There’s something worthwhile buried under all this fluff…
What They Say:
Osamu Mikumo is a member of Border, an organization designed to protect Mikado City from alien invaders knows as Neighbors. One day a mysterious new student named Yuma Kuga transfers to his school and turns out to be a humanoid neighbor himself. The two are supposed to be natural enemies, but could there be more to neighbors than Osamu has bargained for…
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
After a week’s break, World Trigger s back again, and as always it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The previous episode was a bit more straightforward in terms of material and that mostly continues this week as well. However the episode also plagued with some unneeded fluff and the result is what could have been a more interesting episode, buried under extra padding.
With the elite agents having returned from their away mission, the Border higher-ups start informing them of their plan to seize Yuma’s Black Trigger. In the meantime Osamu and co.’s training continues, and while Yuma and Chika seem to be making considerable progress, Osamu’s still falling far behind. After a couple of jokes about Osamu’s training not going anywhere, the elite agents begin to make their move but end up getting interrupted by Jin who tries to inform them that Yuma’s a registered member of Border now. However it turns out his registration won’t be officially recognized until enlistment day, and until then they’re free to do with him as they please. Jin decides he has no choice but to fight them and gets help from the Arashima squad as the two sides get ready to duke it out.
This episode is mostly set up and as such it’s a fairly slow one, but it feels like it could have moved a bit swifter than it did. Most of the material preparing the fight between Jin and the elite squads is fine enough but the rest of the episode feels slapped on. A lot of it’s focused on humor that doesn’t quite work outside of a couple of jokes, and a bit too much time is spent mocking Osamu’s lack of talent. It’s been mentioned enough times that it doesn’t really need to be gone over again like this, and since there’s no actual improvements to be made it just makes it more blatant how much it’s just meant to stretch things. On the bright side, visually speaking this is one of the better episodes of the show to date as it’s pretty consistent and not anything significant in the way of off model art or wanky animation. With the next episode being action heavy though, we’ll have to see if it can keep that up.
In Summary:
World Trigger returns with a set up episode and one a bit too padded for it’s own good. Most of what’s interesting is trapped under lighter fluff and the result is an episode that feels like it could have been a but better than it actually was. Next week’s looks to be an action heavy one so hopefully it’s a bit more interesting.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll, Hulu
