There were a couple of good concept shows this past winter anime season, both of which I had high hopes for, only to end up frustrated by their progress. I don't know if I'll finish the second one, but the first is The Fire Hunter, based on the novel series by Rieko Hinata, and since it's proper novel series as opposed to the light novels anime is more commonly based on, it's less likely that it will get picked up for English translation, but I'm hopeful, because the worldbuilding is fascinating and just the right mix of strange and familiar that I want to know more.
The world of The Fire Hunter appears to be roughly equivalent to Taisho era Japan, with many people living in rural communities, but there is also the existence of an industrialized capital city with factories. This doesn't appear to be an alternate Japan so much as a far future one after something happened that caused humans to burst into flames if they tried to interact with conventional fire or the objects made by or made use of it. This caused civilization to collapse until humans learned to hunt the fire fiends whose blood can be used an an alternate source of fire.
What exactly caused this malady, where the fiends came from, and the origin of the gods that now watch over the city aren't revealed by the end of the first season, and I'd love to know more, because it feels like a setting I could happily dive into. The antagonists looming in the near future are a clan knows as the "spiders," who are humans who have somehow managed to remaster fire without setting themselves alight. Why? How?
I don't mind not knowing, because these are things that I expect will be revealed as the story progresses, but the worldbuilding is the best part of The Fire Hunter.
Where it falls down is in the presentation. From my understanding, large chunks of the story are being rushed through without exploration, which makes it hard to understand the characters and their motivations. In the last episode something crazy happens to one of the dual protagonists' sister and the household that is sheltering them. Rather than asking anything in regards to what he just witnessed he just sends his dog after his sister and then business (so far as we can tell) resumes as usual, even when he's talking to the head of the household who likely knows exactly what went down that night.
I suppose he could be biding his time, but we never get any internal thoughts belonging to these characters and they tend to wear neutral and/or slightly nervous expressions no matter the situation, from being attacked by monsters to eating a meal. I'm not sure if that was an artistic choice or a holdover from the novel's narrative style, but it doesn't make for good viewing.
That and the animation is pretty sketchy. I don't need to see butter smooth animation, and the general style is likely an intentional throwback to the early aughts, but the flat shading and poor frames of animation in the convey attack were pretty bad, to the point where I was certain it passed from stylistic choice to just trying to get the animation done before deadline.
Given how anyone not interested in the world building aspect probably checking out early on, I was a little surrpised to see that a second season has already been greenlit. I might end up watching it, depending on what its competition ends up being at the time is airs, but I'm hoping they fix the adapation issues, since I can feel that there's a good story there. I'm just not getting it.
