[Arabesque]

I've been sort of busy, and so despite the fact I had already read the end of the Invasion Arc early this week, I didn't have time to write my final impressions till today. What I had expected was that there wouldn't have been much activity in the thread, but it sees like James Rye decided to prove me wrong by posting his very through impressions on the chapters

I wish I could respond in full to a lot of what you had written James , since a lot of it was worth commenting on, but I feel I would be repeating a lot of what I want to say in general about the arc. Needless to say, good posts man!

Some things I wanted to touch on however

Originally Posted by James Rye

Now I'd like to talk about the fanservice of World Trigger:

There is none.

There is more to what you wrote here, and I am sorry I had to cut it down to just these two sentences, but having read what you wrote I agree with you that there s little in what would pass as regular fan service/female objectification that you would find in the more popular WSJ titles. There have been minor cases where he skirted the line. Konami in particular is drawn in her Trion body as ''wilder'' than any of the other female characters, and Volume 7's cover did make me raise an eyebrow over her really ... ''interesting'' pose , but even then I never found it to be demeaning of her but rather portrayed her female fury personality well. In general, I would say that World Trigger so far had shown a very balanced portrayal of both its male and female cast.

I could make theories as to why Ashiahra decided to not go down that path (his art not being well suited for such things, feeling the story not really needing that sort of thing etc.) but I think it might just all come down to what sort of series Ashiahra had envisioned (a sports series) and ultimately became the blue prints to the current series (a sci-fi series). When you think about it in that way, every member of the cast needs to appear at the very least competent, otherwise it would compromise the entire premise and reduce the level of the threat/anticipation future events might hold. That would mean that there isn't much leeway in terms of letting any of the cast members being ''cheapened'', especially the female cast. Everybody needs to appear at the top of their game. Even the haughty Kitora when she had that minor crisis of fate just told herself to step up her game and show why she was an A-Rank agent in the first place.

I will say that even as someone who likes fanservice a good portion of the time, I really like and hope World Trigger continues to be this neutral in its portrayal. I like it.

Originally Posted by James Rye

Chapter 56

I was surprised to see Usami working for Team Kazama in the past as operator = working for HQ branch. Or maybe this was before Usami left for Tamakoma or Kazama said he wants to work for HQ and Usami didn't wanted to. That does seem to tell that teams can fall apart or new ones can easily be build up in the rank wars. Ashihara himself said that the team number varies in the rank wars as new might form while others might stop being a team.

I like that, it might mean that someday Team Osamu might have a member leaving them or that new ones will join them and such. A good system to keep the "blood" fresh in the teams, till they had found the perfect team for themselves.

I doubt we will get a change soon to the core group, but maybe if the series lasts more than 2 years lol?

As for Usami, yeah, it was very strange how she appeared there. I did wonder whether there was a bigger reason for her leaving Kazama's old Squad tho. Well see if there is any bad blood between the two parties but from the looks of it things seem normal thus far.

She was cuter with shorter hair tho >.>

Originally Posted by James Rye

Chapter 57

Nice color page, red and black fits good to give the humanoid neighbors a dangerous/evil feeling.

I like how Enedra tries to rile Kikuchihara and Utagawa up to get them to attack him. And most likely would have succeeded to do so if it were not for Kazama ordering them to get out and talked some sense into them. I liked how Kazama used the example of a B-agent who Kikuchihara had uhm been quite frank with "you're weak after all" to tell those two that a B-agent was a "better agent", in the sense of following reason, logic and orders, than them who were hungry for revenge for their captain.
But they pulled out after all, showing Enedra that he does not deal with hot-blooded warriors but calculating fighters.

Once again, I mentioned this way back, but I still love how not a single party in this war looks like they are being worfed in favor of making the other look better. Enedora is a beast, but Kazama took his loss with grace and made the right (?) call by telling his team to fall back. I still love his very blunt and direct style, and his line to his team mates was just great. ''Small but Effective'' indeed!

I'll wait for a day to post my impressions on the overall arc, just to see how caught people are by then. Needless to say, really loved the arc, but it was really risky going with it this early.