World Trigger has the foundation of a good action-sci-fi shonen. The main character, Osamu Mikumo, is someone we the viewers can identify with. He’s part of a multi-tiered organization called Border, whose main function is the protect citizens from ”neighbors”, or extraterrestrials. Border agents are divided into four ranks: C, B, A, and S. Mikumo begins as a C-rank agent, which is no different than being a civilian employee in a police department.
Mikumo is not particularly skilled in any one area, but he has a lot of heart and courage. Ideally, we’d take pleasure in seeing him hone his skills and become someone who can hold his own in battles. Yet, in 73 episodes, combat-wise, he’s at the same place he was in the beginning of the series. He literally doesn’t figure out his most corrigible skill until the final episode. And that’s his ability to strategize.
Eventually Mikumo, a.k.a. Megane-Kun, breaks his C-Rank shackles with the help of Yuuma Kuga, the transfer student who befriends him. It’s revealed early on that he is a neighbor and possesses a black trigger. Agents and humanoid neighbors use weapons called triggers, and black triggers are the most effective triggers in the world, capable of tremendous power. In other words, Yuuma has his ultimate weapon at the beginning of the series. Unlike Mikumo, Yuuma is overpowered and constantly has to handicap himself, especially when sparring against fellow Border agents.
Rounding out the trio is Chika Amatori, the milquetoast childhood friend of Mikumo who’s secretly one of the most powerful characters. Then there are other notable characters like Jin, the Border poster boy, who has a predictive side effect (sixth sense), and Replica, Yuuma’s trion companion. The anime focuses on Mikumo, Yuuma, and Chika as they join Border and train to become strong enough to go on away missions. And really by the end, none of them show any character growth. Yes, we do learn their motivations for joining Border, but I didn’t notice any significant change in their personality. Mikumo remains a martyr, forever putting others’ well-being above his own, Chika never steps out of her comfort zone to be remotely interesting, and while Yuuma shows flashes of depression, he can’t stop making that dumb-ass face long enough for you to care!
Despite having so many episodes, World Trigger fails drastically in terms of characterization. It doesn’t help that every episode you’re introduced to, conservatively, three new characters! Seriously, there are so many characters in World Trigger. Sooooo many. A few of them are actually memorable, but memorable only as a character type. You don’t remember their actual names, but you remember: “oh, there’s the edge lord,” or, “there’s the compulsive liar and the girl who always believes him,” and of course, “there’s the tsundere”. The anime itself doesn’t even try to hide the fact that there’s a metric-ton of characters, because every time you see a character, you see their name, their age, and the ranking. And this continues until the final episodes, as you’re always introduced to new, underdeveloped characters.
As mentioned in the beginning, World Trigger caught a lot of flak for its lackluster animation. For the most part, those criticisms are accurate. The character design ranges from average to flat-out lazy. A lot of the characters look the same, with no distinguishing features other than hairstyle and weird irises. Then there are some characters that have black dots as eyes. And Yuuma - 75% of the time he’s making an annoying face that seems to be a catch-all for reacting to everything. The only time the animation reaches an acceptable level is during the battles.
Honestly, the rank battles are the best part of World Trigger. They utilize the most fascinating part of shonen anime (IMO), which is battle strategy - overcoming an opponent’s trump card by analyzing it and determining how it works. Yuuma, because of his skillset, makes every battle he’s in worthwhile. Mikumo, on the other hand, makes them exhausting, as he barely improves and ends up being a liability. He has some brilliant strategic moments though; too bad he waited until the end of the anime to make that his primary focus.
The only thing that sucks about the battles in general is that the stakes are extremely low. Border agents fight using a body made out of trion, which is like some form of energy. So when someone loses all of their trion, they “bail out” and return to their fleshly bodies. There are a few times when characters such as Mikumo fight without a trion body, and you know what? Those were the most suspenseful battles in the entire anime! The battles against the neighbors are mostly good (until you realize no one can die) and the rank battles provide the most fun (until you realize Mikumo’s team, excluding Yuuma, sucks).
Based on the review thus far, you might think that this anime is trash, but it’s not. It’s okay, but “okay” is not good enough for an anime of this length. There were times when I truly thought the anime was reaching its stride, and then it spends the next few episodes with one-dimension Border executives, or Chika and her dull sniper trainee group. Or it might take a huge detour to explore some “fugitive” characters when instead it could be concentrating on having the main characters reach the point where they’re able to explore the neighborhood. With better pacing and less characters, World Trigger could actually be good, but in 73 episodes, like its main character, it doesn’t even begin to reach its potential.
