Anime 52093 Trigun Stampede Reviews Filter Check 3

It's hard admitting when you're wrong, so boy am I hard right now! Like many others raised on Adult Swim programming, I have been a fan of Vash since I was a wee lad, and was positively giddy to see him return for a new entry in the series. 1998's Trigun is a classic story of the long-suffering do-gooder who's villainized, but nevertheless prevails against all odds. To see that depicted in 2023 was a prospect which had fans excited; we were all coming home again so fast you might even call it a stampede! In fact, it was called that: Trigun Stampede! However, now ... myself and others are all running the complete opposite way. Why?

tl;dr: Nobody knows how to write anything but "dark" action anymore; Trigun Stampede is not FUN!

Admittedly, Trigun Stampede started off doing everything wrong. The old, western aesthetic of the franchise was forsaken for a complete science fiction overhaul, Vash the Stampede seemed to be a Generation Z insert without any style of his own, and other beloved characters were either getting bashed with the ugly stick or axed completely, like Milly Thompson, who was replaced by some guy named...Roberto De Niro. Yet, once the first episode aired and we saw Vash running amok in the city being wrongfully blamed for everything, it was as if none of that actually mattered, except it did; never ignore red flags, even if they remind you of Vash!

True, while the first few episodes do capture some of what made the original Trigun so beloved by presenting a wacky protagonist with lofty ideals, an anachronistic world, and a tone which is all over the place, Trigun Stampede soon loses everything besides the violence and unkindness which previously punctuated only serious moments. The message of hope and sticking to your morals is shoved deeper and deeper into the ground as countless gratuitous blood-sprays, child sacrifices, and cult-like conspiracies take up more screen-time. This tone is completely antithetical to the character of Vash the Stampede and the spirit of Trigun since we, the viewers, do not get time to connect with the good before being bombarded with the bad. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the character of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, which fans will recall as a complex compliment to the rest of the cast, especially Milly Thompson (RIP).

This Wolfwood isn't even the same character on paper, much less on screen, and without Milly around to ground him, he might as well be completely written off along with her. Instead of getting time to discover his backstory as a "priest" who practices absurd amounts of righteous violence, all that remains for us, again, is the violence. By episode FIVE of this show, Wolfwood is already at odds with Vash without having any relationship with him or anybody else. For reference, he was only introduced in episode FOUR! What gave Wolfwood's character meaning was how he related to the rest of the heroes while also having a rough edge. Now, he is all edge and no substance, except for his awesome weapon. As a result, the other characters suffer, too, because Vash has no friends who challenge him, Meryl has nothing to do but drive cars, and Roberto has no skills at all.

Why are they telling this story if these characters have nothing to do with the themes? Why is Vash just bumbling around the desert while innocent people croak? He should be saving others at his own expense! Why is Meryl not doing any reporting if she's a journalist now? She should interact with her business partners, just like in the original. Why does Roberto De Niro exist if we already have a gruff, edgy guy like the new Wolfwood? Someone should be a goofball to make this thing interesting. There doesn't seem to be anything for these characters to do but survive the nihilistic villains, which only show up to kill off no-names. WHERE IS THE FUN HERE, what's the message!? Why should we care this time!? Where's the dang black cat!?

Trigun was not a show about guns any more than Gundam is a show about mecha; it's about the characters and story. This is what writers no longer understand. You are writing for people, who need to see these characters as people, too, before the story and action happens. You can't have the villains just show up and do bad things for no reason. You can't show us the backstory FIRST! You can't tell us that our new friend is a traitor in the same episode we meet him! This is basic drama, and getting rid of the drama is like rebooting Romeo and Juliet and starting it in the tomb with the dagger already in their hands.

I almost loved Trigun Stampede. It starts off all right, but I was wrong. What's ultimately sad is that the action scenes and art are genuinely entertaining. The animation, while subjective, is great, stylistic, and fluid. The action is punchy, bombastic, and engaging. The music, too, is fine and the opening truly gives you some sense that Vash is being haunted by a completely decaying world, but there's nothing to this world, anyway. There's nothing to this version of the story. Perhaps if you enjoy actiony, monster-of-the-week type of dark stories, this will appeal to you, or if you are desperate to see a fan-fiction of Trigun come to life, but does this appeal to many fans at all? Everything else can be perfect, but if you give your characters no love and the plot nowhere to go, nobody will watch. The only thing Trigun Stampede has me running to is back to the original show, created back when writers knew about theming and not just making something "bad ass." Go watch the old one.

"So, it's been a lot of fun, but I guess that's all!"---Vash.

Trigun Stampede is a show that I wanted to love, a show I was absolutely excited for, but have ultimately been let down by. Putting aside the CG animation (which it deserved better than, see Bleach TYBW), this anime bears little resemblance to the original Trigun. In the original series, Vash is a loveable, overly flirtatious goofball, constantly getting into crazy situations. Below the surface, however, he is a tortured soul, running from his past, something thats revealed more and more as the show progresses. However, in this new show Vash is literally just a sad boy, quite literally the entire show. And the same ... goes for the show itself; every episode in this new series is just depressing, every time it looks like the day is saved, something horrible happens. No one is happy, no one is goofy, no one gets a happy ending...I'm literally starting to have intrusive thoughts again just watching this show!
Amongst the many complaints I've seen people make (bad cgi, change in backstory, change in characters, etc) I honestly feel that the worst thing this show has done is dive into the depths of despair the way it has. I can't believe I'm doing it, but I'm dropping this show.

If you're a fan of the original Trigun, stay away. This "re-imagining" of Trigun misses the mark on so many levels, but if you haven't seen the original, well it's still mediocre at best (so far up to ep 5).

The enormous issue I have with this rendition of Trigun is that it doesn't get it. They clearly wanted to stay away from the original as much as possible and in doing so completely miss the mark on the main character, Vash. In the original he's a goofy, womanizing, ace gunsman. Thing is, he uses his humor and goofiness as a coping mechanism for his very ... dark and troubled past. The reboot? Doesn't get this at all and Vash is just a sad, lame duck character who is completely unappealing to the audience. There's no engagement, and because the supporting characters in the reboot are also just as flat and miserable, there's nothing to hold onto. At least in the original if you don't like Vash that much as a character, there's still a ton of unique and interesting side characters varying throughout the show to maintain other avenues of interest.

As a huge fan of the original, seeing them change this into all CG with a complete redesign was disappointing, especially since Trigun: Badlands Rumble came out many years after the original series and was still able to do a more modern, visually awesome side story with the same visual aesthetic. The issue isn't even the quality of the CG, it's that it's so dull and lifeless, and the character animations are rigid and inexpressive. It's a screen of mud. Even in the original, it used muted colors and sandy tones but had elements of being bright and bold, sunny and feeling the heat of the arid deserts and world around them.

Even with all that said, they changed the story to start off with what was a huge reveal 2/3s of the way into the original. They've chosen to make the story dark and miserable from the start. Now it feels hopeless that we'll even see things that made the original so special, like the comical and goofy side of Vash, ever in this series. It feels like they just didn't get what made the original so amazing, and try to be so different that it's just not very good and has nothing going for it. I do hope I'm wrong, as there's plenty more episodes to go and turn this around, but even just watching the first episode of the original gets you hooked. Three episodes of this and I'm searching for scraps of positivity.

Never written anything in MAL, but this awful anime made me write a short review..

This is one awful anime.. In general CGI isn't great and in general a terrible art choice, but here it looks like the most generic, boring and lifeless thing ever, they also changed how Vash the Stampede looked for the worst. He is such a boring/blend looking MC now... On top of this they also left out Milly, although she is mentioned once, who had a pretty big role in the original anime and was somewhat of a crowd favorite.

There is reason for Vash the Stampede's (the ... 1998's) womanizing/goofy character, his past was pretty bad and its his way of coping with it.. In the 2023 reboot he is portrayed as always gloomy while looking like a zoomer with his terrible 'trendy' hair and way to big glasses..

There are more things to talk about, but i can just leave it at it's a terrible reboot in general.. Stick to the Trigun anime from 1998, that one is actually good compared to this IMO.

Producer Yoshihiro Watanabe claimed that this show was meant to be a retelling, a fresh take on a decades old story, with no intention to step on anyone's toes.
So this review is with that in mind, because while people claim that you should not compare it to the original anime, the producer himself already made a claim directly related to it.

I find this show near unwatchable, from a technical standpoint. It has different frame rates for different animations and multiple characters animated at the same time in the same shots (big animation no-no).
There is a stylistic choice in making the animation look choppy, ... perhaps to avoid the smooth transitions that is inherent to 3D rendered animation, but practically it looks like something's wrong with my screen or computer, it looks and feels jarring. It feels incompetently made.
No one would forgive any classic cartoon for being produced at half the animation frames, we all know that it wouldn't meet a minimum standard of a pleasant viewing experience.

The visual changes, aka the "fresh take" consists of less details and a more present day relatable wardrobe, which consists in a man wearing a hooded jacket on a desert planet. While the previous trench coat wasn't exactly a logical choice either, it made sense in the context of it being a sci-fi western and it certainly had an iconic look.
Where before Vash had a covered/hidden mechanical prosthetic arm with a built in gun, it is now entirely on display as a cybernetic replacement.
His revolver has changed from a .45 to a .22 caliber, a famously weak cartridge. The previous .45 was already a mediocre ammunition doing things that begged your belief, but .22 does not in any way possess the power or mass to pull off the things portrayed in the show. This is not a meaningful change, if anything it serves to denigrate the character.
Finally Vash himself has changed his personality from a positive man who always played off serious situations with humor, only becoming insecure or angry when the situation was outside of his control, such as when innocents are involved. In this new version he is unserious and will often devolve into a complete crybaby, only to suddenly become entirely serious for the producers to 'show off' the character's competence, when he could've done so from the start. His attempts at talking to people only goads them on and while this has always been a part of Vash, it turns from naive optimism to unreasonable risk taking.

If this is a fresh take, then why does it rely on you knowledge of the previous show or manga? There is no build up, there is no mystery, everything is laid bare from the start and you see all of Vash's phases, moods and personality in one go.

Between the obnoxious animation, poor design and genuinely awful and amateurish writing, I've never in my life felt so miserable watching anime. This is not divorced from the previous show, it is an incompetent and entirely unwarranted desecration of it.
You will be better off not watching it.

Trigun Stampede is a slap in the face to fans of the manga and the 1998 anime that went on to read the manga afterwards, who have been waiting for a full adaptation of the Trigun Maximum manga (the source material consists of the manga Trigun and its direct sequel manga Trigun Maximum). When a manga gets a second anime adaptation, it's usually because they plan to adapt the entire manga this time, and also following the manga closer. But with Stampede, it doesn't follow the manga at all (except for episode 2, which sort of adapts the first 4 chapters of the manga). And ... instead of being 2D digital ink and paint animation, it's 3DCGI with a low frame rate. Why bother bringing back Trigun, just to not follow the manga? Why make an original story when the manga is yet to receive a full adaptation? So now we have 2 Trigun anime that don't complete the story. And I (and I assume many Trigun fans) am not happy that they decided to do an original story instead of adapting the manga.

The original 1998 Trigun anime (which is a space western classic) had a filler ending that wrapped the story up prematurely, but adapted the Trigun manga and only 7 chapters out of the 102 chapters of the Trigun Maximum manga. A remake that goes beyond what the 1998 anime adapted would make sense, because it had a filler ending so it couldn't just continue where the last episode left off. But with Trigun Stampede (which is not really a space western), all hope is lost if we ever get to see the other 95 chapters of the Trigun Maximum manga ever getting adapted. Trigun Stampede is not the real story. Other than most of episode 2, none of it is canon. There is no Roberto De Niro in the manga. He's just a filler character. Stampede's OP is crap compared to the 1998 OP. I did some research, and the creator of the manga, Yasuhiro Nightow, thought the 1998 anime was "really excellent", and considers any other anime that is made based on the manga as just a bonus. This is despite the fact that the 1998 anime is an incomplete adaptation. The sad thing is that the studio Orange has a history of faithfully adapting the source material, but in this case, they decided not to. They went for the derivative approach.

Trigun Stampede is a massive disappointment to me, as a fan of the original Trigun anime. Another soulless 3DCGI abomination. Instead of getting a faithful adaptation with updated 2D animation, we get this. I didn't like anything about it. I don't like how they messed with the plot and characters. It's just so different from the Trigun I know, and the manga's story is better. Nobody knows the characters better than the original author himself. Vash is such a memorable character in the 1998 anime and manga, but I just can't say the same about the Trigun Stampede version of Vash. I guess a lot of people would be happy just to get more Trigun? To experience the story and the characters that they already love in a different way, though I don't really understand it because I don't like it when they mess with the plot and characters, since there should only be one story and the story are the events that actually happened in the manga first. But if you've never experienced Trigun, then I recommend to watch the 1998 anime or read the manga. Those are the actual story. The 1998 anime, while not a perfect adaptation, was made when the manga was still ongoing and stays true to the manga by not altering things, and only adds things that weren't in the manga without ruining the story, so it's impressive how it turned out with such a small amount of chapters available at the time. Trigun Stampede is not the actual story as it alters a lot of stuff. It was also made after the manga ended, but they decided to ignore the manga's story. It's nothing more than fan-fiction. It took too many liberties. If you like Stampede, but don't like the 1998 anime, then you're not really a Trigun fan. Because the 1998 anime is more in the spirit of the manga with a Wild West feel to it, and Vash in the 1998 anime is just like the Vash in the manga. The Badland Rumbles movie is also not canon, but at least it's in the spirit of the 1998 anime, and the characters act like they ought to.

Hopefully Trigun Stampede fades into obscurity in the future, and the 1998 anime remains the go-to Trigun anime. I'm still hoping for a full adaptation of Trigun Maximum someday.

Just don't. This show is more of an animation studio's failed attempt to make a showcase for their 3d animation prowess than a piece of entertainment made for your enjoyment.

Hate to have to say this, but while this show might be on par with Appleseed from 2004, this isn't what good 3D looks like in a post Dorohedoro world, and yes, everything 3D moving forward WILL be held to that standard Mappa set.

The animation is passable in the same way the old 3D berserk was passable as a means of watching and listening to a story... there is no story here though. Whoever wrote this ... garbage is about on the same level as the average recommended review in here. They never watched the original, never read the source and probably couldn't be bothered doing so unless they were to be paid to.

The original show came out pretty soon after the manga began releasing which was standard affair at the time and still is to an extent. This lead to the plot of the story only really taking hold halfway through instead of lasting much longer, but I doubt Madhouse was expecting to get a second season so they did what they could...

and what they did was incredible. The whole point of an anime is to take a story and ELEVATE it while bringing it to an easier to consume format. Trigun has a soundtrack that I will STILL listen to in the same way I'll still listen to Cowboy Bebop's soundtrack. It's art was inoffensive for the late 90's to early 2000's but by no means looks bad even by today's standards... and something that is completely unheard of today, it's dub wasn't bad. Beyond that it told a cohesive story even if it didn't have the entire source by the time it ended, it told a great story and it paced itself well enough that you could emotionally invest in characters by the time the real plot started.

So... what does Stampede have going for it to justify a "reimagining"?... Not much.

It is INSTANTLY trying to show all of it's cards. This story can't help itself from just blabbering "look at everything I want to write next" incessantly. It feels like it was made when it was... in the age of TikTok brainrot. It feels afraid that if it doesn't blow it's load right away then it's viewers will get bored and leave. This gives you no time to really give a damn about anyone. "Here's this character. Their only purpose is to tell you that Vash is a good guy. You'll never see them again." "Here's Knives. He is evil because we made him cartoonishly evil without any reason." Characters aren't allowed to be written like people apparently. They've got to be incredibly strict stereotypes.

Speaking of characters, Milly. I guess we have to overcorrect for the film industry and start replacing female characters with males. Milly was a pretty flat character in the original who served as a kind-of ordinary person to keep the group grounded... so let's just replace her with a boring old dude who's sole purpose is to exude "I'm too old for this shit" every time he can, and to exposition dump all of the information we want to convey because showing people is harder than just writing everything into dialogue.

But let's be real, trigun had a great story originally but what cemented it was the MUSIC. I am happy to tell you that Stampede's music is... mid at best.

How... THE HELL... did this studio take Tatsuya Kato and make him compose MID? This is the guy who did music for WorldEnd and Dr. Stone and yet Stampede makes him sound like he never grew after working on Demon King Daimao.

The soundtrack for this show doesn't hold up. It sounds like they told Mr. Kato "make something sound western in space" without even telling him what he was working on... and then probably got his first draft and said "not enough modern instrumentation". It's passable, but compared to that original soundtrack from Tsuneo Imahori it feels more like an insult to the original in every sense of the word. All they had to do was emulate some of that old rock and western feel and it would have been completely inoffensive, but apparently it needs to be overworked and understylized to fit the director's "taste".

So, the real question is... if this is supposed to be Studio Orange's way of selling their 3D animation to licensers and get them to shower the studio in series to work on, then why can't they even decide whether they want to make it hyper stylized or realistic between the over-exaggerated movements and the dull-in-comparison "more realistic" facial animations? Better yet, why can't they even pay attention to details on their props so that things beyond characters, settings and things characters are holding can add to the motion they failed to produce? Just go watch the first episode. See the vehicle bumping around in the desert? Are you going to tell me that a cup full of cigarette butts are going to stay perfectly still like some unity store asset they threw in?

Just go watch the original after you've put the constant feed of tiktok videos down and touched some grass.
If you're craving good 3D animation, just go watch Dorohedoro.
This show, however, is a HARD pass.

Watched this hoping for it to remaster or update the original, but would have totally rolled with it if it was another perspective of the same well written slightly tragic drama. Fell short of that.

I dont have any beef with cgi or how Vash looks here, even completely new story would be okay but damn... They removed some cool characters, they killed relationships, they put some npc girl as the support cast (this is no longer Merill from the og), and a generic old grumbler who's called Roberto De Niro, Im not kidding.

So why buy the ip if you plan to start from scratch? ... Well, I know the answer actually - it starts with cash- and ends with -grab.

Knives is a shounen "bad bad guy", and Vash is an adult child who doesnt know what to do - panics, runs around, lets people die by inaction and doest care a second later. Im very careful when saying this, but this is a very dedicated judgment. The og Vash was hiding his pain so to speak and kept a cheerful face for the sake of the others. You might say he went as far as being slightly short of a jester but the new Vash is actually inironically a clown.

The pacing is horrific. People only stop fighting because another bad baddie attacks, completely unrelated to the first fight. This happens 3 times in the first 2 episodes.
The supporting cast is there to... To do what? They are not developing the story. It feels they are only there to let Vash to talk to someone, but this doesnt work out as he doesnt say anything meaningful.

They brought some minor characters from the original series, and if you thought trigun intermediate villains were dumb then you should check this out... Admittedly they give them some more room to expose themselves but in the end they are loose micro arcs without conclusions.

Art is good, action animation is great, but facial animations are barely there. E.g. Merill can only move her mouth, the generic old man just doesnt have emotions and can only blink. Vash is always scared and doesnt know what to do. When people die and there's dedicated screen time to show his reaction he only moves his mouth, etc.

The opening is very moody and well made, definitely a lot of work and thought put in it - both music and visuals. But the mood of the show is not matching.

Other sound is decent. An outstanding good point is voice acting, thanks Johny!

Overall 4-5/10, but I rated it lower due to it's immoral ip parody

For being a TRIGUN remake they're not Trying Gun enough.
This show takes all the fun of the original trigun and sands it away with k-pop themed sandpaper. The soundtrack is so generic and repetitive that it's not fun to listen to and is so loud it drowns out all of the already boring dialog. Not a single character has done anything memorable or enjoyable outside of an occasional fun action scene that leaves you hungry for more visual fun and then continues to leave you hanging until the episode ends unceremoniously. It just feels like a cash grab by using the name and surface level ... similarities to a well loved series to sell a show that has none of the emotion, suspense, or love that the original had.

Man, I try not to be too much of a reactionary, I like to give things a fair shot. But for the love of all that is holy in this world, just... wow... Holy moly. This has to be one of the ugliest, choppiest, cg budget cutting pieces of anti-art that I have ever laid mine own 2 eyeballs upon. This is what you get when some corporate shmuck just HAS to bring back a series for some cheap profit, but can't be bothered to do it right, nor can they even be bothered to do it wrong, it transcends terribleness. So they cut corners, ... cut frames, cut quality, cut acting, cut audio, ruined characters for cheap feels, they just kinda cut everything that gives something a heart, soul, and personality and just, well cut it out. This series is what you get when money speaks louder than brain cells. Holy moly. It's so bad I can't even comprehend how this has a score above 7, this is legit as bad as the berserk CGI fustershmuck.

Look if you like this, well dang, more power to ya I guess, you do you homie. However for someone born in ye olde days of good animation this is a wildly hard pass.

Honestly, I don't want to continue watching this. Since the trailer I already knew this was gonna be bad.
First of all and the most obvious, it has nothign to do with the source or the original manga, and while that is not necessarily bad, it shows and will condition your experience with this. It clearly shows that the authors expect that you know the source or at least the original anime adaptaion as they just drop names and random stuff but at the same time they try to make something "new" from 0.

If you have seen the original, you'll know that everything is explained very ... little by little, like who Vash is, what is he and why is the humanity stranded in a desert planet, and specially, who Knives is. This version just throws the random 3 minutes of the spaceship crashing and how Vash and Knives survives this. If you recall the original anime, this revelation was showed very late in the anime and with propper time to explain, here is just dropped very poorly essentially ruining any suspense you may have on who this guy is. Also yes thanks for the exposition on what plants are.

Also, I'm not critisicing the art style, is somewhat cool I guess, but what I hate is how they have 0 problem on showing that Vash has a mechanical arm while in the manga it was kinda disguised and made you think it was part of the clothing he was wearing (until at some point you see the arm break open revealing a pistol) so then again, no surprising reveal.

In conclussion, is somewhat impossible to not compare it to the manga or the anime, but if you want to experience Trigun again just rewatch the old anime. If you are new and no absolutely nothing maaaaaybe this is good enough and you can enjoy it, but I would still recommend the original anime. Like I said, I had 0 expectations and it still dissapointed me

The 3D graphics are garbage.
Vash and wolfwood look like generic discount e-boys that every other god damn generic anime uses.

They got rid of Milly, the bastards.
The story is bad.
Easy skip.

If you want to watch something good watch the original series. So much better. Even though it's from the 90s it looks so much nicer and cleaner, better story and better characters.

Apparently I need to do a super in-depth review of why this show it's shit to be able to publish this. It's shit because it tried to remake an awesome original and instead of improving upon it they took a bunch of steps back. They ... should have given this anime to like MAPPA instead of orange and let orange stick to their romance stuff and mainly average shows.

Regardless of if you've watched the original or not, Ask yourself: if Vash dropped his gun, fell to the floor prone, and the deadly hardened criminal had enough time to grab said gun and slowly point it at your protagonist menacingly, would you jump for joy that he is saved by Meryl jogging towards the enemy with a flashing camera in broad daylight?

If you watch the original, expect about 6/24 episodes of spending time with the characters and learning what makes them them plus some comedy, before it turns to darker themes and a serious story that gets it's viewers to think about moral dilemmas.

If ... you watch Stampede, expect some common anime tropes you've likely seen before (like the main bad guy being cloaked while playing a piano or an organ) some decent well shot action/chase scenes, and possibly some whiplash/confusion when certain hell-bent characters suddenly change because of a short "don't do it, be better" speech or their incredible strength displayed earlier is now equivalent to that of a 4 year old.

This is... whack.

To be honest, the original (1998) isn't good either, but at least it has this vintage cowboy+scifi drip going on despite the poor animation; the characters have charisma and they give off a mature flare that makes even the goofy silly gag plot lines that go on for more than necessary for most of the story to be rather entertaining. It really builds the relationship of the main group of characters well enough for you to be attached to them, and because it paces the story in a light hearted beat, whenever the serious parts come in you really feel these moments ... and how deep down the characters have this darker, sad side to them.

But here in this reboot they tried so hard to go for an edgy futuristic sad boy typa thing that it falls flat. They stripped the story and the character designs of anything and everything that made them stand out. You don't believe me? Just look up side by side the cover for Trigun (1998) and Trigun Stampede.

Another example: Meryl in the original works at an insurance agency. She has to measure and report about the destruction that happens in the cities Vash is passing by, but she doesn't believe he is Vash at first. She doesn't follow him initially but rather they keep bumping into each other because all the cities she goes to assess the damages he happens to be there. Their friendship (and more on her part) builds over time, her participation in the action scenes and on the story comes naturally as she and Lily get involved with him more and more. In contrast, Meryl from Trigun Stampede works as a reporter but that information becomes totally irrelevant and by the second episode you'll probably have forgotten about it. She jumps at following Vash for no apparent reason without questioning, even when the situation becomes detrimental for her. There's even this obnoxious scene where she's seen letting go of a kid's hands to what the kids fall to his death and later after she sees his dead body she doesn't even think twice or show any sadness before running after Vash and clinging to him like a shoujo anime girl. BY THE THIRD EPISODE. And then the scene cuts for them driving happily in the car leaving behind a devasted city. Like???????????????????????? Even the goofy horror that the original one was would never be this tone deaf. Specially considering that Vash suffers A LOT whenever things like this would happen. I swear, here the character feel like walking talking clay dolls navigating through the plot.

Trigun is my favorite anime of all time.
Stampede rides off the coattails of Trigun which could have been a blessing and/or a curse. Unfortunately it stays a curse for Stampede.
Stampede is not as good as Trigun in EVERY way. But not in the same way. That was confusing to write so let me explain.
Trigun could be argued to have slow pacing.
Stampede has an absurd break-neck pace that burns through the content that leaves you wondering if the writers have somewhere better to be.
I would take slow writing to bad writing any day.
Then there are the things Trigun is actually good at: character motivation, mystery, music ... direction, symbolism, foreshadowing, plot, using comedy to break up intense emotional scenes, and actual emotional scenes.
Trigun Stampede says: forget ALLLLL of that, that sounds like that would be work. Let's make a boilerplate story, reveal all of the plot points right in episode 1, and just push to get the entire story out as fast as possible.
Hmm, that was very negative. Let me try another take.
Vash the Stampede in Trigun is a conflicted man who shows impressive competence but it is not enough to save everyone. The story slowly peels layers off of the character and you see how much of himself he gives to keeps to his ideals. He is well written and you come to empathize heavily with him by the end of the series.
Vash in Stampede is an indecisive incompetent fool shown to be too surprised to take action when people get red-misted around him as early as episode 2.
And it's not just Vash: Millie is gone , Legato doesn't like people touching his hair and he is the leader of the Bad Lads (lets combine characters!), Meryl is a reporter (much simpler to write), Wolfwood is literally 10, and multiple characters and locations are combined for expediency's sake.
My problem with Stampede is that every change was made to simplify the story on purpose and not to take it in a new direction. The writers just don't have anything new or interesting to say.

First of all, Studio Orange did an amazing job animating this - it looks absolutely incredible.
This is a big departure from the old series, and while it does stay closer to the manga's story, it isn't really a good thing.
Some will say there is nostalgia-goggles while comparing the two, and that is understandable.
However, this series tries so hard to be dark and serious it just comes off as edgey grimdark. It's such a miserable slog to watch after the first two episodes. The show becomes tonally one note, there's no ups or downs.
Vash is a fun in the first two episodes, then ... he just devolves into a cliche sad-boy without any progression or other personality.

The older series may deviate from the source a lot, but at least it balances the fun, action, and sadness a lot better than this does.

Trigun Stampede is a showcase of the modern dynamic that slow, episodic, well built plot, and character development driven story lines are a dying breed.

Studio Orange focused too much on character designs to give any justice to the characters and world building the original manga and anime gave to us all those years ago and instead gave us 12 episodes of poorly paced, incoherent, nonsense.

I would not recommend Stampede to anyone that has seen the original, and if you have watched this and felt like there was almost something there, I indulge you to look into the original for it's better character dynamics, development, and ... overall care for what was being made.

I'll get the good stuff out of the way first since it won't take long. This was probably the best use of 3D CGI I've seen in an anime to date and I hope more studios use this as reference on how to improve (although 2D will still be better and preferred every time.) Now the bad stuff is basically the rest of the anything to do with this. I feel like if I hadn't watched the original Trigun beforehand I would've liked this a bit more, although still not very much. It just felt like they took all the main points from the original ... and just packed them all in to short episodes with no refinement. All the returning characters feel like edgy husks of their original selves with everything that made Vash a loveable character gone except for his belief of not killing people. I can see why some people might enjoy this as its a lot more dumbed down and to the point than the original but because of that it just loses all its charm.

I watched the original and enjoyed it but I wouldn't really say I have overwhelming nostalgia for it. When I heard of Trigun Stampede I didn't have any strong feelings one way or another about it. I thought, maybe they might fix the flaws of the original, or maybe they will do their own thing, but whatever they do, best of luck to them.

Well I finally got around to watching it, and unfortunately I'm left with only a feeling that I've wasted my Saturday morning. I'm a simple man with simple tastes. Just give me an interesting sci fi setting, a few cool characters, ... entertaining action sequences, and a decent plot to tie it all together, and I'll have a good time watching. To my dismay, I did not get much of this out of Stampede.

While some may gag at the cg art style, I've never really been put off by it, especially not when the show itself makes up for any possible flaw in the visuals. I would much rather see the hard work of the studio go into storytelling rather than exhausting themselves animating. Given how generic all the enemies and world looks, I would have at least hoped they put that effort to better use, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like the effort put into the story really payed off.

I don't even need to compare Stampede to its predecessor to be able to describe my disappointment with it. The average episode was so formulaic and predictable that I can describe how one plays out and in doing so I will have covered about half of them. The majority of them have contrived reminders that Millions Knives is bad and painfully trying to remind us that the bad guys are up to something and we should feel tension. This is often done in the form of constant flashbacks, because I assume the creators must believe the audience is senile and will forget that Knives crashed the spaceship or kills women or tortures orphan children. It's almost comical at how moustache-twirly him and his henchmen are. Literally like a villain out of a campy James Bond film, they just explain their diabolical plans to anyone who will listen at every opportunity. Except theres no camp to this at all, pretty much no humor at all. Taking a serious approach is fine, I usually eat up those edgy early 2000s anime like they're crack. There just isn't really much here to get behind unfortunately.

So getting back on track, a typical episode goes like this: opening flashback/exposition dump, then we go back to current events where our main cast has arrived somewhere new (them actually going place to place is sometimes skipped and they just appear in a new place without any explanation how, im guessing the flashbacks are distractions to avert our attention from this), then we get the villain of the week backstory, the villain of the week is fought and defeated (but not before another flashback interrupts the fight), Knives steals a power plant, and the enemy is defeated or killed by someone other than Vash because he wont kill.

Vash is, according to this anime, a crackshot gunslinger, and he is a radical pacifist who seeks to protect people no matter what they do to him or others. So naturally, I was surprised when I realized by the end of the show I didn't really get to see Vash doing any of these things at all... Usually hes just awkwardly sad all the time or others have to resolve the conflict by killing. It seems like for a bit during his final showdown with his arch nemesis, that when Knives challenges his ideals and beliefs, Vash cant even offer up any rebuttal. It just seems odd to me that someone who supposedly devotes his life to saving the lives of others cant even reject the villain's statements with even a cliche or determined yell or something. The impression it gave me was that Vash really has zero conviction towards his ideas on the worth of life, and every moment of inaction just serves to reinforce this throughout the whole anime. It'd be one thing if he was some depressed teenager that didnt want to get into a robot and fight monsters, but he's been around for a while and can literally shoot the bullets that his opponents fire at him or others. Stampede wants us to believe hes this cool outlaw who only fights to save people, but it fails to make him feel cool, like an outlaw, or make us think he could save anybody...

So maybe this could be redeemed if you go into it craving a cool but mindless action thriller right? I wouldn't count on it. The show makes it apparent very early on that aside from plot armor, the characters are pretty much just unkillable. In fact, I'd argue that Stampede was counting on the fact people would compare it to the original adaptation because certain characters (you know who) died and it was incredibly impactful, yet in this adaptation everyone can get riddled with bullets and shrug it off. The only proof that death is even still a thing in this world is that helpless people are constantly and graphically murdered on screen constantly by whatever grotesque abomination has been sent by the bad guys this time. Maybe if every enemy didn't look like Bane from the 1997 Batman movie (the same one with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze) you might feel fear or excitement at these fights. But after watching them, I'd be surprised if I still had a pulse. It was just boring, and I found myself actually checking to see how much time was left until it was over on more than one occasion.

Up to you if you like it or not, but I know one thing for sure. Meryl's hair looked a lot fluffier in the original.

Art : 4/10 - not great, not terrible.
The CGI isn t bad but it s still far from a lot of good 3D animations all over the world. It looks like PS3 graphics in general, except some characters who got a little more details. The animation feels slow and heavy, it lacks dynamism, and it is caused by quite low frames per second and the movements are too slow in general. The average viewer won t notice, I believe this only annoys me because I ve worked in animation myself so I can see this kind of little issue. The realization saves this aspect a ... little because it has dynamic and original shots.

I didn t like the chara designs in this series. It looks way more generic and with less soul than in the original Trigun for most characters. On the contrary, some characters got over designed with unbelievable characteristics that don t make much sense (like the million knives).

We also sadly don t get to see much of the environments where the characters are evolving. It s mostly close up shots that don t help to understand where the characters are and how the universe looks like.

Scenario : 2/10
The episodes i ve watched so far makes no sense. Character's motivations are unclear and even change a few times when the story needs it. They also spoiled the whole story in the first episodes instead of creating suspense and make us discover Trigun's universe little by little like in the original series. So, I believe the rest of the series will just be action packed fights. The dialogues are also cringe and with zero depth. I say cringe because sometimes a character say something completely obvious and the other characters overreact as if he said something incredible.

Characters : 1/10
They took everything that made the characters interesting and threw it to the bin. Especially Meryl Strife who became a generic weak cute anime girl that could be in any generic shonen. She is completely useless in this series. They also spoiled Vash and million knives personalities and secrets in the first episodes.

Sound : 6/10
The music is pretty good, although i feel it doesn t fit the atmosphere and the desertic far west-like world of Trigun. It sounds too modern in general. Or sometimes you have funky and joyful jazz while in a intense and dangerous situation, which destroys all the intensity of the scene...
The opening might be the worst opening i ve seen and heard this year.
I still rate above average because the sound effects are neat, and I have nothing negative to say about the voice acting.

Entertainment : 1/10
Where s the comedy, the suspense, the feeling of adventure??? There s nothing in this series. The characters haven t made bonds so far, it feels like they are all together against their will and have nothing better to do than being together.

Overall : 2,5/10

I believe the focused audience is young male teens looking for action shonens without depth.