Manga Adaptation by Toei Animation
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Four years ago, Mikado City was the site of an extradimensional breach that led to an attack by mysterious creatures known as Neighbors. Today, the Neighbor assault continues but the city is guarded by the mysterious defence agency Border, and its agents known as Triggers.

Zigg’s verdict: Plain Boring

World Trigger is not a terrible show by any means – there’s one or two interesting ideas here and it’s solidly constructed without any overt grossness. Still, it’s difficult to escape an overwhelming sense of ennui. The whole ‘people with special abilities/government agency’ thing is ripped from every singly shounen manga ever and this first episode seemed to revel in tired cliches. Stoic loner protagonist with a heart of gold underneath? Mysterious transfer student who’s more than he first seems? Monstrous enemies attacking from another world? All here, present and correct and tiresome as they’ve been for some time now. The one thing I will give them credit for is the twist that Osamu himself is already a Trigger. It’s a nice subversion of the standard ‘gain powers’ formula, even if they sort of waste the reveal.

One thing which is inarguable though is that this show is hurt greatly by Toei’s god-awful presentation. I mean, they open with two solid minute of still frames shaken about to give the impression of movement. Even after that the show is flat, dull, ugly and frequently off model, not doing much to enhance the pretty tepid character design. The manga is apparently a massive hit so I cannot fathom why this was apparently funded on lunch money, but it’s yet another indicator that Toei just don’t give a crap. With a bit more flash and style I could have seen myself sticking around for an episode or two, but as it is I’ll gladly dump it and move on.