Trigun Stampede 04

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Three days after the destruction of Jeneora Rock, Meryl dives the news rover and trailer with Roberto and Vash inside. She nearly runs over a man carrying a giant, wrapped cross. However, because the trailer hit him, Meryl rushes him to a service station in the middle of the desert. Unfortunately, they find the couple who owned it have been slaughtered.

Vash finds a frightened kid, hiding in a locker. The man with the cross is a priest-undertaker. After burying the couple, a giant sand worm emerges beneath them to consume them, including the service station building and their vehicle. Inside the worm, the kid runs off, so the four split to find him. Meryl does, only to be snagged by something.

Meanwhile, the other three meet up, unable to find the kid. Roberto suspects that the man may be controlling the worm, based on intel from Roberto’s news agency. The man denies it. Roberto disappears, so Vash and the man try to find him. They make their way to the worm’s nose, where they are violently expelled. The worm turns and attacks, so Vash lets himself be consumed again.

Inside, Vash finds the kid. The man shows up as well. However, Vash realizes the kid is controlling the worm. As such, the man unwraps his cross to reveal a massive weapon. He uses the machine gun function to blow a whole in the worm’s side. The kid escapes, so the man changes the weapon to laser mode and slices the worm in half, through its head.

That night, the group and some nomads feast on the worm. The man is Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Later that night, Wolfwood meets with the kid, Zazie the Beast, whom he apparently works for. Elsewhere, Knives gets a report on Vash.

Thoughts/Review

I had noticed the nod to Dune in the first episode of this new series. However, I let it ride as I vaguely remembered worms in the OG Trigun. And frankly, the loss of Milly had me distracted as well. That said, in Trigun Stampede 04, Orange went WELL beyond a nod to Dune. It was as if they went and saw the recent film adaptation and thought, “You know, lets do Dune in anime form, only we’ll call it Trigun Stampede!” I mean, this episode is just as much an adaptation of Dune as it is Trigun. The spice must flow! 😜

Wolfwood is Here

Orange wasted no time bringing in Wolfwood in Trigun Stampede 04. His introduction was comical, though it didn’t make me laugh. His outfit this time has no Christian iconography, unlike the OG anime. So other than carrying that cross, I don’t know what would make anyone think he was a priest. However, I seem to recall Wolfwood felt like a con artist in the OG anime, and that feeling remained here. Likewise, that sense of, “Who’s side is he really on” is here too.

Wolfwood’s gun has been heavily changed. As I recall, in the OG anime, it had a machine gun function, a rocket launcher function, and it stored a lot of guns for Wolfwood to use. The new cross has a machine gun, but also has an energy beam weapon. So we’ll have to see what other changes are made to his cross. That said, the cutting of the Dune worm did remind me of classic anime titles, where a beam weapon would do something similar. That was cool.

As to Wolfwood’s meeting with Zazie, I wasn’t surprised. He didn’t have the same meeting in the OG anime, but I seem to recall a similar storyline. Heck, Zazie was a completely different kind of kid in the OG anime (episode 22, I think). That aside, the nuWolfwood seemed pretty similar to the OG one.

Vash

Vash makes a slight improvement in Trigun Stampede 04. This came from Vash standing his ground before the giant sand worm in order to be consumed to help save the kid, Meryl, and Roberto. In that moment, Vash finally felt like the character he was in the OG anime and manga. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it. No whining, crying, or going all loser on us. That’s how he should always be a character.

A surprising thing happened with Vash’s character. Maybe I’m wrong, but my memory of the OG Vash is that he’d get enraged whenever Wolfwood killed something. And in this episode, Wolfwood hand-kills two of the insect-worms before lasering a bunch to death. Then he slices the worm in half with his beam weapon. Vash didn’t seemed disturbed about this at all. If anything, he was thankful Wolfwood did what he did. I really didn’t expect this.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

I need a nap, and I need to get my new PC up and running. So let me wrap up my review of Trigun Stampede 04 with some final thoughts.

• I know some people gush over the art and animation of this new series. But at times, the movements of characters enters the uncanny valley, where things don’t feel right.
• It does look as if Knives is collecting Plants. But I still don’t know why he hasn’t slaughtered every human on the planet yet. Whatever this “gate” is, I don’t see how it is related to what Knives wants, especially if Knives is going to kill Vash.
• I know there were worms in the OG anime. But there, the worms didn’t remind me of Dune. Here, it really is as if Orange wanted to recreate iconic sand worm moments from Dune. I kept waiting for someone to say, “The spice must flow!” Knives would have been perfect for that.
• I miss Milly.

In the end, Trigun Stampede 04 was an okay episode that drew heavily from Dune in parts. And we were introduced to Woodward.