#a month ago when i watched trigun

[dinemunyu]

so.

Spoilers for trimax (again)-- if you want to relive the pain, please please read this fic by @ohtyr. This doesn't do justice to the fic; i promise it hurts a lot more it's almost cathartic like,, im so normal about the angst

[tifaria]

I completely forgot about this piece from a few months ago! After Trigun Stampede wrapped up, I got caught up in nostalgia and went to re-watch the original. It’s so obvious now that they were hinting at a Vash/Meryl thing, but I didn’t notice it when I was 15 and watching it. Anyway, I spent about a week down the rabbit hole searching for old fics I had enjoyed back in the day, and drew this as a result.

[miamochi-writes]

Daycare Snacks Vash AU

Hi everyone! Had an inkling of an idea while watching the Trigun reboot. I might turn this into a series. Let me know what you think :) 

“t’s not fair! She started it y/n!”

“Well Zac never lets me play with him or his group. So it’s not fair to me y/n!”

It was another day working at the daycare solving another squabble with the kids you come to know and love. You’ve been working the past 6 months since you graduated college. You always loved kids, and wanted to give them the love and attention. You’ve seen too many cases of kids and adults without the proper love and guidance, and wanted to make sure you could make an impact wherever you were. You love watching over kids, even when it comes to their wild imagination, questions, laughter, ooing, and yes even the small fights like this one. Zac and Mona. They were friends, and hardly every fought so when they started giving each other the cold shoulder a few days ago, you knew something was wrong.

“Okay Zac and Mona, sit down with me,” you told the toddlers. They both sat down with their arms crossed not facing each other.

“Remember how I said sharing is caring?”

“Yes y/n”

“And you both agree that it doesn’t feel nice to not be a part of something right?”

“Yesss”

“So Zac, how do you think Mona feels when you don’t let her play with you?”

“Sad...bad?”

“Yes” you told him as you looked him in his eyes.

“And Mona, that’s not nice to mess with Zac right? Could we have handled this better?” you asked the little girl.

Mona looked down with a pout and answered, “Yeah, and how could I have handled it better y/n?”

“You could have talked to me-”

“Or Me” said you other coworker, Vash, as he joined in while you flashed a smile at him.

You were paired with Vash when you first started working at the local daycare. This guy was a complete ball of sunshine and is great with kids. Sometimes you could mistake him for an overgrown toddler, but he was great at connecting with the kids. Albeit he was a bit clumsy, and goofy with his orange shades but it added to his charm. Heck, his best party trick is his prosthetic arm that the kids love to look at. Honestly, having him as your partner made taking care of the kids for 8 hours a breeze.

“Yes, you could talk to both of us and we could have avoided this fight. Because what do we say about playing together?” you asked.

“It’s always fun when you play together,” the kids said. Zac and Mona looked at each other with a small smile.

“And...you guys are friends remember? The key to a lasting friendship is always respecting each other, listening to each other, and caring what the other person thinks and feels,” Vash added. Both kids looked at each other a little guilty, and dropped their crossed arms.

“I’m sorry for not letting you play Mona.”

“I’m sorry for starting a fight Zac. Friends?”

“Friends”

Another small crisis averted as the kids hugged each other. It warmed your heart just seeing the sight.

“Alright kids, back to the playground okay?” Vash told them as the kids went back to playing. Once they were out of sight, you sighed.

“Perfect timing Vash,” you said as you gave him a small smile.

“Nah, that was nothing. You practically took care of things. I was just more of a backup just in case,” he added while scratching his cheek. 

“Oh please, give yourself credit. Look at you quoting Sesame Street,” you added as you slightly nudged him.

“How did you know I got it from Sesame Street, y/n?” he asked laughing.

“Listen, it’s Suki’s favorite show. Of course I’ll know. Also I thought you were still setting up the snack table,” you laughed.

“I did, I just finished a bit early and got us some extras,” Vash said as he took out two of your favorite snacks.

“Aww you didn’t have to,” you told him as you grabbed one to put in your pocket.

“Yeah, but I wanted to. You’ve been a great help ever since you started working here at the daycare,” Vash admitted while sitting down on the bench and patted his hand on the spot next to him you. An unknowing pink tint was plastered on your face as you sat next to him while watching the other kids play.

“You think so?” you asked.

“Of course! Ever since we started taking care of 14 kids, things were very overwhelming with just me. When Wolfwood told me he hired someone, I felt a weight off my shoulders and thought, ‘finally someone can give me a hand,’” Vash explained while waving his prosthetic hand. You couldn’t help but laugh at his little pun.

“Well I’m glad to hear. I felt very welcomed, and you helped me a lot trying to get used to things here. I can tell the kids like you.” you told him.

“The kids like you too y/n, even the staff like you, and -”

Before Vash could continue, the other assistants called the kids over back inside. Playtime was over and it was about time the parents were about to pick up the kids.

“We’ll continue this later. Come on, let’s gather the kids,” he said while flashing you a smile with his reflective orange shades. You nodded as you got up from your spot.

Once the kids put away their toys and were back inside. You and Vash were waiting with the kids as their parents slowly started to pick up their kids one by one. Each kids happy to leave, but not without giving you or Vash a hug or fistbump.

“Bye Vash and y/n! See you tomorrow!” they would say. Along with their parents waving. Eventually Zac was the last one left, as his mom got off work late.

“You can start packing up y/n, I can wait with Zac. Right buddy?” Vash said.

“RIGHT!” Zac cheered.

“Okay, if you insist,” you told them as you went inside the employee lounge. You took off your daycare apron and switched out from your work shoes to your comfy ones. You gathered the rest of your belongings and clocked out. Getting ready to go home. You closed the lounge door and saw Zac whispering something to Vash who looked as red as his apron. Probably another one of Zac’s jokes that he heard from his older brother you thought.

“Okay boys, I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye Zac! Bye Vash!” you called out.

Zac ran up and hugged your leg. “Bye y/n!” While Vash waved at you with his toothy smile accompanied with his blue ocean eyes.

You walked out and closed the door behind you. You started heading over to the bus stop, until you realized you forgot your wallet.

“ugh, I thought I was good at remembering things,” you told yourself. You headed back to the daycare with enough time to spare. On your way back, you noticed an older gentleman with Zac walking next to him. It was probably his father, but you noticed Zac was looking down. You stopped walking and looked at them, but they didn’t notice you. Something didn’t seem right. You walked back to the daycare entrance to see Vash locking up

“Vash! Sorry, I forgot something. I’ll make it...quick” You trailed off. He jumped a bit, but he flashed you a smile. But something was off. This smile seemed empty compared to the previous ones he gave you.

“Vash, everything okay?” you asked the tall blonde. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you tomorrow” he replied and walked off.

You watched him, and something about him kept bothering you. You opened the daycare door and quickly headed to the lounge to find your other coworker Liz.

“Hey Liz, just grabbing something quickly and I’ll be out of your hair. By the way, everything okay with Vash?” you asked.

“You didn’t hear?” Liz asked.

“No what?”

“Well...”

A/N: Okay, going to leave it there. It’s late and let me know what you think. I do have a part 2 I want to post later this week :)

[sege-h]

Alright this post has been ruminating in my brain for at least 2 months now and I finally have the time/focus to make it.

And it all spawned from seeing Tristamp fans going ‘Old Trigun fans only hate the new one because it changes so much from the manga, as if their beloved ‘98 version didn’t do that too’ so

As someone that’s never read the manga* (*I’ve started reading it but I’m not really far in) that knows that ain’t it and is proof of it, I’m about to go into why I don’t like the latest iteration of Trigun

So like. If you’re a fan and hate perspectives other than ‘Omg I love this show it’s SO good’, probably don’t read this

Creature design

Putting this in first because it’s probably what could be considered my most minor gripe with the show out of everything.

The creature design for the bugs? Excellent! Love it!

But then you get to...the Thomas Look at this, this is a goddamn Creature

They’ve got fun weird designs, and their heads are actually fukken Tiny-located at the ‘beak’ of their masks, and they don’t even look bird-like under there!

So it’s really disappointing when a studio that’s shown they can do great creature design comes up with....this...

Just. A blue emu. With such low color contrast between the beak and the feathers that it could get mistaken for a ‘base texture’ model. Like. C’mon.

But again that’s what could be considered my most minor of complaints so I’ll just move along to my next topics

The Human Typhoon

So. Vash already has a bounty on him at the start of this series- as he usually does. But like...why...?

He doesn’t really do much gunslinging in this series, he kinda just goes around and helps people-- which yes he does in the original series too, and people in towns already know/like him. But the difference is-- the season finale reveals that all the events in Tristamps first season took place before the events at July. So why is Vash already wanted with a huge bounty on his head? The whole ‘oh people keep mistaking Knives for him’ feels pretty flimsy since they don’t really look or act similar- and whole towns seem to know Vash just from him stopping by. He’s kind of just. Some depressed guy that goes around helping people.

Which is another thing. Tristamps Vash really is just Some Depressed Guy.

Yes ‘98 Vash is depressed too, but he hides all this, along with his rage, underneath the mask of a goofy clumsy doofus. It’s part of what makes him so interesting as a character. You watch what he does, you see all the ‘clumsy mistakes’ he makes that end up saving either himself or others that you KNOW are deliberate moves on his part, you see all the moments where you know there’s anger bubbling under the surface that he never lets loose, all the excellent gunmanship that never turns lethal even though it’d be so easy for him to mow down anyone that threatens him. And you have pieces of what’s lying under the mask that you have to start putting together.

You have a man that’s gotten very good at hiding his feelings, and his past and the things that haunt him.

Which is why it was so jarring that at the end of episode one, Tristamp’s Vash gets asked ‘what are you scared of?’ and just immediately answers ‘I have a brother.’ and in the next episode he’s just ready to answer a reporter’s questions about it and about himself.

I was just like...really??? He just immediately spills this to people he met 5 minutes ago???

There’s just so much of Vash’s nuance that’s stripped away completely from his character here- and he’s not the only one but I’ll get into that later.

And he’s just really...timid. Which- there’s nothing wrong with timid characters. But in Vash’s case it’s another case of this show’s ‘nuance-be-gone’ showing.

Vash is a pacifist, refusing to kill people in a world full of people that’d shoot him dead without batting an eye. And as you get a whiff of that rage of his that lies beneath the surface, you wonder why.

Tristamp Vash just really...doesn’t even get comically angry over things- again because he doesn’t even have the emotional mask Vash usually has. And he doesn’t do much gunslinging either, at least not until the final episode of the season.

He’s entirely too trusting for someone that’s been through the things he has. Vash as a character, at least from my POV, is a bit more complex with his trust. He trusts people with the chance to do the right thing. But he doesn’t trust people with himself- again going back to the fact Tristamp Vash just immediately goes ‘I have a brother’. And while he trusts people with the chance to do the right thing, he doesn’t just assume anyone Would take that chance. So Tristamp Vash just going ‘I know Wolfwood is a good person I see it in his eyes :)’ was equally jarring when he’s only known Wolfwood for like 5 minutes, just like with Roberto and Meryl

And I frankly just miss Vash bickering with someone like Wolfwood, instead of whatever’s happening in Tristamp where it feels like Wolfwood keeps trying to start to bicker with Vash only for Vash to be all ‘Wolfwood... <:)’ at him despite having just met him

It was fun, Vash finding a dude who’s so similar to him that he can spot his fake smile from a mile away, yet opposite in some ways and then just bickering with him was fun

Wolfwood has any nuance taken away from him as well-he was a guy that was sent to keep an eye on Vash and to kill him if he got the order to, that spent enough time with Vash that they end up being friends, and he frustrated because that was never supposed to happen.

But Stampede rushes through it’s own story set up so fast that he’s just left being kind of the edgy guy that hangs around and yells at Vash, and they want us to see them as friends because??? I don’t know, because that’s how the story is supposed to go, and we have no time for ‘show don’t tell’.

Vash and Knives

Speaking of lost nuances in relationships. Knives’ attitude towards Vash is a lot less compelling in this show to me.

I can’t speak on anything that goes on in the manga, so again that’s not even my ‘Old Trigun fan hates Stampede because of this’ issue.

To me it just seemed like Stampede Knives saw Vash as less than him. Like something broken that needs to be fixed, or remade into something ‘better’ and on his level.

Which...I don’t know. To me that’s a lot less compelling-- especially as Stampede Knives still thinks plants like him are  superior to humans! But still treats his brother, who’s the same being as him, as less. He even seems to treat other plants as less, as just fodder for his plans.

That’s a lot less compelling than a guy that thinks plants, any plants, independent like him and Vash or not, as superior to humans. The contrast there is just a lot more fun to me- of Vash, who doesn’t think he’s superior to anyone, and Knives, his twin brother that thinks they’re superior to humans and that Vash should just join him in destroying them already. Knives didn’t think Vash needed to be fixed or that he was less-- he saw Vash as his equal, but just thought he was lost in a delusional phase where he tries to live alongside humans. And he did think it was just a fleeting phase- that one day Vash would see his own superiority and abandon them after he’s had all his fun. It was just that that day wasn’t coming fast enough for Knives’ liking, so he tried to break Vash and make him ‘realize’ humans aren’t worth his time and that he should just join his brother already.

The Plants

This maybe could’ve gone under ‘creature designs’ but it didn’t quite fit because the plants are both creatures but also environments.

I don’t quite mind the designs of the plants as creatures in Stampede.

But I don’t like what they did with the environment they’re kept in at all.

I miss the giant light bulbs that stuck out of the remnants of old space ships, and how they both looked fragile due to their design but were also way too big to make stealing them be just a simple feat.

How there was no way to go into a town and be unaware of them, but any regular person would still be unaware of just what plants are

The plants in Stampede are just...they’re just the tumor device from Homestuck. Which I know sounds like an unhinged sentence so here’s a visual for what I mean

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

Which isn’t a bad design in general but to me it’s a bad design for something that contains plants

Tropes

That’s what everyone in Stampede is. Just walking tropes without any character actually attached to them-- I keep talking about the loss of character and nuance in this show, and that’s all it really boils down to. It’s not just one or two characters that are stripped of it, it’s all of them. They’re walking tropes, and the writers keep acting like they’re characters with connections that they only ever tell us about instead of showing us or actually developing them like.

Wolfwood is just some edgy guy that keeps being angry at Vash, but no wait actually they’re friends and Wolfwood would go into battle with him.

He and Livio are adoptive brothers but we are told this rather than shown-- I’m a sucker for story beats like these so you know something’s wrong when it doesn’t tug on my heartstrings as much as it should. Wolfwood seems more ready to kill Livio- his childhood friend and adoptive brother, than he is Vash who he met a day ago and is supposed to be ready to kill.

Roberto is a drunkard that keeps not even using Meryl’s name and keeps mocking her for being a ‘rookie’. But no wait actually he cares for her deeply, like an adoptive father would even, and also she respects him too! It means so much to her when he calls her by name!

Like don’t even get me started on Roberto. I hated him, and as a character made up entirely for this show, what the writers do with all of them is the most obvious with him.

Like he spends the entire show being drunk, constant one liners of ‘rookie the world is a shithole’ and burping and lines that make me livid like ‘whoop, noob down’ in Fucking 2023

And then comes the moment where he dies. And he leaves Meryl with some parting advice, and a gun. And you realize. Oh. The writers wanted us to see Roberto as just ‘the tired dad or maybe tired uncle’. But they never actually did any character development or character moments that show this, or even develop it in the first place. They’re jumping straight from point A to point Z

All the characters are just building blocks or crumbs of who they’re supposed to be. I’ve seen so much fanart and memes from people that have only watched Stampede that would fit PERFECTLY with their ‘98 counterparts. Because the crumbs for what these characters are IS there, and fandom is incredibly good at building entire characters out of any crumbs a writer gives them but....that usually applies to like side characters and background characters. Meanwhile these are your MAIN CHARACTERS! You’re supposed to have more than just crumbs for characters when they’re your main cast, especially after a season!

I could say some things about how shipping factors into this, but I’d rather not get viciously mauled by shippers, so I won’t

Episode 1 is just bait for old fans

Literally from the very first teaser for it. You get everything I complained Vash lacked earlier, and then some, and it’s just in this one episode.

You get fun western-y music. You get Vash showing his skills, and actually firing his guns. You get him being a doofus, and pulling expressions like this

Which is like...God. GOD I miss Vash pulling funny and exaggerated expressions! Especially since this shows us they CAN push the models like that, and it looks so fun! And then they just. Don’t do it again.

They pull you in with ‘yes this is a different show, but still has some of the Trigun things you love in it!’ and then they don’t do it again for the rest of the season. No ‘who the hell even is this guy’ feats of gunmanship, no fun times, no exaggerated fun expressions, and no Vash yelling and being a doofus...which is the other thing

Voice acting

Everyone’s kind of. Subdued in that department. Like they could do more but they just don’t do it. And so does Vash. You get Johnny Yong Bosch to reprise his very first VA role, and then you don’t even let him go all out or really have any scenes that’d LET him go all out? I think that should be a crime

You have scenes here and there where you get to hear him do his ‘a panicked Vash is running’ noises and those are good but it leaves you wishing we had more scenes where he could be a goof

And then in the season finale he finally FINALLY gets to yell and have some emotion but even that feels just a tad held back

But the voice acting issue could be entirely because Crunchyroll especially loves to live up to the ‘Crunch’ in its name which is a whole other can of worms that’s not related to Trigun alone so. I’m gonna let it slide

Jesus, Sege, is there anything you DO like in Stampede?

I like the worm creature design! And I like Zazie. Zazie is definitely the best thing about Stampede and I like that they kinda set up a third party in the whole humans vs. plants thing by just being the insect creatures that have lived on Gunsmoke long before the ships crashed. The planet was theirs, and now they suddenly have two new species on it, and one of the new species is trying to wage war and destruction on the other, so they’re just trying to figure out which one will be more beneficial to them. I think that’s fun.

I also like the animation! I love what they’ve done with the 3D-- before this series whenever I tried to get into a series with animation that’s like ‘its CG but it’s looking like 2D animation’ I just couldn’t get into it. I could never figure out what it was about the style that kinda put me off. But I finally did it with this series!

I...like the final season 1 episode? Maybe? I have issues with it but honestly I think Vash getting to yell, and fire his gun as part of a big fight scene was such a breath of fresh air after the whole season that I just didn’t care

I like the music but it also feels like I have to just listen to the OST to actually get to hear music other than the Jenora Rock Resistance and Knives’ theme, it doesn’t feel very prominent in the show

Conclusion

Stampede is just. Not a good show. Not ‘not a good Trigun show’, just plain not a good show. If I’d never seen ‘98 Trigun earlier this year, I’d still have all the issues with it that don’t have to do with Trigun related things like the Thomas or the plant environmental designs or the character dynamics. I’d still think the characters are just walking tropes and that the writers want the payoff without any of the buildup or development, I’d still think it’s jarring how quick Vash is to trust people with his past, or trust that Wolfwood is good. I’d still be glad Roberto is dead because I’d still hate him.

It’s not just me theorizing on ‘what ifs’, I think it’s the most evident that I’d have the same emotions by how I reacted to the Livio episode. I haven’t gotten to him in the manga, and he isn’t in the ‘98 anime. I have nothing to compare that episode to, but it still left me feeling like the writers wanted payoff without development.

If I’d never seen Trigun ‘98, I’d have probably dropped this series after the first season, if not the first few episodes.

But having seen Trigun ‘98, I’m left morbidly curious as to what the plans are for the story. It’s like watching someone put together a puzzle by mixing the pieces around, and they’re still making an image form so you’re just curious as to wtf this thing will look like once it’s completed compared to the picture on the box.

So I’m kind of just along for the ride now even though the ride keeps crashing every 5 minutes

[snail-clops]

how & when did u get into trigun?? i only got into it a few months ago so it's been fun hearing from fans that have been around for longer! (be it a year or couple decades lol)

I got into it last year at around the time of my exams !! :3

And I got into it after a while of seeing silly gifs of vash around and swearing to myself I'd watch it later (specifically that gif from 98 of him crawling like a bug)

After a while, one night I watched a really cute trigun "la primavera" animation meme and just decided: OK ya know what? Let's watch this.

I had to dig around a while for the 98 anime since it was locked from me on crunchyroll since I'm in the UK and ended up finding it on a site I'd used before to watch a couple cartoons and from there I watched the 98 anime, the movie, and tristamp in that order and ended up loving the og anime the most and I've been obsessed with trigun since :3

Since then I've of course read and loved trimax and joined this lovely fandom :D

Thank u for the ask !!! :D

[randevu-01]

2023 art summary time!

some of my thoughts and comments are below the cut :)

This was... an interesting year. I got out of my DmC shell (after 3 or 4 years) and spent most of the year obsessing over other fandoms, e.g. Call of Duty of all things lol. I also got into Trigun, watched and loved both adaptations, as well as Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note - quite an accomplishment for someone who generally doesn't like anime. Oh, and closer to the end of the year I discovered a whole new world of music band fandoms after I somehow got invested in Sleep Token and Ghost (it's the masks I'm sure)

Productivity-wise, even though I couldn't even fill in all the spots in the template, I feel like I did pretty good. Some months I didn't manage to finish anything, but October was wild, I did a lot of nice complete pieces then. A significant portion of my time and effort was put into drawing comics for the DMC ask, and I also took some commissions at the start and in the middle of the year, so there was very little time for me to make personal art, which I miss greatly and hope to make more of in 2024.

Speaking of future plans, I definitely want to give more attention to my OCs from Waffen AG and City Ghouls. When it comes to making OC content, I tend to stop at colored sketches at best, but in 2024 I hope I can make actual polished art of my characters. (Though I'm convinced that this will make my social media reach even worse than it is now, I'll try to not gaf, 'cause I learned that making and developing OCs can be super fun, and oh boy do I need that serotonin lol)

Skill-wise, I think I've definitely improved at making comics, lineart and anatomy, which were my 2023 goals a year ago. However, I feel like I could've done even better. But, again, I was pretty busy with irl stuff, so it's okay.

In general, life was pretty exciting in 2023. I visited 4 cities this summer, met my old friends and made some new ones. Despite some heath issues, I had a great time!

Thank you all for sticking around and appreciating my art! I cherish every little comment and reblog ^^

Hopefully, I'll be able to reach even more people on this platform in 2024. Happy New Year!

[walleeli]

Want to discuss something about Stampede that’s been plaguing me. SPOILERS for both Trigun Stampede and Trigun Maximum incoming…

I’ve seen a couple posts recently where people have said that Vash’s characterization in Stampede as having always been a goody-two shoes worsens his character (or like, makes it flat or boring or whatever.) and tbh I totally agree. HOWEVER COMMA. I don’t think it will end up having been accurate of him in the adaptation as we continue. And I think its possible it isn’t true now if you happen to know exactly what to look for… this is about to get long.

So I got into Trigun as a whole just a few months ago. And my experience was I watched 98, then tristamp, and THEN read trimax. So that’s my frame of reference and the order in which I experienced the different characterizations.

I want to talk about this scene at the beginning of episode 12 of tristamp.

Because when I first saw it, heard it, I figured it was Vash speaking. And when it panned out to reveal Knives

I was surprised. And a little confused. It didn’t line up with what I, at the time, thought to be true of their characters. The more clear cut “good” and “evil” being the only version I’d ever really experienced. (Maybe 98 did a better job with Vash’s characterization as a child than I am remembering??? But I feel like it was pretty similar to tristamp??? Could absolutely be wrong but either way the point stands that based on my memory at the time the scene was odd to me.)

The scene is so brief and there’s so much other shit going on in the rest of the episode that it left my mind pretty quickly. Until I was reading through Vash and Knives’s backstories in trimax and texting my brother about how I had no idea how deep Vash’s character was in the source material. It was at that point that I told him I was honestly kind of miffed with the handling of his character in Stampede, as I felt it did a disservice to him. And he actually was the one to remind me that Orange has already demonstrated an enjoyment of unreliable narration in tristamp. Specifically I am thinking of hearing in episode 1 that Vash gave Knives the code he needed to take down the SEEDS ships vs seeing in episode 11 that he didn't give it to him for that purpose AT ALL and also the ending of episode 8 showing young teen Knives as scowling and standing tall vs episode 9 showing him rattled and on his knees (obviously we also still get the scowling later but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. PROBABLY.)

Anyways my brother and I kept talking about it and I was saying it's still weird that we see all those scenes of Vash being this like. Happy-go-lucky kid when that's not what you get from trimax until after the blank ticket talk. And he suggested what I am currently choosing to believe to be true: the sequence of events has been reordered. And flashbacks we get of like, their first birthday and stuff, actually take place after they find Tesla. (In Stampede’s canon I mean.)

This is the only other time we see kid Vash seeming more closed off/somber/whatever. Obviously Knives has already taken some sort of turn. He’s certainly not in finger guns mode anymore LMAO.

Obviously this is just wild and maybe ungrounded speculation at this point. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Orange pulls the rug out from under us a bit in season 2. And I sincerely hope they do.

[kirchefuchs]

GET CLOVERED MOTHER SHUCKER

NEHEHEH

Okay, break from the fish talk show. Time to talk about my week! That's a very pretty clover btw.

Okay so first off, I did join the Narrator Swap discord for the month of June and I posted my first art for it two days ago. That has been super fun and I can't wait to get my partner for next week!!!

Now the big thing was yesterday. Because yesterday was my oldest brother's birthday and he wanted to bring us to a convention, so some of us joined him for that, myself included. I don't know if this is surprising or anything, but this was the first big convention I've ever been to and my goodness, it sure was something. I didn't know a whole ton about the convention going in so I didn't go to any of the panels. (Though my sister in law told me they had a Sandman panel, but I lowkey forgot and only remembered 30 minutes after the panel started. Pretty upset about that). Anyways! I did end up getting some cool things, though most of what was being sold seemed to be more anime focused there were some other cool things I found.

I ended up getting two charms, an Ineffable Husbands one for myself and a Dreamling one for my sister. I also go a really cute Blackbonnet print signed by the artist (it's so cute!!), a little sewn keychain of my favorite little dragon Figment, a really cute Ponyo sweater, and an adorable strawberry frog keyboard for my computer (cuz I really needed a new one).

So overall, a super fun experience!! I definitely have determined that next time I go to a big con I definitely need to look into everything happening the day I'm going and figure out what events I want to participate in. Also, I should probably try to finish up some of my more casual cosplays, such as the Narrator or the RK900 hoodie I've been very slowly working on. This is because I went to this con in my Ghostbusters cosplay. Since I had a proton pack I couldn't have my backpack with me, which got kinda annoying when I had some downtime and didn't have my sketchbook to draw in. So more casual cosplays would work best for me.

Another thing I've discovered. I walk really poorly. My legs and ankles are so sore right now because of how I walk and how much I was walking yesterday. I realized a few hours in as my feet were starting to hurt, that I walk in such a way that I have a little bit of a limp and it puts a lot of strain on my left leg. Along with that, when walking my ankles are very fluid in their movements in such a way that I tend to put more pressure on the outer edge of my feet. In short. I'm super unbalanced and it wrecks my ankles when I walk like this for a while. So. Oof. This explains why every once in a while one of my ankles kind gives out and I either fall or almost fall. It's very rare, but it happens sometimes. Don't really know what to do about that other than trying to be more conscious of how I'm walking.

So that's about if for con related stuff I guess, though this next thing is a tiny bit related I guess. I have noticed recently, both on Tumblr and at the con, that Trigun Stampede is really popular right now. I don't know much about the anime though my sister did show me an episode or two of the original Trugun series. I did notice a lot of really cool art of Vash while at the con, along with some amazing cosplaysm there was this one person selling the cutest little tiny acrylic standees of him and I kinda wanted one, but I felt like it would be kinda weird to get art of a character from a fandom I'm not in. Anyways, this whole thing has a point. That being, I talked to my sister about it and she said I definitely should watch both Trigun series, sooo.... might end up doing that in my free time. I will probably start with the original Trigun then watch Stampede, cuz that just makes sense to me. I don't know how into it I will get, but I guess we will have to see.

I will have you know you most likely won't have to worry about me dropping TSP since I have a lot of people, both friends and you guys, keeping me into it. So don't worry!! I will not stop drawing TSP art for a long while!!! I just thought that would be important to say.

But yeah, that's kinda been the hughlights of my week. Fun things :)

[eomma-jpeg]

for the ask game, sorry if these have already been asked!

8, 10, 14, 17, 25, 27+28 :)

8. if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for…

i already answered this, but what a shame! it is my college au and this first "book" is gonna be about the vashmeryl relationship coming to fruition, and the sequel will be them working through some loooong time trauma and issues, but together !

10. what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

oh months, certainly. i have wips and drafts rn that are just sitting.... waiting for me to return LOL

i try to go back and finish the chunks i have and not leave them like,,, halfway done, but i do have a vashmeryl wip i started.... over a year ago? and still have not finished it lol

14. where do you get your inspiration?

honestly from other media i watch. i'm currently planning out a trigun dancer au and i was motivated because of Strictly Ballroom, a silly Baz Lurhman movie (please watch it the romance is so cute and it takes itself so seriously)

also from my friends !!! @squid789 is such a good person to bounce ideas off of and has inspired (i stole her ideas) a few aus

17. talk about your writing and editing process

so... ideally i do what i did for in the meadow where I wrote and wrote and wrote,,, and then just constantly went over chapters with edits and rewrites until it was time to post.

with itm i was always at least 3 chapters ahead and had the time to go back and check through chapters, make sure everything flowed well, ensure continuity... but with my newer works it hasn't been like that.

I have good grammar and spelling in general and i also use The Internet to write on so it gets spell checked, but i don't take nearly as much time to edit my work as i'd like to anymore

im a sleepy teacher who just wants to post her fanfiction T-T

25. besides writing, what are your other hobbies?

alright!

so i love doing embroidery. im currently working on a cross stitch project that has been very relaxing

i love to sing. i cannot express to yall how much i love singing. it is seriously my favorite thing to do. i love music and expressing my feelings through song. i lovvvvvvvvvvve to sing (im pretty good too hehe)

i sew and draw (SOMETIMES) and i cook. i do a lot of things! i love to explore just various arts and crafts

27. your favorite part of the writing process

i just love creating. i love putting ideas on the page and getting the content that i want... because i love the writing of others (and i do apologize) but there is always something that isn't for me

but thats because it wasn't written for me!! it was written for the author

and thats why i write,,,, because i want something specific

and i love romance and it gives me the power to make my blorbos kiss >:)

28. your least favorite part of the writing process

putting the ideas on the page T-T

im a bit stuck right now with what a shame mostly because i keep doubting myself WHOOPS

but its so hard when i cant decide with idea will be best

IMPORTANT LACE ADVICE: it doesn't matter what idea you get down, just get something down. once you have something down, you can change it or decide if you even still want it. the hurdle is getting the idea down!

thanks goo !!!!

[chibivesicle]

‘Times, they be a changin’

After a drop off due to Golden Kamuy ending and my overall disappointment with the last arc. And of course, Ogata’s death, I’ve been wondering where I want to go with these things.  I put a lot of GK content out and I don’t want to just shelve it but I don’t want to split myself between fifteen thousand side blogs.  I’ve decided that I’ll keep my live action meta over on my ‘I don’t want to be exterminated, upgraded, turned into pudding’ side blog and I’ll keep all my anime and manga opinions here.  Since I have been reading manga for a long time and watching anime for even slightly longer. 

To reflect this, I’ve removed my last previous Ogata icon and I’ve jumped straight to God; Kuroneko-sama that is.  It isn’t that I’ve stopped reading manga or watching anime either and I have just one of the many opinions on the internet. 

Let’s go with an easy current on topic target for some mild-meta.  Trigun.  

Many moons ago, my best friend from undergrad introduced me to Trigun.  She had a Vash poster in her dorm room in university that she picked up at Katsucon, which was the first con I ever went to with her.  She’s quite the influence!

I watched all of the original Trigun anime on fan subbed VHS tapes that were passed around the anime black market of the 90s and early 2000s before they’d be bumped out of the way by file sharing services and online fansubs.  Honestly, I can’t even remember when I first watched it, but I do remember crying at a character’s death and just rolling with some of the more hand wavy sci-fi elements.

Not surprisingly, as someone who loved Ogata as a character, my favorite character from Trigun was none other than Nicholas D. Wolfwood - wandering man of the cloth toting around his cross which is heavy b/c it is full of ‘mercy’.

How much of a Wolfwood fan was I?  Enough of one that I paid likely waaayyy too much money in a dealer’s room at either Otakon or Katsucon for this capsule version of Wolfwood with Kuroneko-sama.

I used to have him up on my desk when I was in uni, but he always fell over and at some point, I popped him back into the bubble and shoved him under a bed at my parents’ house forgotten for over a decade or so.  He moved to the desert (still in that capsule) and I just dug him out after moving to my current location along with two Ruroni Kenshin figures that are back in a box.

What is with this path down memory lane all about?  I was at Anime Expo in 2022 (with exact same friend mentioned above) and we didn’t make it to the Trigun Stampede panel but, I did get an awesome photo of an amazing Vash cosplayer.

With the Trigun 2.0 on the horizon and the Sony merger stuff, all of the older anime titles that were on Funamation have moved back onto Crunchyroll - meaning a lot of titles I loved when I was younger could be rewatched.

And that’s what I did last month!  I dusted off my little Kuroneko-sama and Wolfwood and sat down to watch Trigun for the first time in over 20 years, I think.

I was both surprised by what I remembered and what I did not remember.  Plus, rewatching something you haven’t seen in years allows you to have a sort of fresh pair of eyes.

First off, for a manga that started in 1995 and had the anime in 1998, it has great female characters.  Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson wear normal clothing, have professional careers and are packing heat in a wild west environment. These are the least sexy main character ladies!  Milly wears a dress shirt, tie and pants with suspenders along with her long coat.  Meryl wears boots, tights, skirt suit and then a cloak (with all her guns) as well. 

Meryl is the older skeptic/pragmatist and Milly is naive yet if the most obvious thing is the best answer, then accept it as the truth.  They are great characters and I love how they are a great perspective and point of view into the events.  Sure, they are completely overpowered by Vash or Wolfwood, but they are neither a non-human-pseduo-angelic being or a man who had his entire body altered [manga] to be a better killer or just a much more on the job experience [anime] soooooo yeah.  I’m okay with Meryl and Milly not having to hold their fighting prowess with the boys. 

I finally decided to break down and read the manga.  Little did I know that Darkhorse owns the current rights and the series is out of print.  Gah, I was hoping to score the series cheap used but that will not be the case.  I’ve read the original Trigun from the shounen mag that went belly up (3 tankobons, 1 volume via Darkhorse) and the moved into a seinen publisher for its continuation as Trigun Maximum.  I went ahead and purchased all the way up to Trigun Maximum volume 5 and have read it all as well.

As someone who enjoyed the anime, I can appreciate the way the anime ended at the time.  They were years away from the end of the manga’s run and the anime team needed to come up with a nice way to tie things up.  Honestly, I’m fine with how things went in the anime.  Well, other than Wolfwood’s death, which made me cry and still pulled at my heartstrings on the recent watch.  So far the manga has more details, and is taking the time to fill in motivations of characters like the Gung Ho Guns (why would you willingly sell your humanity to destroy it?).  It however, still keeps an air of mystery about Vash’s past and the exact reason why humans got stuck on the planet.

The two major differences I see between the anime and manga are as follows:

Anime Vash has that sort of 90s MC perv side being a ham towards women early on when it later has him questioning who’d love him anyways.  Manga Vash doesn’t even go there which is something I like - dude’s got a lot more problems.  No space for chasing skirts and hitting on ladies.

Life on the planet Gunsmoke is fucking terrible in the manga.  You think it is pretty shitty in the anime?�� Pffftt, that’s nothing compared to the manga.  People are worse, humanity is more like how Hobbes would view it and less like Locke.  I honestly, don’t know all of the differences yet, since I’ve barely cracked the manga story line but it is clear it is only going to get darker.  Yet at the same time there is more hope since the humans who’d kept themselves ‘above the fray’ were able to contact other people and they are supposed to possibly be rescued.  If Knives doesn’t throw a giant bloody wrench in there. 

In a way, these differences do reflect the shift that the anime gives us.  We go from a goofy guy who is overly competent trying to bumble/drift through life and has biblical levels of trials/tests of his faith in his own belief system to come out with a resolution and faith in the future.  You feel it when you get to around episode 13 and you realize that shit is gonna get serious and you can’t just go back to zany antics.

What I like about the anime is that we have a range of how characters act and view humanity.  Vash will punish himself to not harm others as he sees it as the unalienable right that every living thing has the right to life and it isn’t right for you to take that away from anyone.  Not sure how he resolves eating those salmon sandwiches with great vigor unless it is artificial salmon (desert planet out?).  Milly is the extremely naive and optimistic, Meryl is sarcastically pragmatic.  Of course Knives is the exact opposite of Vash, thinking humans are a scourge and no one is worth their own lives. 

And in the middling grey area we have - Nicholas D. Wolfwood.  Yep, is it shocking my favorite character straddles the moral grey line?  Seeing that it is a rhetorical question, we all know that yes, I love my characters that move between different philosophical spaces.  Is Wolfwood a good or bad character?  It depends; the narrative and other relationships tell us in the anime that we should see him as more good than bad character.  He is a friend to all children and uses it as a rationale why he has to do his job.  Without him making money from being a traveling clergyman/gun for hire the children would not have financial support.  However, we can see that the closer he gets to Vash the more conflicted he is and keeps verbalizing why he has no option but to kill; or else someone else would be killed. 

What I like about him is that his observation skills are top notch.  When he first meets Vash, he get straight to the point that Vash is wearing a mask in front of others.  He’s trying to get by, not die, but has a lot of anger at the shitty hand he was dealt in life.  It is the classic example of I had a crap childhood and ended up stuck in this less than ideal path but I want to protect others from it.

He’s one of those characters who really compliments Vash both visually and personality wise.  Vash could never haggle down the price of anything but Wolfwood squeaks by talking his way out of pay full fare for the bus or trying to run a tab (as a drifter).  Yet at the same time those two idiots are as thick as thieves getting in petty arguments over stupid shit and feeling resolved to deal with each other.  I also like how he’s one of the few characters who pushes back at Vash’s need to take on extreme burdens and that sometimes you have to accept all your options are going to suck.

We are going to get in a stupid fight about how Wolfwood’s motorcycle broke down again.  Which he named Angelica II.  RIP Angelica I.

We just tossed our water bottle over!

And just this.  Like sticking out your tongues at the same time will allow you to capture that last bit of water . . .

Does it end here?  God no, it continues to the extent that man who saved them is ready to toss them off his truck.

The manga has a very similar visual dynamic between them.  They are two guys with rough pasts and are navigating the present in very different ways.

Anyways, I’m still not sure where I exactly want to go with things, but a deep dive into Wolfwood (anime & manga) may be a worthwhile endeavor.  I’ve got a ways to go in the manga and I’m not rushing through it or anything like that.

What I am worried about is the remake/reboot/re imagining of Trigun as Trigun Stampede.

I first watched the preview videos about it.  I’m not here to argue if CGI is good or bad.  What I do have an issue with is the general character designs - I get it, Trigun is a 90s manga/anime and it looks like a 90s series.  I really like the Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, for me it has less to do with the character designs and for how the storytelling perspective is more people driven and less sterile/historical documentary style.  I’ve read most of the novels and LOGH:DNT leans much more on the novels/format than the original epic long OVA.  The creative team behind LOGH:DNT are really giving it their all.

But for Trigun Stampede the new character designs are seriously rubbing me the wrong way. 

Vash: I get that Vash would be considered ‘best sad boi’ if the series were new, but the lack of spiked up hair is baffling to me.  His prosthetic arm is obviously not of this world in origin/tech and it really kills the slow reveal of what it can do.  Wearing a jacket with the Project Seeds logo on it - sure - most people on the planet aren’t the most educated about all that info.  We also have the changing of his type of firearm, which any detail nerd is going to be up in arms about the switch from a long colt .45 to a .22 caliber revolver style handgun.  I blame Ogata and his love of the Type 38 over the Type 30 rifle for sniping.

Meryl Stryfe: not only gets a tomboy look but a career change and a shit mentor/supervisor.  Let’s give her a newsboy hat, shorts with her old suit coat and a large parka and random gloves with chunky sneakers.  Oh and she’s the underling of a chain smoking whiskey drinking misogynistic asshole whose job is to treat her like shit and insult her.  She neither looks nor acts like a young twenty something professional.  In the anime and manga she’s just a petite woman.  But episode one of stampede has me concerned.

Milly Thompson: does not exist?  Information about this is vague at best and I’m not going to troll the internet for what the creative team may have told the Japanese press.  Milly’s character design was top tier.  Her character added great value to the anime and manga so far.  She’s not on the promo artwork and Roberto De Niro is - which is a bad sign.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood:  Looks like a hipster from Tokyo.  And any other ikemen type of character.  Or from a Jdrama.  Really, he looks like if you took a fashionable guy off the street and threw him into the mix.

We see here, an unbuttoned jacket.  His dress shirt is unbuttoned at the top, but also not tucked in.  He’s got skinny/tapered pants and exposed ankles.  And those black shoes that might be sneakers or loafers? 

Now, you live on a desert planet my man.  You know what absolutely sucks when you live in the desert? Getting sand and shit in your shoes!  How do you do that?  Don’t wear shoes that aren’t covered by your pants.  I can forgive the lack of hats on the entire main cast b/c they are the main characters and we want to see their faces.  But if they actually lived on a twin star planet, Vash, Wolfwood, Meryl and Milly would all be wearing hats; you want to keep that sun off your face and block a lot of the crap floating by.  Honestly, that’s one design element which is spot for the characters except for the lack of hats - the long sleeves and layers.  You wear layers and long sleeves and pants when you live in the desert to protect yourself from the elements.

Sadly, not only does his wardrobe suffer from the ‘upgrade’ but his hair as well as a lollipop instead of his hallmark crumpled cigarette.  Smoking kills but Wolfwood is going to die young anyways so do you think he cares that much?

His hair is tamed down the long locks in front of his ears are gone and I’m guessing his nose will be shrunk as well.  My most recent watch had me appreciate a few elements of his character design.  First off, he’s got a rather ‘normal’ looking nose that doesn’t make that weird point.  I like this it gave him a more unique appearance without doing too much.  We can also see the long shaggy bit of hair as well as the much messier overall look.

Looking at him more closely, it really seems as though he had a sort of almost retro (for the 90s) 70s look with a scruffy chin.  That sort of makes sense since he was designed in the 90s, his style might refer back to the previous 20 or so years for his overall look.

I am a huge fan of the added rough around the edges look with the lines on his cheeks which are more pronounced in the manga.

I also visually read this to be an indication of age.  Which in the anime, I read him to be the oldest human of the bunch, over thirty.  His observational skills, the way he talks to others, how he rationalizes things at least in the anime. Wolfwood has seen more of life and some of his solid statements really make me think this.  I haven’t gotten to his whole backstory in the manga yet which from what I’ve seen - is vastly different than that with him being much younger but appearing older.  Which is why he gets the scruffy/blushy lines all the time?  Maybe?  I’ll get back to this.  However, this point doesn’t sit well with me since some types of wisdom require one to reach a certain age to get them so I’m not keen on the concept for appears old but is much younger Wolfwood.  But I’ll see how it plays out in the manga before judging it. 

I’m not the type of person to get my knickers in a twist over logical updates to characters and their design but the creative team for Stampede went hard.

Honestly, I already found a much more professional review that really highlights a lot of the issues I had with episode 1.  The reviewer never saw the original and still highlights a lot of the things someone who’d watched it before would or could be bothered by.

https://www.themarysue.com/even-as-a-trigun-newbie-trigun-stampedes-first-episode-didnt-feel-right/

This article completely captures why I hate Roberto De Niro and why if he dies as a character I will be happy.  But not happy enough without Milly!

Anyhoo, I’ll give Trigun Stampede the college try, but they are going to have to work very hard to convince me it is a worthy remake.  If only to see Roberto De Niro to die and try not to ask Tanigaki why he’s toting around Punisher - which is a heavy cross b/c it is full of mercy. 

[geraniumplant]

𝗣𝗘𝗢𝗣𝗟𝗘 𝗜'𝗗 𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥!

I'm sure I've done this meme before so I'm not going to tag anyone. It'll be interesting to see if there's any changes.

ALIAS / NAME : Wolf

BIRTHDAY : July 26th

ZODIAC SIGN : Leo / Earth Dog (a dog & a cat -- I know my existence is an anomaly)

HEIGHT : 5'4ish

HOBBIES : Do I still have hobbies? I used to draw. I still like reading. I'm big into martial arts & tai-chi. Daydreaming. Wishing I'm somewhere else.

FAVORITE COLOR : Blue, teal, sage green.

FAVORITE BOOK : If I had to pick a manga series it would be Trigun, Vampire Hunter D, Akira, Saiyuki, & BLAME!.

LAST SONG : I Bleed Stars

LAST FILM / SHOW : I watched Outlaw Star last night. It's become one of my comfort shows.

RECENT READS : I finished BLAME! Vol. 3 about a month ago. I still need to find 4. The last few books I've read weren't that great. I'm picky when it comes to books. XP

INSPIRATION : Uh...dark fantasy, 80s-90s anime, folklore, music, Yoshitaka Amano artwork, Tsutomu Nihei artwork, & my vivid dreams.

STORY BEHIND URL : Geranium is Rem's favorite flower & Vash is a Plant. I wanted to acknowledge them because Trigun helped me a through a dark time last year.

FUN FACT ABOUT ME : I'm afraid to get high because I'm terrified where my mind may go but a casual vape is niiice. 👌

Tagged by : @shouga-nai & @healingbrews

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Trigun Stampede

Serious question: do I dislike Trigun Stampede on its own merits, or do I just dislike it for not being Trigun?

It’s a question I’ve been struggling with all throughout the past few months, watching studio Orange’s modern revamp of this 90s classic. I only watched Trigun a few years ago, so I’m far from a nostalgia-blinded fanboy griping about a show not living up to his childhood memories. On the other hand, I am a huge fan of Trigun. Its unique blend of Sat AM cartoon goofiness and hard-hitting sci-fi morality play resulted in a wonderful space western extravaganza that still holds a special place in my heart. I’d argue it’s even better then Cowboy Bebop, but that’s a discussion for another day. So its possible my lukewarm feelings on Trigun Stampede are because it’s so deliberately different from the version of the show I fell in love with. And that wouldn’t be fair to it; stories get re-imagined all the time, and Stampede doesn’t deserve to be unfairly criticized just because it’s not my preferred take on the material. But still... man, this show just did not click with me. Maybe I wouldn’t be as grumpy about Stampede if I wasn’t comparing it to OG Trigun every second, but even if I went into it blind, part of me feels I’d still come away thinking it was mediocre. So let’s untangle that big ball of conflicting feelings and see if we can figure out what's going on, and whether or not this show is actually as Not Good as I think it is.

The broad strokes, at least, remain the same. It’s space, it’s a western. and Vash the Humanoid Typoon is the most wanted man in the galaxy. But when the intrepid Meryl Strife finally tracks the legendary criminal down, it turns out he’s just a lovable goofball, and the crimes attached to his name are the result of bad dudes leaving carnage in the wake of their attempts to catch him. And said bad dudes are being led by Vash’s sinister, mysterious brother Knives, who is determined to prove Vash’s pacifistic, cohabitational philosophy wrong whatever it takes. But inside those broad strokes, Trigun Stampede is steadfastly carving its own course through the series’ mythos. Characters are changed around, plot points are retooled, most of the designs are tweaked in some way, even certain character movitations and foundational lore details are altered. And, of course, instead of the nostalgic crunchiness of pre-digital cel animation, this show is brought to life with the most bombastic, slickly produced CG animation money can buy. The Stampede team wanted to create something entirely new out of this franchise, and whatever else might be said about this show, they clearly succeeded in that goal.

But of course, it’s a bad idea to change things around just to change things around. There’s gotta be a point. And unfortunately, my ultimate feeling on Stampede is that basically every change it makes is a change for the worse.

To start with the most obvious: yes, Milly Thompson’s absence is sorely felt. The goofy banter between her and Meryl was one of the most endearing parts of Trigun, and losing that chemistry is a serious detriment to the show’s charm. It doesn’t help that the guy they replaced her with, the amusingly named Roberto de Niro, is about as generic a grizzled older authority figure archetype as I’ve ever seen, and while his banter with Meryl isn’t awful, it’s definitely a huge step down. On the bright side, this season does end with confirmation that Milly’s gonna show up in season 2, so better late than never, I suppose. In a strange way, you could almost consider Stampede a re-imagined prequel that shifts around the timeline to have Meryl and Vash meet and have their first adventure before settling into their eventual status quo from the original story. And I may end up feeling kinder toward the show if season 2 is better able to capture that Trigun charm. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see on that front.

Circling back to old Roberto, though, his inclusion is actually part of a much more serious issue than simply replacing a beloved character. Part of what made Milly and Meryl’s dynamic so entertaining is how fresh it felt. They were two put-upon insurance agents grinding through low-level grunt work, facing the mundane stupidity of the world as equals. Even as they get embroiled in Vash’s increasingly cosmic affairs, they never lose that sense of down-to-earth naturalism. You don’t see that kind of energy too often, especially with a pair of female characters. Meryl and Milly were women in charge of their own destiny with their own parts to play. But with the addition of Roberto and Meryl’s job changed from insurance agent to Roberto’s junior reporter colleague, that refreshingly forward-thinking dynamic becomes just another example of the tired “experienced, world-weary dude and his naive female subordinate who still has her moral compass intact.” I have seen this dynamic everywhere; it’s in at least two other shows this season! Why mess with one of Trigun’s most entertaining dynamics if you’re just gonna replace it with what everyone else is doing?

And sadly, that’s a bit of a theme all throughout Stampede. Almost every change or addition it makes to the story and mythos results in something far less interesting and original than what it took away. Vash’s backstory, the motivation for his pacifism, Knives’ plan... so many of the specific details that make Trigun, Trigun have been watered down and made more generic than they were ever supposed to be. And because of how cramped the pacing is, the delicate tonal balance is lost as well. The original Trigun was so good at balancing the goofy, Bebopian space western antics of Vash and his pals with the heavy, dramatic space opera stuff that eventually took over the story. It gave you enough time to soak in the grit and tactility of the slummy desert planets so it felt significant when Knives and his machinations dragged Vash into darker territory. But in Stampede, Knives shows up in episode three. We only get two episodes to appreciate Trigun at its cartoony best before it’s washed away in a tidal wave of bombastic melodrama. As such, Vash, Meryl, Wolfwood and Roberto never get a chance to develop the camaraderie the old versions of them did. They’re pushed into Serious Dramatic mode before you even get a chance to appreciate them at their most human. There’s a moment in the first episode where Vash is cackling like an idiot while hanging upside-down from a scavenger’s trap, and it has more of the original’s heart and soul than anything past episode 2. That’s the Trigun I wanted to see. Not this overly dramatic slog through overblown action setpieces and overthought lore that rushes through plot points too fast for them to sink in.

On the bright side, I can at least appreciate how fantastic those setpieces look. Studio Orange has always been pushing the boundaries on what CG anime is capable of, but their work on Stampede really is incredible. The scale and complexity of this action would not be possible without the tools CG makes available, and they take full advantage of that fact. Dizzying camera tricks, dynamic use of environment, countless spectacular spins and flourishes as things grow increasingly superhuman... on a pure spectacle level, I doubt few shows will even come close throughout the year. And even outside the action, the character animation and cinematic visual language ensure that Stampede is never anything less than impressive to look at. It’s also, pretty significantly, the first time that Orange has proven they can animate human characters well. Sentient rocks and furries are one thing, but the way Vash and Meryl and all the rest move and emote never once feels like a cheap approximation of hand-drawn animation. They feel human, even when the writing helping them out. And i love how it isn’t afraid to still experiment with stuff like Wolfwood’s backstory being done entirely in painterly 2D. It’s almost a cliche to say now, but Orange really is proving once again that CG anime can be as artistically brilliant as its 2D counterpart.

Honestly, it’s kind of funny. Going into this show, the thing I was most worried about was how well Trigun would work outside the specific visual language of tactile 90s hand-drawn animation. But the translation to slick, high-budget CG is far and away the most successful change Stampede makes. It’s nothing like the original, but it’s doing its own thing superbly and charting its own path inside the franchise. That’s what I wanted from Stampede; not the same thing, but something just as good on its own merits, remixing the familiar into something new and spectacular. And had the rest of the show been as good as the animation at justifying its new take on the material, I would have very little to complain about. Sadly, it feels like every other change was a change for the worst, not for the better. Instead of creating something unique from the tools the original left behind, it stripped away what made the original unique in the first place and left something far less special in its place. I hope the second season manages to course correct and deliver on that promise. But for now, I can only lament that Stampede is a much less interesting take on a story that deserved so much better, and I give it a score of:

4/10

That’s it for the full reviews for Winter 2023. Next up? The seasonal reflection. See you then!

[utahimeow]

i have something to confess. i watched the first episode of trigun stampede like a month ago and i was gonna binge the whole series and tell you about it later but then i got really busy and never finished it and then when i had time i didn't wanna continue it because it was... boring.

i know (i'm sorry)

vash was really really cute and so babygirl, but... i thought the plot was incredibly boring (but i'm gonna make time and finish it and lyk what i think bc i tend to think animes are boring when i start out)

i felt like a sinner. i had to confess. please grant me your mercy. i promise i'll do better > <

no saf listen the first time i watched it i had no idea what was going on n was so confused the entire time but i kept watching only bc vash and wolfwood were pretty jskdndkdnjd when i got to the last two episodes it finally made a bit more sense and i’m rewatching it now n i understand it more but tbh there’s some things i’m still confused about i just love the symbolism and religious imagery LMAO i dont blame u tho i didn’t wanna keep watching either 😭

[shinybulbasaur]

9 people you would like to get to know better

thank you @vero-niche for tagging i love tag games <3

3 ships: this is such a tough one right out of the gate because i'm so picky/weird about my ships to the point where i don't typically like talking about them so let's see what i can manage without dying lol

vashwood (trigun) currently has me in a chokehold so there's that

okay yeah no I've been staring at this for two hours now this is all you're getting lmao

first ship: i'm so out of touch with romance that i genuinely did not take any notice of any shipping in media until destiel. i think that says more about me than i'd ever be willing to unpack

last song: uh... the haikyuu ost while i pretend i'm totally going to get any writing done for my paper today

last movie: watched promare for the first time about a month ago! i don't watch movies very often lol

currently reading: a lot of scientific papers for my phd... but i'm planning to start iron widow by xiran jay zhao when i get a chance! eventually. someday

currently watching: leverage, for the... seventh time? it's really good okay... i'm also trying to keep up with bsd and ayaka (thanks prev :3) but i think i'm a couple weeks behind rn, i lost track for a bit

currently consuming: fabric at an alarming rate as i plan more and more plushies, i gotta go buy fabric quarters today

currently craving: sourdough.... fabric shopping means sandwich time and i cannot stop thinking about that sandwich.....

I'm supposed to tag 9 people but I am starving and I finally have sandwich so uh consider yourself tagged if you want :3

[firestorm09890]

for the longest time I felt like my tastes weren’t maturing fast enough for my age. it was normal to like books for ages 8-12 when I was 8 but then suddenly I was 16 and still enjoying those books... I kept watching shows for children and would be embarrassed because I liked it and didn’t want to branch out... I only liked video games with bright colorful characters and cutesy worlds...

and looking back I realize I didn’t engage with anything marketed towards “young adults” when I was actually a young adult NOT because my tastes were too childish, but because everything my peers consumed and everything I saw was either full of copious amounts of romance (and I just cannot stand romance) or violence for the sake of being edgy (it’s partially true, but I was also very sensitive back then lmao) so I assumed there was nothing out there for me

it was only, like, 2 months ago when I visited my 9-year-old cousin that I looked at myself now and realized, huh! I did grow out of that! And I did find something for me! I still love silly books about dragon adventures and colorful characters but I realized I apparently have a fascination with psychological horror and I’m into Lobotomy Corporation and House of Leaves is on my reading list and I started watching Trigun yesterday. all things i cannot talk to my 9-year-old cousin about

anyway I started thinking about this because I also started watching The Owl House and nearly instantly started feeling the vibes of “oh haha yeah this is a show for kids”. I know it’s the type of thing that can be enjoyed by everyone and I know it has The Horrors later but also nearly every episode so far has had the characters realizing their mistakes and apologizing to their friends for what they did wrong and everything gets resolved with that unbelievably good communication in that kids’ show way where it makes it very clear that there’s a moral there to be picked up by the kids watching because that’s the target audience. don’t get my wrong I’m still enjoying it a lot but the fact that I noticed at all got me thinking

[unlimitedhorsepower]

Tagged by: @thevoiceofthanatos​

Favorite color: warm bright yellow, mustard yellow & old gold, and just yellow in general. its a good colour. it makes me happy

Currently reading: idk, probably star trek fanfic my friend @rubbertplant​ was writing to give my opinion on it. i often read through my own stuff too lol, like whoah i wrote that??? ADHD has taken everything from me including my capability to read though, for real. ive been thinking of trying to listen to some audiobooks recently though, this cannot continue... its just that i also have no ears disease so idk how well that would go. determined to try though

Last song you listened to: havent been listening to music so much bc ive been playing videos instead but my last.fm has all my spotify listens so itll stay up to date on whatever i listened to last. currently seems to be “please play-bite” by pinocchioP. i often just let spotify play me whatever it recommends anyhow so theres variance. and i only started this account like a few months ago max so its not really a full picture of my music-listening

Last movie (in theaters): its not really a movie, but if it counts, the first ginga nagareboshi gin stageplay (recorded and released in finland in theaters with subs)

ginga was always huge in finland for some reason. idk. the anime is so violent though that i got really afraid of bears for some reason. theres so much blood... i never read the manga either i just knew of the anime and partook in my share of wolf roleplays (dogs were uncool! so i didnt do dog roleplays. iirc that really was my reason).

heres some funny wolves from my wolf rp days

2010. one of the first things i coloured digitally... i painstakingly cleaned the scanned pencil lineart with a mouse

2011. i had gotten my first drawing tablet as a birthday/xmas gift and practiced a ton around this time (more than just wolves lol)

Last series I watched: trigun stampede. even changed my phone bg into vash... but millions knives is probably my favourite. he just does everything wrong and makes his life worse. and everyone elses life too bc he sucks. but hes multifaceted so hes also my meow meow and whatever. i hope a ford explorer drives over him

if it counts though, ive seen some star trek TOS episodes and movies because my friends have been watching them. im not super into it but its always fun to hang. i also dont watch a lot of stuff. i dont even know what i do. guy who doesnt read or watch things but listens to jerma videos on youtube without actually looking at them while i “draw” and “write”

Craving: food honestly. i should cook something lmfao. i also want soda so bad but i dont have any. id make some tea but its disgustingly warm in my house so i only want cool drinks. could kill for a nice milkshake or a smoothie rn i think

Tea or coffee: tea... im the only finnish person who doesnt drink coffee for real. also got really into loose leaf tea bc i befriended a chinese lady who is really into tea and has a tea shop in the city near where i live

Currently working on: drawing this and trying to think how i want to do it. somehow want to incorporate flat colours and maybe shade his body naturally, and make the blood look realistic instead of flat colours... hmm not sure yet what i want to do

other than that im trying to proofread the chapter of my ryanyuri fanfic i already published because theres a lot of typos and strange sentences in there but its been a chore bc my body breaks down when it gets too warm smfh... not looking forward to when my apt goes over 30 degrees celsius it is unlivable. im also trying to complete a “lookbook” of my tnb sims. but i always start huge projects that take three million years to complete and im really slow lmfao

Tag people you’d like to get to know better: i could just ask these questions from everyone i talk on discord with. fuck my friends i know irl or otherwise, only asking people who r my friends through tumblr. no need to do this though. also this isnt probably meant to be answered so long-windedly... thats just me. i cant answer with one word i gotta write an essay. heres three tags though @basslinegrave​ @vita-divata​

(record scratch before 3rd tag) and @rubbertplant​ bc they were streaming a game in discord when i started typing this and i was like hey wanna do it and they were like yeah

i expect replies on my desk by 5pm TOMORROW!!!!get to work!!!! no i jest, do it or dont, i dont mind either way, just if you feel like doing this. if you see this and want to do it feel free to consider yourself tagged. godspeed