Manga / World Trigger

Face the difference to reach your Neighbors.

"The strength of your feelings doesn't matter. What matters is strategy, fighting strength, and luck....Only when two opponents are closely matched does passion really make a difference."

— Kei Tachikawa

In Japan, a gate to another dimension has opened, giving violent alien lifeforms known as Neighbors the opportunity to cross into our world and wreak havoc. To combat this new threat, the organization Border was founded. Their soldiers use highly advanced weapons known as Trigger to fight the Neighbors and preserve the peace. Enter New Transfer Student Yūma Kuga, who has only recently moved to Japan and is unfamiliar with the local customs.

Osamu Mikumo, one of Kuga's classmates and a bonafide overachiever, tries to keep the school's bullies off of Kuga's back and teach the transfer student how to blend in. Kuga and Mikumo are quickly caught up in a sudden Neighbor attack. While Mikumo reveals himself as one of Border's soldiers, he's quickly outmatched by this Neighbor, but Kuga also turns out to have connections to Border and a powerful Trigger. However, after the battle, Kuga explains that he is not a Border agent. He's a Neighbor who crossed over to earth illegally ^note There's nothing legally binding that prohibits Neighbor immigration, but the majority of Border doesn't like Neighbors in any shape or form.!

World Trigger is a shonen manga by Ashihara Daisuke that is serialized on Shonen Jump since 2013, and is currently still ongoing. The series had a humble beginning, but eventually became known for its insight on human resource management and strategy combat using its large cast.

Toei Animation took on the anime adaptation with Season One released in October 2014 on TV Asahi, and ended in April 2016 when it almost Overtook the Manga. Season Two ran from January 2021 to April 2021, and Season Three ran from October 2021 to January 2022.

During 2016, the manga took frequent one-week breaks due to the author's poor health. In November, the manga went on an unexpected indefinite hiatus. Almost two years later, in mid October 2018, it was announced that the series would return for a five-chapter run, (enough to fill out the volume 19, along with four chapters left over from before the hiatus) starting on the 29th, and then continue publication in the monthly Jump Square magazine starting on December 4 (also the release date of volume 19).

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Spoiler Warning: Due to the story's overall slow pace in plot advancement, as well as the long Sequel Gap between seasonal anime release, unmarked spoilers will be present.

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World Trigger Includes examples of:

Notable Trigger Device Mechanisms and Wielding Methods

The plot presents Defense Organization—Border developing a wide set of Trigger equipments for their agents to freely arrange. Central Border provides the standard “Attacker Triggers (offense weapons in general),” “Defense Triggers (defense equipment),” “Option Triggers (utilities),” and the “Bail-Out” system for agents who are B-Rank and above. Tamakoma-1 agents in particular holds special customized weapons for their own usage.

• For details on Tamakoma custom Triggers, see The Tamakoma Branch.

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• Ability Mixing: The act of using two, non-firearm platform Trion-based Trigger equipments for combat usage. Mostly used by Shooters to create composite bullets.
  • Composite Bullets:
    • Cobra: The composite bullet of Asteroid and Viper.
    • Gimlet: The composite bullet of two Asteroids. The Gimlet is designed to damage heavy armor.
    • Hornet: The composite bullet of two Hounds.
    • Salamander: The composite bullet of Hound and Meteor.
    • Tomahawk: The composite bullet of Meteor and Viper.
  • Blades and Shields:
    • Fullguard: The use of two Shields to completly protect the user from full 360 degree damage.
    • Mantis: The use of two Scorpions to increase The Scorpion’s morphing flexibility, allowing for more versatile usage of the weapon.
• Alpha Strike: The method of using offense Trigger weapons with both hands, leaving the user vulnerable in receiving attacks. Shooters are the most vulnerable when going alpha due to Shooters needing time and effort to control their Trion molecules to use their weapons properly.
• BFG:
  • Sniper Rifle Triggers in general, but the one that takes the cake is The Ibis, a rifle that sacrifices shot speed and rate of fire for explosive penetrating power. In the hands of Tamakoma-2’s Chika Amatori, the Ibis is not your anti-large-size Neighbor gun, but a Wave-Motion Gun that notoriously blew a grand hole with a diameter equivalent to a Leaning Tower of Pisa straight through Border HQ’s very own defense wall without mercy.
  • Tamakoma-1 Reiji Kizaki's custom Asteroid: Minigun version.
• Cool Sword: Attacker position weapons are usually blades of various sizes.
  • Kogetsu (Lone Moon): Katana-styled lightsabers. The Kogetsu can apply the extension Optional Trigger, "Senkū (Spiral Air)." Allowing it to execute powerful long-range attacks.
  • The Black Trigger Fujin is a special sword type Trigger that can fire eight blades at once.
• Dual Wielding: Border agents can carry up to eight Triggers into battle and can only use two of them at once. Can result in Guns Akimbo, and Sword and Gun depending on how agents use them.
  • Suzunari-1’s Kō Murakami, a confirmed righty, would switch his main weapons between Kogetsu and Raygust depending on his stance. If he prioritized offense, he would wield his Kogetsu on his right hand, if he prioritized in defense, he would use Raygust on his right hand.
  • Kei Tachikawa, the highest ranked Attacker in Border, fights by swinging two Kogetsus in each hand at the same time. His dual Senku Kogetsu attack is strong enough to down a massive Ilgar in a single strike.
• Energy Donation: As long as physical contact is sustained, an agent can establish a temporary linkage to channel their Trion into someone else's Trigger. When Chika allowed Osamu to borrow her Trion during the Large Scale Invasion arc, he was able to fire a gigantic Asteroid cube that shredded a heavily armored Rabbit to pieces in a single volley. The drawback is that it later caused Osamu's Trigger equipments to malfunction; which was largely due to Chika’s Trion being way too powerful for Osamu to handle.
• Guns Akimbo: It's pretty common for Gunners to increase their damage output by firing two guns at the same time.
  • Sniper Satori (A05) in particular prefers doing this with two Sniper Rifles! It seems like a silly move on paper, but it turns out that mastering the ability to fire two sniper shots with zero reload time in between has its advantages.
  • Reiji (Tamakoma-1), when going all out, not only has two high-powered guns in his hands, but also a backpack with two more machine guns over his shoulders. With these, Reiji is able to execute the spam of More Dakka no other Gunners are able to achieve.
• Invisibility Cloak: There are two types of Optional Triggers that provides stealth.
  • The most commonly used equipment is The Bagworm, a cloak that can block radar sensors to prevent Operators from identifying the wearer. Squads with Snipers usually rely on spotting scopes to identify opponents early. The downside of the Bagworm is that the cloak eats away the wearer’s Trion for as long as the cloak is worn.
  • The Bagworm Tag is a low Trion-consumption version of The Bagworm, but at the cost of preventing users to equip other Triggers into the column it is equipped to. This Trigger is designed for the agents in need for prolonged stealth on the field. Notable users: A02 Shinji Fuyushima, and A08 Asumi Amakura.
  • The Chameleon provides full body Invisibility for a short amount of time at the expense of preventing the user to use any other equipments, offense weapons included, while Chameleon is turned on. Notable users: A03 Kazama Squad, and B011 Katori Squad.
• Knows the Ropes: The Spider is an Optional Trigger that produces one strand of wire to hook on to a set of parallel walls per use. Multiple wires can be applied to setup a trap area in order to slow down opponent chase. Combatants with high physicality can use the Spider for Building Swing and Spring Jump to increase attack range, and physical agility. Being one of the few low Trion cost Triggers, the Spider is a great utility for agents with low Trion capacity. Notable users: Tamakoma-1 Reiji Kizaki, Tamakoma-2 Osamu Mikumo, A05 Ai Kitora, and B011 Yōko Katori.
  • For his Second Large Scale Neighbor Invasion defense against Viza and Hyuse, Reiji setup Meteor traps by plugging Spider wire ends onto Meteor cubes. Once an opponent trips up and unplugged a Spider wire from a Meteor cube, that cube explodes.
  • For Osamu’s case, since he is overall weak in Trion and physicality, Osamu uses Spider mainly to manipulate his combat environment by setting trap stations so that he can retain safe distances to one, reduce the chances of opponents getting him, two, increase the chances to allow himself to make hits on opponents since he’s a Shooter, three, support Yūma, like an actual “spider,” allowing him to lure opponents into trap stations and freely play around with the wires to deal high damage to their opponents, and four, to protect Chika's stationed building so that she can safely make hits.
• Lost in a Crowd: The Dummy Beacon is a Border prototype Optional Trigger that sends agent identity signals, one identity input per device, to trick opposing Operators from locating the user team's true locations. The more Dummy Beacons set on a field, the more time an opposing team needs to determine the true locations of the user team. The amount of device one user can produce depends on their Trion capacity. Notable users: Haruaki Azuma (B006), Takaaki Katagiri and Asumi Amakura (A08).
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me:
  • The Shield, as Exactly What It Says on the Tin, is a lightweight shield that is practically the default Defense Trigger to equip. Its sturdiness depends on the person’s Trion output, but it usually cannot hold prolonged Gunner/Shooter ammo.
  • The Escudo is a heavyweight ballistic shield that can block Gunner/Shooter weapons, but can be cut down by Senkū Kogetsu. Due to its heavy Trion cost and inflexibility, Escudo users are rare. Notable users: Tamakoma-1 Yūichi Jin and Kyōsuke Karasuma, Tamakoma-2 Hyuse Kronin, A04 Ryuji Saeki.
• Morph Weapon:
  • The Raygust is a defense-oriented sword that can change from a small knife, to a heavyweight sword, or to a heavyweight shield. Due to its high Trion cost ^note Takes up 2 out of 8 slots in a user’s Trigger Holder. and inflexibility, Raygust users are rare. Notable users: Reiji Kizaki (Tamakoma-1), Osamu Mikumo (Tamakoma-2), Yukimaru Ichijo (A08), and Kō Murakami (B009).
  • The Scorpion is a lightweight sword that can change shape and size, which makes it very versatile at the expense of being fragile. Notable users: Tamakoma-1 Yūichi Jin (original developer), Tamakoma-2 Yūma Kuga, A05 Kitora, A03 Kazama Squad, and B003 Kageura.
    • Kageura developed The Mantis, by combining two Scorpions to increase its transforming powers; producing a whip-like effect.
    • Yūma expanded on the Mantis technique, and took The Scorpion’s shapeshifting advantages to new levels. Including tricking opponents in weapon presentation, combining weapon and utility shapes to form versatile attack styles, and seal up broken avatar parts to stop Trion leakage.
• Orbiting Particle Shield:
  • Hyuse's Trigger, Lampyris, produces magnetized shards that can orbit his body and reflect projectiles. The shard barrier can slow down physical attacks by magnetizing enemy weapons on contact, but a well placed, sufficiently powerful strike can pierce straight through it.
  • Hyrein's Black Trigger, Alektor, surrounds him with animal-shaped energy particles that will convert any Trion based attack into a harmless cube on contact. Only the Lead Bullet and non-Trion objects such as rubble from surrounding buildings can successfully phase through the particle barrier.
• Power Fist: Reiji uses his Raygust in a unique way: by holding the default "Handle" and using the Thruster to boost his punches. This Thruster powered punch is strong enough to inflict visible damage to Hyuse's Trion Body and smash a Dog's head into pieces in one hit.
• Powers as Programs: The superpowers generated by Border's Triggers are basically mass produced, standard issue weapons that can be equipped and wielded by anyone regardless of their Trion level or mastery of said weapon. One can even pick up and activate another user's Trigger Holder in a pinch, as was the case when Yuuma used Osamu's C-rank Trigger to fight a Marmod that was attacking the school.
• Shield Bash:
  • The Raygust’s built-in Thruster Option Trigger allows Raygust, in any form, to propel itself and its wielder onto the opponent as an offensive move. This Shield Mode thrust is often used by Osamu, who applies it in a particularly clever way during his training match with A03 Kazama. After Osamu takes advantage of the simulation room’s “Endless Trion Supply” setup to freely wield his Trion, he uses the Raygust to thrust-and-pin Kazama to the wall, lock him up by reversing the shield into an outward cup form, and open a small hole in the shield to fire one big unavoidable Asteroid shot at Kazama.
  • Hyuse’s debut as a Tamakoma-2 member presents his opponents with Border’s first ever offensive usage of the heavy shield Trigger, Escudo.
    • In his debut battle with Suzunari-1, Hyuse applied the Escudo through Murakami’s avatar to push Captain Kuruma away from Murakami’s protection range and let Osamu make a hit on Kuruma.
    • On B-Rank Battle’s final match, Hyuse made use of his simulation environment by giving Yukari Obishima (B008) a Surprise Car Crash via using Escudo to push a parked car out to wack Obishima out of course.
• Shoot 'Em Up: Gunner and Shooter position agents are in the same category with their abilities in releasing Trion energy range attacks. The main difference between Gunners and Shooters, is that Gunners uses handheld firearms to help them discharge the same types of Trion energy bullets to which Shooters can simply do with their bare hands.
  • Gunners are short-to-mid ranged, while Shooters are mid-to-long ranged. But Gunners holds a 20% standard discharge length extension compared to the standard Shooter discharge length; making Gunner the desirable position to execute a stable fire output.
  • In terms of discharge speed and damage power, Gunners are faster and more powerful than Shooters with the help of firearm platforms. With the specs, Gunners can perform More Dakka with two firearms if they need to go all out in offense.
  • Shooters sacrifice their discharge speed and damage power for attack range and on-the-spot bullet style change. Like Gunners, they can perform Magic Missile Storm when they need to go all out in offense.
  • Bullet Hell can be achieved by both Gunners and Shooters when they are proficient in Trion bullet knowledge and execution; especially when one is able to mix different types of bullets to fire in the shortest time frame.
  • The advantage, or disadvantage of a Gunner is that, like Snipers, a user’s Trion power would instantly reflect on their firearm power output. The powerful a user’s Trion level, the powerful a firearm would become; likewise, if the user’s Trion power is weak, their firearm power output will be weak. The main reason why Karasuma suggest Osamu to be a Shooter rather than a Gunner is that Osamu have the brains to change strategy on the field, but no brawn to be a powerful front line offender.
  • The best performance of the Gunner vs. Shooter Yin-Yang Clash would be the solo matches of Gunner Takuma Yuba (B008) vs. Shooter Masataka Ninomiya (B001). The two agents are the top performers in their field of expertise to where it’s always a 50/50 chance for either of them to win one solo match between each other. The key point is attack range; whichever one made the critical hit while in possession of their attack range would come out victorious. In the most recent B-Rank Battle finals, Ninomiya defeats Yuba by maintaining range via positioning himself on a high plane of building debris, to which forces Yuba in need to climb up and through obstacles to reach Ninomiya. Then, Ninomiya proceeds in giving Yuba his Bullet Hell by setting up eye-plane Asteroid bullets to slow Yuba down, and rains separate groups of high parabola Hound bullets of different landing lengths to catch Yuba before Yuba reaches him.
• Spring Jump: The Grasshopper is an Optional Trigger that allows its users to leap high In a Single Bound. It’s a handy utility to execute the Double Jump to change course, and leap to tall buildings faster. Notable users: Kei Tachikawa (A01), Shun Midorikawa (A04), Yūma Kuga (Tamakoma-2), and Kōji Oki (B004).
• Teleportation: The Teleporter is one of Border’s Optional Triggers that is still on prototype. The Trigger allows it’s users to teleport themselves to whichever direction they set their eyes on, but only under a certain distance. Opponents who are observant to the Teleporter user’s eye motions can easily predict where they would land. Notable users: A05 Jun Arashiyama, and Mitsuru Tokieda, A06 Nozomi Kako, and A08 Asumi Amakura.
• Teleportation Rescue: The Bail-Out Trigger is a teleportation device to send the equipped agent’s full Trion Body, including their physical body and full Trigger equipments, to central Border’s landing rooms with the agent completely ejected from their Trigger equipments. This is Border’s most valued safety mechanism, and cost the most Trion space for an agent to equip. Agents can either perform their own Bail-Outs to escape, or let their avatars be damaged to let their avatars run out of Trion HP to trigger the Bail-Out system to send them back to home base. Due to Border’s budget limitations, Bail-Outs are only given to agents B-Rank and above.
  • Azuma forced Bail-Out his squad member, Koarai by shooting him down during the Second Neighbor Invasion War so that Koarai would be safe from being cubi-fied by Neighbor Trion soldiers.
  • At the end of the Galopoula Invasion Arc, the defeated Gatlin and his squad are automatically evacuated to the safety of their away ship using their own prototype of the Bail-Out Trigger.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works:
  • Raygust can be thrown like a high speed projectile thanks to the Option Trigger, Thruster. During the Large Scale Invasion Arc, Osamu manages to pierce a Rabbit in its neck by throwing his boosted Raygust at it like a javelin, and Reiji is able to thrust the “Knife Mode” out like a Kunai as a last desperation attack in order to win some time against Viza and Hyuse, managing to stab through Viza's leg.
  • Yuuma learns to throw his Scorpion like a spinning three pronged projectile resembling a ninja star and manipulate its trajectory at will using either a Grasshopper platform or a second Scorpion attached to the projectile like a string on a yo-yo.
• Transformation Trinket: Whether they are Border-made, or Neighbor-made, any type of Trigger device are counted as trinkets. Border names their device as the Trigger Holder.
  • If there is no prior data on file, a Trigger Holder will replicate whatever the agent is wearing rather than spawning them in with a uniform when activated for the first time.
  • Yūma‘s Black Trigger device takes form of a ring bonded to Yūma, to which if Yūma takes it off, his true physical body would be switched out and instantly die.
• Translator Microbes: Hyuse revealed Trigger mediums, such as Border's Trigger avatars and Aftokrator Trigger horns, have language translation mechanisms built within them. As to how he describes it to his shuffle team, the translation system "can be considered as a one-sided version of the private conversation system in Trigger avatars." Basically, when a foreigner equips a Trigger avatar, that foreigner's avatar can auto translate the spoken languages of their surroundings. Like wise, when that foreigner speaks up while equipped with a Trigger avatar, whatever they say will also be auto translated out to the language of the reciever.
• Trick Bullet:
  • The Lead Bullet is a special type of Trion bullet that produces lead bricks on targeted Trion Bodies to slow down the actions of opponents rather than damaging Trion Bodies. Notable users: Tamakoma-2 Yūma Kuga (in his Black Trigger,) and Chika Amatori, Mirai Hatohara (former Ninomiya Squad member,) and A07 Shūji Miwa.
  • Both the Hound and Viper are damage dealing bullets that aren't limited to flying in a straight path. While the Hound can curve to home in on a target, the Viper can make sharp turns based on a pre-programmed trajectory or alter its path on the fly if the user is skilled enough to manipulate it in real time.
• Weapon Specialization:
  • Tamakoma-1 agents uses custom and or experimental weapons that are meant to challenge human Trion limits and may endanger the life of the wielder if they are inexperienced in Trion usage; which is why The Tamakoma Branch specifically recruited A-Rank agents with the most combat experience to be on Tamakoma-1. See the Tamakoma Branch character page for details on their weapons.
  • A07 Yōsuke Yoneya uses a modified short Kogetsu blade attached to an Trion-efficient polearm to tackle his low Trion capacity.

• Adaptation Expansion: Aside from Filler, the anime contains various in-between scenes (often Played for Laughs), such as showing what inspired Osamu's strategy in the match against Suwa Squad and Arafune Squad, or Kazama, Izumi, Midorikawa, and Yoneya's visits to the hospital.
• Adaptive Armor: Kuga's Black Trigger powers. When activated, it wraps around him like a suit of armor and has the ability to analyze and copy any trion attack directed at it. It then stores each copied power so that Kuga can use them whenever he wants.
• Adults Are Useless: Subverted. While the majority of Border's agents are Kid Heroes, due to the way Trion organs work, the adults still play very useful roles and deal with matters typically above a teenager's paycheck (e.g. commanding the army, actually keeping the organization running), and a not-insignificant number of Border's top agents are in their twenties nevertheless.
• Alien Abduction: Since at least 5 years prior to the current setting, Neighbors have been abducting Earthlings off to Neighbor planets to be used as Trion batteries for planet maintenance. At first, Neighbors were discreet, with Earth only reporting the unresolved disappearances of people. As Neighbors become more desperate for resources, invasions from Neighborhoods become more prominent, frequent, and violent as time moves on.
  • Chika was one of the first to be targeted by Neighbors prior to Neighbors becoming known to Earth’s public. She revealed that her best friend from elementary school, Aoba Harukawa went missing; and suspected Aoba to be abducted.
  • The Second Large-Scale Neighbor Invasion conducted by Neighbor planet, Aftokrator resulted in their success of abducting 32 C-Rank Border agents for their planet’s resource.
• Alien Invasion: This is what starts off the story, with Border going public since defending Earth from the First Large-Scale Neighbor Invasion.
  • As of current, scattered Trion soldiers routinely emerge on Earth; to which Border deliberately set up attraction fields to collect all Neighborhood portals to Mikado City combat areas for agents to take out, and rotate all A and B-Rank agents to public patrol duty.
  • The Second Large-Scale Neighbor Invasion brings the trope out in full force; bringing a much larger, and powerful invasion for the story's present day.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The series' official databook, Border Briefing File, serves this purpose. As the name suggests, its contents contains detailed Trigger mechanisms, character assessments, and cast relations in-universe. But information stops at the end of B-Rank Battle Round 5: Night Competition/Galopoula Intrusion Arc (Chapters 145-146). To which at the time, informations on the then top B-Rank tiers Ikoma, Ōji, and Yuba Squads were not completely revealed.
  • Ashihara occasionally answers fan questions, which are eventually compiled and included in volume releases as side material.
  • Then there’s World Trigger’s Japanese official Twitter account; who would release official FAQs, answering reader questions that were not made known by any of the above mentioned two sources.
• Amazon Brigade: Kako Unit, an all-female unit of Border and No. #6 A-Rank team. Also the B-Rank Nasu Unit, another all female squad.
• Arc Words: "Understand your limits."
• Armor-Piercing Response: Miwa hates all Neighbors because they caused the death of his sister, and at the end of the failed Black Trigger Retrieval, when he's spouting off his beliefs about how those who haven't lost loved ones to various Neighbor assaults can't understand how dangerous Neighbors are, he finally gets it thrown right back in his face: the Tamakoma branch, composed of those who believe peaceful relations with Neighbors is possible and all of whom Miwa regards as traitors, has as one of its strongest members Jin, who has lost not only his own mother, but the man who mentored him as a Border agent as well, to Neighbor assaults.
• Arrested for Heroism:
  • C-Rank agents are forbidden from using their Triggers unless authorized, in part to prevent them from trying to play hero when they aren't capable of it; as Kitora argues as justification, “Border's tech, Border's rules.”
  • The Case of Osamu Mikumo was zig-zagged for being the first C-Rank agent to break this regulation. The then C-Rank Osamu protected his school from Neighbors who landed right on top of their campus. As soon as Arashiyama Squad shows up, Captain Arashiyama informs Osamu that rather than be honoured, he'll be punished...yet Arashiyama publically applauds him for his deeds. Then Kitora points out that Osamu broke the rules, and shall be reported to Border accordingly. Later in the day, Osamu gets called into Border to rule his punishment, Kido and those in his faction are in favour of kicking Osamu out of Border; as a proven rulebreaker. But Shinoda advocates Osamu to be promoted for his heroism. In the end, thanks to the backing from Tamakoma agent, Jin in giving the best argument of Osamu bringing a valuable PR image to Border, Osamu was eventually ruled to be promoted. By the “Mikumo Act,” Border soften the regulation to allow C-Ranks participate in Neighbor defense in the form of escorting, and or directing civilians to shelters.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Chika (the Trion monster) tries combining Ibis (Power-type sniper rifle) with Lead Bullet (slow round that causes a heavy weight to appear where it hits). She gets a softball-sized shot that moves maybe a foot per second, but engulfs Natsume in a massive tank trap when she touches it.
• Badass Crew: Border, as a defense organization, is small in comparison to national grade militaries; let alone with the organization being made up of mostly child soldiers. But this very group of people are the only ones who are capable in defending Earth from aliens invading the planet.
• Beach Episode: The anime's Filler Arc features an episode where the main cast hangs out at a fancy pool complex with two Neighbor fugitives, and it's the only time in the entire series where you'll see the cast wearing swimsuits. Sadly their fun day is ruined when the Arc Villain barges in to try to kidnap the fugitives.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Large Scale Invasion Arc ends this way. Thanks to the combined effort of Border, not a single civilian casualty was suffered and the Neighbors are forced to leave the planet without taking Chika. However, six operators died when Enedra broke into Border HQ, 32 C-Rank agents were successfully kidnapped, 90 civilians were still injured, Osamu is critically wounded, and, due to being heavily damaged in the fight, Replica can't escape the Neighbor's ship and sacrifices himself to ensure they retreat. Besides failing to steal Chika, the Neighbors' achieve every goal they set out to accomplish during the invasion, including killing Enedra and ditching Hyuse. As Jin points out, this was the second- or third-best outcome the heroes could have achieved.

• Call-Back:
  • When Yuma rescues Osamu in the first chapter, Osamu is immediately reminded of when Jin did so in the past, in virtually the exact same manner.
  • Hyuse wiping out the C-Rank rookies humorously mimics when Yuma did the same (though with a lot more lineface this time around).
• Calling Your Attacks: Many agents do this when activating various weapons. Since the Trigger interface is mostly telepathic, this appears to be mostly out of habit. B-Rank Ikoma squad's shooter Mizukami often tries to exploit this, calling one kind of bullet when shooting another. No one has fallen for it yet, and the author even comments that it won't work on enemies from outside of Border.
• Canon Discontinuity: The Fugitive Arc is a training arc that the anime inserts into the plot by postponing Round 4 of the Rank Wars, and thus the entire schedule, by one week. Season 3 of the anime proceeds as if the filler arc never happened by sticking with the original schedule outlined in the manga, where a postponement never happens.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Most characters have distinct designs, despite the simplistic art style. While the large cast means that there's some overlap, even those with similar faces or silhouettes—whether they're a major character or minor—generally have some sort of difference in their facial structure.
• The Cavalry:
  • During the Black Trigger Retrieval Arc, Kazama tells Jin there's no way he can win against four of HQ's A-Class teams at the same time. As if right on cue, Arashiyama Unit enters the scene on direct orders from Director Shinoda to aid Jin in defending Yuuma's Black Trigger.
  • Expect a lot of this during the second invasion.
    • When HQ is facing down Ilgars, Kinuta starts panicking because he knows that the wall can only take one more hit. Shinoda then tells him not to worry—there's only one left. Tachikawa's arrived on the scene.
    • Right after Suwa's been cube-ified and it looks like the rest of his squad is next, cue Kazama Squad, who makes short work of the enemy.
    • When Lamvanein is about to defeat Azuma, Arafune Squad snipes him, now that they have an open shot of him. It gets turned on its head, though: Lamvanein then proceeds to wipe out all of Arafune Squad save for Arafune himself.
    • When it seems like Izumi is out of tricks against Hairein, he laments that there aren't more buildings around for him to destroy^note having used the debris against Hairein to get around his trigger—oh, wait, just kidding: now that he's gotten rid of the obstacles, Border's top snipers are locked on target and ready.
    • After the series has gone through most of its cast at this point, Osamu is saved by an unlikely ally in the last stretch: Miwa.
• Chekhov's Gag: The little five year old Yotaro likes to tout his supposedly high seniority level in Tamakoma's ranks and does bold things such as asking Chika for her hand in marriage and addressing the veteran fighter Hyuse as his pupil. Even the serious Kronin seems to play along by addressing Yotaro as "young master". Chapter 201 confirms that his seniority is no joke by revealing that he is the surviving prince of Aristera, a Neighbor world that was allied with Old Border.
• Child Prodigy: Kitora joined Border at a young age and now is in A-class. Same for Midorikawa.
• Child Soldier: Downplayed. Most Border agents are very young, where it’s common to have kids Osamu’s age to freely consider in applying to serve in Border. This is thanks to Border’s Trigger technologies providing safety measures, notably the Trion Bodies and the “Bail-Out” system to prevent physical pain, injury, and death. Though Trion Bodies are given to all Border agents, it’s still possible for Neighbors to break Trion Bodies to force agents to switch back to their physical body on battlefield; which is truly Harmful to Minors. The “Bail-Out” system are only given to agents who are B-Rank and above due to Border’s limited budget. Because of this, C-Ranks are forbidden to fight in the frontlines to protect them from danger.
  • Averted with Some of the Neighbors being adults and using Triggers. The same applies to the faction leaders of Border, who mostly consist of veterans of the first wave of agents.
  • In an interview, creator Daisuke Ashihara explained that it was because the Trion-producing organ develops until age 20, then stops.
  • It's played straighter with the Neighbors, who fight in more conventional war zones. Hyuse, in particular, is a Tyke-Bomb, as it's implied his foster family is unusual for treating him like an actual person, rather than a tool of war.

• Conveniently Empty Building: Justified, as the area around Border HQ (which is where they generally force all gates to appear), is an abandoned zone. Reactions range from Arashiyama Squad's belief that the houses still belong to someone and should be preserved, to Izumi's Destructive Savior tendencies.
• Cooperation Gambit:
  • The Case of Yūma Kuga’s Enlistment (The Black Trigger Retrieval Arc): The whole point of the Black Trigger Retrieval Arc comes down to the power-balance concern between central Border and the Tamakoma Branch. Border Commander-In-Chief, Masamune Kido evaluates Tamakoma's recruitment of Black Trigger-holder Yūma Kuga will overpower the Neighbor-friendly Rindō faction; due to the Tamakoma Branch, at the time, holds three overqualified A-Ranks, and one S-Rank agent with a Black Trigger, while central Border holds one S-Rank agent with a Black Trigger. Therefore, Kido proceeded in taking the Loophole Abuse by secretly ordering his faction’s expedition squads to "take hold" of Yūma's Black Trigger the night before Yūma's employment papers are approved. Tamakoma agent, Yūichi Jin as a Seer, knew in advance of Kido's actions, and successfully defended his will-be Tamakoma juniors from Kido's A-Rank squads. Jin's defense actions served as a value promotion of his weapon, as well as a bargain to Kido in proposing Jin is willing to give up his Black Trigger and S-Rank status in exchange for Yūma's service (as a Neighbor-origin Black Trigger agent) to Border. Which Kido eventually agrees.
  • The Case of Hyuse’s Enlistment: As the the original three-man combat formation of Tamakoma-2 came to their challenge phase in the middle of their B-Rank Battle, Jin foresaw Osamu’s desperate need for a strong fourth member, and has long arranged P.O.W. Hyuse to show interest in lending his strength for the Tamakoma Branch. Once Jin saw Hyuse was ready for the talk, Jin officially referred Hyuse to Tamakoma-2 members, prompting Osamu, as Tamakoma-2’s squad captain, to lead the negotiations with Border HQ. As a result, Tamakoma-2 is allowed to have Hyuse free from Border HQ interrogation in exchange for both Chika’s guaranteed service as the ship maneuver/battery, and the Neighborhood guidance service from Hyuse on the Expedition Force. If Tamakoma-2 wished all four combat members to be together on the Expedition Force, then the squad must achieve a B002 and above squad rank in their B-Rank Battle.
• Creature-Hunter Organization:
  • The Border Defense Agency against the aliens called Neighbors, whose members use the aliens' own Trion energy-powered weapons called Trigger. Their members are people who have high Trion levels. Border was formed specifically to defend against the Neighbors, although it was revealed in the first episode that what they were fighting were actually just their drones called Trion Soldiers and that the Neighbors are actually Humanoid Aliens.
  • Subverted later in the manga, where Jin reveals that Border, in its first iteration, was created not to fight Neighbors, but to serve as a connection point between humans and the Neighbor world, and to help protect three allied Neighbor countries. Current Border exists in the played-straight Creature-Hunter Organization state after 10 of Border's 19 founding members died in the battle to defend Aristera, one of the allied countries.
• Crossover:
  • Sort of. Ashihara did a one-shot for My Hero Academia, which reveals Ikoma reads said series.
  • Chapter 116.5 of Food Wars! features Erina hosting a banquet for Chika and fellow Jump heroines Nami, Chitoge Kirisaki, Kagura, Irina Jelavic, and Kiyoko Shimizu. It goes just as well as well as you'd expect from such a series like Food Wars! (except for Chika who, of course, is still a child).
• Deconstructor Fleet: Of the Shōnen genre.
  • There's no 11th-Hour Superpower in effect, and just training isn't good enough—not because Hard Work Hardly Works, but because it's ridiculous to assume that only the protagonist is working hard and that their rivals are no less the heroes of their own story. Similarly, passion doesn't change the tides of battle, as it's still no replacement for genuine skill (and as Tachikawa notes, it's kind of insulting to imply that the loser just didn't want to win enough).
  • Sometimes, "getting better" doesn't mean "improve your combat skills." One of Kazama's key criticisms for Osamu later on is that Osamu is too focused on trying to be stronger, when what he should really be doing is being a better captain. In fact, trying to personally be more skilled actually screwed him over, since, as Arashiyama predicted, he got too caught up in trying to pull off the moves he learned and lost some of his cautiousness that came when he was aware of how weak he was, resulting in him being sniped. Taking a level in badass doesn't necessarily occur in a straight line.
  • Teamwork is legitimately important. Even The Ace can't carry a team on their own (especially when a complete and/or consistent Curb-Stomp Battle is rare—even an inferior opponent will likely win a match against a superior opponent once in a while).
  • Along those lines, at the end of the day, everyone's goal is the same: to defend the city. Even with ideological differences, just about everyone in Border gets along well with one another (Miwa is arguably the worst of them, and even he'll put aside his differences and is actually civil to most)—an efficient organization can't run on Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. Most rivalries are friendly and have both parties actually teaching one another, because ultimately, it benefits their greater purpose for everyone to get stronger.
  • Similarly, Jerkass Has a Point is prevalent, because even if you're a bit of a douche, in a functional organization you don't get to be high-ranked unless you know what you're talking about. Rarely is someone mean just for the sake of being mean.
  • People have lives that don't revolve around the plot. Humorously, the main reason a number of squads are late/absent in the second invasion arc is because they were busy with something mundane instead (e.g. Tamakoma-1 arrives late because Reiji and Karasuma had to pick up Konami from school, Kako Squad was on a road trip, Toma was napping, etc.).
  • In an organization, you can't just break or bend the rules and expect to get away with it. Whenever someone tries to circumvent them, it's always through Loophole Abuse or by striking deals.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • In contrast to Border's mass-produced Triggers, Black Triggers and Horn Triggers tend to work this way. For example, Yuma's Black Trigger requires constantly setting seals to use his attacks (typically, he has Replica streamline the process for him), and the sheer versatility of Hyuse's Lampyris requires creativity to use it, given that otherwise, it's technically just a bunch of floating magnets.
  • The Lead Bullet, unless you're Chika and have the sheer Trion levels to negate its downsides. As Karasuma notes, it's something only experts like Miwa should use, as its slow speed makes it difficult to hit the target unless you can also fight in close combat and shoot while on the move. (In other words, sorry, Osamu, but nope, not for you.) On the other hand, because Shield—and Hairein's Black Trigger—can't block it, it's great for getting past defenses.
• Elite Mook: The Rabbits are bipedal Trion Soldiers packing thick armor, enhanced combat prowess, and enough strength in its punch to send a Border agent flying through several blocks worth of houses. Compared to the garden variety Marmods and Bamsters, these beasts pose a challenge even for the most skilled A-Rank agents.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: In an organization where it is important to work with cross-faction workers of different self-interests, striking deals with what you can offer is a sure thing to get the help you and your team will want.
  • Shun Midorikawa wholeheartedly shares Yūma his combat styles, equipment settings, and solo battle time in exchange for Yūma‘s favor in asking Midorikawa’s idol, Jin to solo battle with Midorikawa.
  • To tackle Katori’s negative mood swings and get her gears moving, her Expedition Exam Team Suwa resorted to let Osamu be the favor-doer by using his master-apprentice privilege in offering Katori “the chance to date Border idol, Karasuma” if she can properly do her job for their squad. To everyone’s relief, she’s totally fired up. In return, Captain Suwa set their team’s goal to be securing a seat for Osamu on the Expedition Force.
• Everybody Is Single: While there are crushes, nobody is known to be in a relationship (even Kinuta, who has a daughter, is separated from his wife). It's a notable pattern in the BBF Q&A, where Ashihara is frequently asked if [x] and [y] are dating, to which the answer is always, "They probably aren't." He elaborates in another answer that if anyone is in a relationship, it's probably not with a Border agent (and therefore named character), as there tend to be issues with dating a coworker.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Data on which school everyone goes to or graduated from is All There in the Manual; quite a few people are/were classmates. Justified, as agents are required to live in Mikado City and there are only that many educational facilities within the city. Border will grant scholarships to all school-aged agents with guaranteed placement to selected schools that are sponsored by Border. If school aged agents wished to get education out-of-city, chances are Border would not be able to sponsor them, and agents would more than likely choose to retire from Border service and move on with life. School choices is also a strong indicator of an agent’s future potential service to Border.
  • Rokueikan High School: The most prestigious of all high school educational facilities Mikado City has to offer whose students aims for college education. Students and alumni are recognized for their intellect, with graduates having the highest chance to be employed into central Border leadership positions.
    • Notable alumni: Kido/Kinuta/Netsuki (Border HQ), Yuri Rindō (Tamakoma-1 Operator), Azuma (B006), Sōya Kazama (A03), Kako (A06), Ninomiya (B001), Kuruma (B009), Yuba (B008).
    • Notable students: Kazuki Kurauchi (B005—current Student Council President), Haruka Ayatsuji (A05 Operator—current Vice Student Council President).
  • Seirin Girl’s Academy: A notable all-girl’s junior-to-high school that is not sponsored by Border. Agents who chooses to receive education in this school usually prefers to remain low-key in not revealing their Border service identity in private life, all the while receive good quality education. Due to their campus is located nearby designated Neighbor war zones, agents who attends this school usually would turn out to be Border’s top female talents in both combat and intellect; thanks to taking the most frequent calls to service.
    • Notable alumni: Ren Tsukimi (A07 Operator)
    • Notable students: Konami (Tamakoma-1), Nasu (B007), Teruya (B013), Kitora (A05).
  • Mikado City Public School System: Border sponsors city-wide public schools ranging from four junior high campuses, to one high school campus, and one university; which employed Border agents can be placed under scholarship free from entry examination and tuition. Over half of all Border agents came from the public school system.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Averted to hell and back with the Neighbors. First, they are not Always Chaotic Evil any more than the members of any other species. Second, the reason Neighbors harvest and abduct humans in the first place is because the Neighborhood is a wartorn mess of planetoids trying to blow each other sky high, and Earth is (from their perspective) a massive stockpile of fuel (in the form of Muggle Trion glands) and potential recruits. Compared to the scale of the Neighbors' wars, their excursions to Earth are barely noteworthy.
• Evolving Credits: The last segment of the opening for Season 2 changes depending on who the current enemies are: first, Galopoula, and then Tamakoma-2's subsequent opponents in their B-Rank Battle.
• The Faceless: All Trion soldier faces' (with the exception of Replica) are just mouths with eyes peeking from inside. The eyes are their weakpoints, but they can close their teeth to protect them. This makes their "smiles" particularly terrifying.
• Fan of the Underdog: As Osamu, a combat agent of Red Shirt status, garners the attention from Border HQ and the solid backup from The Tamakoma Branch, various Border staff members and agents became interested on how he would survive, and shake things up in their organization.
  • Border Foreign Affairs and Business Operations Manager, Katsumi Karasawa is the Border official to grant Osamu the leeway to stand, and voice up for himself in front of Border’s highest commanders and the public press to prevent Border HQ labeling him as The Scapegoat for the damage done in The Second Large-Scale Neighbor Invasion. Resulting in Osamu becoming the “Sixth Face of Border,” alongside the Arashiyama Squad with surprising positive reactions from the public.
  • A03 Captain Kazama is interested in Osamu's growth not in his physical strength, but to see how Osamu can prove himself worthy as a Border combatant just by using his wits, disadvantages, and leadership.
• Fictional Zodiac: The World Trigger universe explored and found new stars to which changed the dynamics of their astronomical setting; leading to the usage of a new set of zodiacs set for people’s birthdays.
  • Clavis (The Key)—December 22 - January 19
  • Amphibious (The Frog)—January 20 - February 18
  • Apis (The Honeybee)—February 19 - March 20
  • Falco (The Falcon)—March 20 - April 20
  • Felis (The Cat)—April 20 - May 20
  • Lepus (The Hare)—May 21 - June 21
  • Gladius (The Sword)—June 22 - July 22
  • Aptenodytes (The Penguin)—July 23 - August 22
  • Lupus (The Wolf)—August 23 - September 22
  • Luna Falcata (The Crescent Moon)—September 23 - October 23
  • Chronos (The Clock)—October 24 - November 22
  • Cetacea (The Whale)—November 23 - December 21
• Filler: Averted in the manga, which generally moves at a fast pace, but the anime had the filler Fugitive Arc once it caught up to the manga, before ending there. The dub skips this arc completely, but forgot to change the "Previously On" segment or nix the first few references to the arc, so the sudden jump may leave dub-only viewers confused.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Osamu, Yūma, and Chika. Also extends to battle-comrades from other squads like Kitora.
• First-Episode Twist: Both Mikumo's status as a Border agent and Kuga's status as a Neighbor are revealed in chapter one.
• Foreshadowing: Osamu considers adding an extra Trigger to his loadout while preparing for Round 7, but Shiori warns Osamu that his Trion is too low to support it, and the only way he could make it work would be by swapping out one of his current triggers for the new one. At the very end of Round 8, Osamu is able to land a decisive blow on Ninomiya using the Hound Trigger he swapped out with his usual Asteroid trigger offscreen, before the match started.
• Forever War: The Neighborhood is a godawful mess of these on a galactic scale. If that weren't bad enough, and as long as this/these wars last, Neighbors will keep on looking for humans to enslave.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The Selection Exam Arc follows eleven different provisional squads as they endure a seven day test of their teamwork and problem solving skills inside a sealed environment simulating the Away ship. While Osamu and provisional Squad 7 receive most of the screen time, several chapters are dedicated towards rotating the focus among the other ten squads and their own unique hurdles.
• Friendly Enemy:
  • The word, "Enemy" is an exaggeration. While various Border factions might occasionally have interpersonal conflicts, there are very few hard feelings between agents.
  • Among Kido's most trusted squads, which you'd expect to be hostile towards Tamakoma agents, Captain Tachikawa (A01) is actually good friends with Tamakoma's Jin and Konami.
    • The entire Tachikawa Squad (A01), sans Yuiga, are great friends with Karasuma since Karasuma was a former member of the Tachikawa Squad. Though Yuiga softens up a bit later due to befriending Osamu, who is Karasuma’s apprentice.
    • Kazama (A03) is friends with Tamakoma's Jin, Reiji, and Usami.
    • Heck, Toma (A02) starts off with an amiable chat with Jin, before Kazama reminds him to focus on business.
    • The biggest irony? Our Neighbor Yūma eventually became great friends with Toma, who knew Yūma was the target of his aforementioned business.
• Giant Mook: Trion Soldiers such as Bamsters, Vandas, and Ilgars are the size of a large building and are built to spread widespread destruction rather than engage in combat. The first two are some of the easiest Trion Soldiers to defeat, but the Ilgar is a massive flying whale shaped bomb that requires heavy firepower to take down.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality:
  • The conflict between the Border factions eventually shifts into this, despite initially setting up Tamakoma as the unambiguous good guys and Kido faction as antagonists. Once Old Border's past is revealed (and that Tamakoma's ideals got a large chunk of Border killed), it's not hard to see where Kido is coming from when he prioritizes Mikado City's self-interest over even benevolent Neighbors', and Yuri makes it clear to Osamu that, even with their difference in ideals, they all respect Kido faction; without them, there would be no Border.
  • Though Aftokrator are attacking a city that's done them no wrong, it's not out of malice but out of desperation, as their own planet will die soon (and because this is just how things are in the Neighborhood; even Yuma, for all of his good intentions, took some time to adjust to Earth's more peaceful culture).
• Henshin Hero: Border and the Neighborhood house entire armies of Henshin Heroes, to be precise. Aside from the few blessed with Side Effects, the characters who fight for these factions are ordinary people who gain access to high-tech Trion based abilities, weapons, and a cool uniform upon activating their Trigger Holders.
• Heroes Unlimited: The story begins with a small cast comprising of Yuuma, Osamu, Chika, and the small handful of Border agents who cross their path. Once the Border Defense Agency is formally introduced, the cast size rapidly expands by introducing dozens of new agents, operators, and administrative staff in each subsequent arc. As of Chapter 200 there have been no less than 100 named characters that have been added to the story.
• Heroic Vow: When Chika's big brother Rinji vanishes into the Neighborhood without a trace, Osamu promises to honor Rinji's final message to him by protecting Chika in his stead. This vow motivates Osamu to join Border and obtain the power to fulfill that promise, even if it costs him his life.
• Hero Insurance: Averted. It's made very clear that this doesn't exist and is part of why the Forbidden Zone is necessary: aside from keeping civilians safe, it also allows types like Izumi and Amo to go wild.
• Hollywood Tactics: Satisfyingly and lovingly subverted throughout the whole series. When Border sends squads to take care of larger missions, it never becomes a matter of "just charge at the opponent and win" - Squads will take advantage of buildings, the enemy situation, and the individual members' strengths and weaknesses in order to have a tactical advantage.
• A House Divided: Border is divided into at least 3 big factions with different ideologies on how to treat Neighbors, with agents taking sides either individually, or by squads.
  • Kido's faction: Stands anti-Neighbors. Vows to defend Earth from Neighbors of any form to absolute fashion, and does not want Neighbors lay a single foot onto Earth’s soil. Agents who sides with Kido’s faction generally agrees on Good Is Not Nice, efficiency over morality, and end-results oriented. Characteristic-wise, aligned agents tend to be either intellectuals who supports central Border’s self-interests, Blood Knights who simply loves to have more opportunities to fight, or holds deep vengeance, and Fantastic Racism towards Neighbors. Overall, the Kido faction are ambitious with Trion technology development, and are eager to go on Neighborhood expedition missions for research. ^note Representing agents: A01 Tachikawa Squad (Blood Knight oriented), A02 Fuyushima Squad (Duty oriented), A03 Kazama Squad (Duty oriented), and A07 Miwa Squad (Vengeance oriented; with Yoneya as a peaceful Blood Knight).
  • Shinoda's faction: The faction who promotes peaceful exchange between Earthlings and Neighbors. Will defend Earth from harmful Neighbors to the best of their abilities, but as long as there are benefits, Neighbors with no ill intent shall be treated with respect, and provided with hospitality on Earth. Agents who aligns themselves with the Shinoda faction generally are All-Loving Hearts who believes in The Power of Love, and Friendship; willingly mediates between Kido and Rindō factions to come up with compromising solutions. The Shinoda faction are also strong defenders of The Rindō faction. Overall, the Shinoda faction prioritize Earth defense from invading Neighbors.^note Representing agents: Border HQ Operator Sawamura, A05 Arashiyama Squad, B006 Azuma Squad, B009 Suzunari-1, B010 Arafune Squad, B012 Suwa Squad, and B013 Kakizaki Squad.
  • Rindō's faction, A.K.A. The Tamakoma Faction: This faction promotes in building the bridge between Earthlings and Neighbors, and work together for the prosperity of the greater universe.^note Representing agents: The Tamakoma Branch, and C-Rank Izuho Natsume.
  • With that said, despite initial appearances, it's Downplayed. Though agents might have different priorities/ideologies, each faction will absolutely work together in times of crisis, and it's later shown that members across all factions are fairly friendly. As of current, Miwa as an individual is the only one who is hostile towards Tamakoma agents.
• Human Aliens: The Neighbors are shown to be this - despite coming from a different dimension with a completely different culture and social system, they all resemble humans with no significant differences outside of slightly less natural hair colors. Notable exceptions are the Neighbors of Aftokrator, who have cybernetic horn implants, and Yuma Kuga, whose hair and pupils are white as a side effect of his Black Trigger.
• Human Resources: The countries of the Neighborhood are too small to even think about conquering it, so they invade Earth to harvest Earthing Trion batteries and potential soldiers to help fight their own wars.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: With the exception of "The Invasion," every chapter title is the name of the character most relevant to that chapter (and can be one-shots, non-uniques, or groups). It's also not exempt from using the same character more than once. The anime subverts this, although some episodes still have character's name as part of the episode's title (Like episode 4, "Osamu Mikumo's Talent").
• If You Can Read This: The story settings of World Trigger are thoroughly written, drawn, and screen-toned digitally, which makes all written forms of documents, screen displays, manuals, assignments, and announcements in-universe all discernible to the reader’s eye. This mechanism allows readers to go on rewatch Easter Egg hunt to pick up on details that were brought up between character discussions. These important text would also more than likely become Freeze Frame Bonuses when episodes are adapted into animation.
  • The conversations between A08 Katagiri Squad members in Chapter 206 shown they were baffled by how B-Rank Battle rankings had shifted drastically while they were away. If readers flip back to Day 1 of the B-Rank Battle season in Chapter 86, screen panels showed in detail where most of the B-Rank squads were ranked on the previous season.
  • Border squad rank numberings will instantly reflect on an agent’s badge upon each Rank Battle shift; even through the duration of seasonal Rank Battles.
• Japanese Spirit: This is a Zig-zagged trope.
  • Team Mikumo each embodies one of the virtues roughly (Yuma = Talent, Osamu = Insight, Chika = Persistence) but in reality it isn't so neat and tidy. Osamu is not just insightful but persistent, lots of people note that it's Yuma's battle experience which makes him dangerous and not just natural talent, and Chika is a Born Winner with more Trion than 100 ordinary people put together. Further, though the team does work together to get stronger, the story doesn't use the Traumatic Superpower Awakening or 11th-Hour Superpower tropes.
  • The fight between Team Nasu, Suzunari-1, and Team Mikumo during the B-Rank Wars invokes the trope. Specifically, the beginning of the fight focuses on Team Nasu's Resolve, since one of their team members (Akane) will be moving out of town with her family soon, so they wanted their last battle to be meaningful. As par for the trope, the battle is sparsed with lots of flashbacks of the team to show what they feel and why it means so much to them.
    • As such, when Akane is put in a disadvantage, she chooses not to Bail Out when she has a chance and allows herself to be put into a Die or Fly position where she has to take out her opponent (Yūma) before he closes in and defeats her, at best she takes an arm before she gets taken out.
    • Only minutes later, her teammate Kumagai tries to take on another Ace, Murakami, on her own by using an Indy Ploy. He cuts her down with almost no trouble, however.
    • The match commentators specifically discuss this trope, and Tachikawa defies it. He says that strength and strategy are greater deciding factors in a battle than spirit. Sure, spirit is great and it's fun to watch when it works out, but overall, if the difference in skill and strategy are too high, spirit won't work. After Murakami defeats Kumagai, Tachikawa adds that he does like battles with emotion, but feels that attributing the results of a battle to emotion just means the loser didn't want to win enough.
• Jerkass: The bullies and the muggers in the first few chapters. Admittedly, Kuga was asking for trouble when he waved that wad of cash around in public, not that he understood that, though.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Kitora heavily criticizes the then C-Rank trainee Osamu for using his Trigger in real combat; which was against Border regulations. While her motivations were admittedly, born from pettiness, she's not just overlooking the fact that he saved people—her point is that those types of regulations exists to prevent C-Ranks from getting themselves killed playing hero, which was exactly what almost happened to Osamu. Worse, the fact that he nearly got himself killed instead of Bailing Out allowed Aftokrator figuring out Border C-Ranks don’t have the Bail Out system in their Triggers, which led to the Large-Scale Invasion later.
  • In B-Rank squad Battle, Kitora declines to give Osamu any combat pointers, citing that she doesn't think he's at a level where it'd be useful. While it might've seemed cruel in the moment, and Izumi is unimpressed when he hears about it, her point is proven as the advices her squad mates gave Osamu screwed him horribly in his next match; though to be fair, Arashiyama and company did warn him that that'd probably happen.
  • Commander Kido forbade Yūma in using his Black Trigger to protect and escort Chika during the invasion might’ve been cruel, and upsetting to Yūma and Osamu, but his reasoning was actually very sound; as Yūma's Black Trigger would most likely cause panic in civilian areas, and would be more proper to use his Black Trigger within Neighbor combat zones.
  • Ninomiya points out that if Tamakoma-2 wants its members on the expedition force, then it is rude for Osamu and Chika for wanting to join without any competent combat, nor surviving skills to bring with them; and they would be The Load for Yuma as he can perform way more efficiently with other agents. It wasn't a particularly nice thing to say, but it wasn't wrong.
• Knight Templar: Commander Kido and his faction want to kill all Neighbors to avenge their loved ones. Though later it becomes clear that only a part of them holds these extreme views. Others are mostly in the faction to be part of the more interesting missions, or even if they don't particularly like Neighbors, they don't hold ill will towards any who are their ally.
• Knight of Cerebus: Up until the Large-Scale Invasion, antagonists had primarily been bullies and fellow Border members, the latter of whom could ultimately be stopped by the powers of bureaucracy. There's no negotiating with Aftokrator, all of whom are more powerful than what most agents have faced before, and Enedra in particular stands out as a Sadist who outright kills Border staff.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Every bully and mugger introduced so far either winds up out cold, attacked by a Neighbor, or with at least two broken bones.
• "Last Day of School" Plot: Tamakoma-2's debut B-Rank Battle season took place between February to March; which is the final month of a school year in Japan's education system. Therefore, readers can see subtle background events of junior high and high school senior agents talking about their future plans, and see the stories of those who are on the path to Border service retirement.
  • Yuba Squad's seasoned All-Rounder Tadaomi Kanda stayed in Border until December, two months prior to the story's B-Rank Battle to prepare for college entrance exams; leading to his immediate service retirement. Yuba Squad members and alumni reunites with Kanda after B-Rank Battle to give Kanda his send-off party; with Kurauchi (B005) mentioning he will stay in Border and enter Mikado City P.S.1 University with guarantee admission.
  • Nasu Squad's Akane Hiura notified her team of her upcoming retirement from Border, with the in-story B-Rank Battle being her final performance with her squad as she and her entire family scheduled to move out of Mikado City upon her junior high graduation.
• The Leader: A huge portion of the plot revolves around character evaluation and development of Border agents. The following list are agents who in-universe, are either already recognized, or under validation for Border's future leadership positions.
  • The Charismatic:
    • Current Squad Captains: A01 Tachikawa, A05 Arashiyama, B009 Kuruma (under validation)
    • Regular Squad Agents Under Validation: B003 Kitazoe
  • The Headstrong:
    • Current Squad Captains: A07 Miwa, B008 Yuba
    • Regular Squad Agents Under Validation: —
  • The Levelheaded:
    • Current Squad Captains: T1 Kizaki, A03 Kazama, B001 Ninomiya (under validation), B012 Suwa (under validation), B013 Kakizaki (under validation)
    • Regular Squad Agents Under Validation: A03 Utagawa, B009 Murakami
    • The overall Expedition Exam judging panel appraises Suwa for prioritizing thorough survival management, work transparency, attentive interpersonal communication, swift objective judgments and calls-to-action, and an approachable Big Brother Mentor charisma.
  • The Mastermind:
    • Current Squad Captains: B002 Mikumo (under validation), B005 Ōji (under validation), B006 Azuma
    • Regular Squad Agents Under Validation: A07 Kodera, B004 Mizukami
    • The Border HQ judging panel for the Expedition Exam appraises Kodera and Mizukami for showcasing manipulative actions to safe keep their team’s strength and self-interest; a trait that is similar to Tamakoma Chief Takumi Rindō. But the two agents are flawed in different ways. Mizukami takes bold and risky actions, but keeps all the weight to himself and would only seek teamwork once his task package is about to blow out of control; leaving his team to give a mediocre performance as of current development. Kodera on the other hand, while he understands the needs for his team, he is passive and conservative; lacking the guts for bold action. It’s only until he was provoked by outside influence, in his case, by Team Suwa’s proactive outreach for an info exchange bargain that Kodera was able to move for his team’s interest.
  • Discussed with the case of B011 Wakamura's validation, as Wakamura is shown to be in hot waters as his leadership skills is evaluated in the duration of the Expedition Exam. On Chapter 234, The Border HQ judging panel clearly can see Wakamura's team member, Hyuse is a proficient strategist with competent leadership. Those with biased judgment of Hyuse were surprised to see him not usurping Wakamura’s leadership position, but lay low, sit back, and carefully guide Wakamura on decision making. But this is also a bad sign for Wakamura as the judge panel can see his potential to lead but is struggling and dragging his team down for being an insecure ditherer.
• Life Energy: In this World Trigger universe, all living beings are able to produce a special form of energy, referred to as “Trion;" commonly called “a person’s second heart.” To explain the difference between “Trion” and “Trigger” in a nutshell, “Triggers” are technologies that makes use of “Trions”. Trions doesn't need to behave simply as a type of energy, but can be converted into a vast range of physical matter for a variety of purposes, to which the term, “Trigger” is used to cover everything that were developed with Trions; the most common types of Triggers shown in-story are the weapons and combat avatars that Border and Neighbors used for combat.
• Lighter and Softer: The anime, though possibly unintentionally. Trion leakage in the manga is depicted by somewhat ominous-looking dark smoke, resembling blood in certain panels, whereas the anime depicts it via glowing Trion cubes, making it evident that it's not a "true" injury. Season 2 sees this changed to black smoke, like the manga, giving it the look of floating blood.
• Magic A Is Magic A: The series can read like a video game in manga form, and for this reason: the power system is based on a detailed and strict set of rules, which cannot be broken. New technology can be developed and/or introduced, but they must still follow the fundamental laws of how Trion and Triggers work.^note Ashihara has admitted any visual incongruities are probably an error on his part, such as a character using two chips from the same trigger at the same time, and these usually get fixed for the volume releases.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: New incoming Border agents are taught by experienced upper rank agents; either assigned by central staff, the experienced hand-picking their own apprentice, lower ranks having the guts to ask for a certain master, or through social referrals. The chains serves as an important indicator to each character’s social relations, and their service potential to Border. Most notably, Captain Haruaki Azuma (B006) is the launcher of a thousand agents, check his character folder to see who his direct students were.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • In the first chapter, when rescuing Osamu from Neighbors, Yūma's stance as he asks "Hey, you OK, four-eyes?" reminds Osamu of the Border agent who saved his life before saying those exact same words. Later to be revealed as Yūichi Jin of Border's Tamakoma Branch.
  • Yūma warns Osamu that he doesn't stand a chance against the Marmods attacking the school. Knowing that his trapped classmates' lives are in danger, Osamu responds with "Even if I don't have much of a chance, I can't turn my back on them". Fast forward to the Large Scale Invasion arc where a veteran Black Trigger user with decades of experience under his belt is stalling Yūma to prevent him from rescuing his friends. He remembers his father advising him to run away if he's outmatched with no hope of reinforcements, then remembers Osamu's actions on that day. Yūma decides that "Even if the odds are against me, I can't run away from this".
• Midfight Weapon Exchange: Shuffle Team Ōji deliberately made all members, sans Tsuji and Operator Hikari Nire, exchange their player characters with each other for Day 4’s simulation game finale of the Expedition Selection Exam to prevent their own teammate, Ikoma from abusing his own player character for his own amusement; forcing Ikoma to handle the player pieces other than his own with care just so they can decrease their odds of losing to other teams.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Discussed during the press conference held by Border after the Large Scale Invasion arc.
  • The press questions Border's competence after learning that Aftokrator ended up killing 6 operators and abducting 32 C-rank agents. PR Director Netsuki argues that their capabilities have improved dramatically compared to four years ago, where over 1,200 people died and 400 went missing in an invasion that was an eighth of the size of the most recent one. A reporter immediately snaps at him for treating their current losses as a statistic and demands to know what he has to say to the victims' families.
  • Border tries to pin all the blame on Osamu, whose attempt to save six of his classmates from Marmods at the beginning of the story led to Aftokrator discovering that C-ranks were easy abduction targets due to their lack of Bail-Out Triggers. When the press demands to know what he has to say to himself, Osamu pisses all of them off by declaring that wanting to prevent future casualties isn't an excuse to abandon those in front of him, he doesn't regret any of his actions, and he'd do it all over again if given the chance.
• Mooks: The robotic Trion Soldiers are the bread and butter of every Neighbor's invading force because they can be stored en masse on their space ships in tiny, portable egg-like devices. The Marmod, which has multiple bladed legs and is around the size of a truck, is the most commonly seen Trion Soldier and is about as skilled in combat as the average B-Ranked agent.
• Morality Pet:
  • Kuga is an easygoing kid, but at the beginning of the story Mikumo has to rein him in from causing trouble with others since Kuga has an eye for an eye mentality developed from spending years roaming the war torn Neighborhood with his father. Kuga befriends him and follows his advice as thanks for showing him the ropes on earth without exposing his identity as a neighbor.
  • Yotaro is one of the few characters the grouchy Hyuse is on good terms with. When Yotaro, a five year old, declares Hyuse his pupil, he goes along with it without putting up an attitude and even bids Yotaro a genuine farewell before he tries to leave with Galopoula agents.
• New Transfer Student: The story begins with Yūma Kuga entering Mikado City P.S.3 Junior High, becoming classmates with Osamu Mikumo in the middle of a semester.
• Noble Fugitive: Border shelters Yotaro and Ruka, royalty from the allied Neighbor country Aristera.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Downplayed. Crushes exist, but otherwise, romance is close to nonexistent. It's telling that the closest thing to an Official Couple is Chika and Yuzuru (a so far one-sided crush), the latter of whom isn't even a main character and wasn't introduced until over a 100 chapters in.
• Numerical Theme Naming: Some groups of characters in the series have number-themed names
  • Osamu and Yūma's classroom friends: Ichinose (1), Futatsugi (2), Miyoshi (3) and Yotsuya (4)
  • The bullies in their classroom: Eida (1), Bitō (2) and Shiihara (3)
  • And the C-Class trio that always get defeated by Yūma: Teruteru Kōda (1), Hidehide Hinoe (2) and Fumifumi Saotome
  • The city where the story takes place is called Mikado (3). The anime introduces Shizuka (4) and Goto (5).
  • There's also Masataka Ninomiya (2) and Shūji Miwa (3), who were both part of Azuma's old unit. The Mi in Osamu's surname Mikumo also means 3.
  • Finally, a lot of male characters in the series have 一 (1) in their given name, such as Yūichi Jin and Kazuaki Ōji.
• Offered the Crown: As Jin gave up his rights to wield Black Trigger Fujin, he gave Commander Kido the list of names who Jin evaluated to be the best candidates to inherit the Trigger; which unfortunately does not include 1st place Attacker, A01 Tachikawa. Because Fujin did not choose him. As of current, Border HQ regulates Black Trigger Fujin as a shared property of central Border, and shall only be used in times of emergency. In times of emergency, one of the listed candidates must take up the weapon to battle. To the surprise of many, Border HQ doesn’t forbid Jin to use the weapon if the situation needs him for it.
  • As Fujin became Border’s shared property, central Border is noted to hold required training sessions for all Fujin candidates to learn on how to wield Fujin with Jin as their instructor.
  • Candidates to inherit Fujin: A03 Kazama (renounced usage), A04 Saeki, A05 Arashiyama and Kitora ^note Both are officially cut from list due to being The Face of Border, but are required to take training lessons., A06 Kako, A07 Miwa (used once), A08 Katagiri and Ichijo, B004 Ikoma, B008 Yuba, and B009 Murakami.
• Old Soldier: Based on Border’s current lineup, any agent with more than 4 years of service experience are considered veterans. Interestingly enough, most agents would determine each other’s Senpai/Kohai statuses by physical age than their Border service experience; most likely out of saving the faces towards those who joined young. Such as Tamakoma-1’s Kirie Konami, who’s practically been part of Border ever since she was around 12.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Yūma Kuga has an artificial body made of Trion which doesn't show any signs of aging, so he looks like a young boy despite being years older. Doesn't mean that he's immortal though...
  • A03 Sōya Kazama is one of the few active agents who are older than 20, but is usually mistaken as as a middle schooler due to his petite stature. The author implies that you can tell who knows his age by whoever refers to him as either -senpai (you're older than me), or -san (you're the same age frame as me).
• Omniscient Hero: Jin's Side Effect allows him to see the future - sometimes years in advance. This makes him an amazingly convenient plot device, as the mangaka himself admits.
• One-Steve Limit: Subverted in that the given names for both Suwa (B012) and Tomoe (B013) are called Kōtarō, although the Kanji writing is different.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Trigger users with high Trion can sacrifice themselves to create powerful one of a kind Triggers called Black Triggers. However, each one can only be used by a select few, potentially influenced by the personality of the creator.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Border stops Aftokrator's invasion, but with dozens of C-Rank agents captured, Osamu severely injured, and a PR mess on their hands.
• Race Against the Clock: A variation in the Large-Scale Invasion, where the enemy isn't aware of the importance of the time. There's a specific moment—which the chapters count down to—where the crossroads of future meet, as foreseen by Jin, and determine whether Osamu lives or dies. Once that second has ticked by, he's officially safe, but until then, anything goes.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Jin's boss Takumi Rindō of Tamakoma Branch is an easygoing guy who is willing to support Jin's plans during board meetings. He even went as far as to help Osamu convince the higher ups to allow him to add one of the instigators of the Large Scale Invasion to his squad by bringing up a pre-rehearsed argument against his case that Osamu was prepared to counter.
  • General-Manager Masafumi Shinoda is a level headed superior who is mostly interested in keeping peace and has had friendly interactions with Neighbors in the past. He opposes Commander Kido when he tries to take Yuuma's Black Trigger by force by sending Arashiyama Squad to back up Jin.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: When Kageura is first introduced, it’s mentioned that him and his squad got demoted because he punched Netsuki in the face. Over a hundred chapters later, we get a flashback showing what happened. Upon receiving the notification of Hatohara’s discharge from Border, Ema tried to get in contact with Hatohara but was unable to. Fellow Kageura Squad member, Hikari comes up with a plan to call out to Hatohara through public broadcast via proposing to Border to become a PR squad just like Arashiyama Squad. With the squad’s majority agreement to the plan, Kageura proceeds in taking the whole squad to approach PR Director Netsuki with their proposal. Although Netsuki puts up a professional front to put their proposal into consideration, Netsuki had no intention of making them the face of Border. Kageura’s Side-Effect sensed the feign, and gets pissed off at Netsuki by giving his squad false hope, and knocks him out with an uppercut.
• Revenge Before Reason: Shūji Miwa hates all Neighbors for causing the death of his sister and would never consider making distinction between good and bad Neighbors like Kuga, up until the point where he's basically ordered to.
• Rewatch Bonus: A lot of characters received either an Early-Bird Cameo, played a minor role, or are at least mentioned by name before they were properly introduced. The second invasion arc in particular is good for this, as due to the scale of the conflict, it abruptly introduces several characters, most of whom you won't get to know until Border’s seasonal B-Rank Battle.
• Secret-Keeper: Due to Neighbors being labeled and spread in media as Villain Antagonists to Earth, Neighbors who are in custody under Border are only known to specific groups of agents.
  • The surname, “Kronin” is a Public Secret Message indicating the individual is of Neighbor origins. Aside from Border HQ who sets up this code, agents who had Neighborhood expedition experiences has been implied to understand this code. Agents who are confirmed to understand this code are Azuma, B001 Ninomiya Squad, and Osamu.
  • Border members who knew of Yūma Kuga’s identity as a Neighbor: Border HQ, Tamakoma Branch, A01 Tachikawa Squad, A02 Fuyushima Squad, A03 Kazama Squad, A05 Arashiyama Squad, A07 Miwa Squad, and B018 Chano Squad.
  • Border members who knew of Hyuse’s identity as a Neighbor: Border HQ, Tamakoma Branch, A-Ranks (sans A08 Katagiri Squad), B001 Ninomiya Squad, B006 Haruaki Azuma (individual), C-Rank Izuho Natsume, and anyone who understands the “Kronin” surname code.
  • Those who knew Michael Kronin is a Neighbor: Border HQ, Tamakoma Branch, and anyone who understands the “Kronin” surname code.
  • Those who knew Ruka Shinoda, and Yōtarō Rindō are Neighbors: Highest Border HQ officials and Tamakoma Branch members only.
• Ship Tease: They are few and far in between in the manga, but the anime adds some more, such as Kitora having a possible crush on Osamu (which in the manga is more of a fan headcanon) and Arashiyama and Tokieda teasing her about it, Nasu and Kumagai acting like a married couple with children in an anime-original flashback, Karasuma being hinted at having a crush on Konami, and even a scene where Kitora is hinted at having a crush on Konami along with Osamu and Karasuma (and in the same scene, Konami is also shown to believe Kitora has a crush on Osamu). The scene is also the only interaction between Kitora and Konami to date. Yes, including the manga. It also implies that Konami and Kitora were in the same school at a point (probably while Konami was in Middle School).
• Shout-Out:
  • Ouji's icon for Chika was based off of the face of My Hero Academia's Tsuyu Asui.
  • Elements of Super Dog Rilienthal, the author's first serialization, are referenced a few times throughout the series.
    • The titular mascot Rilienthal appears on the cover of the magazine in the first chapter and as the plush doll in Osamu's hospital room, and he along with Gomuzou and Super Alien Cat are the characters featured on Yoneya's three badges.
    • Near the start of the series Osamu mentions that he went to grade school in Hasunobe, which happens to be the same town where Super Dog Rilienthal took place in.
  • Satoshi Mizukami (水上敏志) shares the same name with Satoshi Mizukami (水上悟志), the author of The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer. Both were born in Osaka, and his tactic of deceiving his enemies by yelling "ASTEROID" before firing Hound bullets is a nod to a scene at the end of Biscuit Hammer where Mikazuki calls out an elaborately named punch before kicking Yuuhi in the face.
  • Gundam reference is blatantly used by Katori in Chapter 238 to visualize the simulation-use Trion Soldier production cost for each agent. The higher a Border agent’s Trion capacities are, the stronger of a Trion Soldier that agent can design for their Expedition Exam simulation usage. Katori deduced Shuffle Team Ninomiya are allowed to design “Protagonist-level Ace Customs” due to having members with the highest Trion levels on record, whereas all other shuffle teams can only build mass-produced Zakus.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Most of the top combatants fight this way. While a few use customized/more trick-type Triggers, a look at people's Triggers suggests that for most, simple is best (e.g. Toma, the No. 1 ranked sniper, uses the Jack of All Stats Egret and only Egret). In the end, they're just very good at the fundamentals.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: When you work in an army full of teenagers with colorful personalities, there is a big chance one will have a few certain types of colleagues they can’t handle.
  • Prior to the Expedition Exam, Border gives out a relations survey for agents to fill, which includes naming the agents who they “do not want to bring (work with) on the Expedition Force.” To give Border agents a boost of growth, with this survey on hand, Border proceeds in matching most agents to team up with their dreaded arch-nemesis for the duration of the Expedition Exam.
    • Team 01 has Urushima (B014), an agent with an overall unpopular personality to which most Border agents recognize as a Jerkass.
    • Team 03 has Kageura (B003) not liking Inukai (B001) due to Inukai’s insincere personality being the root of annoyance for Kageura’s Spider-Sense Side-Effect.
    • Team 07 has Osamu and Katori (B011) mutually not liking each other. Katori belittles Osamu for his Designated Red Shirt status, while Osamu is uncomfortable with Katori for her arrogance, her unpredictable performance, and endless dramatic complaints.
    • Team 08 has Ema (B003) not liking his Captain Ninomiya for personal reasons; mainly over the disappearance of Sniper, Mirai Hatohara.
  • Jin is Hyuse's nemesis because he was the agent who defeated and detained him during Aftokrator’s invasion. Hyuse is upset when he realizes Jin is not an option to blacklist in their relations survey, and he also does not want to interact nor ask Jin for any Border related Senpai/Kohai guidance.
• Slave to PR: Border as a whole is so concerned about upholding its flawless dedication to keeping Mikado City danger free that it has its own PR department. The events of the story, which snowball from a few isolated Neighbor attacks in civilian areas to a full blown Large Scale Invasion ending in casualties and abductions, play a part in why Netsuki—who's in charge of PR—is a Nervous Wreck.
• Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality:
  • Setting-wise, from an out-of-universe perspect, it is right around the "Men are More Equal" level. Female combat agents are uncommon, and female engineers are extremely rare, as are male examples of Mission Control.
  • In terms of individual character writing, it falls closer to Almost Perfect Equality, especially considering the genre. The few female agents who do exist are given the same narrative treatment as their male contemporaries, from combat skill to character arcs to general spotlight and moments to shine, without ever being relegated to the role of Fanservice or Love Interest.
• Stock Superpowers: By law of nature, “Trion” capacity is different for each person. If a person’s Trion capacity is high and powerful enough, that person would have a higher chance to naturally manifest some sort of superpower; usually sensory related. To which the World Trigger universe commonly terms them as “Side-Effects.” Official Black Trigger inheritors would also gain Side-Effects either through natural manifestation, or inherited from their Black Trigger’s creator.
  • People with Side-Effects are relatively rare. Of the entire Border roster, only 7 people have been revealed to have Side-Effects.
  • Jin's Side Effect in particular allows him to see a short-hand future, which allows him to call on the plots.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: World Trigger is essentially Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The Shōnen Manga.
  • Determination cannot make up the lack of strength, skill, or luck in a fight; just ask Tachikawa.
  • Talking to enemies in battles is just asking to get killed, unless your aim is to waste the enemies' time or stall for an ally to get in a sneak attack.
  • Most fights are done in Trion bodies because injuries to the real bodies in the battlefield are fatal: when Osamu takes three bullet-sized stabs on his abdomen, arm, and leg, he almost dies due to blood loss; in other shows, this level of injury would be minor.
  • When Osamu is banking on the result of his intensive training to win his team match (he is the weakest link in the team), his team gets defeated horribly instead: Osamu has to learn the hard way that hard work takes years to bear fruit and rival characters also train hard so catching up is almost impossible for someone with no talent; Osamu is told to spend more of his time to develop strategies and learn support skills instead.
  • Military and defense organizations in the series takes a no nonsense approach in general.
    • Being a Blood Knight in a professional army is fine as long as you follow orders; Enedora was executed for leaving his designation position to seek unnecessary fights.
    • A combatant who cannot kill cannot participate in missions in the enemy's home field: Ninomiya Squad’s Hatohara got her team pulled off the expedition mission despite her team winning the ticket fair and square. However, they can still be used for defense missions, because in the home field, every combatant can be deployed. This is the public reason to cover up the true punishment in demoting Ninomiya Squad out of A-Rank for having Hatohara leaving for the Neighborhood illegally.
    • Torture is useless for information gathering because the victim can just make up lies; even with a Living Lie Detector, it's useless if the victim is stubborn enough to stay mute.
    • An S-ranked agent with a Black Trigger that's capable of decimating everything to dust is not deployable in most defensive situations due to the potential collateral damage. Negative public relations impact from the said collateral damage can cut into the army's funding.
• Sword Fight: During the Black Trigger Retrieval Arc, Jin gets into a 1 vs. 4 sword fight with Kei Tachikawa, Sōya Kazama, Shirō Kikuchihara, and Ryō Utagawa. When his opponents attempt to bypass him and make a beeline for Tamakoma HQ, Jin activates the long range slashes on his sword Fujin, forcing them to remain in combat.
• Torture Is Ineffective: Yuma notes that torturing a single prisoner wouldn't accomplish much, since the prisoner could simply spit out a lie. You'd have to torture multiple people and corroborate their stories. However, he also adds that if Border wants to torture Hyuse as revenge for the casualties suffered in the invasion, that'd be entirely fair.
• Tournament Arc: Tamakoma-2's debut B-Rank Battle is essentially a very, very long tournament arc comprised of eight separate matches that span roughly 100 chapters, with a small Neighbor invasion serving as an intermission arc between Rounds 4 and 5.
• Transformation Sequence: Overall downplayed. The original manga gives Osamu and Yūma one each when they first use their Trigger devices in story, and once for Konami; due to having a different look for her avatar. In the first season of the anime, Kitora was given the sequence which was used only a few times, while Osamu and Yūma’s sequence was overused for the anime's first season. When the anime project was moved to a more seasoned department of Toei, the transformation sequences were pretty much taken out completely in respect of the manga original.
• Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: Black Triggers are not Border-made, thus the Bail-Out system is not available to Black Trigger users. So if a Black Trigger user’s Trion Body is destroyed, they will be stuck on the battlefield in their real body, unless an ally can extract them some other way.
• Trojan Horse: The Bug Neighbors known as Rads were hiding inside the Bamster deployed in Chapter 1. After the Bamster is destroyed by Yuuma, the Rads crawl out undetected and scatter across the city, allowing them to interfere with the Border Induction Device.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Subverted. One of the series' high points is that it's a genuine mystery to as who'll win any types of Border Rank Battles, because the protagonists don't have Plot Armor going for them. In one of the series' more iconic scenes, Tachikawa flat-out states that it takes skill, tactics, and luck that win fights, not passion nor determination.
• Villain Respect: Considering that Border is something of an underdog in the grand scheme of things, the invading Neighbors often express respect at how well Border fights after suffering defeat.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: With the exception of Neighborhood expedition missions, Border chiefly operates as a defense agency from invading Neighbors.
• Wham Episode: Downplayed with the Tamakoma-2 vs. Ninomiya vs. Azuma vs. Kageura match. After a string of victories, and Osamu getting stronger through recent training, it expectedly ends with Azuma abruptly sniping Osamu. Overall, Tamakoma-2 loses miserably, demonstrating that the B-Rank top tier slots are not to be taken lightheartedly, and reminding the reader what kind of series this is again.
• Worldbuilding: Each chapter reveals about this world.
  • The types and capabilities of Neighbors.
  • Border's inner workings, machination, hierarchy, and history.
  • The mechanisms between Trion and Triggers.
  • The nature of the world on the other side.
• Zerg Rush: Used on both sides.
  • As they can't afford to send their entire forces on what amounts to one of many expeditions, the enemy Neighbors usually send masses of Trion Soldiers instead. If they send out (a few) human Neighbors, it's about to be an Oh, Crap! moment for Border.
  • Then, there's the heroic version on Border's end. When it comes to human/sentient parties, they lose out in individual strength, but they always have superiority in numbers—which is a large part of why they can ultimately stand their ground. No matter how many of them have to bail out, there's always someone to pick up the slack.

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