So I watched Trigun: Stampede

I just recently watched and finished the series Trigun: Stampede on Hulu. I'm going to try avoiding spoilers for the plot, and more focusing on what I liked and disliked.

Trigun: Stampede is a reboot or a reimagining of the original. It was beautifully animated. The characters and scenery were amazing to look at.

The show follows the exploits of of the 4 main protagonists, the grizzled veteran reporter Robert De Niro, the plucky young reporter Meryl Stryfe, the wanted outlaw with the six million double dollar bounty on his head Vash the Stampede, and the gun-cross carying undertaker Nicholas D Wolfwood.

Trigun: Stampede differs from the original series in many ways. As I have not read the manga, I'll only be comparing it to the original anime.

Trigun: Stampede changes several things from the original Trigun anime. First of all they changed the name of the planet from Gunsmoke to Noman's Land, it initially gave me pause, but I quickly recovered. Because the reboot only has 12 episodes, the pacing was a lot faster, we don't get the satisfaction of watching the slow realization by the protagonists discovering who Vash really was.

The showing of different powers between Vash and Knives, and showing more of Vash and Knives' backstory made Knives feel more like a threat and less like a cookie cutter villain than in the original anime.

Because Stampede is much faster paced in storytelling, we get to see very early on the conflict between Vash and his twin brother, Millions Knives. The writers of the show did know when to slow down. You get to see much more into Vash and Knives'(he was called Nai when he was younger) backstory. We get to see much more about the relationship between Vash, Nai and Rem. We also get to see how the crash happened. We get to see the relationship between Vash and the survivors of the crash. We get much more insight into what the plants are. We get much more insight into what Millions Knives' motivation is. We even get to see how Vash lost his arm and got it replaced with a cybernetic one.

I love the way they made the plants look. In the original series that made them look like giant lightbulbs that had energy inside and we'd only see that there were living beings in them when Vash interacted with one. In the reboot that plants look like flower buds contained in a glass dome-cylinder thing and can unfurl to reveal themselves as alien beings.

I wasn't crazy about Vash's cybernetic arm in the reboot. It had a much more gee-whiz, ZOMG futuristic look and held a concealed grappling hook. I preferred his cybernetic arm from the original that had a much more mechanical look, and the hand, wrist and part of the forearm could fold down to reveal a concealed, high-powered machine pistol. I also wasn't crazy about the changes to Vash's pistol, making it a bulky normal pistol that held 10-12 .22 long rifle rimfire bullets, instead of being a big revolver that held 6 round of what looked like .45 Colt and was secretly 1 of 2 super advanced tech weapons. Though the changes to Wolfwood's Punisher Cross was cool, where it was a machine gun on one end and a f-you laser cannon on the other, though I preferred the weird and wacky bajillion-in-1 different weapons from the original series.

The changes to some of the iconic criminals, antagonists and villains were a bit jarring for me, plus the ones they cut felt to me like they left a gaping hole in the narrative. The change of Vash's personality from the wacky, happy-go-lucky, bumbling bufoon that would get super serious, to a character who was alway trying to be serious, always ran away, never shooting back when people were trying to hurt him, even if it was to make them duck for cover or disarm them, made him feel less like a damaged hero who used weird and wacky antics to conceal his true intent and abilities to someone who was too chickenshit to even attempt to make the people who were shooting at him duck behind a wall. Sadly Millie wasn't part of the show and only got a mention of her over the CB in the last episode before the credits.

Because the writing of the show was more heavily focused on trying to be gritty and dark, it many times comes off as "Ooh! Look how edgy we are!" and even strays into derp territory, so we get none of the comedy that helps to make the dark scenes feel darker.

The scores are entirely based on my experience and biases.

Artwork and animation: 8/10 The show looks gorgeous, the body movement and more realistic faces made me feel like I was encountering more real people, but I do miss the weird and wacky of the original anime.

Writing: 7/10 The overall writing was crisp and on point, and stuck to the narrative. The drama was good, though sometimes it would drift into melodrama and needed more comedic moments to offset and accentuate the darker theme. I also feel that the series could have done better with 24 instead of 12 episodes to give more time to tell the story and better fill out the characters. The final showdown between Vash and Knives was cool, and the after-credits scene leaves it open for a second season or a sequel series. I felt the writers were over-relying on gritty and dark, the Trigin setting isn't supposed to be a spaghetti western, and instead is supposed to be a futuristic western IN SSSSSSPPPPPAAAAAAACCCCCCEEE!, give us some weird and wacky.

Overall: 7/10

Trigun: Stampede was a beautiful and interesting retelling. If you're a fan of Trigun, I'd say give Trigun: Stampede 3 episodes to see if you like it. If you're unfamiliar with the Trigun-verse, watch the original anime before coming to this one. Overall Trigun: Stampede was an entertaining experience and made me want to watch the next episode. It wasn't the greatest thing ever, just fairly above average, and it kept me thinking back to how the original series was much better. The greatest sin any piece of entertainment can commit is being boring, and this definitely wasn't boring.

However this is just my opinion, and I am aware of my own biases. If you've seen Trigun: Stampede, tell me if you agree with me, disagree with me, or if you think I'm full of crap. Thank you for reading and have a nice day!