I think it's such an interesting choice of Orange to give Vash such a blank, neutral expression at the sight of the corpses in the charger station. They're usually so attentive to telling a character's state through their expression and body language- we can even see here both Roberto and Meryl showing their discomfort. I always find it so interesting when Vash's "soft" resting expression drops into this more, almost contemplative? Disassociative? Expression. Because I'm fairly sure it only happens when no one's looking at him so it kinda feels like a bit of his mask slipping
Traced from a photo from this blog: link. Originally had thought it was Creative Commons but I think my search filters were wrong so I’m not certain anymore unfortunately, so I’m sharing with that big caveat.
Episode 6 dropped yesterday and I had only enough time to watch but not anything else. After watching it, I just felt meh wringing my hands about how when I first heard about the reboot at Anime Expo last summer I was so stoked for a more through Trigun anime. And we get this version from Studio Orange which I really wanted to be an enjoyable watch - buuuuuut - meh. You’re killing me Studio Orange.
Since I didn’t have time to get to it yesterday, I pestered my good meta friend Merdopseudo to see what she thought as well, so I’ll be highlighting some of her points here as well since she’s great at catching things I miss or summarizing well. As indicated by my summary title, I’m quite confused why they decided to lead with Wolfwood’s even more tragic backstory in this version of Trigun than in the manga.
We start off the episode with a fleeing masked member of the Eye of Michael (though they haven’t been named yet) who tries to kill Wolfwood and fails as he destroys the man.
We get even red eyes as he lines up his aim before the man dies. And he’s wearing his sunglasses even at night! Wow, maximum badass. Why? Wolfwood needs to be a maximum badass, that’s why. Furthermore, so many scenes in this anime seem to feature full moons all the time. Just an observation.
After the opening we return to the quartet in the November News Bureau SUV. In the backseat, Vash and Wolfwood are pouting over something and Meryl jokingly asks if they are having a spat over candy.
This line feels like it was delivered in poor taste. I get she’s trying to defuse the situation but are we to think this is due to Wolfwood shooting Rollo - last night? Or a few days prior? What is our pacing? What day of the week is it? How much time has passed? Any clue would help us out here Studio Orange. I’m going to take the easiest option and say that they are pouting about the fact that Wolfwood killed Rollo - last night.
Roberto then suggested that they need to finish their job. This would mean abandoning the SUV and taking the Sandsteamer to July and I guess check in with a Bureau office there?
He’s clear that he wants Meryl to take the steamer but it was vague if he was going to go with her or if he wanted her to take it for safety. Uncle info dump isn’t info dumping this episode much.
They end up separating from Vash and Wolfwood who both board the Sandsteamer. Wolfwood gives Vash shit for seeming to have no emotional connection to Meryl and Roberto - which really it a valid reply. It hasn’t been that many days that Vash has known them.
It has been even less time for Wolfwood to know Vash and he’s sticking to him like crazy glue, again being an ass. Honestly, there is NO chemistry between Vash and Wolfwood in this version, Vash runs and tries to not kill people and Wolfwood gives him shit and kills people.
Meanwhile, Meryl is working hard to convince Roberto that they need to continue to track the Humanoid Typhoon. Interestingly, that she doesn’t call him Vash, but by his destructive nickname here. She pulls out the photo with young Rollo asking Roberto if he’s scared.
We don’t get a clear answer from Roberto if he’s actually afraid - I felt he isn’t afraid of Vash per se, but instead realizes that his youthful appearance is some sort of indication that dangerous stuff surrounds him. More that he wants to avoid Vash out of a sense of - I dunno - not dying. This episode will frequently use the word monster to describe Wolfwood a lot and Vash as well. This is the writers trying to get us to connect the two of them and make us feel that they should be friends and a dynamic duo - which they aren’t currently.
We see people at the Ferry Terminal waving to those on the steamer which in this version is called the Humpback. Interesting shift, as in the original the Sandsteamer was known as the Flourish and was a Humpback class.
In other versions, children were excited when it came, being Sandsteamer nerds. I’ve been following too many historical sewing/clothing youtubers for the past few years and I keep getting vibes that the clothing for normal people in this sci fi series is more 1910s-1920s and not late 19th century western dress. The boater hats, suspenders, knickers, newsboy caps, lack of women with bustle action etc. I know it is a future sci fi series, but it does seem that they tried to modernize the clothing to at least be early 20th century to fit the sci fi vibe more.
On the steamer there is a route map telling use they are leaving the Terminal - which literally is just a single terminal in the desert? What? Ports develop around such locations but this is just a terminal.
It is also hilarious that the Terminal starts somewhere in ‘Central America’ crosses part of the Great Sand Ocean, there is the Hopeland Orphanage in ‘Africa’ stops West of ‘India’ and then loops around ‘Australia’ only to reach July in ‘Southern China’. Really guys, you just took a world map and smooshed and distorted the proportions. We also get to see a tall man with the modified Zia-Cross symbol of the Eye of Michael in Stampede.
Back when I first saw the early previews, I caught a glimpse of what was his back in an action shot and my first thought was - what? Are they using a Zia in the anime when it has some important symbolic meanings?
Stampede has been clear it has shifted very far away from the Christian aspects of the original work. Since this is based on a Western style anime/manga we get this mixed vague symbol which I’m certain is a visual hybrid with the Zia. If one were to travel through the Southwest as a tourist, you would inevitably see a Zia in some form with the most obvious being that of the New Mexico state flag. The flag is yellow with the red Zia in the center representing the Zia sun symbol. This symbol originated from the Zia Pueblo but has come to include more Pueblo groups, Hispanic native New Mexicans to just New Mexicans. You live in New Mexico? Lots of government documents, logos and all sorts of stuff will have a Zia symbol.
A simple way to summarize it is that it captures New Mexico culture - for example a cycling racing team is known as Zia Velo and they represent southern New Mexico. However, if the Zia is applied out of a New Mexico/Pueblo context things get stickier. I also think with a Japanese audience, a symbol which is built on groups of four wouldn’t work for the viewers so they took elements of the Zia from a Southwest inspired image board and called it good. Four is the number of death for East Asians versus for the Zia, four is a scared number that captures key elements of life.
Anyhoo, I got distracted by the interesting looking symbol for the religious group on our desert planet.
Vash finally gets around to directly asking Wolfwood what his job is and he replies that he’s babysitting him. From Wolfwood we can understand that it is his ‘job’ to make sure Vash gets somewhere. Or at least those are the orders that Wolfwood has.
Their conversation doesn’t get very far since Livio appears on the scene almost immediately and shoots at both of them. We have a much more clean cut and slick looking Livio with a slim build and his two smaller guns along with a modification on his face and a mechanical sounding eye.
Vash fights back and it able to get close enough to fire at point blank range, but of course doesn’t. We know he doesn’t want to pull that trigger, but it seems none of his modified opponents could care if they are in a tight spot.
It takes a little bit of time for Wolfwood to recognize who this man is and it ends with him asking if he is Livio before the title screen flashes.
The anime then takes a shift to a 2D style of animation with silent film style titles showing how Livio came to the orphanage and Wolfwood was the longer taking care of the ostriches.
As Livio settles in, Wolfwood becomes his friend trying to get the crybaby to stop feeling sad at missing his parents. He gets him to help out in the bird pen, and there is a cute sequence of them becoming childhood friends.
Older Wolfwood, tries smoking like an adult all cool and shares it with Livio who coughs. We get a close up of Wolfwood running off with Livio hand in hand where in this flashback Wolfwood has a much darker skin tone in contrast to Livio being exceptionally pale.
We get it, there was a time when Wolfwood was cute and he was friends with Livio. The flashback goes back to the present and Meryl and Roberto chasing after the sandsteamer when the Bad Lads gang shows up on sand sail boats.
They are taking this idea of the Great Sand Ocean quite literally and I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m still wondering why it even exists but this is a sci fi desert series paying homage to lots of other sci fi desert tropes.
Interestingly, we have no idea if the Bad Lads Gang have taken Meryl and Roberto hostage, just that they’ve been surrounded. I also guess there will be no scene with Kaite, the son of the chief engineer of the original Flourish.
Wolfwood’s flashback continues that he’s been selected as a ‘Child of Blessing’ just like Rollo by mysterious church.
There is a weird psychedelic flashback were Wolfwood is a test subject and shows S+ levels of possibilities. This is clearly a term added for the Japanese audience as the States does not have this type of ranking which is a trope specific to Japanese media.
The original Trigun did not make references to S+ and I honestly don’t remember the term coming up in Trimax either. We get that Wolfwood is subjected to all sorts of crazy stuff and due to his response to the treatments he’s a good candidate for furthering efforts. Just like the breakneck pace of the anime, his own physical development is rapidly accelerated - much more so than with the manga.
We still don’t have a clear timeline, but if he’s ten or eleven at the start, but he’s I dunno twelve now? As the original anime put it, he was taken in as a child and trained by Chapel the Evergreen for ten years before striking out on his own for an unclear amount of time making his age over twenty. The manga has the unclear timeline where you’d think he was around twenty at the end, but maybe seventeen. Either way, manga and ‘98 anime Wolfwoods were more emotionally mature and had seen things. This version of Wolfwood might be a super-powered twelve year old for all we know. Which I am not a huge fan of this angle.
For fun he’s stuck on an inverted cross examine room table and called a monster for emphasis. Yeah, let’s slap some basic Christian imagery down but it has no meaning since that’s been cut out in this version.
Of course, being likely only twelve, he tries to escape his now adult form declaring he’s returning to the orphanage before getting caught.
As I stated previously, I wasn’t a huge fan of younger Wolfwood in the manga since it has a character disconnect where he had this world weariness that did not match his age nor life experience. But I could forgive that a little since we saw him as an older teen training under Chapel. Now, he’s a man with a child’s mind. Yeah.
With his attempted escape, he is only stopped by Legato. This is another huge deviation from the anime and manga since Legato doesn’t even know what ‘Chapel’ looks like in the manga.
Their first encounter was at the Church at Jeneora Rock and the assembly of most of the Gung-ho Guns. In contrast, he’s immediately on guard since Vash told him about the strange and dangerous man he’d encountered on the bus to May city/Augusta.
For the sake of oversimplifying the plot, something that Merdopseudo and I had been predicting, Legato is the one who reveals that all things lead to Knives. The Eye of Michael is not an independent organization! It is all a part of Knives noble plan for the the future. This is lazy writing. The whole regenerative capsules and religious assassin organization were independent of Knives and only worked with him due to a shared goal of sorts. Legato tells Wolfwood he’s been signed up for the Eye of Michael.
And apparently, since Wolfwood still has willpower to fight Legato, it makes him unique and declares that he doesn’t believe in any god.
Wolfwood has gone from being a flawed, trapped principled man with some sort of religious core to an atheist. Okaaaaaaay Studio Orange - not sure where you are going with this at all.
Legato brings in Livio who wanted to join Wolfwood and it is clear at the moment that Livio’s backstory has been completely retconned and he’s the younger brother character for Wolfwood to worry about.
Legato comes off as bizarrely cold and unemotional in this version. In the anime he was a man clearly bent on a dark and destructive agenda, but I would not call him unemotional. If anything Legato had a huge amount of pretentious pride in his nihilism. It was a defining feature of his character and in the manga his intense emotions and nihilistic tendencies were even more over the top.
This Legato - just a cold blooded robot. Conrad shows up with his own Project Seeds jacket in white, symbolic of his role as a staff scientist. It also has me wondering how old he is in this version. Our Doctor has to stop Legato from killing the promising young Nicholas for the greater goals.
The flashback ends and Vash and Wolfwood are arguing again as Vash is interfering wanting to help.
Vash managed to pin down Livio in a rather smooth action sequence with lots of empty shells bouncing around as he tries to figure out what is up when he calls out Wolfwood’s name.
This catches Livio’s attention who says that he needs to catch up [to Wolfwood] and easily launches Vash off into the air while Wolfwood randomly declares that he can’t let the two of them kill each other.
So, when did you become friends with Vash, Wolfwood? You only showed up in episode four and here in six you are his friend? You’ve had no bonding! There was no foray into the desert to rescue a child or bus ride. No tournament or situation with a runaway kid where your philosophies aligned and clashed. You haven’t gotten drunk together.
But hey, we now have Wolfwood’s flashback and we know he cares about Livio his adoptive younger brother who can’t kill his other friend Vash. This. Does. Not. Work. I see two random men in sunglasses who just argue with each other.
Zazie the Beast and Livio approach the Sandsteamer as Legato reads the ‘bible’ of the local religion and the two characters mock Wolfwood and his pinch. Legato has decided emotions are for losers and Wolfwood has those pesky emotions!
We get it, Wolfwood is different and you are having fun watching him suffer.
They drive close enough to the Sandsteamer that Legato is able to stop an internal mechanism inside the the locomotive that causes it to veer off course. It seems that Legato has leveled up in his own abilities instead of manipulating people to do things against their will.
I guess Legato is officially an ESPer instead to make him easier to understand. I will miss that manga scene with the transport truck and the Calvary and the blood dripping onto the sand below.
By diverting the steamer, it now is on a collision course with the Orphanage - which is apparently the entire town? This is as confusing as the Terminal being a Terminal alone.
At the same time the Bad Lads Gang have appeared. And with our simplified plot we know - they were brought here by Knives.
Why do Legato and Zazie the Beast care what Wolfwood does next? If they see themselves above human emotions why do they care at all?
And with that the episode ends on a cliffhanger.
We will learn in episode seven what happened to Meryl and Roberto and perhaps the man himself will appear. B.D.N. that is!
My immediate reaction to this episode -
Wolfwood’s backstory was way too soooooon! Far too soon! Was this even earned Studio Orange?
For a few points, I’m going to tap some of my conversation from my good meta friend Merdopseudo.
1.) A good stand alone episode. Technically, and by itself this was a good episode. Merdo points out it is fine as an episode but its structure is also its weakness, indicative of the issues that have plagued the series. Where does this fit in the overall structure of the story? What purpose does it serve in advancing the plot? The episode is fine. You can watch it and be entertained.
2.) Wolfwood’s backstory is unearned. We get Wolfwood’s tragic backstory far to early into the plot. He appeared two episodes ago, seems to be a dude who is rude and will kill if necessary. We don’t know what it at stake for him. What does he do normally? Where is his moral compass? What is he doing in this whole mess. Why do we even care? Right now, Wolfwood is a kid with a big fucking gun and apparently had a friend named Livio. The found brothers trope also falls flat despite the technically excellent 2D silent film flashback. The backstory in this episode is just ‘put there’ in an attempt to humanize this version of Wolfwood.
3.) Vash and Wolfwood are not friends. Yep, I will continue to say this. They are not friends. Wolfwood is an annoying guy following Vash around because those are his orders. They have not bonded in their adventures, nor have they argued about how to act. They both jumped into save a girl, rode the bus to May city/Augusta. They in the anime had more bonding at the competition and fought over the rights of the individual versus the rights of the collective. In the manga the bonding is a bit later but still happens over several volumes and Wolfwood gets tied into Vash’s heroic antics from time to time.
4.) The pacing is paradoxical. This is Merdopseudo’s best point. With the predicted 12-13 episodes, this story needed tight-super tight plot beats. Instead, individual episodes are slow while the combined episodes are rapid leading to this disconnect. This is the best highlight of the writing problems that have plagued this series from the start.
This ties into what I have also been most critical of - the pacing. There is no room to breathe between episodes yet, certain episodes linger and waste time on things which are unnecessary. This is a lot of the CGI scenes of how E.G. drove his wheel or how Rollo was watching Vash dodge and stuff like that. Or the man with the lights guiding the Sandsteamer out of port. Just lots of strange shots that visually look cool but don’t help the story.
Which gets back to Merdo’s theory that this is all just a demo for Studio Orange for future projects and investors.
And as this continues, I become more pessimistic that this indeed is the purpose of Trigun Stampede. Studio Orange took on Stampede because it was a low risk project. They updated the look for a more modern audience and don’t have to worry about upsetting the original fans of the anime or manga since it was domestically a flop and obscure. Clean it up with characters that are for the domestic audience, simplify the plot beyond recognition and make it dazzling to the eyes. It is only 12-13 episodes, it will pull in better projects in the future.
Studio Orange isn’t going to care about the non-Japanese, specifically very likely vocal American fanbase. We aren’t there buying the new merch at Animate. Hell, it is currently and annoyingly out of print with Darkhorse here in North America. Why keep all the elements that made it a smash hit elsewhere? It doesn’t help their bottom line.
Thus, Trigun Stampede is a product that does not take the elements of the original anime from Studio Madhouse and the lore of Trigun Maximum to deliver a cohesive product that gives us the magic sauce that made the original so good. It was never their intention to present us with faithful adaptions of the original series and characters. They clearly don’t care for the original themes, character morals, questions, struggles, successes, failures and sacrifices that made the original such an emotional high hitter.
Quick character notes:
1.) Our dud duo - Meryl and Roberto. For once, Meryl sticks to her guns and is able to guilt Roberto into continuing. Good for her, but doesn’t amount to much in terms of plot. She stood up for herself and made a valid argument and her senior colleague agreed. Wow.
2.) Vash. Is more assertive with Meryl and Roberto away from him, and finally asks Wolfwood what his deal is. He has some decent fight scenes with Livio but honestly, doesn’t do much else in the episode due to the Wolfwood heavy plot.
3.) Wolfwood’s premature backstory. Fails his character greatly. Wolfwood is a character of great nuance, moral struggles and lots of questioning in a good way. We see none of that and get his backstory upfront almost as quickly as Vash’s. This attempt to humanize him without knowing him does not serve his character. This also doesn’t work with his previous religious associations which are why he was a more powerful character in the original versions. We know he believes in God, though he’s not naive enough to believe that faith in God will solve his problems. If anything he sees that humanity’s flaws and dark sides force humans to become devils at times (a line both used in the anime and manga). The anime leans in much harder with the priest aspect of his character with his first and last confession in the church before he dies. The manga instead has him die at peace sharing a drink with Vash as he’s ‘thanked’ by the younger children of the orphanage. Either way, both of these endings for him show that he’s a man who has a moral code derived from a very Catholic theology and he struggles with balancing that with his own actions trapped between powers greater than him. He has a clear line between acts of divine beings such as God and Angels and how it is impossible for a single individual to meet those and instead must learn to live with their actions and how painful it is to directly contradict your own moral code.
4.) Legato Bluesummers is a ‘robot’ with a bad haircut. This version of Legato is not the nihilistic, self-destructive one of the anime and manga. He mocks others and sees himself as superior to orphans like Wolfwood. He wants to watch a moral quandary but does Wolfwood really have a moral dilemma? Is he religious or is he reading a religious text to mock it due its emphasis of faith and emotions? Like Wolfwood, his power is also much greater, if this were the original he would have made that random train engineer dude destroy the moving part while dying in the process. Now, he just goes ‘whoosh’ and it breaks. Boo - I miss his sadistic tendencies.
5.) Livio is another ‘robot’. But with a hangup to be like Nicholas! I bet. Unless, he also gets a long flashback, his character has been likely completely retconned to the extreme. Lazy writing would indicate that Razlo the Tri-punisher was a result of his mind splitting due to the experiments. That’s my prediction if we do get his backstory. Not due to other things . . .
6.) Zazie the Beast. Is weird. Look, I’m playing cat’s cradle and I made a spider web. Humans are so dumb, mwahahahahahaha! I’m also filling in for Leonof the Puppermaster with my insect spycams/drones.
My snark is coming out in my character responses here, but really are these characters with depth or characters checking boxes like a game of Bingo. I’m curious to see how many of my predictions pan out in future episodes of if they will leave us in the dark.
As far as themes, this episode doesn’t really have one that stands out. Other than adults treat children very poorly in this place and even if you are a masked religious woman, you have to have big tits.
