The B-Rank battles begin…next time
What They Say:
Osamu Mikumo is a member of Border, an organization designed to protect Mikado City the 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):
So as of this writing it’s been confirmed that World Trigger’s anime adaption is indeed receiving a continuation…of sorts. Apparently it’s going to be based in completely anime-original material though whether that means a filler arc or diverging from the manga entirely hasn’t been made entirely clear. Personally I’m hoping for the latter purely out of seeing where they’d go with it but with the amount of stretching going on in the latest episode, it’s hard to say.
Continuing off from the last pair of episodes, Osamu goes to confront his critics at the press conference. That goes about as well as can be expected when he chooses to stick to his beliefs despite what happened to all the trainees, but he decides to take responsibility by becoming an A-rank agent and going to the Neighbor world to rescue them and the other missing civilians. It all works pretty well though it largely follows the same beats as the previous episode in terms of Osamu’s development so it doesn’t stand out too much in spite of mostly being the highlight of these two episodes. Although it does reveal that Border’s kept their away missions to other worlds under wraps until this point which definitely paints an interesting clash with how they actually operate versus the public image they want to give off.
From there, though, the rest of the material in these episodes just devolves into buildup for setting up the next arc. Director Rindo tells Osamu, Chika and Yuma about the B-Rank wars to decide which teams get to move up the latter to A-rank and the trio decides to participate. Yuma and Chika manage to quickly rise up to B-rank agents so they can properly form a team with Osamu, and the two participate in the first round of the tournament while Osamu sits it out due to his injuries. The battle itself is kind of cool, but it’s mostly just the two showing off, and combined with some of the show’s animation shortcuts, doesn’t really make for much of a highlight.
For the next round, they’re pitted up against the Arafune and Suwa squads though we don’t quite get to that fight. Instead, we’re treated to a padded out episode of Osamu and the others trying to decide on a strategy to beat them. That aspect of the show is usually kinda neat, but it only really works when there’s actual combat to go alongside it so here it just mostly feels like techno-babble. It only gets more dragged out when they’re given the option to choose the battle location and Osamu has trouble deciding which one to go with since there are too many potential strategies to be had. In the episode’s defense it at least has the kindness to lampshade the usual “unconventional inspiration” cliche that usually solves this problem, but it’s still a bit of a slog though it’s needless to say that Osamu eventually does come up with something and the trio prepares to head into the next battle. Hopefully, it’s handled well enough to make up for extra long set up.
In Summary:
World Trigger’s fate going forward has largely been decided, but for the present, we’re treated to some pretty slow setup. Osamu’s speech at the press conference is a decent highlight but, for the most part, there’s not much to be had to these episodes. At least it looks like the next couple of episodes will be primarily battle-focused so those should mostly likely prove to be a bit more worthwhile.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
