#different as in he looks similar to 98 and manga Vash

[meri-meri-mwah]

Pls, Orange, I'm begging. Let Vash keep this hairstyle after his Eriks era. HE LOOKS SO HHHHHH.

It can be his little character development. 🥺

[buried-l0cket]

Polygun but it’s how they all see each other

i always really like in books with different narrators when how a character looks itself is unreliable narration bc they describe themself differently compared to how the other pov characters see them, and the dungeon meshi shapeshifter chart scratched that itch for me art wise and I got inspired ✨

To be more specific this is what they each picture when they think of each person 👉👈

Details under cut!!

Meryl clothing details aside because I think she’s just short and the boys aren’t looking at her traveling clothes too hard (and vash clearly likes making his own clothes with how much his overly intricate jacket design changes so ofc his version of her outfit just looks like another one of his designs 🙄) all of the clothes are based on specific parts of the manga!

A big thing with these designs was taking moments that were important regarding each characters relationship with the pov character and adding in visual nods to that to show what memories stuck with them to shape their image of that person.

The clearest example of this is everyone thinking of a different Vash coat, for Wolfwood it’s what he was wearing when he turned him over to Knives, to Meryl it’s his final fight coat, and for Milly it’s when she met him.

It may be Trimax but I will always have a soft spot for 98 millywood so those two’s impression of each other has been influenced by that, but more specifically just the idea of them both alone together, layers and walls down, hair messy from sleep. Their relationship is one I just see very clearly developing over a lot of late nights at inns and bars during traveling!

Vash is the trademarked inventor of Savior Martyr Victim complex supreme and when he thinks of everyone he sees times they’ve been let down by him. To me he’s the biggest broken gear in their dynamic because of the way he holds himself back and isolates, the ship really works in spite of him most of the time. But he also sees traces of times his desire to be by their side was cemented. His Meryl is heavily based on after she was kidnapped by the GHGs and he lost control in front of her, but her hair is longer + earrings are gone like when they saw each other again after Knives released the ark, and she has a black turtleneck peaking out from under her traveling clothes the way it did under her space suit during the final battle. His Milly has the hair and undershirt of the final battle but her outer clothes are from when they traveled together for the majority of Trimax. His wolfwood isn’t doing too well.

Meryl’s versions of Milly and Wolfwood are both pretty similar to how they looked when she first met them, wolfwoods hair is just a little longer like I imagine it being towards the end of Trimax and is very windswept, from their short first meeting in the original Trigun manga run I always got the impression she thought he looked very cool lol, she was staring up at him like ://0 the whole chapter.

I mentioned it before but honestly most of Wolfwood’s Vash is based on how he looked when he turned him over to Knives, not only do I think that moment stuck with him but I feel like it’s a good visual summary of all the mixed feelings he has towards Vash. He’s drawn to him and sees how sad he his but he also sees how inhuman he is and the threat he and knives pose for the people he cares about and prioritizes. At the end of the day Wolfwood chose the orphans over Vash twice and never went back on that, and a big part of why he broke Vash our of Knives prison was just so he could go fight Knives to the death for humanity’s sake, and I think that’s important to his character and their relationship.

Similarly, Meryl’s Vash is really just final arc Vash. She’d already developed a very strong impression of him before then but they would go weeks to even years without seeing each other and each time the way he looked and the way she felt about him would change drastically, it seemed to me like it wasn’t till she was on the ship advocating for him and the people living on gunsmoke that she knew how she felt about him and what kind of person she saw him to be. It was also a huge moment for her character wise with the way she faced her fears in the name of human connection and made the active choice to not be as apathetic and closed off as she realized she had been in the early manga.

I think Milly’s first impression of Vash was strong and accurate enough to not change much, this nice guy is Vash the Stampede and there is definitely something weird about him.

I don’t know why Wolfwood doesn’t know what Meryl’s hair looks like, what’s wrong with that guy? In general his version of Meryl is very inaccurate now that I’m looking at it, I promise he likes her

+small details that are my personal headcanon and not the characters interpretations are Meryl and Wolfwoods hair being a bit more curly/textured than canon, Milly’s eyes being green, and Meryl’s earrings being silver (gold earrings with a white black and blue outfit and silver guns?? C’mon girl accessorize properly)

[hikennosabo]

#tristampparty day 12, episode 0: high noon at july

LAST DAY OF @tristampparty ALREADY LET'S GOOOOOO

bang, bang!! nai liking movies is such a cute little detail, (it's in the manga too!!) i don't think it gets talked about enough. he went from thinking gunslinging heroes were cool to guns being a coward's weapon...

i still can't really fully wrap my head around the higher dimension... it contains the "core" of the plants and... it's where plants pull matter and energy from...? yeah i CANNOT fathom it actually

also like. how did humans even discover how plants worked and what they could do. assuming the lore is the same as in the manga (for what lore there is in the manga...) and humans created plants. who what when where why how. humans made plants and use plants every day yet they're such a black box... uuaaaaa (steam comes out of my ears from thinking too hard)

zazie's priority lies with the planet itself and whether or not worms will be able to continue to live and thrive on it, but i wish we got to see more of what the worms need to like. actually live and survive. they have a hivemind so they can't truly "die" (i guess unless every single worm is wiped out), but what do they need to live? we see that the giant worms eat humans, but what did they eat before humans crashed on the planet? tomas? other worms? do they photosynthesize? do they need to breathe? humans use worms for food and resources, but what exactly would knives have do to the planet to make it unlivable for the worms?

the song that vash sings is... the song knives plays on his piano. in the original/98, the song that was important to vash was rem's song. here, that... may or may not be the case...? vash says the song "just comes to him," but in this scene he's forgotten rem... then again, the song isn't what helps him remember her.

there was a theory post from a while ago that posited this song is the voice, or... frequency of the plants(?) which could very well be the case. vash and knives taking that frequency and singing or playing it in a way humans can hear... rem was onto something when she called them a bridge.

i wonder how much of this scene is an actual memory. maybe vash did sing that song, and nai heard it, and they played it on the piano together. and that's why knives continues to play it in the present day.

maybe i'll go eat some rocks.

this is reminding me of... in the manga when vash escaped from the ark and knives was begging him not to go. it's... yeah, pretty much the same. different scenario, but the same.

this sequence is so gorgeous... once again i'm asking how people ever thought this anime looked bad. lmao.

BUT MY MAIN QUESTION IS THIS!!! IS THIS REALLY REM SPEAKING TO VASH HERE? we know that in trimax, ghosts kind of exist, right? like tesla appearing to the twins, wolfwood appearing to livio... is this a similar case? what's happening on the "outside" is meryl's voice reaching through to vash, right? so is this more like, meryl's presence reminds vash of rem, so this is what vash wishes he could hear from her? like is this coming from his subconscious? or... is it really the spirit of rem somehow...

i'm overthinking it. i'm overthinking it.

i wonder what rem's ghost would say to knives.

i'm obsessed with the fight that comes after. OBSESSED. screencaps don't do it justice, i love the weightiness, the camerawork, the choreography... IT'S JUST FUN TO WATCH!!!!

THE BITE HAS BEEN POSTED SO MANY TIMES BUT I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT'S SO FUNNY. outside of when they were kids, this is the most they've acted like siblings this whole show and i love it.

why are his boobs so big

and then there's the wings. the wings... and their context. manga readers know. they're a symbol of, hmm... not forgiveness, but... the first step to it, maybe. the love between them. flying to safety. supporting each other. being side-by-side. right?

they're using their wings to fight each other right now, so i'm sure the plan is to hit us with the wings again at the end for maximum emotional impact. the fact that they both have one wing each makes that extremely fucking obvious, i think. (remember in the manga vash sprouted 2 wings at first, which he couldn't sustain)

I JUST LOVE THIS SHOT. IT'S SO COOL.

oh. ohhhhhhh.

it's so interesting that the angel arm comes from vash combining(?) the cube with his gun... does this mean angel arms can't manifest normally? like, do you need the cube? or does the cube just make it easier? and what about knives, can he manifest his?? like this can't be the one and only appearance of the angel arm in tristamp, right, we're gonna need it again for the fifth moon and the ark escape, right??

(assuming those events will even happen in tristamp, but fifth moon AT LEAST is like. a constant in all timelines, i feel. like how time travel stories have "nodes" that can't be changed, right? but this isn't actually that kind of story. so who knows.)

...huuuuhhhh and i just noticed vash's prosthetic arm disappears when he manifests the angel arm. umm... i'm not entire sure what that means. is it because his gate was in his left arm...?

hey where'd she get those binoculars

crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch (i'm chewing on rocks)

CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH

CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH

"since when have we been so different"... kills me in so many ways, but... in episode 3 vash says that knives hasn't changed. ("since that time," he says, which i assume is referring to the flashback scene in episode 9.) and knives says right back at you. but here, vash is basically saying, who are you. you're unrecognizable to me now. that's literally what he says in the dub. and again knives says right back at you. "you haven't changed." "i could say the same of you." "who are you?" "who are you?" they're brothers. they haven't changed. they've changed so much. they know each other better than anyone else. they don't recognize each other anymore. they love each other. did they ever really know each other?

crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch.

when i first watched tristamp the significance of this all was lost on me. i didn't know any context.

i didn't know that the original trigun started with july already destroyed. i didn't know vash's original bounty. i didn't catch the insurance department mention, or who eriks was, or chronica, or what it meant that the earth fleet was going to arrive, or this being numbered "episode 0"... nothing. all of it went completely over my head. oh i knew milly though. milly is forever.

but now i'm people who know. and i think orange's decision to adapt the story like this, to make it a prequel... is fucking ballsy and cool and i respect it.

that being said, i still don't understand what zazie is talking about... and how they know this. i don't understand all the scifi technobabble with chronica at the end either... what i'm assuming is that the earth forces are keeping tabs on the higher plane(??) and/or on gate readings(?) and... were alerted to what was going on that way? does "crossing over the wall of light" just mean they're using warp drive? why can't zazie talk normally.

uagh. what a fucking journey, man, and it hasn't even begun yet. glad i got to rewatch and go a little crazy. i think the fixation is beginning to fade a little bit (it's been long enough, this is how my brain cycles through things) but the brainrot never truly goes away. girl with plant twins icon gets emotional about the plant twins once again, more at 11.

ty to @revenantghost for organizing i had fun!! :'D

[firethekitty]

rank every vash

sure i’m due to lose a few followers

1. trimax vash. ohhhh he’s beautiful he’s fantastic what a wonderful guy. i could literally write full-length essays about him. genuinely one of the most well-written and complex characters i’ve ever had the pleasure of getting to know. i’ve written 25,000+ words in trimax vash character studies. what else can i say about him. no seriously what else can i say about him? feel free to give me ideas

2. tristamp vash. he gets a bad rap from 98 fans and it makes me sad bc tristamp vash is much more similar to trimax vash than 98 vash was. people have shit to say about his design, his personality, his animation, his voice… enough already. he’s a great character and i’ll die on that hill.

a lot of fair criticisms of tristamp are due to the fact that studio orange is trying to fit 100+ manga chapters in 24 episodes. and it’s simply not enough time. but this is a widespread issue in the animation industry and orange is genuinely trying their best. almost everyone working on the show clearly fucking adores trigun and wants to do it justice, so i don’t think it’s fair to blame them specifically for the weird pacing issues. i do have qualms about it but "i don't like 3D animation" or "vash is too sad" are not valid criticisms imo lmao

3. 98 vash. well he kinda sucks but that’s what makes him charming! typical 90s shounen protagonist! sure!

he’s fine on his own, but he’s like an entirely different character to me when compared to trimax vash. i can’t blame the writers for modeling him after early/pre-trimax vash, but i wish they waited to see how the manga would play out before making an entire anime. but who knows if trimax would ever finish without the 98 anime, so i guess this is the price i have to pay 😔

4. badlands rumble. i really can’t stand him LOL. i wish i could understand the thought process behind the writers for this movie bc it just doesn’t make sense to me. he's like 98 vash in heat. his only saving grace is his absolutely adorable design and bird-like mannerisms, which are very trimax-y to me. he’s just so goofy and funny-looking, just looking at him makes me smile :)

me: any last words, fucker?

badlands rumble vash:

me: …you may live another day

[orcelito]

one thing i noticed looking back at the start of trimax volume 12... we get that whole sequence where Vash is standing at the precipice & thinking about his past

i'd like to draw attention to This bit:

i didnt notice it when i first read it, but... that sleeve bit there? he's holding his arm. we don't get to see what he's actually thinking, but he's holding the bicep of his left arm - the arm he lost. considering he's standing in wait of Knives for their final battle, he's clearly remembering the time he lost it. to Knives.

(more notes under the cut)

he proceeds to think through the mistakes he's made and the people he's met... but something noteworthy that I find really interesting is that anime-only characters are present in the lineup.

take these two pages.

it's the sheriff lady and the rich dude from 98 episode 2

the plant engineer from Lost July, episode 6

the fake Vash the Stampede & Frank Marlon (not the other Marlon we meet in the manga, who's his grandson) from episode 3

the boomerang guy (who is in the manga Technically, though we didnt see vash meet him) & the blonde gunman from episode 1. and the dancing girl & her guy friend from episode 11.

all "filler", supposedly, but Vash knows them. the implication of this being that Vash has had some amount of those adventures even in the manga (though the different Marlons makes that part a little more muddied - maybe he knew Frank Marlon in a similar way to the anime, though the girls couldn't have been there in this version if he's the current Marlon's grandfather).

also please just admire this pic of meryl and milly bc i love them so much

anyways.

the spreads continue until we reach this iconic page:

Vash went through his memories of all the people he met to steel himself for the battle to come, but these are the last two he thinks about. The two he arguably holds dearest in his heart, and the two whose losses hurt him the most. He remembers Rem as she was, smiling lovingly down at him. He remembers Wolfwood as he left him. Just a grave.

Their memory calms him. He's thinking of the reasons he's fighting, and they're the most important ones.

Bolstered by the memories of the people he loves and the mistakes he's made, he's ready to face his fate.

(all pages from @trigun-manga-overhaul)

[mayfly-stampede]

Character changes? - thoughts

(warnings: Trigun Maximum manga spoilers, Stampede episode 4-9 spoilers)

Wolfwood

Unlike the manga and ‘98 anime, this is not a smiling and relaxed Wolfwood that presents himself shaking hands friendly with Vash.

Instead, Stampede Wolfwood has a sarcastic and bitter humor being always upset with Vash’s kindness with everyone, even their enemies.

Wolfwood wonders about Vash but in Stampede he doesn’t even try since their personalities are directly opposite.

And although Wolfwood didn’t tell all the truth, he never lied: he was never a friend, he was always the babysitter and actually never said he didn’t have something to protect.

But, as I said here, Vash can see though Wolfwood and knows he is actually a good person even when Wolfwood doesn’t accept it.

And I think this is why we feel Stampede Wolfwood that different:

He to protect everyone and take care of them, and be strong for them…and that means never show his true feelings or weaknesses.

In Stampede, we have a deeper perspective of this big brother complex that is maybe stronger than manga and ‘98 Wolfwood, stronger enough to be shown in his personality.

(mmm should I do a deeper analysis of this?)

Meryl

She can’t stay still when someone is in danger and I LOVE that of her. Maybe that’s why Roberto mentions she’s similar to Vash. I talk more about this in this post.

At the beginning of the manga and ‘98 anime, Meryl seems to be more mature than Stampede Meryl since she doesn’t let her emotions take the control that easily and she focuses to do her best at her job. Although in Stampede she’s 2 years older, it can be because she hasn’t used a gun yet as we all think.

Also, manga Meryl doesn’t have the same chances to lead to the action as Stampede Meryl.

All the conditions in Stampede are very different, and we know for sure that if manga Meryl were through the same situations she would act the same…but of course with a better plan.

Knives

I believe the change they made here is maybe one of the most important in all the characters.

We already know, specially for the manga, he cares about Vash and he longs to be by his side as brother although he doesn’t show this side that easy.

In the manga and ‘98 anime Knives cuts Vash’s arm in a moment of anger and/or arrogance already consumed by his plant savior mission…

but in Stampede he cuts it to save him.

“Don’t touch Vash!” he orders and we know how desperately worried is for his brother.

Also, after watching episode 9 that has his name in the title, all his actions and motivations since episode 1 seem really different, just as I posted here.

Vash

I believe one of the biggest differences in Stampede Vash is he caring about the enemy.

In the manga and ‘98 anime all the enemies are practically dehumanized and strongly decided to kill, that’s why we don’t see Vash connecting with them.

In Stampede, Nebraska father begs for his son, Rollo fights his sickness, Wolfwood worries for Livio and Elendira cries for his master…Vash empathizes with all of them and never shoots anyone directly, not even as a warning…the only exception is Knives and it was really hard for him specially being his brother.

Another change, we would say, is his soften and less comical personality. We see him more sensible, calmed, nostalgic…

BUT

If we look for this in Trigun Maximum manga, specially around chapter 38 where the problems become really complicated, Vash actually begins to show this side: less comical, more nostalgic, sad, painful…tired. And we begin to learn more about his way of life.

And when he smiles, it’s like a painful smile and all the comical situations are reduced to little details or moments.

Doesn’t this sound like Stampede Vash?

What do you think?

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Here's a collection of Trigun Stampede thoughts and observations I had from someone who has only seen this series, since big long posts rarely go over well lol. I'm really intrigued to contrast with the manga later and see if I get similar takeaways... I'm eagerly willing to expand on any of these if anyone is interested but for now they will exist as loose point forms! Hopefully this is coherent!

Firstly: Vash my beloved... please be nicer to yourself... please... you are so kind...

Meryl and Knives are the lead active/driving forces of the show, in contrast to most everyone else's passivity and Vash's reactivity

Meryl's influence on Roberto over the course of the story - she actually has him taking a pretty firm stance later on (which is likely the opinion he held all along, he just buried it), which brings me to the next point-

Conrad and Knives claim to be looking to the future but ignore the present - Roberto dismisses this because those who won't even save a life in front of them in the present moment won't save anyone (this is more in keeping with what Vash does)

The juxtaposition between Conrad and Luida's methods are great and I hope we return to that in the next season

I love Meryl. This is not an observation or analysis it is merely a statement of fact. :)

I wonder if we'll get more Zazie and Meryl interactions. Zazie seems to find Meryl intriguing at the very least. I also just like Zazie and think this could be a really interesting dynamic.

I would also like to see more of Rem, hopefully outside of the biased recollections of Vash and Nai... I still don't feel like I know anything about her :(

Ideals in the service of people (Vash) vs people in the service of ideals (Knives)

Most of the children in the series literally age too quickly. There's a lot to examine there.

Given the attempts to create Independent-like humans by Conrad and the rapid aging of these children... is the serum created from Plants?

Vash 🤝 Me: "Wolfwood" 🥺 (I'm kidding, I'm kidding... mostly.)

Vash and Wolfwood are not fundamentally different, as they first appear to be, but are actually quite similar in their drives (protection of others at personal cost) - the difference in their perspectives comes down to the scope of what they swore to protect (with Wolfwood's being far more limited, thus there are outsiders) and propensity to hope (Vash will act on hope without solid proof, while Wolfwood needs the proof but will jump on it if he sees it - interesting for someone who is associated with religion and faith)

Wolfwood's version of mercy is an unfortunate form of projection (aka Legato is a fucking idiot for thinking removing Wolfwood's attachments would lead him to be solely devoted to Knives. my dude, I am pretty sure that attachment plus raw survival instinct is the only thing keeping him going)

Vash: allows himself to get shot and reveals his scars / Wolfwood: >:O !!! / also Wolfwood: repeatedly takes hits either shielding people or just plain not dodging when he 100% could / Me: 😐

I wish we'd gotten some breathing room in the series. That's my number one gripe about it. Specifically, I wanted a little more time with Wolfwood to get to know him in the present before we got into him having the worst life of his fucking life in the span of two episodes... I also wanted to see a little more of this world that Vash cares about so much! I understand the manga and 98 series do this a little better so I'm excited to see that. Meryl's arc was great though!

Loved the really clever way the flashbacks are done!!! Nai is barely focused on at first, then as his character is slowly revealed, he gets the camera focus and childish behaviours more and more!!!

Huge themes of autonomy and choice. I think they're actually more the point than the whole morality aspect. It's not as important that Vash be perfectly moral and right than it is that his philosophy allows people the chance to choose and change for themselves - Knives' doesn't grant anyone that choice, and in fact, he and the people under him actively remove free will (breaking Vash's mind, the experimentation on Rollo, Wolfwood and Livio, what he did to... the Plants... etc.)

Vash is genuinely angry at Nai in a way he doesn't seem to be with anyone else. I do think a part of him can't forgive what happened to Rem or the emotional strain that comes with watching someone you love repeatedly do horrible things. I don't know if humanity could hurt him the way Nai has. The worst part is that I don't think Nai fully comprehends how badly he has hurt Vash. He looked so confused and hurt when Vash trained the gun on him for the first time. The "ominous piano playing" probably isn't meant to be ominous at all, once we see they used to play that piece together. Nai's been playing it on loop for so long. He wants his brother to come home. :(

The twins treat each other like an extension of themselves for a lot of the story, which is somewhat ironic for a couple of Independents. Vash blames himself and seeks to atone for his brother's actions, Nai thinks any differing opinion his brother has is a result of corruption instead of him being his own person. That is why it is a triumph when Vash finally asserts his identity away from Knives in episode 12, declaring himself his own person. That is why it is a tragedy when Nai would rather let his old self die, figuratively and literally, than accept that.

Nai did not want Rem dead. I stand by this strongly. His anger at her is I believe in part to justify her death in his mind.

Nai wants to return to a time of safety more than anything (the higher dimension is like an "egg", the ship's dome around the two as children, the quietness of the tree, etc.).

Tesla 🤝 Livio: products of human experimentation who really ought to be dead but apparently... aren't??? I am putting them both in my pocket and running away

[stefisdoingthings]

I NEED to rant about the trigun stampede designs in comparison with trigun 1998 because like… they had so much potential and the show threw it out the window or something.

(Edit: i haven’t read the manga so the mole thing doesn’t stand much but, again, this is only compared to ‘98 so plss dont attack me guys i swear i liked stampede)

rant, spoilers (?) + photo evidence under the cut

Tbh Knives/Vash bother me most, esp during their childhood. In tri98, they look almost identical at first, with only difference their hair color (Vash’s is more of a saturated blonde while Knives’ is closer bleach-blonde), and the mole under Vash’s left eye. Later on Vash get his hair cut and styled in spikes by Rem, while Knives takes liberty and cuts his own hair military-style. That’s about when they start to have individuality. This individuality reflects on their actions, with Vash trying to free a butterfly from a spiderweb, and Knives just killing the spider, thinking it's the most rational solution.

In tristamp, they lack any kind of individuality, with the twins having mirrored haircuts and Knives a mole under his right eye, which really really doesn’t make sense to me; I thought the mole was supposed to represent the flawed, more human nature of Vash (just like his scars), and the absence of it on Knives’ face to be a reminder that he is, for that reason, better, almost perfect and, most definitely, not human. (Edit: guys I’ve been informed it exists in the manga but I’d still like it if it didn’t)

With that they lose every kind of individuality, and it doesn't make sense for them to look so different while they're adults however having similar hairstyles despite not seeing each other for years.

(not even going to mention the fact that they made him dead pale in stampede and instead of increasing his melanin and making his hair lighter they lightened both skin and hair color but it's not relevant to this kind of analysis and just a stylistic choice i guess)

As adults in tri98 they keep their hairstyles and Knives keeps a more military-looking outfit, which looks a whole lot like the SEEDS outfit they wore when abandoning the ship, while Vash has this super over-the-top outfit with the red coat and all. Tristamp keeps the idea of Knives wearing a similar outfit and Vash going crazy with his fit, but by doing so they made both of them look insanely different and inhuman, Vash looking too clean, with technical, expensive-looking, new clothing, and Knives just straight up looking strange. Nothing about his outfit even suggests human.

For Knives I don't think the point is to look human, so it doesn't matter, but Vash is too odd-looking to be considered one of the humans, while his goal is just this; to look super cool but still human enough. In tri98 this communicates well, but not in tristamp.

(i couldn't find a pic of knives as a kid w the uniform but its the same as vash's)

Also, they're built so differently... Vash looks like a 17 year old kid and Knives looks over 25, their bodies should look the same (they're Plants after all) but with Knives being stronger in terms of power and skill, not having abs.

Basically the main problem is that the designs rely a lot on the aesthetics but not the practicality/lore-accuracy of them. I know tristamp is not meant to follow the original plot line, it just makes me a little insane how little the relationships between the characters were incorporated into these designs.

[rmorde]

Trigun Manga Reaction

Now reading Volume 1 Chapters 7!

Oh. Nice foreshortening!

Have I mentioned before that the art in the manga is amazing? I mean not only is it pretty but the techniques and the visual storytelling!

This manga really spoils me rotten with beautiful double spreads.

Was Trigun a weekly manga or a monthly comic in the 90's? Like, how is this level of quality maintained every chapter?!

This sweet apologetic smile. Baby Girl Vash. SOMEONE PLEASE PROTECT HIM!!!

I love this part because of how the "tech" looks. Maybe I'm just high on nostalgia but if you ask me, the best and most creative visual takes of futuristic technology are from the 90's. OK... 70s to 80's too. BUT 90'S ARE THE BEST!

LMAO! I remember this! Vash loves teasing his enemies with cheeky notes, doesn't he?

Dime novels??? Penny dreadfuls?? Gasp! HARLEQUINS?!!

DOES THE SETTING OF TRIGUN HAVE AN EQUIVALENT OF HARLEQUINS?! IF SO, I'D BE SO HAPPY BECAUSE I HAVE THIS HC ABOUT WOLFWOOD'S FASHION CHOICE BEING CONNECTED TO THOSE RAUNCHY CHEAP ROMANCE NOVELS!!!

Also, another amazing nightmare face! But then...

WHIPLASH! Vash adding levity by hyping himself up. Tho more likely, he is telling the truth. Not that anyone would really believe it with the facade he puts up.

Oh, wait. I only notice this just now. The Vash's glove design in the manga is what was used in in Tristamp. Only three fingers are covered. In '98, it was all of his fingers are concealed by the glove.

AH! I REMEMBER THIS! ESPECIALLY HOW IT ENDS! I'm laughing already. Kaite... is not the best navigator.

Ah Classic Vash. Deflect. Deflect. Deflect.

Oh... This scene. It's kinda scary how catching Vash off guard is deadly for his attacker. Really highlights how much he has to control all himself all the time. Killing is too easy for him with his abilities. So, he has to exercise strict disciple and caution for the sake of others all the time.

This is also sad. A kid telling off an adult for not wanting to kill. It really hammers down how awful their world is - that killing is the norm and logical thing to do. Avoiding violence and killing is seen as stupidity.

This page makes my heart hurt for so many reasons. Vash is suffering physical pain from being shot. However, I think what is more devastating is his ideals being questioned and insulted by a child - someone who should be innocent from the concept of taking lives.

Vash was hurt by what Kaite said. But, I think he also understands why he did it too. It was out of both worry and the unfortunate circumstance of their violent word. Hence, his intense glare at the top of the page then softening into a sheepish look at the bottom.

Oh wow. Another beautiful art and amazing composition and...

Rem just has strong presence in the manga, doesn't she? It's something that was in Tristamp but kind of lessened in '98.

Oh... I wish this had not been cut out from '98. I don't think this can be rehashed in Tristamp, can't it? Damn... it deserves to be animated.

Kudos for '98 in doing a great job animating this page.

Boo for not doing justice for this page, '98! WHAT THE HELL?! Why was Rem not featured a lot in '98?! At least, Tristamp made up for it... BUT I LIKE REM'S LONG HAIR DESIGN BETTER!

HAHAHAHAHA!

AH.... Ah? AHHHH?!

Fuck! I forgot. This was not supposed to be funny?! Why did I remember this scene is funny?!

Also:

@poofyphluff 

I read about the filler thing. Didn't expect it to be that much. And yeah, I'm really admiring Nightow's skills with scaling in his art. It really enhances his visual story telling.

@revenantghost

It is slowly dawning on me the differences between '98 and the manga PLUS the similarities between Tristamp and manga.

I guess my memory is not as accurate as I believe. I thought the OOC-ness from '98 is not that much yet. I thought Vash being a horndoggy perv is just a Badlands thing. It's really nice that it is nowhere here in the manga tho and Tristamp.

It begs the question tho, why make Vash like that in '98?

Oh. So Wolfwood's situation and I guess the '98 ending is similar to what happened with the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime? The studio was forced to do an AOE.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Feel better soon.

[ruporas]

I don't know if this is a heavy question to ask- it may be. Feel free to ignore it.

But I was questioning myself if it was even an okay thing to ship Tristamp! vash x tristamp! wolfwood due to the age gap???

In the manga it was proven ww was of age (since the treatments went over a course of years) but it wasn't so clear in tristamp, especially with the whole forced growth sequence being more cut short than the manga. He may be in the body of a man but, isn't he still a child? is what I mean to ask.

At the end of the day I know they are all fictional and to block if I don't like but it still has me wondering.

I've seen a lot of people simultaneously pull "dni pedos" (which is more than okay and I agree) but then also go and ship what they ship.

I'm just genuinely confused I think. Is there something I am missing? or is he still a child in a man's body?

I don't know who else to ask, because I also know at the end of the day you're just an artist on the other end of the line. I'm sorry 😭

yeah, it's confusing because stampede never states it directly, but i'm certain that wolfwood is an adult from the brief glimpses of time shown in stampede itself and in trusting the studio themselves.

as we saw with rollo, he was experimented on for 5 years before ending up like this

and then we see him again in this same state 20 years later in episode 5. we get concrete numbers for rollo who we can estimate to be in his 20s when he dies. see here too that elendira, 20 years ago, also still looks like that, the same in the present. i'm saying all of this to dissuade any arguments that might be like "wolfwood should look older and not the same as he did in the flashback of ep 6" because there are only so many 3d models orange studio can make and design. i also think that ep 5 itself is meant to exemplify the quick years that can go by when in reference to a flashback.

the mention of wolfwood aging "in just a few months" shouldn't be an indicator of his age because narrative-wise, they only brought that up to emphasize him being a s+ grade and unique and to highlight how much he's suffered in just a short period of time. wolfwood's flashback is put together in one(1) episode, much of it is used to highlight the bond between him and livio in their childhood because that's the point of his arc. because of that, any scenes that shows him working under the eye of michael are all cut because it isn't important at this time of the show. there's a huge time gap missing in wolfwood's history because studio orange chose specific years to give weight to the arc they wanted to present to us first.

this is like the only scene we get of him doing his job under the eom, at the beginning of ep 6

and him here is different from how he is here.

so from the show itself, i think those are the obvious points that suggests wolfwood is not Still 10 years old when he gets sent to retrieve vash.

in reference to my second point of believing in the studio -- because they heavily based stampede off of maximum, i find it Hard to believe they'd randomly make wolfwood a minor because it genuinely serves no benefit to his story to make that change. there would be less weight to his bond with vash because wolfwood has always been the character to challenge vash, they're meant to be equals. much of maximum and 98, Even Badlands Rumble, play up the significance of vash and wolfwood's relationship and how the two can argue and depend on each other as people with similar life experiences. orange studio pour love into stampede and respects nightow and his craft and as a result, i think they'd keep vash and wolfwood on the same level in this adaption too.

all and all, they're both adults in previous versions and they're both adults in this version. final phase will probably give room for more of wolfwood's past experiences now that we know most of vash's story, maybe that would resolve any confusion.

hope that helps!

[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

[chibivesicle]

I would love to see an in depth breakdown of Stampede’s reworkings of Trigun’s female characters and how they compare to their original counterparts. Because although I’m not normally one to cry “misogyny” but I can’t help but feel like whoever decided to turn multifaceted characters like Meryl, Luida and Elendira into cutesy waifus and reduced Rem to the classic ‘dead mother’ trope has some explaining to do. There’s also the matter of the plants in Stampede being forcefully impregnated via Knives violating Vash, complete with swollen pregnant stomachs, which to me is just straight up, well, cursed(although something similar happened in the manga).

I can’t help but feel like there’s a lot of unspoken misogyny here.

Hello!

Now that Trigun Stampede is over and the dust has settled, I can 100% say that I agree with you. The level of lazy misogynistic writing in Stampede was high. When I was doing the weekly videos, I kept thinking, "Well, it isn't that bad. Is it?" until looking at the entire show and realizing, that "Yeah. It was terrible."

I'm not even going to touch on the entire sexual/impregnation of the plants via Knives by violating Vash at all! I'm sure one could write an entire meta about it and how cringe it is but I'm not feeling that vibe.

I'll focus on the female cast and how they were shortchanged from the original work to this 're-imagining'. I will say that the Trigun manga, focuses less on the female characters. But they are all totally competent individuals who are not driven by the romantic need to marry some man. Overall, the '98 anime was even better by creating the quartet of Vash, Meryl, Milly and Wolfwood. I mentioned it from time to time in my reviews but the original anime passed the Bechdel test. Which on paper isn't a high bar for media to clear but soooo many things fail that test.

For overall female character significance and roles in the Trigun universe (multiverse?) the '98 anime is top. Meryl and Milly play a major role in how Vash and Wolfwood behave and also bear witness to their actions and support them. Yet, they are not weak but instead demonstrate how four people, will have four different ways to solve the exact same problem.

However, the manga has a greater cast of women and cannot be ignored. As you mentioned, Luida and Elendira appeared in Stampede from Trimax and both are great characters. Aaannnnddd, Stampede ruined them for me.

The best way to approach all of the key women of the series, we'll break it down by character.

Meryl Stryfe - insurance adjuster/reporter

Trigun manga - secondary character. Acts as human viewpoint watching Vash, reacting to the power of his angel arm, contemplating what it is like to kill someone with a firearm. Age at the start of manga 21. Age after time skip, 23. By the end of the series 24-25 ish?

Trigun '98 - main character. Acts as human viewpoint in observing Vash [again] but also feels compassion towards him as their friendship grows. Senior and experienced insurance adjuster both a friend and mentor for Milly. Competent on the job, hard worker, gets things done, leans for logic over emotions. Age not mentioned in anime, but likely similar to manga. Vocal, opinionated, and ready to take on any situation.

Stampede - main character. Newbie reporter for November news under Roberto. Older starting age of 23, yet acts like she's 16 or something. Her character is a disappointment in this version; with her being junior to Roberto there is no senior female in the cast and it shows. By no means is Meryl supposed to be a perfect person (this is Nightow after all) but he does not write cutesy female characters. No female character in his cast is like how she is in Stampede.

Milly Thompson - insurance adjuster/reporter/???TBD

Trigun manga - secondary character. Strong, emotional, a bit naive but still able to help Wolfwood out during a fight. Continues to be the junior to Meryl and follows her to their secondary career as journalists.

Trigun '98 - main character. Foil to both Meryl and Wolfwood. Besides Vash making Wolfwood change his viewpoints, she also pushes him to think about things differently. Most importantly, she doesn't judge him based on his actions and only shows that she cares. Emotionally intelligent, naive and honest to a fault.

Stampede - next season?

Enough said right there. Why was Milly replaced by lame ass old man info dump Roberto?

Rem Severem - Key team member of Project Seeds/Vash and Knives adopted mother

Trigun manga - Rem is the mother/moral guidepost for Vash in the manga. He tries to uphold her ideals and moral code to not kill anyone. She told him about the death of her significant other which left her feeling lost. However, a dream about her taking a train with a origin station but no destination created her philosophy that everyone's ticket to the future is blank.

She is an incredibly compassionate individual and even tries to stop Vash from committing suicide being injured herself in the events. It causes him to snap out of it as he put her in medical care. However, her philosophy is impossible to practice on the planet where the ships crashed. Yet for ~150 years Vash is able to not kill another person.

Trigun '98 - The exact same role as in the manga but with less backstory fleshed out. However, her quote of one's ticket to the future is blank is the same. Additionally, the anime adds in her love of a creation song which becomes a musical motif in the anime linking Vash to her and to the present day humans as they try to create a new world. Hence the creation myth song as Project Seeds was to allow for them to restart.

The anime links Rem to Meryl when Vash finds himself lost as she supports him before he heads off for his final showdown with Knives. It shows that a very similar philosophy still exists within humanity and that Vash can continue on with his personal moral compass.

Stampede - At first, we learn who Rem is, unlike the anime or manga. She shows us that she saved Vash and Nai and that she loved them. However, that was it. We never hear her personal philosophy. The flashback only focuses on how she tries to raise them as her own children but no deep moral discussions are had like in the manga or even the anime.

Again, this is a huge determent to her character in Stampede; the series very much went for tell not show. So to try to convey Rem's character through showing when the default was tell made it a disappointment. I waited, waited, waited for her to say at least some version of her quote about the ticket being blank. Nothing.

Rem barely spoke in the scheme of things. Nor did Vash have dream or one sided conversations with her in Stampede which also made it hard to understand why he wouldn't kill.

Elendira the Crimsonnail - 13th Gung-ho Gun/nail producing child-plant hybrid who doesn't age

Trigun manga - A trans woman and the strongest of the Gung-ho Guns. Truly a witty and fashionable individual with her briefcase that allows for her to pierce opponents with a rain of oversized nails. Elendira's character is quite nuanced, watching the fall of humanity on the planet while having complex conversations with Legato. The two of them are frequently at odds but both see their roles to assist Knives in his goals.

I found her character to be the most sane/rational viewpoint into Knives and his organization. She always has a witty remark or comment and seems to have chosen to work with Knives thinking that this would be the winning side.

After she's revealed to be trans, that's pretty much it. It isn't brought up time and time again, nor does it define her character - you know with the whole ending of humanity on the planet taking more precedence.

Her final battle against Livio is epic and overall, I liked her character. She was badass in the best way possible.

Stampede - Ugh, where do I even start. . . . Elendira appears to be a perma-prepubescent child being a human-plant hybrid. We see her with Grey the Ninelines when they steal a plant in episode 3 wearing a pink dress. So maybe a girl? Maybe a boy? No gender?

But then, when we get the Monev the Gale/Rollo flashback, she speaks to young Rollo calling herself an angel and appears the same age. Present events put her fight with Vash, Wolfwood, Meryl and Roberto 25 years later and she looks the same. Apparently, being a human-plant hybrid makes her inferior to Vash or Knives since she still has to plug herself into one of the glass aquariums to regulate her 'gate'. So, not a plant plant, but lacking the skills of an independent plant. Sort of a crappy outcome the more you think about it.

Despite her age being at least 35 (say she was 10 when she met Rollo) or even older than that - she acts like a child. Gets angry like a child and has not mentally matured at all. Again, didn't get the rapid aging bits of Vash so still mentally a child? Unless I am told otherwise, I'm gonna stick with she/her pronouns and based on the rest of writing for Stampede, they likely want us to see her as cis not trans.

You cannot even compare Trimax Elendira to Stampede. They are not the same character other than the name. They don't even use nails the same way! As far as I'm concerned, she's pointless in Stampede. A cutesy angry girl who will kill you with her gate manifested nails.

Luida - Leader of [un]crashed seeds ship/botanist

Trigun manga - leader of humans from the Project Seeds ship that had been in hiding with several generations of humans living on it above the barbaric planet below. As events worsen, becomes the de facto leader of all the humans resisting Knives and coordinates with the NML cavalry. Wise, straight shooting and in charge. Brad works for her after the death of the Sensei by the Leonoff the Puppet master situation.

She never really steals any scene but is critical to the success of their plan and acts as the link between the humans from Earth and the people on the planet's surface. Always framed in a strong position of leadership. A very androgynous appearance with spiked black hair, and simple clothing.

Stampede - Simplified to the second stand in mother figure for Vash. She also gets aged up with her first meeting Vash when he was a teenager and brought him into their home. Instead of being older than Brad, she is a peer with him and both of them are considerably older in the current time point. A plant biologist expert - something which is not even close to the role that she played in Trimax.

She also elicits the anti-mother anger from Knives in Stampede, meaning that Knives only wants Vash to himself. No women allowed to be mothers for them! Compared to the manga, she again like Elendira is a totally different character. We don't see a whole lot of that natural leadership and commanding presence from the manga.

Therefore, of this list of key female characters their fates are as such in Stampede:

Meryl - aged up but down in maturity and experience.

Milly - missing.

Rem - dead mother trope. Never said anything to convey why Vash is the way he is.

Elendira - infantilazation to a perma-child.

Luida - kind older lady/second mother.

Therefore, two female characters have been relegated to mother figures; Rem and Luida. Meryl was made less mature to be the junior to an old asshole. Elendira is as far as we know a perma-child.

All mature women with years of experience have been removed from the story. Yeah, I enjoyed the previous versions of Trigun for their killer girls, uwu-waifus, and doting mothers. Really connect with these sorts of characters. . . .

I'm sure you can tell I'm being sarcastic. Thus, I will rewatch the '98 anime, or reread the manga and turn my attention to Kekkai Sensen. Where there are more excellent female characters - shocking! K.K., Chain Sumeragi, Luciana Estavez, Aligura, Michella Watch (a blind woman in a wheelchair took out a Beyondian mad doctor remember?) and in the anime, White.

If Stampede wanted to do scary cute well, they only needed to look at Aligura. One of the 13 kings and a gothic lolita. It takes ovaries to liquefy your boyfriend and inject him into your crush. But hey, it works. 'Cause based on her dismissal of Leo thinking that he was important to her, she's not one to cry like a perma-child like Elendira in Stampede. When one's monster truck, car eating vehicle of destruction causes thousands of casualties, you are pretty badass.

[threegunbrainrot]

I look at the 98 anime with a fond fascination. It’s based off of only the original couple issues of Trigun plus like I want to say the first 4? Of trimax. And bc of how many things get developed and revealed much more down the line in the manga, it’s so interesting to think about this offshoot of the original source material where things didn’t quite ramp up to the same scale but still got to the heart of things anyways, where everyone’s backstories played out just a little to the left and led to a similar but different tale. Trimax is definitely my favorite, bc just everything about it is so well done to me, but 98 holds its own unique spot in my favor

i definitely agree anon ur So right

it's practically a branching timelines situation, where everything is so, SO close to being the same, but thanks to the butterfly effect everything got skewed ever so slightly and now the whole world is just that much more different

call it parallel universes, alternate dimensions, alternate timelines... i really love it all. there's so many specific parts of both trimax and 98 that shine brighter and dimmer than one another. unique pieces of the narrative that were either expounded or brushed aside.

like in 98, meryl didn't want to believe that vash was the legend she was looking for. it was a ridiculous notion that such a friendly, goofy guy could be the bloodthirsty killer she hunted for

but in the manga, she and milly took to it instantly. in fact, they jumped into it with AGGRESSION- actively getting involved in the fighting and PUSHING to calm the situation down. this panel in particular i think sums it up very well lol:

they meet him with confidence and they're not afraid to fire upon others for the sake of collective peace. vash is caught off by how readily he's approached and even defended, in a way. when the automatic reaction to learning his identity is usually either hostility or fear, it makes sense.

and i dont have a convenient shot of any particular moment in 98 that portrayed their early relationship well, but it's easy to see the differences anyway.

instead of steady confidence, meryl met vash with confusion and outright denial for awhile. she and milly both got involved in fewer fights overall i think? but i might be wrong. i won't speak much on this since i don't remember 98 very well, but i get the sense they sought out vash's fights much less in that rendition (at least early on. they went CRAZY toward the end- meryl especially).

and there's countless little differences like this.

so yeah, even if trimax is the source content, 98 is this funky little spinoff that treats vash just a little bit more nicely lmao. the whole thing is a little more watered down, i think; intentionally to make it more palatable. i still love it regardless, of course. it just oozes charm <3

[tizzymcwizzy]

As someone who has watched 98 do you reccommed the new show that came out? I didn't care for it because they didn't put milly in there. what do you think?

i would recommend it! it's fun and very pretty,, but i would make sure you keep in mind that stampede is taking the approach of having it's first season act as a foe prequel of sorts. the events of it's story "technically" take place before the main chronology of the original trigun story, that's why millie isn't there, that's why vash looks the way he does, that's why roberto is there ect,, id also recommend reading the manga if you want the best of both worlds,,

stampede is a very different experience than 98, i went into it with the false impression that it would be similar but it's pretty different in tone and pacing.

98 is slower and way more lighthearted and silly, but has its darker more dramatic moments,, stampede is more serious and much more fast paced (the pacing near the start is annoying to me but in the grand scheme of the show it's fine) but has its occasionally moments of levity and humor,

if you watch stampede, which i do recommend cause it is fun and very very pretty and the music is good, id make sure you go in to it with the expectation that it's very different than 98

[intertexts-moving]

haven't watched trigun in years, but how's the new one holding up so far?

god. made a like, 6 paragraph post detailing my thoughts on this on my old blog.. i miss her..

i just finished ep 3 out of the 4 that are out so far! i like it. i think it's solidly holding a tone that is, while not identical to the original, at least. resonates with it. the same tone in a different octave, perhaps. disclaimer that i've not watched the 98 anime LMAO. manga only fan i watched the first, like, two eps of the 98 show & went man. i should really read this first. & then never got back to the show </3

studio orange is doing fucking stellar work with the animation!! this is perhaps my favorite thing ab the reboot. i don't get the 2d purism thing. the animation is sparkling and full of motion and extremely expressive in a way that's real similar 2 the original manga. ep3 has some gorgeous shots that i think wouldn't work as well w/ traditional animation, & they're extremely evocative of some of the big atmospheric high emotion spreads in the og. i like em! the vash design is cute, it's growing on me. i've still got a beef w/ the visible prosthetic & the younger design bcos the whole reveal in the original was so emotionally weighted & so important fr like. character & stuff. but. it's cute! same w/ the villain designs we've seen so far. eg mine looks way less goofy, for the like, 15 total minutes he's alive here.

tonally it's also holding up well! i think the whole show suffers a lot from pacing- this is my main beef w/ it lol. i mean, it's an understandable problem fr a show. i understand Why. but i still think it would rlly benefit from a much slower more even pacing. in terms of tone, this means it skips most of the whole like, volume one's worth of worldbuilding and setup & goes straight to This is Vash! he's involved with seeds and he's got an evil brother named knives who he hates for Killing Humans! we're gonna get fucked up about this! which is a pity imo. it would be much better with a little breathing room i think.

that being said, i rlly do think they're doing a great job capturing the.. vibe, i guess. of the original. the whole, this guy will put himself through the shredder for tired desperate people who won't hesitate to shoot him in the head for the money after he saves their lives, eternally the scapegoat for other people's crimes & is fine with it because he's got a guilt complex the size of texas type vibe.

there r admittedly goofy as hell moments. the fuckin.. dad from the nebraska family being like, a loveable kook once we get past the murder. which is.. fun, actually. knives shows up ex machina playing the piano, which is, like. why are u here other than furthering the story??? etc etc. but overall it's solid they're kinda starting frm scratch with the same overall frame & i think its fun seein em weave a new story from my favorite manga :]

[mayfly-stampede]

Vash’s decision

warnings: long post, spoiler Trigun Stampede episodes 3-12, Trigun Maximum chapter 10.

One of the most important differences in Trigun Stampede about Vash is his lack of…something although we still can see his characteristic sensitivity and empathy as in the manga.

Thanks to Sakura-Con 2023, we know that this series set before the city of July was lost, so Stampede Vash is more like a imperfect Vash and it was made more naive on purpose.

Naive? Vash has been always naive, in the manga and ´98 anime. He always thinks the best of humans…

Can he be more naive than that? How?

And that’s when it hit me: He is like an immature Vash. All of him, his emotions, his thoughts…even his hair.

We can see him nostalgic and there is sadness in his eyes.

It’s like he always goes back to the moment when he released Nai’s true intentions and thinks about that loop where he doesn’t want to do anything again his brother and the other plants being a plant himself…but he can’t go against human life either, which is Rem(his mother)’s teachings.

He is stuck in this for 150 years. Confused, alone, looking for answers while he is escaping from his brother, escaping from that past, escaping from that future that comes full speed to him and he begs it never arrives…

Because he is afraid too.

Afraid of loosing another dear one, afraid of his brother’s plans…and afraid of making a decision.

Even Roberto, Nebraska Father and also Nai asked which side is he on.

And his doubt is obvious through all the series, even more on episode 3, because he really doesn’t know yet…and it’s clear he doesn’t want to make a decision yet.

But when his hesitation involves Meryl and Roberto, he knows that he can’t delay the confrontation anymore.

BUT instead of choose a side, he tries to convence Nai. Expecting him to change his mind…

This reminds me Rollo’s death, when Vash is denying Wolfwood’s reasons to kill Rollo, letting us know that he is struggling with something inside him that he can’t explain himself either. In his anger he doesn’t try to understand Wolfwood’s point of view.

Even more, it is like he hasn’t consider the idea of others having a different way of thinking.

As a teenager who still wants everybody to fit in his beliefs.

In a moment, it’s almost like Vash is trying to force Wolfwood to change his beliefs. Instead of explain his ideas calmly as in Trigun Maximum chapter 10 where he at first is mad at Wolfwood killing the samurai but after a few moments he is not angry anymore. He is sad about his decision, but not angry.

This is similar to Knives, acting with no respect for Vash’s will, like in the manga.

And Stampede Vash doesn’t understand Knives’ reasons either. He doesn’t even try. He just know that they’re different from his own.

It is until Knives brings Vash back to his childhood, to a place where he doesn’t have to choose a side, that even in that situation a part of him still wonders about humans…

And that’s when he sees the answer deep inside himself, the answer that has been always there since the beginning and he didn’t want to see.

Because it doesn’t just mean he’s running towards his own path…but also running away from Knives too, who begs him to stay by his side.

At first, I thought he was is crying because he listens to Rem’s voice again thanking him to fight for her ideas and I felt this as a farewell

“Thanks for fighting for my beliefs…now, fight for YOURS”

but with that words, without doubts, he finally chooses a path for his own…away from Knives, his dear brother.

And when he is back, it is new birth to him indeed.

The change is clearly in ALL OF HIM: his hair, his color palette, his lack of hesitation at shooting his brother.

Because, as he explains himself: HE HAS MADE A DECISION.

And he is attacking with all he’s got: all his plant powers to stop Knives and all his Love and Peace towards humanity to protect them and being by their side even knowing that they could hunt him after all.

And yes, it can be a contradiction.

But now he accepts that.

He accepts that maybe they’re people who don’t want to be saved.

It really is an awakening.

He accepts that the world isn’t ideal and it’s not what he thought…and now he knows he can’t force Knives to change his mind. Because Knives chose his path more than 150 years ago just as he has done now and he can’t change that.

He realized Knives is just too different from himself…

Something that Knives still doesn’t want to accept.

And yes, maybe plants and humans can’t live together as Vash wants to.

But even knowing that, he is going to do his best to fight for it.

Because he is Vash The Stampede.