Few other animation studios have made as strong a name for themselves as quickly as Studio TRIGGER. Far from the most prolific studio in the business, with just seven TV series, three movies, three webseries and a smattering of outsourcing credits, TRIGGER's relatively low quantity of output has managed a high batting average for quality, creativity and controversy. Love it or hate it, otaku couldn't stop talking about TRIGGER this decade.
Studio TRIGGER's success in the 2010s can easily be seen as an extension of Gainax's success is prior decades. Gainax's "by otaku, for otaku" brand has fallen on hard times this decade. Its biggest hits were bought out (Evangelion went to Hideaki Anno's new studio Khara, FLCL to Production I.G.) and its greatest talent left. The last Gainax anime to really make an impact, 2010's Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, was also the last Gainax show directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Ōtsuka, the two men who left the studio to found TRIGGER in 2011.
Imaishi's first anime at his new studio was the 2012 webseries Inferno Cop, an extremely low-budget, barely animated affair that attracted a small cult following for its Adult Swim-esque absurdity. Yoh Yoshinari's 2013 Little Witch Academia short film took the exact opposite approach, with lavish, cute animation and a family-friendly "Harry Potter but all girls" narrative. LWA was the stand-out film of the Anime Mirai 2013 program, and received both a crowdfunded sequel in 2015 and a full Netflix-licensed TV series in 2017.
In the Fall of 2013, TRIGGER premiered its first TV series, one that would almost single-handedly define the studio's reputation for better or worse. Kill la Kill was pure unfiltered Imaishi, combining the over-the-top action and melodrama of Gurren Lagann with the extreme sexual humor of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. An increasingly convoluted story in which fashion is fascism and nudity is freedom, Kill la Kill somehow managed to be grossly misogynist and inspiringly feminist often at the same time. It's a mess, but an incredibly entertaining one.
With Kill la Kill and Little Witch Academia looming large as TRIGGER's big initial hits, the studio's output since has been eclectic. Most of it has been original creations, though it's also done adaptations such as When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace, Ninja Slayer and SSSS.Gridman.
The studio's original titles were loosely connected into a "cinematic universe" of sorts in the 2016 series Space Patrol Luluco, a bit of short, cartoony silliness created at the same time it was doing the much more serious-minded Kiznaiver. In 2018, it collaborated with CloverWorks on the mecha series Darling in the Franxx, a popular hit but one that grew increasingly divisive over its political subtext.
TRIGGER's maintained an especially high profile in Western fandom, in part because its head creatives could be considered whatever the opposite of a weeaboo is. They take inspiration from other anime, but they also borrow heavily from Western pop culture, from Gravity Falls to The Fast and the Furious. Imaishi directed the opening themes for Black Dynamite and OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes as well as the Battlesaurs short for Toy Story That Time Forgot.
Takafumi Hori animated the "Mindful Education" episode of Steven Universe and some scenes in the Steven Universe movie. The studio recently did cut scenes for the American video games Indivisible and Shantae and the Seven Sirens. Several Inferno Cop shorts have only been seen at American anime conventions, and the studio has a Patreon to stream drawing sessions with international fans.
Finishing off a decade of anime on a high note is the studio's first theatrically released feature film, Promare. The hot-blooded and homoerotic firefighter action movie has been a wild success with anime fans around the world and boasts TRIGGER's highest quality animation to date. In America, it did so well in limited release that Fathom Events is bringing it back to theaters on December 8 and 10, with special 4DX showings on December 11. Imaishi's film is now nominated for the Annie Award for Best Indie Feature.
TRIGGER's first project of the next decade is a new original furry-centric series from Yoshinari, called BNA: Brand New Animal. Expect to see it sometime on Netflix, given the streamer's deal with Fuji TV's +Ultra anime block. Hopefully the 2020s are at least as exciting for TRIGGER as the 2010s were.