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chibivesicle · 2 years ago

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‘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.

#trigun #trigun anime #trigun manga #trigun stampede #vash #nicholas d. wolfwood #meryl stryfe #milly thompson #kuronekosama

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chibivesicle · 2 years ago

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Trigun Stampede: Episode 1 review

To avoid being lazy and falling into the subgroup of a bitter nostalgic fan who watched Trigun on a fansub VHS tape before it was dubbed or on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, I have decided that I will faithfully review Trigun Stampede. This will be naturally in comparison to the original anime as well as the manga. Perhaps, I will become bitter and annoyed, perhaps not. However, I will do my best to review it as someone who has a soft spot in her heart for the original.

It goes that I will have spoilers for things if for some odd reason you haven’t seen the original so just keep in mind it will be in context to how Stampede compares to the original.

Episode 1 starts out in space with the Project Seeds ships flying near a desert planet. Vash is greeting all the people in the cryotubes and the ship is quickly met with disaster. Rem has Nai [Knives] and Vash go into the escape pod, Nai tells Rem to get in but she refuses and tells them this.

She doesn’t tell Vash to take care of his brother or there is no confusion as the door shuts leaving Vash to spend 130-150 years trying to determine what Rem told him to do in regard to Knives.

Rem just cries and makes it clear that they were import to her and her life.

Thus, the anime let’s the viewer know right from the start that people crashed on the planet and we know that Vash and his brother survived and it then cuts to a SUV in the desert with Meryl driving. Yes, the manga also starts off explaining that people crashed on the planet. But it isn’t revealed to be shown in relation to Vash, so, at the beginning of the anime we don’t know how he fits in this part of the narrative.

Meryl Stryfe is with her older colleague Roberto DeNiro and they are reporters for November Broadcasting. It is immediately apparent that Meryl is a recent college grad and this is her first job.

We can also see she has some lofty goals to change the world for the better as a reporter. However, she has to work with jerkass Roberto who rubs snot from his face on her resume, crumples it up into a ball and tosses it out the window. He refuses to call her by her name, is drinking on the job and chain smoking. Overall, I hate him and I want Milly back. The fact that some how anal retentive detailed oriented Meryl Stryfe forgot to charge the battery (and the fact they don’t have a spare to swap out in such a place) makes me cringe. When they walk up to Vash and she freaks out that he’s not dead cowers behind Roberto.

They are quickly found by the July Military Police (note to the subtitle peeps at CR who wrote it as JuLai) and the bad guy of the week hands them the wanted flyer. Vash looks much more like manga/anime Vash and he’s got a six million $$ bounty - not the sixty billion one that starts both the anime and manga.

Meryl sends them off his trail for a scoop. When Vash well, is Vash and all chatty with them, Meryl becomes such a flirty/flattered/ditz. This is only one of her facial expression/poses of over the top cuteness and - I hate it!

Why is a professional woman, who has to prove herself acting like this? Face it, women in the workplace deal with enough gendered shit and they went and made her all ‘Oh me? Reeeallly?? I’m just too cute uwuwuwuwu’. Excuse me while I go barf. Our man Roberto is already three sheets to the wind with his shirt tail sticking out as he looks resigned to be stuck with his stupid newbie and a weirdo outlaw.

Anyhoo, somehow they make it to Jeneora Rock with Vash’s wandering skills I guess. Meryl is looking rough as they walk to the main gate. Interestingly, she’s framed for a brief bit by a man with the weird emu/ostrich (not a thomas) creature with what appear to be metal coffins. Are these empty waiting for bodies or already full? Unclear. Is this man related to the Eye of Michael or just showing the wild west images from media of old?

This leads to the first time Meryl enters a saloon (sans Milly) and it attempts to recreate that first time of a petite professional woman out in the ‘frontier’. And it falls flat.

Yes, she gets made fun of when she enters similar to the original anime but we don’t have Meryl walking up to the barkeep, pounding her fist down and declaring the following: A banana sundae!

This is a woman who knows what she wants and she is fucking asking for it with authority. The animation pans to the shocked expression on the mens’ faces before showing this.

Milly may be the junior but she also knows what she wants! This then leads to the men heckling and intimidating them which comes to a complete stop when Milly’s strap breaks on her giant stun gun and the men decide to not mess with them. Keep in mind later in the episode when they are tied up, the minor villain, also realizes that Meryl is packing heat and backs off a bit as well.

Instead, junior reporter Meryl can barely ask for a simple water and gets mocked, by Rosa, not some burly male barkeep! Jeez, makes for a bad taste in my mouth when she is gushing about how great Vash is and gives Roberto a pass b/c he looks wise and hardened who tries to order a whiskey - like the man he is.

They notice that the city lacks clean water (if they set up a still they could clean it FYI) but it seems the creative team wanted something super obvious for Meryl to realize she isn’t in December or November anymore. Again, they introduce the role of plants from the get go instead of how the anime had the slow reveal about the giant light bulb things which were one of the few visual cues this isn’t an ‘old fashioned’ western. Along with the twin suns and extra moons.

While at the dying plant the July MPs are able to show up (they left the main door open?) and want to arrest Vash for the bounty, noting it would allow the town to get a new plant. Roberto decides to fix the solution, flask in hand by having the hot headed man duel Vash. Honestly, his argument is tepid at best but the unnamed MP goes for it and will reveal himself to be bat shit crazy.

The reporters hang back since the quick draw is on and Vash waves looking goofy and we do get a rapid shift in his facial expression when he’s no longer in line of sight from below. Roberto points out that Vash is a fool.

Meryl wants to help but he points out that she’d have been dead several times already. Which is factually accurate, but he wasn’t doing a good job of mentoring her to not die either. Compared to the original where we get a full five episodes of Meryl thinking Vash is a total goof and fool and couldn’t possibly be the legendary gunslinger, this one is quick to point out he’s not able to fit in this place.

Of course, Vash runs into the exact same issue from the original but revealed in a different way - he’s out of bullets. However, in the first one, he’s escaping the bounty hunters in search of him and he slowly knocks them out to steal ammo from them. This time he has a complete melt down and Rosa is willing to give 1 single bullet to Meryl to throw to him.

Honestly, this goes for the most epic badass how the hell did he do it with a single shot blah blah blah which - didn’t give me the feels. That’s the problem, we know that Vash is going to save the day and the town seems indifferent to him if he does or doesn’t.

His arm, which has already been identified as lost technology, could break solid rock and rip it out of the ground. I’m going to guess it likely doesn’t have a hidden machine gun in it anymore for extra protection. Current opinions on such topics have shifted and I can see Vash having the hidden machine gun as not being as cool anymore.

Trigun is like other anime/manga of that 80s/90s that were made for firearms nerds. Specifically, I’m thinking of Gunsmith Cats with Rally Vincent and May (I know that I’m really dating myself know bringing up this seinen series). Both Kenichi Sonada of Gunsmith Cats and Yashiro Nightow are seinen manga authors who are the right age to have been influenced by the western media that included crime noir/pulp/spaghetti westerns/dukes of hazard/gunsmoke etc etc stuff and it shows. I remember an interview with Sonada which I’m 99% sure was in Animerica magazine (now, I’m really dating myself) about all his research into firearms and making trips to the States to use them at a range and all sorts of crazy stuff like that.

The crisis is averted and the July MP are sent packing and Vash pretends to be a lucky bastard yet is still chatting with Meryl and Roberto. Roberto immediately calls him out on what his concern is and Vash just info dumps that he’s got a brother called Millions Knives. Wow, spare us the suspense and build up Vash. We get the flashback to the crash where it reveals in episode one that Nai orchestrated the crash, but don’t worry he saved the ship with all the plants so it is okay.

Vash can’t believe this happened and Nai makes it clear that Vash is his partner in this insanity. One of the insect birds flies to a very obvious bad guy layer where Knives is playing dramatic piano music as he learns that Vash been found and that he is to be brought to him. Stampede is throwing down the end from the start, Knives is the big bad and he has a plot to suck Vash into his orbit. He might have well had the long bad guy speech about how he formed the Gung Ho Guns and all that as well. Knives, why don’t you just monologue to your crew in episode one and save us all the mystery?

For someone with a great hatred of humanity, why is he playing the piano? He found everything about humans to be disgusting so why would he embrace a side hustle with music? I bet Midvalley the Hornfreak has been eliminated - saxophone is too 90s. It is 2023, bad guy with piano is in and badass sax is out.

The episode then ends with the scenes of Vash wandering and lots of sand. It seems alright. This was episode one, so we didn’t get our usual opening and ending so I can’t say anything just yet about the combo of both.

It seems just to mess with us, the episode doesn’t end with a philosophical preview but just this artwork. Vash is sitting on a rock outcrop looking at a ship that has crashed in a desert landscape. The background includes an actual photo, I wonder where it was taken. However, it indeed does look like the desert; I lived in one for over 7 years.

At the point where the mid episode commercial break was, we got a map of what they are calling the Seven Cities. The orange dot is showing the current location in Jeneora Rock. We can also see that July is still on the map. Did Vash not destroy it then in Stampede?

There is also an orphanage on the map as opposed to the one associated with Wolfwood in the anime/manga located in December. Which in both the anime and manga, December is alluded to be the most cosmopolitan and developed of the cities.

In the anime during the two year break when Vash disappears after Augusta and the Fifth Moon Incident, Meryl and Milly are back at the Bernardelli Insurance Society’s headquarters in December. It looks like a Gilded Age East Coast American city with paved streets, proto-skyscrapers and lots of motorized vehicles.

Note that the manga points out in volume 1 of Trigun Maximum that Meryl’s coworkers celebrate her birthday. And it reveals that when Meryl first encountered Vash and Wolfwood with Milly, she was 21! So yes, Meryl was a straight A student who completed her education and landed her job as an insurance adjuster/investigator when she was 21 and likely a recent grad and was the senior colleague to Milly!

I’d also like to note that the blonde colleague here Karen is pretty cool in the anime and manga recognizing that Meryl is an excellent employee and supports her either by preventing the other workers from being weird - or by her monologue in the anime about being happy that Meryl is chasing her career goals.

Episode 1 conclusions:

Vash - Vash appears to be pretty much Vash. I didn’t like his screaming/crying meltdown when he realized he had no ammo. Somehow, realistic tears seemed weird to me. In the anime he had the more of a comedic expression of horror.

I think the ‘Oh shit, I’ve got no bullets!’ gag worked better when it was low risk - Vash knew he could escape and no one else was involved. Taking the stakes up to for some odd reason try to save everyone from the cluster bombs which would fall next to the town (?) when it isn’t even clear it was a necessary action makes for a weak plot beat.

He also is info dumping left and right instead of his ‘fake’ smile which isn’t called out until episode 9 ‘Murder Machine’ when Wolfwood remarks that he can actually smile.

Apparently, Vash doesn’t like donuts anymore. I am sad if this is the case for Stampede. I will forever love his ability to eat half a box of donuts while running and also have a full conversation. It makes the scene where Vash gets the large bag of fresh donuts only to break down and weep openly in public hit you so hard.

I’m not keen on how he looks in Stampede, again having a red jacket that says Project Seeds which is still in pristine condition would make the backstory obvious. We’ll have to see if he moves the same way as super lanky Vash, but the toned down look and obvious replacement arm aren’t giving him much of an air of mystery. It was a nice touch when Vash runs into the room where Rem has the photo of them next to an actual germanium in a terrarium with red flowers though. We are keeping the red germanium = perseverance and tenacity.

Meryl Stryfe - As of episode 1 is the ‘worst’ of her anime/manga original chara and Milly as well. Derringer Stryfe wouldn’t have walked into a frontier saloon and mumble she wanted a water b/c she forgot to charge the SUV battery and pack a spare to swap out! She’d walk in and demand her banana sundae! None of this - the real world outside the big safe city is scary, hiding behind your drunk superior. The whole uwu bit with Vash was just bad, it makes her look shallow and self-centered. Jumping behind Roberto more than once - not cool, not cool. Anime Meryl had a high opinion of herself which occasionally got her in trouble but it was valid; she was a capable person who got the job done and used logic to solve her problems. For an anime that came out in ‘98 Meryl is a character ahead of her time. I never found her annoying, I liked her. Only now that I’m much older, I can see that my younger self - who was younger than her at the time I saw it, she was a good strong female character who was representation for someone like me still not yet in the real world (though I avoided it with graduate school too).

For her character design, I’m also disappointed. They kept her suit coat, earrings and navy blue tights but that’s it. The puffer jacket/windbreaker is weird along with the beret/newsboy cap thing, jean shorts and high top sneakers. If you are going to be in the desert and you want to wear a hat, wear one with a brim. Okay? Those finger less gloves - WTF?

Milly Thompson/Roberto DeNiro - Wow, wouldn’t I as a young professional woman love to be assigned to teamed up with a chain smoking, on the clock boozing, jerkass partner who refuses to use my name? I’m sorry, I hate his character, he’s lazy writing, decreases the female characters for the main cast and his suggestions barely move the plot in a logical direction. You really think that July MP guy would honestly have taken is bait to quick draw against Vash? No! In the Trigun manga he’d just riddle Roberto with bullets and take Vash. Hell, if it were the anime, he’d riddle Roberto with bullets.

Roberto is just Don Draper from Mad Men but bitter reporter. He’d smell terrible from all the cigarettes and booze and sweat. They are setting up the ultimate cheese plot point where Roberto is like, “Nice job Meryl! You really nailed it.” and Meryl will have feelings b/c her boss who should have respected her from the start has finally decided to respect her! The emotions! The payoff! [excuse me while I go barf some more]

Why am I saying Milly = Roberto? Let’s look at the preview poster again. We’ve got our four main cast members right here. Vash is riding the bird creature. Wolfwood is holding onto Vash’s jacket sort of. Queue the Vashwood shippers. He’s got Punisher by the strap and he’s losing his right shoe to reveal - no socks!

What’s with the slip on shoes in the desert? Sand, so much sand and grit and crap is going to get in your shoes and you don’t even have socks?!?! Where are your white socks with your tan oxfords? The anime was cheap and made them look like some sort of penny loafer, but they did animate his white socks underneath and yes, I noticed them Madhouse.

Wolfwood you are unfashionable with your dorky white socks, but I kinda love them. The manga has lace up oxfords which makes more sense that he’d at least wear dress shoes as a wandering priest/clergyman. It was visually striking and didn’t make him look as somber with the all black from head to toe. The tan shoes broke that vibe in a good way giving him a visual pop/interest and also letting others know he isn’t quite what he seems.

It might be that they want to make Wolfwood look younger and hipper and he actually looks like Wolfwood as a kid here when he killed his parental figure.

It zooms out to see him from above (sort of a ‘God’ angle) and transitions to him entering the room through him physically stepping through the door and into his new career. He looks like he’s wearing hand-me-down shoes as a poor kid.

It goes with the hidden message, that he at least has shoes even if they aren’t the best for going outside of a small town or city. Poor orphaned kid with his second hand too large for him shoes. I love how we can even see that as an adult with the white socks that Wolfwood’s shoes fit, the white sock is flush with the tan while in the flashback we can see a gap between his sockless feet and the too large shoes for him. Nice detail, nice detail.

Meryl has a camera which she’ll shoot with. No Derringers. In the manga there is a short several page reflection/commentary from Meryl about the use of firearms. When I re-read it I’ll make sure to remember where b/c it was top tier writing. She explains how her father made sure she was trained in the use of firearms as it was a necessity on the planet. But she takes it a step further and explains what it felt like the first time she ever shot a man. The power of her monologue keeps brings the reader back to reality and to not focus on the sheer number of people someone like Wolfwood has likely killed and how it would be tearing him apart if someone like Meryl can articulate what it feels like to have this responsibility for the rest of your life.

And Milly’s replacement is Roberto as on the poster artwork, he’s got a small pistol in his left hand. Therefore, under that boxy ill fitting brown suit coat, Mr. Jaded and Bitter is packing heat. Ta daaaa! This means that with Vash, Wolfwood and him, Meryl doesn’t need to dirty her feminine little hands and use a gun. What will his backstory be if he has one? Former police officer? Or local sheriff or marshal who gave up and went freelance?

Kuroneko-sama - is missing! Where is God? What is she doing? I have watched the first episode three times and is she there? No! The horror, nya!

Last thoughts!

I’ve spent the past few days watching and reading other reviews about Trigun Stampede. This includes articles on media sites, ANN, Youtube reviews, Reddit and so forth.

Here’s what I’ve gathered

1.) There may indeed be a gender split on Meryl and Milly. As in female fans are disappointed at the putative smashing of Meryl and Milly into one character as opposed to having two women in the main cast of four. Roberto is also a jerk and not getting very positive reviews from women. I think a lot of fans regardless of gender are upset at Milly’s absence but the Meryl/Roberto combo is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way for very valid reasons. I just notice less male reviewers calling out how toxic and unprofessional Roberto’s behavior is and female viewers not keen on him at all. Or they think Meryl is the exactly same serious career woman (sir, are we even watching the same show?).

2.) Many people were first introduced to Trigun via the dub on Adult Swim. They were younger than me when they saw it and are from after the flex point where anime was more common and more accessible. Some of them never watched in with the Japanese cast and didn’t get the experience of Wolfwood’s Kansai accent which gives him a bonus gold star for me. I was already done with Trigun before the fandom had likely really solidified. Watching things like Noir, reading Paradise Kiss, and FLCL dropping hard cash for the official DVDs after watching a file shared fan sub. I have been told the English dub is good, but no Kansai accent.

3.) Excited by learning about the reboot at AX last summer, I watched all of the original to see if it still hit the feels. It seems a lot of the people reacting to it haven’t gone back for a recent refresh which might make critiquing it a bit harder since several reviewers said that Meryl was a reporter from the start or can’t exactly remember what happened at various points.

4.) Character designs are ruffling feathers. I don’t have an issue with the CG. I’m not a huge fan of it for animation, I prefer 2D but that is just style preference. But the character designs for very distinct characters which have been tamed for sure. Studio Orange is leaning hard into the sci fi element. The manga and Madhouse were western first - by a long shot with sci fi in a distant second.

5.) More major character role changes might be coming up. Meryl is a reporter. And then in PV 2 we have a black screen where we can hear a voice say. “Who me? I’m just an undertaker.”

Undertaker is specifically a British English term for a person who prepares bodies for burial or cremation. The screen then pans to a wide expanse of the desert and we can see a figure carrying a cross.

As he walks closer it reveals Wolfwood walking forward with his fairly accurate humor.

However, if this is how he indeed introduces himself in the anime, it will have changed his actual job besides being an assassin/hired gun.

I’m not sure it could equal the comedy gold that this sequence was in episode 9. You just know that Meryl skepticism is on the mark when she doesn’t seem to believe he’s who he says he is.

Fingers crossed, Wolfwood still gets that air of mystery by introducing himself as a priest/clergyman and not undertaker. Vash already blew his mysterious background a bit in the first episode, at least let Wolfwood have some since there is the possibility they include the Eye of Michael in Stampede. I saw you Livio in PV4.

Well that is all for now. Episode 2 comes out tomorrow and we’ll see how it goes!

#trigun stampede #trigun anime #trigun #vash #vash the stampede #meryl stryfe #roberto deniro #milly thompson #kuronekosama #anime review #episode review

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