seven Deadly Sins, liked it, and plucked a character from there to be in his manga. Which is a strong sign of very poor taste, I mean seriously, do better. But he does get better, namely by the time he starts fighting more and talking less.
  
• The fanservice. Yeah, we all hate it. For some reason, animangaka seem to think people won't buy their work if there isn't some highly-improbable boob event at least once per episode (which is a fair assumption, as Tamaki ranked second in a popularity poll...). We hate this nonsense because it's unnecessary, not titillating in the slightest, and often breaks the tension or flow of any scene right over its knee. But with Tamaki, a character who basically exists for this, it feels...half-hearted. Like Okubo doesn't care and only put it in there as lip service. Because of how everyone in the story basically ignores Tamaki and her "lucky lecher lure curse", we can, too. The flow of the episode doesn't break, and if you just check your email on your phone whenever she shows up, you'll avoid the issue quite handily.
• Love interests! ...aren't here. None of the characters have any real romantic tension with one another whatsoever. The only exception is Vulcan and Lisa, and they feel so well-done that it's more than forgivable. By the way, did I mention--VULCAN IS A HUNK AND AN ADORABLE DORK?! DID I MENTION THAT...?