World Trigger was developed in October of 2014 and was produced by studio Toei Animations. Originating from its manga variant created by Daisuke Ashihara. The story follows two characters, Osamu Mikumo a young Boarder Trainee and a new student Yūma Kuga who claims to be a creature known as a Neighbour. The story dictates humanity has been at war with interdimensional monsters. Known as Neighbours who invade earth to wreak havoc. Border Agents are humans with special abilities and weaponry which they use to defeat these creatures.
Yūma finds himself moving to Japan and indicates within the first three episodes that he is what is actually a Neighbour. He tells Osamu about what Neighbours really are. And how the monsters that come through breaches differ.
World Trigger is your classic Evangelion without the giant monsters. Anime loves its trope of creatures invading the world and superhuman individuals are used to fight them off. Believe me there is a lot of them, some with unique spins and others with the dumbest twists imaginable. And the reason I want to review this one is not only is it a lot more safe than the other types of shows. It’s also a fair bit older and I want to focus really quickly on the idea of sound and empty silence.
The Speed of World Trigger
It’s a strange thing to want to discuss but out of the episodes I watched this problem persisted and was blatantly obvious that it was all I could focus on. The shots are exceedingly slow and long. Typically a good cutaway point after an individual has stopped talking, if they’re not making gestures or expressions, is about one-two seconds in film. Hardly is it ever closer to two seconds. And yet this show has so many shots that drag on for almost FOUR SECONDS!
What makes it way worse is that these freezes often feel like placeholders for music the studio didn’t get licencing for. Anime loves to do this think where they let the shot continue so your mind focuses on the music giving subtext and clues.
World Trigger does none of that. There are moments with music yes but much like the older James Bond Films, seriously go watch them you will very quickly understand what I’m talking about, there is practically silence throughout scenes of normal discussion.
The Lack of Sound
Go watch any more modern anime, especially ones that focus on dialogue and you will hear background music, be it overbearing or simply subtle notes on a piano. It’s always there.
I never realized until now just how much I hate seeing images with empty sound. It almost feels wrong to this point at just how quickly things go from music to silence and dragging the image on way too long. It irked me and I realized there was something almost unsettling about it.
I was brought back to watching horror channels on YouTube seeing this monster lurk from behind the shadows staring at the camera. I watch these things and the thing that jumped out was the lack of sound, or at the very least the soft underlying hum of electronics. That to me was terrifying and it’s strange how this anime does the same. It’s not the worst believe me, but it could be better.