The Fire Force Season 3 anime TV series is confirmed to be in production.
The third season will begin by telling the final tale of Shinra in the Enen no Shouboutai manga’s ending.
On May 14, 2022, the announcement by Weekly Shonen Magazine Issue 25, 2022 of the production of the Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 anime TV series was leaked online. (The magazine also announced a Fire Force game titled Fire Force: Enbu no Shou will contain a new Mrs. Green Apple song called “En En”.)
The February 2022 Weekly Shonen Magazine issue containing the manga’s ending had previously stated that there would soon be an “important announcement” concerning the overall Fire Force series. As Anime Geek predicted, it was the official announcement of the production of the Fire Force Season 3 anime TV series.
Anime news leakers had also previously leaked the information. On April 29, 2022, anime news leaker Sugoi LITE claimed that Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 was “in production”. Within several minutes, Manga Mogura noted that the source regarding Fire Force Season 3 was a “reliable Weibo user” although it’s possible Sugoi LITE has a different source.
In October 2021, it was announced that the manga had entered its final story arc. On December 31, 2021, Ohkubo revealed that he was planning on completing the Fire Force manga’s ending in a few chapters. The final chapter was drawn in the third week of January 2022 and released on February 22, 2022. To commemorate the ending of the manga, there’ll be an Online Exhibition on June 17, 2022, and July 17, 2022.
But the real shocking news is that Fire Force Chapter 304 confirmed that the entire story is just a prequel to another work by Fire Force creator Atsushi Ohkubo. What’s more, the final page told manga readers to “look forward to Atsushi Ohkubo’s next work” even though the manga creator had previously announced that this story will be his final manga series!
Yes, that’s right, Ohkubo planned on retiring after finishing Fire Force. However, on October 28, 2022, Ohkubo reportedly attended a Lucca Games Convention in Italy and claimed that he was “reconsidering his retirement from creating manga”.
The main staff and studio making Fire Force 3 has not been announced yet.
Fire Force Season 2 was produced by animation studio David Production, which is best known for creating the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime and the Urusei Yatsura 2022 reboot. The JoJo Stone Ocean Part 3 release date was in December 2022 and the JoJo Part 7 anime is next. The studio is also working on the Undead Unluck anime in 2023.
Most of the primary production staff at David Production returned for making the Fire Force Season 2 anime. However, there were significant staff changes, including the main director changing.
It’s likely that some staff changes will also happen for the Fire Force Season 3 anime.
For the second season, director Tatsumi Minakawa (who is also supervising the scriptwriting process) replaced director Yuki Yase from the first season. CGI director Shin’ya Takano also replaced Daisuke Kusaka.
Many of the ex-SHAFT creators returned for the second season. Character designer Hideyuki Morioka and Chief Animation Director Yoshio Kozakai both worked together at SHAFT on Kizumonogatari.
They were joined by second Chief Animation Director Yumenosuke Tokuda (Haikyuu!! Season 4, Infinite Dendrogram, Naruto Shippuden).
Animators Kazuhiro Miwa (Tokyo Ghoul, Noragami, Attack On Titan), Hiroyuki Ookaji, and Riki Matsuura were all involved with SHAFT projects in recent years. They were joined by Neito Hirohara.
Writer Yamato Haishima has been handling the scripts and series composition.
Katsumi Terahigashi (Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Psycho-Pass) provides storyboards.
Composer Kenichiro Suehiro (Goblin Slayer, Golden Kamuy, Re:ZERO) provided the music.
“It was hot until the end! Thank you to everyone who watched and the cast and staff,” Surehiro tweeted after the second season’s finale aired. “Thank you very much. I’m worried about the continuation!”
Note: The Fire Force Season 3 staff positions are based on info from the second season and will likely be updated in the future.
The Fire Force Season 3 opening (OP) theme song music and ending (ED) have not yet been announced.
The number of episodes has not yet been confirmed, but it’s predicted that Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 could be at least two cours again based on the final story arcs of the manga series.
The Fire Force Season 2 anime premiered on July 3, 2020. The finale, Fire Force Season 2 Episode 24 (Fire Force Episode 48), released on December 11, 2020.
The English dub by FUNimation was delayed since the dubbing house “temporarily paused SimulDub production for the remainder of the current and upcoming seasons” in 2020 due to the impact of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus pandemic.
Adult Swim Toonami’s Fire Force Season 2 TV broadcast started on October 24, 2020. New episodes will be released on Saturdays. Toonami also offers a rerun of the first season starting at 1 AM EST on August 9, 2020.
- Updated October 29, 2022: Manga creator reconsidering retirement.
Updated May 14, 2022: Fire Force Season 3 is confirmed to be in production.
Updated April 29, 2022: Added Fire Force Season 3 rumor.
Updated February 22, 2022: Manga’s ending teases series announcement.
Updated January 10, 2022: Manga’s ending is confirmed for 2022.
Updated October 14, 2021: Manga’s final story arc announced.
Updated December 10, 2020: Added spoilers and latest info.
Updated July 29, 2020: Added Toonami Fire Force info.
Updated July 2, 2020: Confirmed Fire Force 2’s number of episodes.
Updated June 16, 2020: Added exact Fire Force 2 premiere date. Updated manga info.
This article provides everything known about Fire Force Season 3 (Enen no Shouboutai Season 3) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 release date predictions: Is 2024 possible?
As of the last update, Kodansha, Funimation, David Production, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Fire Force Season 3 release date, not even the time frame or the year. However, the production of Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 was announced by Weekly Shonen Magazine in May 2022.
Once the news is officially confirmed, this article will be updated with the relevant information.
In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Fire Force Season 3 premiere date will occur in the future.
When the second season’s finale aired it seemed as if an announcement of the third season wasn’t imminent.
“Thank you for your continued support,” tweeted Fire Force producer Kensuke Tateishi. “Thank you very much for watching until the end! Thanks to everyone’s support and comments, I have continued to this point. From next week, we will broadcast a variety show for two weeks (laughs) Stay tuned! Hope to see you again in the anime!”
“I hope we can meet again in the anime!” wrote Gakuto Kajiwara, the Japanese voice actor who plays Shinra.
“To everyone involved in the anime staff: thank you very much,” tweeted out manga author Atsushi Ohkubo. “Even though it was a difficult situation due to COVID-19, the anime was super quality and super amazing until the end! It’s hard to say thank you directly during this time, but thank you very much!”
So far, the only projects David Production has announced for 2022 is the Spriggan reboot, the Ensemble Stars!!: Road To Show!! movie, and the Urusei Yatsura anime reboot.
The JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6 anime release date was officially streaming on Netflix in late 2021. But its multiple cours aired in Japan in 2022, with the JoJo Stone Ocean Part 2 release date on Netflix also in Fall 2022. JoJo Stone Ocean Part 3 will finish broadcasting in Japan in March 2023.
The primary staff is entirely different for David Production’s adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, so the JoJo Part 6: Stone Ocean anime should not cause any delays for Fire Force Season 3 anime.
Therefore, since the Fire Force manga ended in February 2022, as Anime Geek predicted the third season’s production would be scheduled for 2022. Thus, the Fire Force Season 3 release date will be in Summer or Fall 2023 at the earliest, although 2024 seems to be more likely.
Fire Force manga’s ending released in 2022
The story for the Fire Force anime is based on the Enen no Shouboutai manga by writer and illustrator Atsushi Ohkubo. He is the creator of the popular Soul Eater manga series, which also received an anime adaptation in the past.
Please read our exclusive interview with the Fire Force manga creator. He discusses the planned number of volumes, the series’ ending, and how Shinra’s name is relevant to the central mystery of the story.
Serialized weekly since 2015 in Weekly Shonen Magazine, the Fire Force manga ended with Volume 34 on May 17, 2022. Fire Force Volume 34 contained the final chapter 304 of the manga series.
The official English translation of the Fire Force manga series is being released in North America by Kodansha USA. As of March 22, 2022, the English manga was up to Volume 26.
The English Fire Force Volume 27 is scheduled to release on July 5, 2022, Volume 28 on August 16, 2022, Volume 29 on October 18, 2022, and Volume 30 on December 20, 2022.
In the author’s notes section of Volume 23, Ohkubo hinted that the Enen no Shouboutai manga’s ending is on the horizon. In May 2020, he said that the manga’s story is in its “final stage.”
As of Chapter 235, the manga entered the fittingly named Final Pillar arc. Chapters 240 through 250 were the Battle of Amaterasu arc. Then Chapters 251 through 286 were the Great Cataclysm arc. The final story arc began with Chapter 287.
In October 2021, Weekly Shonen Magazine Issue 46, 2021 announced that the manga had entered its final story arc.
The final story arc(s) for a manga series can sometimes stretch out for quite a while. For example, the Demon Slayer manga’s ending story arc was more than a third of the chapter count.
By contrast, the final story arc of Fire Force was relatively short. But the overall manga series is still longer than Ohkubo had planned out in advance.
In the July 2019 Fire Force interview with Anime Geek, Ohkubo said he was originally aiming for Volume 30 to be the ending of the entire story. At the same time, this stopping point was flexible, and “it could change,” but there will be “no more than 50” volumes.
“I did have an ending in mind from the very beginning of the creative process, but it was not anything too set in stone,” Ohkubo explained. “As I’m creating I’ll come up with different ideas to make the series interesting and fun. It is flexible, but my older manga stories also lead to the ending I had in mind from the beginning.”
Considering that the Soul Eater manga ended with Volume 25, Fire Force ending with more than 30 volumes isn’t too short. At the time Ohkubo gave the exclusive interview, he considered Volume 16 to be “past the midpoint” of the story.
Although Ohkubo didn’t stick to his plan, Anime Geek successfully predicted that Fire Force Volume 30 ended with Chapter 267 since Volume 23 included up through Chapter 204.
In addition, Ohkubo also shocked the manga world by stating in Volume 23 that Fire Force will be his “last manga” series. He’s asking that fans join him “until the very end” of Fire Force’s story.
But, as previously mentioned, he may have changed his mind already. In early 2022, the Fire Force creator also discussed how finishing the story made him feel unemployed.
“At the end of Soul Eater, I already had a news story for Fire Force in the magazine, so I didn’t feel like I was done with the final chapter. But this time I have no plans to draw a new story, so I really don’t feel like I have a job,” he tweeted. “I’ve been thinking for a long time that if I make a schedule for this number of chapters to be finished on this day, everything will be finished exactly as I planned. I never let anything cool happen like the story going in an unexpected direction and messing up my schedule. My family background is in finance and legal work, so I guess I wasn’t the type of person to be a manga artist after I tried it. But outside of work, things rarely go as planned! Like the PS5 thing lol”
But the final page of Fire Force 304 may have changed things completely. A note from the editors states that manga fans should “look forward to Atsushi Ohkubo’s next work” in contradiction to what Ohkubo previously said.
Keep in mind this is a standard phrase used whenever a manga finishes its story. Ohkubo has only talked about being retired on Twitter, but perhaps something caused him to change his mind in the last month after finishing drawing the final chapter.
Will Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 be the final season?
What does Ohkubo’s announcement mean for the Fire Force Season 3 anime? The second season was only 24 episodes long, but the length of the final season depends on the final manga chapter count and how the second season adapted the story.
The first season adapted up through Chapter 90 of Volume 11, the ending of the Netherworld arc. The second season picked up the story again with Chapter 91.
By Fire Force Season 2 Episode 12, the second season had adapted up through Chapter 125. Fire Force Season 2 Episode 24 (Fire Force Episode 48) ended by adapting Volume 20: Chapter 174.
Fortunately, the English translation of Volume 20 is already out so English-only readers can read ahead of the anime right away.
It was a slightly odd stopping point since it ended with an arc largely focused on training, which would have made a better beginning for Fire Force Season 3. All in all, the third season could be adapting seven manga story arcs.
A better stopping point would have been Chapter 197 of Volume 23 since that chapter finishes a dramatic story arc that ends with a major turning point for all of Company 8.
However, one major drawback to that stopping point is that the second season would have needed to be more faster-paced since it would have been over 100 chapters.
On the other hand, the actual stopping point perfectly sets up the Enen no Shouboutai Season 3 anime for being 24 episodes again. Based on the way the story ended 2022, there will be 130 chapters left to adapt, so the scriptwriters for Fire Force’s final season might need to condense the story again, plan for a single-cour Fire Force Season 4… or finish the story with a Fire Force movie?
Let’s hope the animators at David Production do the Fire Force manga’s ending justice!
Fire Force Season 3 anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
Note: Spoilers for Fire Force Season 3 Episode 1 assume that Fire Fore Episode 49 will begin adapting Chapter 175.
The last time audiences watched the anime, Shinra, Arthur, and Tamaki returned to Asakusa to get another massive power-up from training with Captain Shinmon.
Following the assassination of Captain Hague, the Emperor orders Company 1 to cooperate with the White-Clad forces for the sake of “unity”.
Meanwhile, Company 7 has allied with Company 7 and they’re feeling confident that they can finally solve the mystery of spontaneous human combustion. But when Captain Obi goes to discuss the matter with the Fire Chief their meeting is cut short when the Tokyo Army marches in and arrests Captain Obi!
Company 8 finds itself being attacked from all corners of the Tokyo Empire. Even the media is claiming they were involved in a kidnapping.
Branded as outlaws, Company 8 decides to rescue its Captain even knowing that the attempt will be considered treason.
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Fire Force Season 3 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!