The 1998 Trigun anime is considered a classic among anime fans, and in my opinion, rightfully so. Its iconography, soundtrack, characters, and story are all fantastic, and the series has remained as part of the cultural conversation about anime for decades.

In 2023, the first season of Trigun Stampede aired; a re-imagining of the original show. And it’s… alright, I think.

The tone and parts of the story are pretty different from the original, but in a way I think is somewhat refreshing. In the modern glut of remakes, it’s nice to see something that isn’t wholly cynical or just a botched carbon copy of its source material. In fact, there are definitely some parts of Stampede that I think have improved on the 1998 show. It’s different enough that I could see someone who never got into Trigun getting into Stampede, but not so different as to be alienating to the original audience.

I do prefer the 98 show, but it’s not because Stampede is like…incompetent or even just kind of bad. If I’m being totally honest, Stampede isn’t really my thing. I tend to like my sci-fi to be a little more fantastical, like Starfinder, or Fooly Cooly, or a little more surreal, like Evangelion… or Fooly Cooly. The original Trigun is a lot goofier than Stampede, even though it still has a strong emotional core. While this is an aspect of the show I enjoy (in fact, one of my favourite things about anime as a genre is the way it mixes comedy and tragedy), I can just as easily see someone preferring Stampede for this exact same difference. I think it would short-sighted of me to pretend like every show must cater to my taste, especially when more serious sci-fi shows rank among some highly acclaimed and beloved anime.

That being said, I do find it a little bit hard to ignore how relatively generic Stampede feels as a sci-fi series when compared to Trigun 98. And, to be clear, I don’t want this to be comparison for comparison’s sake. I’m not insinuating that Stampede needed to be more like the original or order to be good, and I’m not saying that one show is garbage and the other is perfect. I just think that the original show is far more unique in terms of storytelling, and Stampede is more derivative. The shows make good comparisons for each other since they have a similar plot and setting, but a different way of communicating information to the audience, as well as other stylistic differences that can sway you in one way or the other in terms of which show you’ll prefer.

For the sake of being as comprehensive as possible with my opinions, this video is going to be split into three sections. 1) Ways in which Stampede actively improved upon the original. 2) How both stories convey information to the audience, and 3) Meryl. We’re going to talk about Meryl.

Okay, let’s dive in.

I’m going to start with my biggest problem with the original Trigun series, which is the casual sexism that kind of runs through the show. While I don’t think the female characters are poorly written, pretty much all of the named female characters either become damsels in distress, femme fatales, or are just dead before the series starts. There’s also a few jokes that I’ll generously say have not aged well. Also it’s super tonally awkward when you have these kind of jokey jokes about watching a girl showering and groping someone and then one of the most serious episodes of your show involves assault allegations. Like. Really.

The new show so far hasn’t had any jokes laden with misogyny and introduced the character of Luida, who is not a femme fatal, has not yet been a damsel in distress, and was not dead before the series started. So. Yeah. Good. Good job on that front.

The art style and production value are also pretty impressive in Stampede. While I am personally a huge fan of the 90s anime aesthetic, Trigun 98 definitely isn’t polished in its appearance. There’s lots of long still frames and panning shots, and scenes that just look kind of bad and have wonky off model character designs.

Not only does the new show appear more polished, it’s also on a very short, but hopefully expanding list, of CGI anime that don’t look like trash, so credit where credit is due. Visuals do matter in a visual medium. Also, that one episode where the art style changes also looks great. Praise all around.

I like episode five. I just think it’s a good episode, and I think it was an interesting idea to touch on the concept of mercy killing in a story about when it is as isn’t right to take life. They…don’t do much with that conflict, but still a good episode in my opinion.

I also like episode eight and how it fits in Vash’s history. The finale of the 98 show is doing a lot of work by being like half backstory and half final conflict. I think putting the bulk of Vash’s adolescence at more of a part-way point was a good idea pacing wise.

I think Stampede also invests more into the inherent conflict between humans and plants (for context, plants in Trigun are like, living generators). I have some issues with the way the conflict is explained, which I’ll get into later, but this is a conflict that’s introduced in like one sentence in the finale of the 98 show, even though it’s incredibly thematically relevant to the story as a whole.

Okay. So. Part two.

If you have seen literally any video on this YouTube channel, then you’ll know that I am an honest to god sucker for when a story decides to communicate it’s plot in interesting ways. Trigun 98 is a master at this and I think comparing it to Stampede kind of exemplifies that.

While I am going to be making quite a few comparisons between these two shows, I would like to once again make it clear that this isn’t a condemnation of Stampede, but rather praise of the original. Comparisons to Stampede just help to exemplify what the original did so differently and so well. It’s like Stampede kept all of the payoffs but none of the set ups to go with them.

For example; the setting.

Trigun 98’s setting can best be described as ambiguous, at least at first. Things like clothes and buildings reference iconic imagery of 19^th-20^th century America, but the weaponry and wild life are a little more fantastical. There also appears to be more than one sun and moon. These little inconsistencies force the audience to ask questions about the show they’re watching and to speculate about the setting. As the show goes on and we see more of the technology and backstory, the questions about the show’s setting start to get answers. This is a sci-fi story set in the future and it takes place on a different planet.

The initial appearance of the setting isn’t just a smoke and mirrors trick; it’s also thematically relevant to the story. This isn’t just the picture of humanity having migrated from one dystopia to another. This is a picture of humanity that has regressed and fallen into an infamously violent point of earth’s history.

Anyways the very first scene of Trigun Stampede takes place on a space ship where everyone is dressed in futuristic looking clothing and being flown onto another planet. Even once we get into the main plot, everyone is dressed in modern, stylish clothing. There’s no mystery, no intrigue to go along with that mystery, and no reflection of what has become of humanity communicated through iconography. It’s just a regular science fiction setting.

Another key point of intrigue of Trigun 98 is the plants. They are an immediate stand out as something that does not gel with the 20^th century setting, but people speak about them in a way that feels natural. “Oh no our plant has broken down,” and then the characters understand the implications of that in universe. As an audience member, you put together context clues and figure out what the plants are through how people speak about them and interact with them.

It drove me mildly insane watching that scene in Stampede where they’re talking about plants and the script comes up with some very contrived reason for Meryl to explain exactly what plants are and what they do to What’s-his-nuts, even though it’s information that he already knows.

In the final episodes, there’s a lot of exposition that’s basically trying to justify why using the plants is okay but also why it’s not and a bunch of science mumbo jumbo and spiritual mumbo jumbo that wasn’t really needed in the original show since so much of it relied on showing and not telling. You as a viewer kind of had to make your own assumptions about how much Knives is telling the truth about and what the plants even are. The big infodump just wasn’t needed.

Speaking of plants, let’s talk about Vash.

In Trigun 98, Vash is pretty enigmatic. At first, he seems kind of like a cartoonish trickster character, but it becomes pretty clear early on that he has a good heart. He’s empathetic towards others and the mystery behind his ideology unfurls in the show’s later episodes. The fun thing about the original show’s cartoony nature is that Vash’s ability to do things like dodge bullets and shoot perfectly are disguised behind the veil of the surreal. Is Vash superhuman or is this a part of the show’s stylistic choices? Surprise it’s almost definitely both.

It’s not outright stated until the very last episode of the show, but long before then, the audience can put together what Vash is. The kind of no-going-back crescendo moment that demonstrates this is…a moment that I am definitely going to overexplain, but bear with me.

So in episode 12, Vash is in a gunfight when this happens. He opens up his fucking arm and pulls out a second gun. It’s punctuated with a zoom in, strong sound design, and Vash’s opponent commenting on it just in case you weren’t paying attention. This scene is important, partially because it’s just cool, but it also primes the audience to ask an extremely important question.

Where the fuck is the third gun?

Then you start thinking of the end of the theme song and the shot of the two guns across what we at this point we understand to be a plant. We have the hints of Vash’s past from an earlier episode where this one girl accuses him of destroying an entire town and he doesn’t remember it and then just a few episodes later, Vash’s fucking arm turns into a canon, and he destroys an entire town. If you’ve been paying attention up to this point, it becomes clear what Vash is without anyone having to say it. Things go very quiet, and Meryl cries as she finds out that Vash has been classified as an act of God and is therefore no longer her assignment. Great episode.

In the first scene of Stampede, Vash’s skin lights up indicating he’s probably not human. So yeah. The first episode is very telling. Not just in the sense that the exposition and set design tell you everything, but the tone is very familiar in a way I’m not super fond of. Meryl and Milly, two women who work for an insurance agency sent to track down Vash the Stampede, have been replaced by Meryl and Generic Mentor Character B. They’re news reporters, because I guess the insurance angle was too goofy and they need a motive to get involved. Meryl talks about getting her scoop because she’s a reporter in a story. Knives plays the piano now, because he’s the villain in a story, and I guess it’s part of the aesthetic. And I’d be hard pressed to call any of this like…actively bad or inept, but I’d also be hard pressed to call it original and iconic; two words that I associate with the 98 show in pure earnest.

So, this show’s got some new characters, but some familiar faces. Those familiar faces more or less act like their 1998 counterparts. Vash is recognizably Vash, Wolfwood is recognizably Wolfwood, Knives is still Knives, etc.

But one thing that really stood out to me when I was re-watching the old show is how different Meryl is. I’d say she’s only really the same character in name and basic design. Her general demeanour is different, her priorities are different, her relationship with Vash is WAY different, and it felt somewhat off to me. And this is where I kind of took a step back and said “Okay, am I just making comparisons for the sake of making comparisons. Do I really want or need this version of Meryl to be faithful to the original show, or is it fine to do something different?” And you know what, it is fine to do something different. This could also just be playing in to Stampede’s first season as the semi-prequel that it’s revealed to be. Like, this version of Meryl is not yet a part of the duo that is Meryl and Milly, and that’s fine. It’s fine.

But here’s why I’m not fully satisfied by that.

It’s another case of keeping payoff but axing the set up. The emotional climax of the season finale involves Meryl saving Vash, or at the very least being there for him when he is saved. After he comes out of the state he was in, he thanks her. She’s the other star of this moment. And it’s just odd because these characters don’t know each other.

I mean they’ve met each other, they’ve talked a bit, but they don’t have a) a rapport, or b) an emotional connection. Like, in a plot utility sense, it makes sense for Meryl to come help him because she’s here and wishes him no ill will. But dramatically it’s just kind of nothing.

It makes sense dramatically in the original show when she saves him because they do have a rapport and Meryl’s character has actively changed both in her philosophy and her feelings for Vash over the course of the show.

And yes I am painfully aware that the dynamic between Meryl and Vash isn’t the most unique thing in the world. The whole “it’s not like a like you or anything” is a trope in anime and the hypercompetent business woman ending up with the lovable goofball is like 90% of Western romcoms. But at least it is, in fact, a dynamic.

A lot of Meryl’s more emotional scenes revolve around Vash. She screams with frustration, she cries with heartbreak, he tells her about his past, something he doesn’t do on screen with any other character. She covers her ears because she can’t stand the sound of him being in pain. These all are just scenes, but they stand out because they form the building blocks of this emotional core that ends up being important in the second-to-last episode.

The only like, stand out moments for Meryl and Vash are when she first sees his picture and makes a comment about how he’s just a man not a monster, when she internally comments that he’s a quote “weird guy” in episode 2, and when she sees the markings on his body and comments on it. And then, you know, the season finale.

I’ll concede to the point that the comment she had about him not being as bad as the papers make him out to be was introducing her as the one who understands, but that’s how you open the story of a developing dynamic. It shouldn’t be the only thing it’s resting on.

And to be clear, I am not saying that Meryl and Vash needed to have romantic feelings for each other in order for this to be dramatically satisfying. I’m saying they needed some form of interpersonal relationship, platonic or otherwise, for the finale to be more emotionally charged in terms of stakes.

Meryl does have a dynamic in this show. There’s a character she has an evolving relationship with, who she stands up to, who she cries for, but it’s not Vash it’s whoever the disposable mentor character. And that relationship doesn’t inform or parallel her view of Vash, it’s just its own unrelated thing.

Honestly, the best bet probably would have been Wolfwood if they wanted to have a kind of cathartic ending where Vash is saved by someone who knows him better now but they had an adversarial relationship first. But. Eh.

Trigun is a great show. Arguably both Triguns are great shows depending on your perspective. I’ve shared my opinions but if you feel differently, tell me why in the comments.

…

Okay there’s two more things I have to complain about. I hate how Vash’s hair gets stood up all spikey in the finale, like that’s a thing that needed to explained and not just a stylistic difference.

I also hate how Meryl’s boss threatens to send her to insurance. That doesn’t even make sense in context and is purely there because the audience gets the reference. Okay I’m done now.