World Trigger has continued to be a series that has little to hate about it, but little to love either. Most of this has to do with aspects of the setting in addition to the characters. There was very little action last episode, and a bit much in this. All three episodes so far feel like they could have been made into one, which would have made the pacing much better. Its only at this point the audience gets some really vital information on the setting and basics of how things work.
For instance, Trion. Trion is the magical substance that exists in this world, that apparently makes up people’s Triggers. In addition, whenever our heroes use their Triggers, their body is replaced with one made of Trion.
This is…interesting, but robs the series of a crucial thing; stakes. If a person is damaged while in battle, its not their real body, they’re not actually hurt. If they’re beaten, they merely lose their transformation and return to being human. It means one of our heroes could be torn to shreds…and it doesn’t really hurt them.
With us finding out the monsters they are fighting are robots, this means the battles overall have no lives being lost, and nothing but property damage. There’s no stakes to the fight, its practically a video game. More than that…even when the monsters attack regular humans, they never kill anyone. Not because Border is so good at their jobs..they just…don’t.
We also learn Trion comes from biological organisms, and have different levels. The reason why Yuma is so much better than Osamu is that he’s got more Trion. Not skill, not his alien upbringing, they state the reason as being he’s just got more power. This is an overly simplified thing I hope doesn’t lead to Yuma just being mr. One-hit-kill for most of the series.
Speaking of Yuma, we’ve barely talked about the characters. Honestly, there’s not much to say about these two. Osamu remains mr. goodie two-shoes, deciding to fight the monsters even though he has no chance, ultimately having to be saved by Yuma. And, to keep his powers a secret, Yuma says Osamu killed the monsters. He has to deal then with being dishonest, which goes against his goodie two shoes image. Yuma remains mostly unchanged.
Only good character is the leader of the Border patrol that shows up later. He actually has personality and his highly adorkable.
I hope..hoope this guy becomes a main character. He actually has genuine emotion and seems like a lot of fun.