Trigun Stampede 01

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

A fleet of colony ships on approach to a planet start exploding. A woman named Rem takes two young boys, Vash and Nai, and gets them to an escape pod.

Many years later, a young female reporter named Meryl Stryfe and her middle-aged senpai named Roberto are driving across the desert when their vehicle runs out of power. They walk and find three bodies hung from a metal ruin. One is still alive and has a cybernetic arm. They help him down when the JuLai military police arrive. The captain shows a wanted poster for Vash the Stampede, who has a $$6M bounty. Meryl sends them in the wrong direction in order to get a scoop interview with Vash, whom they just saved.

The trio arrive in the town of Jeneora Rock. They learn that the towns water plant broke down. They go inside the technologically advanced structure with the water plant. Meryl shows Roberto that she knows plants are lost technology, biological generators. Of the two plant bulbs, one is red, meaning it is dying.

The military police show up and arrest Vash, offering to give Jeneora Rock the $$6M bounty, which would be enough to buy a new plant. Roberto goads their captain into a duel with Vash. The captain agrees, but after he throws away his gun, he fires a cluster bomb into the air. Vash is out of ammo, so Meryl gives him a .22 bullet, which he uses to shoot a rock and destroy the cluster bombs.

The cops flee, so Roberto asks Vash what he’s really afraid of. Vash mentions his twin brother, Millions Knives. He recalls Nai (Knives) admitting to destroying the fleet. Back in the present, Knives wants Vash.

Thoughts/Review

As I understand it, Trigun Stampede 01 is an anime-original story, not in the source manga. I’ve never read the manga, so I can’t speak to that. I know it wasn’t in to OG Trigun anime. To be honest, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this remake, or re-imagining, as the case may be.

Little Intrigue or Mystery Here!

One of the things that drew me into the OG Trigun anime was the mystery and intrigue of the world. Over the course of the series, we learned why all of the towns were constructed around the ruins of what was clearly more advanced, technological ruins. But in Trigun Stampede 01, we are shown things from the start, meaning the SEED fleet’s destruction. So when we get a time skip, it is pretty clear these ruins are the remains of the crashed ships.

Further, we know that Vash has a brother named Million Knives out of this episode. And we see that the fleet was destroyed at the hands of Nai/Knives. As such, one of the biggest reveals in the OG anime is gone. That leaves very little in the way of mystery or intrigue.

Heck, even the plants aren’t much of a mystery. Why the one plant is dying in Jeneora Rock is a mystery. But its death isn’t played up as a mystery. Rather, Vash’s reaction to the plant’s dying is the focus. So there is a mystery there. And the writers of the episode made sure the audience understood this by having a character literally ask why this made Vash afraid.

I gather that in the source manga, the mysteries I mentioned at the top where revealed in the first few volumes, certainly much faster than the OG anime. That aside, I’m not sure how I feel about most of the mystery and intrigue’s removal. At this point, we are basically just left with “Why Nai/Knives did this?”

No Milly for You!

While I get that the story in Trigun Stampede 01 is original, I don’t understand why the tall girl with the very heavy concussion gun, Milly Thompson, is missing from this series. I know for a fact that she’s in the source manga from the first chapter. As such, she seems an integral character to bring over. Plus, I liked Milly and Meryl Strife’s friendship.

Some folks seem to think that Milly might show up later. But I’m reading that she is not going to be in this new anime series. The middle-aged Roberto character replaces Milly. Thus Meryl goes from the senpai role to the kohai role in this new series. More on Meryl in a bit.

As to Roberto, I can’t say that the jaded, grizzled reporter who smokes and drinks too much does much for me. He’s just a cliched character that lacks any of the charm Milly had. I’ll be really depressed if Milly is truly removed from this anime.

Changing Jobs

Another radical change in Trigun Stampede 01 is Meryl’s profession. In the OG anime and the source manga, Meryl works for an insurance company. She and her partner Milly are tasked with finding and following Vash the Stampede for insurance purposes.

Now, Meryl is just a newly graduated, wannabe journalist. And rather than be the senpai character, she’s become the kohai to Roberto. In this new anime, Meryl looks like a child, and she acts like it as well. My memory of the OG anime saw Meryl as a short, but mature young woman. I never once saw her as a child there. As such, in the new anime, Meryl doesn’t have any gravitas as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t understand why Orange decided to make Meryl a reporter. I get that in the source manga, Meryl and Milly quit their jobs at the insurance company to work for a broadcast company. Despite some folks saying that Orange will start properly adapting the source manga with episode 5, I don’t believe it. I really am thinking that Orange just decided to use the characters and situations of Trigun to make something new. Thus we can’t have Meryl in her insurance job, and we certainly can’t have that tall freak Milly around. 😑

Stupid Villains, Unfunny Story

One of the biggest things I remember about the OG Trigun wasn’t just the intrigue and mystery. It was the madcap humor in that first episode. It really came off like an old school, extremely funny, Warner Brothers cartoon. But even though Trigun Stampede 01 had comedic moments, none of them made me smile, much less laugh.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with not laughing. Indeed, in the OG series, the tone of the show goes from high comedy to high drama as the episodes mount up. However, it was clear to me that the Orange writers were attempting to write humor to make me laugh. Only thing is, they utterly failed. I didn’t find anything remotely funny in this new episode, just dumb.

As to this episode’s villain…ugh. 🙄 This character made no sense. Initially, he and his fellow military police officers were perfectly normal. But then toward the end of the episode, suddenly the captain goes stupid and gets goaded to fight Vash in a duel rather than just take him into custody. And then, the captain fires a cluster bomb rocket into the air to do what? Destroy the town, Vash, as well as him and his men? What sense did that make?

I suppose the officers could have been controlled by Knives, who would be fine killing all humans. But when Vash does his impossible deed, the military police literally flee. Why? They could have taken Vash into custody then. None of it makes sense.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

It is nearly 3am as I write this, so let me wrap up my review of Trigun Stampede 01 with some final thoughts.

• Why is Vash using .22 ammunition rather than .45 like the manga and OG anime?
• I’m not really a fan of the new character designs. As I said, Milly looks like a child rather than an adult. Vash is missing his trademark, spiky hair.
• Since so many people are commenting on it, the CGI didn’t bother me. I gather everything, including characters, are CGI. Nothing stood out as really bad or good. Some of the animation did feel a little odd at times when it came to characters moving.
• We have more, moronic subtitles. Most of it was probably okay. However, there was a moment where Meryl greeted the military police with a cheery “Good afternoon!” and CR decided, “Yeah, that should be ‘Over here’ ’cause ‘reasons’!” 😑

In the end, Trigun Stampede 01 is a mixed bag for me. I’m thinking that if I had no connection to either the source manga or the OG anime adaptation, I probably wouldn’t have so many reservations. But as it is, I’m annoyed at Milly’s absence, and I don’t like Meryl’s change of job. And I miss the intrigue and mystery the OG anime provided.