So yeah, not only is World Trigger still going, but this FILLER arc is still going. Now I know it took me a while to get back into this show, but I gotta tell you. Episode 60 just…it took away all desire for me to type ANYTHING so I had to wait until 61 came out. Why? Why did episode 60 suck so badly that I couldn’t even bring myself to review it by itself? Well I will tell you. Remember how I said that Konami deserved more screen time? Like how she should get her own episode? Well, we DO have a character centered episode today. Oh yeah. We sure do. Only…it’s not about Konami. Oh no. It’s not about one of the main four, or even bitchface. So….WHO gets their own episode?
Yeah. That’s right. This episode is starring Yotaro. Aka the stupid fucking kid from Takahoma branch. I…I’m sorry is there some sort of secret fanbase for this kid that required he get HIS OWN EPISODE? Was that like…. a thing? Because I don’t know ANYONE who thinks this kid of all people needed his own episode. There are literally DOZENS of other characters that should have gotten their own episode before this kid. Fuck I would have rather had an episode based on that older fat guy who’s in charge of the Border military. Why would they think this is a good idea? I just…..(Sigh) fine. Fine. Let me quickly go over what happens.
So Yotaro gets pissed the gang left him behind to get involved with the events of the previous episodes. He then decides to follow them. However he ends up going the wrong way and gets lost. While lost he meets a girl who finds Rajin-maru to be cute.
She goes along with him to make sure he gets back to Mikado city safely. Along the way they bond and she tells him how she’s upset because her mother’s never around so she ran away from home blah blah blah.
Eventually a random neighbor robot shows up and attacks the truck, threatening to kidnap the girl. Yotaro tries to fight it but as he doesn’t have a trigger gets his ass kicked. Luckily Jin shows up and saves his ass, but it’s done in a way that makes it look like Yotaro saves the day. The girl then decides to go back home. That”s the entire fucking episode.
Look. I see what you’re trying to do here, but you really did NOT need to include an episode about Yotaro. In fact, I think Yotaro is one of the stupidest additions to this series. There is NO reason for him to be here. He doesn’t DO anything and there’s no reason he should even be allowed near Border stuff. He is literally the Scrappy Doo of this series. Yes there was a touching moment here and there in this episode, but that doesn’t excuse the extreme level of non necessity this episode had.
You know, I am ALL for giving random minor characters their time to shine in the sun, but there are two main reasons this episode didn’t work.
- The timing. We are literally in the middle of an arc. You can’t just bring the climax to a dead halt to have Yotaro go on wacky adventures. If you’re going to do this, have it happen AFTER the arc finishes. Have a few filler episodes inbetween arcs when your audience is not invested in the overall story.
2. The choice of character. As I said before, there are DOZENS of characters you could give a character study to, and you picked the kid? Why? Are you hoping little kids will see this and be able to identify with him? Is THAT what’s going on? I just…I don’t know the reason this episode exists. This seems like it should be a bonus OVA on a disc, or a fanfiction or something. Whatever. The fact that it exists is just really weird.
Episode 4/10
Okay, now that that weirdness is over, episode 61 actually DOES talk about the plot. HOORAY ACTUAL PLOT!
So first off, we see Giev have a dream where he’s flashing back to the scientists telling him how much he should hate Xeon.
So finally FINALLY we get a scene with Konami. And of course, it’s the best scene in the whole episode. What the fuck show? You can have an entire episode about the little fucking kid but we only get like….2 minutes at most of Konami? you guys are just fucking assholes aren’t you?
Anyway Xeon tries to be cool and Konami calls him on his bullshit. It’s pretty damn funny.
Afterwards the gang is like “Hey, I know we never mentioned this before, but what if HQ says that we should turn Lillith and Xeon over to them instead of letting them leave the planet in 24 hours?” Seriously, they have LITERALLY NEVER MENTIONED THIS ONCE this entire arc. And of course, since they mentioned it, that is EXACTLY what HQ is talking about at this very moment. Because you know, plot convenience.
But Jin shows up and tells them “Lol no, that’s a stupid idea.”
Meanwhile, cut back to the headquarters where Giev thinks they’re keeping Lillith and basically throws caution to the wind and attacks Konami and the other two with his black trigger. It looks like he has the upper hand until the three fuck up his day after he realizes that it was a trap and Lillith wasn’t hiding there to begin with.
Unfortunately, then Giev starts to get all….Akira blobish and escapes. Lillith decides to run after Giev and we discover that the robot thing that has been following Giev around has its own agenda and has been using Giev this whole time. It also managed to wrap all the civilians in the city in those cocoons from a few episodes back and transfers all their trion to Giev so he can become…um…that.
And that’s basically where the episode ends.
Thank god this episode furthered the plot to the point that I know that the arc will be wrapping up pretty soon. Really the only question that I’m wondering the answer to is, will they be able to save Giev or not. This episode seemed to bring the idea home that the robot is the evil one, while Giev is really just being used and was brainwashed. So it would be kind of ass for him to die after all of that, but, then again, World Trigger has never really…you know…made any kind of logical sense, so who knows what they’re going to do.
I really did like the fact that they showed Konami kicking major amounts of ass because as you know, Konami in any sense is always appreciated.
At the very least the second episode kept my attention and I really am moderately excited to see the finale of this filler arc (which I hope doesn’t take another 1000 episodes)
Episode 6.5/10
The revelation of Giev was something of a nice touch and I hope they actually GO somewhere with it instead of just going like “well….he’s dead. oh well. lols.” So let’s see if you can wrap this up nicely Filler Trigger. You’re almost there. Let’s finish it up with at least a LITTLE tact. I think you can manage that much.
-Hideki