Best way to implement splash colliders?

Hi,

I am pretty new to Unity and was wondering what would the best way be in implementing hit registration like this?
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From googling, I am getting OnParticleCollision result. Just wanna ask the more experienced users here if it is indeed the best way to achieve the above effect or is there a better way?

My first thought would be to enable/disable one simple box collider set as a trigger. (Or a compound collider if you want a better shape)

OnTriggerEnter() while its in the hit space, react accordingly (and you can then check distance if you want to adjust force given.

Im not to familiar with particles collision other than for effects, i imagine one box collider is the more performant of the two options

Yea thats one of the option I considered, but I dont wanna just enable a box collider. I would want it start infront of the character and grow in size but i am not sure if thats possible?