English Dub Review: No Guns Life “Trigger”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Tetsuro defends Anne and Ende from Cunningham’s wrath, but accidently outs both himself and the fact that he’s taken over Juzo’s body. This gives Anne and Ende a chance to redeem their previous failures, but Cunningham also shoots Ende with a drug to make her Extended sub-brain take over, which leads to her mortally wounding Anne and knocking Tetsuro out of Juzo. His own sub-brain is still too worn out to go back using Harmony, so he attempts to possess one of Ende’s arms to make her stop…but still nothing. Luckily, Juzo finally wakes up, being aware of everything that happened and not at full strength, but he works with Tetsuro to incapacitate Ende, including allowing him to use Juzo’s trigger, something he only lets be done by people he’s accepted. They recover Ende, as well as agree that Tetsuro won’t use Harmony anymore, but now the both of them are on Berühren’s shit list.

OUR TAKE
So wraps Tetsuro’s big day out, as his joy ride ends about as poorly as it possibly could have. Well…actually it could have gone far worse, since we ended up getting a new cast member out of it. I knew that there was another blond girl coming and noticed Ende looked like her, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions that it was the same one since that would basically seal Anne’s fate AND…here we are. And now we have another Extended formerly working for Berühren that’s been turned against them and joining Juzo’s growing makeshift family. Whether or not she’ll keep her crazy awesome robot form is yet to be determined, but I have a hunch she’s not done fighting yet, especially if she wants to avenge Anne.

As for Tetsuro, he and Juzo finally come to blows about the differences in their abilities. Juzo’s ideology is “wipe your own ass”, but Tetsuro’s main ability of Harmony inherently relies on others for help, even being able to wrestle away control at force. This is similar to how Berühren operates, as Juzo points out, which will probably be a comparison Tetsuro will take to heart as he both learns to walk on his own two (new) feet and figures out how to utilize his powers. I know it was agreed that he wouldn’t use Harmony anymore at the end of this episode, but I’m taking that with a grain of salt. Partly because that kind of power would definitely come in handy, but also from the thematic standpoint of it being Tetsuro’s own way of wiping his proverbial ass, as well as asking for help being a valid way of taking charge. There’s a lot to explore here for both these characters regarding their respective abilities and the themes presented.

And don’t think I’m forgetting Juzo finally allowing someone to touch his trigger, which I have no doubt will become more important and crucial as the story goes on. It’s an ability of his that ALSO inherently requires help, which he is understandably reluctant to ask for, but it’s also a way he and Tetsuro have bonded now, so I think they’ll be relying on each other more and more. And now we have Ende to throw in with the list of people in this show who will have to both rely on others AND stand on their own, but with only a sixth of the season down, there’s likely many more members to add to this growing band of misfits.