I feel like every third episode of World Trigger is going to annoy me. The pattern is certainly emerging, but I do hope I’m proven wrong next time around. I really want this anime to be better than it is, because I just know it can be.
Overall, I’m fairly mixed on the episode, but on the whole I was disappointed considering that I was actually looking forward to it after last week’s episode – which I honestly enjoyed, as I felt it was heading in the direction that the series works best in. But sadly we took another detour, in what seemed like random sequences of events pieced together in a rush job (or at least it seems the case, if SHIROBAKO has taught me anything this season). I know that many people haven’t been impressed with the quality of the series as a whole, but it’s undeniable that there is a clear difference between the previous two episodes when compared with this one.
As I’ve said before, I’ll only mention the poor production when I feel it deserves being brought up – and that would absolutely count for this week. It was just… bad. I’ve seen fan animations that surpass this. I think the reason why it stood out this time in particular is that it just felt very unimportant, at least for most of the episode. Again, I could put that down to the early chapters of the manga being the poorest of the series, but speaking for the episode itself, I was simply unimpressed.
The rather weak first half of the episode focused on the clean up of the reconnaissance Rad drones, as Replica explains that they are the reason for the rise in abnormal gates. After Jin works his magic to get the top dogs of the Border agency working on getting rid of the little menaces, we see a few familiar faces working to exterminate the threats. I would say it passed by rather quickly, but at least that allows us to move on to the more interesting aspects of the episode.
Side Effects, for one, are also properly explained now, being described to Osamu as an extension of human ability in those with bodies with high Trion ability – like Jin, whose Side Effect allows him to see the near future of those in front of him. Another character whose Side Effect is focused on (as well as it being the title of the episode) is that of Amatori Chika.
After a bizarre choice of having the opening play 12 minutes into the episode, we finally get to the official introduction of our final main character. It’s a quiet little scene, lighthearted, but with hints of darkness. Having Chika teach Yuma how to ride a bike was cute, and there characters certainly do ‘click’ together, but the good stuff doesn’t come until another gate opens. We see a link back to the very first scene of the episode, where Chika’s childhood friend was killed by a Trion Solider – or as killed as she could be, given the early morning timeslot. For Chika, history starts to repeat itself, so she runs away from Yuma, isolating herself in order to keep anyone else from being caught up in the threat that is attracted to her. It’s almost a curse; she’s an easy target, but with a solid reason behind it – a reason that will be explained next week.
The final part of the episode worth mentioning would be Osamu’s battle against the Bander. Now officially a B-rank Agent, Osamu activates his trigger to reveal his newly upgraded uniform. He has slight difficulties with his techniques, but in the end he targets the eye of the Trion Solider and manages a victory, albeit a messy one. It was actually good to to see Osamu use his skills in order to win, and not have Yuma be the one save the day again.
So to summarise, I’d say this was one of the weakest episodes so far, for me at least. It felt random in the first half, the animation and editing was exceptionally poor throughout, and Chika’s introduction wasn’t as exciting as I would have liked, even if it’s still nice to see her enter the story. For now though, Yuma’s secret is known by Jin. And thankfully, he has a much more tolerant outlook on the threat of Neighbours, as well as them as individuals. Once the series dives into those differing opinions and the consequences of those conflicting ideals, World Trigger will hopefully prove that it’s not a hollow shell of a series, and that there is in fact some real substance to what we are seeing.
After Kitora finished off the Illgar with help from Yuma, Osamu deals with the task of handling the civilians affected by the recent Trion Solider attacks.
Thereafter, Osamu is escorted to Border HQ, where he meets the top dogs of the agency – some of whom have their eyes on him, suspicious of what’s really going on.
This week we are introduced to yet another Trion Solider: Bander, one that focuses on capturing and fighting.
Thankfully it has a specific weakness. It turns out that although the Bander has great attack power through its eye, it is temporary weak after attacking, allowing Osamu to deal the finishing blow.
Didn’t see any difference. In fact, I found this episode to be more enjoyable than the one from last week.
Seeing Chika for the first time was awesome (those few seconds she appeared before don’t count), we got a nice, short and effective explanation about side effects and we got the see Osamu in his B-rank uniform fighting like a real border agent.
Some poor animation sequences? Sure, but nothing outside the ordinary for a TV anime series. In terms of animation it was pretty much on par with the average anime for TV. In fact, it was above average if you compare it to Naruto, One Piece and Bleach. Those usually have episode that look A LOT worse than this.
I think people are nitpicking too much World Trigger. Sure, the first two or three episode had terrible animation, but now we only get some scenes with bad animation per episode, which 100% normal for a TV series. It looks like people are just looking for scenes to complain about and when they get one, they’re all like “see? Look that animation, it’s sooo bad, oh my god, this anime has terrible animation”, but forget that the rest of the episode was fine.
This is getting annoying, actually.
And in terms of plot… Really, NOTHING wrong with the episode. First act with Osamu and Jin was great, second act with Chika and Yuma was cute and fun, third act with Osamu fighting was pretty great. Really, any problem someone would have with the plot of this episode is nitpicking.
This beginning of World Trigger has been more interesting than the beginning of most shounen anime I’ve seen (and I’ve seen pretty much all of them).
The thing is, if I don’t mention the animation then I’m going to get comments asking why and pointing out how bad it looks. But then when I do bring up that I’m disappointed in it, then the opposite complaints will happen. I felt that visually this episode was much less interesting than the other two, so I wasn’t going to lie to myself when bringing it up. Also, to say this is average animation quality for a TV anime is unfair when you consider what other studios manage to put out there. Heck, I recently watched the ’79 Mobile Suit Gundam and it had more solid art and animation than World Trigger does.
But as I said last week, I really don’t want to bring it up all the time unless I feel like it’s ruining my watching experience, and in the first half of the episode it pretty much did just that. Sorry.
November 16, 2014 at 11:10 amNoragami!
It may be possible that your having read the manga is coloring your opinions. Honestly, I found the episode to be pretty great. Past the first two episodes, I feel like World Trigger has been consistently great, solid.
I really like how carefully and slowly the world and characters are being introduced and built up.
I also haven’t noticed a significant quality drop from the animation. Given, this is no Fate/Stay Night UBW or Shingeki no Bahamut, but It kind of works with the simplistic art style.
The first half of the episode was definitely interesting for me, as it really showed us more of Jin. He’s definitely not just all talk, and there’s a reason everyone listens to him. Plus the fact that he knows about the Neighbors and the other side is pretty cool.
I think we generally had vastly different opinions on this episode. That said, I want to commend you on how darn detailed this post is, and how quickly you posted this. Darn impressive man, darn impressive! Well composed review, very informative and exceedingly timely.
As an episode blogger myself, I’m quite impressed!
I’m glad you (and others) enjoyed this episode. All I want – as a fan of World Trigger – is to see more people enjoying and talking about it. Whilst I may not have cared for this episode as much as some others, I hope people don’t assume that I’m bashing the series as a whole. It’s a flawed adaptation, and for me it’s still in the ugly duckling stage of its story. Time will tell when we get to the arcs after this one which were much more welcomed by readers and appreciated by fans!
And thank you! I’m really glad you appreciated my post and found it informative!
Why do I get the feeling that you’re going to be disappointed next week.
My opinion on the episodes changes every week, so I wouldn’t place a bet right now. What I will say though is next week will adapt chapter 14, which was the first chapter of the series to rank high in the WSJ table of contents. It was definitely a ‘moment’, so I hope that Toei translates that well.
I’ve been hating on this adaptation since the beginning, but I actually kind of liked this episode. Sure, this is the part where the manga started getting good, but I think there’s more to it than that. In terms of pacing, this episode covered exactly two chapters: the conclusion to one story arc and the beginning of another. The two chapters were included in there entirety, without any random interruptions like the last few episode. If anyone is complaining that the whole irregular gate thing got wrapped up too quickly it got wrapped up just as quickly in the manga, and in a single page montage no less. Fun fact: at this point in the manga it was getting pretty bad ratings, so the mangaka decided to move up many of the plot elements he was saving for later, like Jin’s introduction and the end of the irregular gates. It worked for the manga and I think it worked here too.
As for the animation and production values, I think it’s already been established that the anime scores low in both of those categories. That being said, while the animation certainly wasn’t great this week (the character designs looked really off), I feel that the staff has found several ways to work around it. For example, last week had way too many talking head shots and awkward pauses; however this week the action proceeded at a pretty good pace where every scene lasted as long as it needed to, and the head shots were relatively short and helped contribute more to the atmosphere and story.
All in all, this episode wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. Now just don’t screw up the upcoming battle(s), Toei, or the fans definitely won’t forgive you.
On a side note, it is never stated that Chika’s friend was killed. It’s implied that she was captured and taken to a neighbor homeworld. Although, we don’t know if she is still alive.
I thought this episode was way better than the last one. Nothing was worse than that blatant waste of time of everyone just silently waiting for Osamu to respond for what must have been over a minute.
This was fine. Chika got to meet Yuma, they cleared up the major threat of those abnormal gates, and Osamu got to show off his B class uniform. This is certainly a good development for him. Gives him some extra firepower and the ability to help out people whenever he sees them in danger like that.
Not really sure what made this episode so much worse than the last one.
It may be the animator in me, but I felt the previous two episodes were more visually focused than this one, and therefore helped me enjoy it more. Episode 4 had a nice warm colour palette and some of the shots were actually damn good, probably the best looking episode so far. Episode 5 had that incredibly awkward pause which I won’t defend, but as a whole the mood and tension worked with the dark atmosphere, introducing lots of important characters and seeing the inside of the Border HQ for the first time.
Honestly, I would put my preference to those episodes down to enjoying the content within them, with the art and animation at least having a focused tone or palette to keep me from being disappointed. To me, this episode was just a bit random and unappealing to watch, like episode 3.
Is there really a difference in skill level when one changes ranks? While I do like it that Osamu can handle himself now, albeit barely, it seems a bit poor to think that’s it’s just because of him being promoted. Is it because he’s holding an official combat Trigger now? Isn’t the power of a Trigger attributed to their individual Trion values? That one is the only thing unclear for me. The episode overall was fine.
Damn you, Toei. First Sailor Moon Crystal, Disk Wars: Avengers and now this garbage? Why must you destroy quality shows?
This must be the curse of the manga reader, a truly terrible curse in this otaku world. I have not read the manga and didn’t even know one existed until reading RC which may explain why we seem to be in different universes when talking about quality of the show . I’m rather enjoying the show. Pacing may seem odd in this ep but nothing like Blad and Soul or Sunday without God. Now tohse shows have issues with pacing.
And listen this is Toei animation we are talking about so expecting anything besides mediocrity is on you.
I think there still doing the 1 animator per episode model. There always quality fluctuation there.