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chibivesicle · 1 year

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Trigun Stampede Episode 12 - July does go boom

That’s right we reached the end of this paradoxically paced anime known as Trigun Stampede. The episode tied up pretty much how I expected it to. We knew that Vash would have to emerge from stasis to fight Knives and blow up the third city, July. I fully admit that this will be the last episode from Stampede that I’ll watch. Even if more episodes were green lit for past the two year time skip from the original Fifth Moon incident which was now changed to the July incident.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-03-25/trigun-stampede-anime-teases-final-phase-coming-soon/.196428

This is where my Stampede episode review metas will stop and I’ll get back to a few asks. I’ll likely slide back to some Trigun Maximum meta and focus on Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront more. ‘Cause, man, Kekkai Sensen has some great points to look at.

The episode has a cold open and more of a flashback/Vash’s current mental state while frozen.

Edit update: The following passage is incorrect! I had assumed based on body language and dialogue that it was Vash who was the cowboy dreamer. It was actually Nai! However, this annoys me more since it seems sort of OOC for Knives to be so into this idea when all of our previous flashbacks have him being subdued and dour while Vash is energetic and chatty. I even watched this scene three times and didn’t even notice >_< which means I really was going for the vibes here. It also makes me annoyed that for how heavy handed they were with storytelling, I admittedly never quite noticed the difference between the two of them. This flashback further confuses me since the entire crux of the episode is the fight between Vash and Knives and it is Vash who finally shows us his gunslinger skills in action. And that the manga really highlights the fact that Vash never goes beyond seeing himself as a simple gunslinger as opposed to Knives leveled up plant abilities. However, my statement of the talking about the Wild West remains correct as Studio Orange is telling you they are going to a ‘Wild West’.

We see him excited about a American mythological Wild West where he’s a cowboy protecting his friends finger guns and all while Nai states he doesn’t like this concept.

This is yet another case of Studio Orange not using look and don’t tell but instead tell and look at what I’m telling you. I’ve begun to wonder if part of the issues that I felt arose with this adaptation of Trigun Stampede is how Yasuhiro Nightow is an artist who really leans heavily into the show don’t tell type of storytelling. He gives you a lot of visuals and it is up to you, the viewer/reader to figure out what it means. That’s why I’m wondering if this is a sort of artistic vision/storytelling disconnect in addition to what is a rather phoned in version of Trigun. The fact that this episode is called ‘High Noon at July’ and gets labeled as episode 0 captures all of what I’ve said. They take an American Western Media Myth, High Noon, and combine it with a prequel concept for Vash’s $$60 billion bounty for destroying July. I’m sure picking a Gary Cooper movie from 1952 required a quick Google for that reference from the post-WWII Hollywood media industrial complex.

Rem tells the twins that she loves them and the usual from her still underdeveloped character this many episodes in.

The action returns to Meryl watching as - oh god, it turned out to be true, that Knives was gonna go touch that plant core and impregnate all the plants with souls so that they could give birth to independents.

Meryl tries to shoot the bullet proof glass to wake Vash up while Conrad tells her it isn’t possible. Of course, we know that Vash is going to have to wake up from his frozen state and prevent this terrible plan of Knives.

He goes on and he penetrates that core with his long knife tendrils. Yep, I went with the terrible pun there.

As the giant tree continues to grow, Wolfwood watches from a great distance and Zazie flees but has enough time to chat with them. Zazie has concluded that the twins will have the entire planet and humans are done for, but is concerned enough that all of the worms are fleeing as well whatever may happen. Wolfwood is out of smokes, so he groans implying he needs to walk back to July to help out or do something. Meryl realizes that the only one who can stop Millions Knives is Vash himself.

The action returns to his mind where he’s humming a song that Nai asks him where he heard it. This must be in reference to Rem’s favorite song from the manga and what in the ‘98 anime is the song Sound Life. The song is what allows Vash to regain control of his mind and memories as a single flower appears in his palm and he runs away from Nai realizing he used Rem’s words to manipulate him. As he flees from Knives, Vash ages while he chases a wind like flower petal manifestation of Rem. Rem’s voice apologizes for leaving Vash as he chases after her.

Rem thanks him for remembering her and then also says the following:

“Thank you for protecting my dreams and my hopes . . . Vash.” that’s great Rem, but Studio Orange never actually had a flashback where you told us your dreams and hopes. We know you wanted Vash and Nai to blend in and not be noticed at independent plants but never once did we get enough of Rem’s moral code and backstory to know that Vash was protecting it. I’m disappointed that never once did we get Rem’s quote that “Everyone’s future is a blank [train] ticket.” Implying that no one knows what destination they will end up at and what may happen.

Vash snaps out of his trance, thus reversing the energy flow back into his black hole ability. The higher plant dimension spits Knives back out into reality as the flower petal turns red on Vash’s heart and that of the giant plant like being also showing a red glowing heart. With the perfect timing of things, Knives almost kills Meryl but Vash is able to save her. He is trying to condense all that plant inter-dimensional power down into a little cube and holds it in his left hand while aiming his gun at Knives. Now, he has his recognizable spiky hair, worthy of Wolfwood’s nickname for him, Tongari.

And for the first time in these twelve episodes, I recognize Vash the Stampede. No, I don’t mean his spiky hair. I mean his body language, facial expression and tone of voice. This is the side of Vash we never saw until now and it feels like it was far too late. At 8:30 seconds or so, the fight between Vash and Knives has begun in earnest. We see Vash shooting at Knives and performing his rapid fire gunslinger skills.

Of course, Conrad is there to point out that the cube that Vash made is just a giant inter dimensional energy bomb which is a problem.

The fight between the brothers moves outside and Meryl and Conrad chase after them, but Meryl almost slips off the roof only to be saved by Wolfwood, who still feels like he owes Roberto for those smokes.

Here, Wolfwood is filling in for Milly, pointing out the obvious that they are no match for Vash and Knives and they need to get the fuck out of town. We get a rather dynamic scene of Wolfwood frantically leaping out of the way which is well animated. There is no comedy in this entire sequence save for when Wolfwood steps on the face of the nameless terrible July MP.

As the fight between Knives and Vash escalates, Vash is able to grow out a left wing, while Knives has no problem flying with his single right wing and his knives on the other half of his body. Not entirely sure how either of them are able to fly with a single wing - in Trigun Maximum they can manifest a full set of wings for flight and the whole dramatic point at the end of the manga is how both brother’s lose a wing and have to work together to safely land after their final battle.

Vash continues to push himself and eventually manifests his angel arm on the right.

Sadly, it seems that Vash’s angel wing aspect completely lacks the creepy factor of the original for a more dark floral organic look than terrifyingly biblical. Meryl thankfully is able to return to her quick wit and tell us that Vash is going to release the energy into space and the brothers continue to fight over the little energy cube.

Conrad then activates a sort of ship from the top of the tower to escape from the city. Dang, I was wrong about him dying in this episode. I guess we have to keep the scientist alive so that he can collect the badly wounded Knives and pop in him a light bulb to recharge.

As they fly up into the atmosphere, Knives continues to argue for his ideal world of independent plants and not being slaves to humanity. He’s disappointed that all Vash can reply is that he’ll keep running until he doesn’t have to anymore.

And again, we get a visual which seems more like Vash, his dopey comedic approach to things. Finally, Vash cries as he explains that he’s Vash the Stampede and that he only has a disappointing answer for Knives after over 100 years.

Vash yells at Knives to let go, who wants to somehow use the energy to re-enter the plant dimension. We got a long and annoying monologue as Knives slowly burns all the skin from his body down to a skeleton that is still able to talk.

Knives appears to be destroyed as Vash crashes right back into the city where it explodes with his impact. It is amazing that Vash was able to survive that free fall into the ground, when his past angel arm situations were all with him standing in the middle of the blast zone.

However, this achieves the original starting point, his 60 billion double dollar bounty for destroying July and 90% of the population. Since Conrad escaped, we have room for the return of more of the Gung ho Guns. Meryl stops by a small monument with a photo of Vash, Wolfwood, Roberto and herself as well as a pack of cigarettes likely left there by Wolfwood before her.

As she drives off, her boss calls into let her know to come pick up a newbie who wants to work with her, Milly Thompson and is threatened to be given a new job with the Insurance Society if she doesn’t cooperate.

Vash as Eriks plays a piano while a young lady tells him it is okay if he doesn’t remember anything and that he’s safe with her in a more traditional Western Style Saloon that is empty save for the two of them.

As the special ED song plays we get a view from one of the moons and dialogue from the space ships from earth preparing to warp to their location. Does this mean Luida and Brad where able to ask for help? We hear the voice of Chronica the most independent of the independents able to resist the Knives in Trigun Maximum.

However, for me with this ending my time with Trigun Stampede has come to an end and I won’t be watching whatever comes after this. At the end of the day, this demo for Studio Orange’s technical skill did not win me over with a series that is near and dear to my heart.

I got less than one entire episode of an actual Vash the Stampede in all twelve episodes. Just because Studio Orange went with a more serious tone, it tried to take itself too seriously and fell flat on its face. Vash’s zany antics were how he hid all of his pain and trauma as well as sometimes him just being himself.

The idea for his hair to shift due to the shock was not unexpected, tons of people were predicting this change in him. But, just like the removal of the white lily for Tessla from Rem, we lost the fact that Rem styled Vash’s hair like her dead significant other and therefore, Vash continued to style his hair like that with Rem in mind.

Meryl looks tougher at the end, but will we see that follow through since she was super uwu waifu in this. I’m also afraid of what they’d do with Milly as she is a very unique character for current anime aesthetics.

And this time, I was able to catch the graphic on the cup/ashtray! I had noticed it at the beginning but forgot to go back and check it. Hello there Sonic the Speed Monkey and member of Libra! Right next to the single Derringer.

I’m now more offended since we get our Sonic reference twice in Stampede and zero Kuroneko-sama?!?! Come on, where is god in all her elegant feline glory?

Overall opinion on Trigun Stampede

All in all, I’d rate this anime as average at best. If I had to give it a score 5/10. If you had absolutely know idea of the original, you’d likely rate it higher.

Was it well animated? Yes. Unbelievably so. The fight sequences were fluid and dynamic. Depending on the character, the facial expressions were great.

Was it well voice acted? Decent. I didn’t get that sense of chemistry from other series I enjoy, but it was fine. I’ve heard train wrecks of shows before and this was not anything bad. It was professional and got the point across.

Music? Overall, the OP and ED were fine. However, the OST fell way short for a number of reasons in my opinion. 1.) It would be compared to the original OSTs which are some of the top from the 90s - period. 2.) It aligned with the vision for the show more closely and drew on the Western inspiration as opposed to the sci-fi. It is hard to top parts of the OST. Can I remember any part of this OST or associate it with a certain character? No. I should be able to tie tracks to characters or situations by the end of a twelve episode series and I can’t. Or that is how I feel about an excellent OST.

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Canon compliant? Eh, sort of. I’ve already stated numerous times that I enjoyed the original anime more than the manga which had to do with the overall storytelling structure and cohesiveness. I found reading the manga to be helpful in understanding more, but the anime was easier to follow and hit similar themes. The way that Stampede approached its female characters, absolutely rubbed me the wrong way. The original anime passed the Bechtel test with flying colors (in ‘98). The role of Meryl and Milly was much less in the manga, there were plenty of other great female characters who were just missing in Stampede. Zazie’s non-binary-ness being absent along with the possible trans erasure of Elendira are high in my list of concerns for character changes.

Story boarding, plot, dialogue, pacing? Absolutely terrible. This was really the nail in the coffin for me. Lazy writing, reliance on tropes that were less established in anime and manga from the 90s, weird establishing shots from time to time, strange framing and the terrible pacing.

It takes effort for an action packed anime to drag so heavily as this one did. For me and my partner in snark/muse, Merdopseudo, it drove us nuts how bad the pacing was. I am not the type of person to have issues when a show will do rapid cuts between scenes or toss the viewer into something without context. If it is done well.

Studio Orange did not do that well. It had so many plot points that were perfect for no reason e.g. character shows up at exactly the right time. Or they did not understand the visual intent of a lot of elements from the manga. The meaning of flowers, or dialogue frequently from Wolfwood, the heavy Christian themes that underlie a lot of debates and tension between Vash and the world. How the heavy themes of the original were balanced out by humor that was either absurd or deadpan/snark.

The entire concept of establishing a character, getting to know them, realizing that there is something to reveal and then timing that reveal. This is a concept that Studio Orange completely failed at. No payoff was earned or timed properly.

The heavy use of info dumping and telling us what we need to know from a particular scene. Sometimes, you gotta clue your viewer into what is happening. This alone is not a problem. How Studio Orange did this, well it was frankly an insult to the intelligence of the viewer. Perhaps, if someone had no idea what was going on and didn’t know the other to versions, it might make sense. But you have a lot of viewers who certainly saw the anime and a smaller group who read the manga as well.

And this ties back to the original source material. The ‘98 anime kept the visual storytelling style the same from the early manga to the show. The manga continued that style, though, with some editorial issues that made Trigun Maximum hard to read at times. What is the way that Yasuhiro Nightow arranges his works? In a way that you need to figure out what is happening. He tosses you right in with minimal information and it is up to you to figure out what is happening.

This is likely why when you go to watch Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront or read the manga it is up to you to figure out what the fuck is happening. Honestly, after watching B3 and reading as much as the manga as possible other than gaps in the early volumes under copyright with Darkhorse, he’s gotten much better at showing us something and you fill in those gaps.

This scene here from chapter 19 is laid out perfectly. The first page has Steven lean in and say “Annie . . .” and she replies with a concerned “Wait!” The next panel shows his hand intertwined with hers and the USB drive. He swings their arms out to the side before leaning in closer. Before he turns away with his coat and the USB drive firmly in his possession with a casual thanks. How she looks at him in surprise at how quickly he’s leaving and heading back to the office. The casual reply of “I’ll be in touch” as he puts on his coat while walking!

The following page shows Annie visibly flustered, pans out to a street and Steven walking alone. He notices Klaus’ car and he says hi before showing him that he got the goods = the USB drive. This serves the purpose to continue to validate his nickname of being ‘blackhearted’ from K. K. and demonstrate his absolute dedication to supporting Klaus and the cause of Libra. He’s willing to play dirty to get the information that they need.

Does everyone want to read/watch a series that is like this? No, we are getting into a matter of personal taste. Do I generally like series with this sort of style? Yes, yes I most certainly do. Thus, when Stampede went for a very heavy handed, we’ll tell you what you need to get out of this visual style, it rubbed me the wrong way at the beginning and I couldn’t put my finger on it at first.

Yasuhiro Nightow’s works have very strong moral questions that underpin them and he leaves it up to you to figure out who is right, who is wrong and what it means to be human - or not human. He’s also not afraid to shove those characters into situations where they struggle with those decisions and have guilt, lots of guilt. However, these sorts of stories are not conducive to black and white stories. And black and white is what Stampede ended up doing. Nuance was not key to their work and it showed.

This is my rather long winded way to say that the above structural decisions that Studio Orange made are why, despite the high quality product visually, I am not impressed with this anime. It went off in a direction different that the source material and then didn’t put in their effort or homework when they needed to. This is what led to the shift in Trigun Stampede and why many fans are disappointed.

With that, I’ll leave things here and sigh in relief my meta time for Stampede is over. I’ll be back with some answered asks and more metas on B3 for sure and Trigun Maximum as it catches my eye.