Trigun + '98 vs Stampede '23
First off, this may contain spoilers! Read at your own discretion.
I'm a big Trigun fan. Read the whole manga, own the whole 1998 anime on DVD that I've watched multiple times. Like many other fans, I was excited to hear of a remake/reboot in 2023 - Trigun Stampede.
Unlike a typical anime, Stampede decided to go the 3D CGI route, like Beastars. I was a little sceptical of this, but Beastars looked pretty good. When Stampede came out, I eagerly gave it a go. The CGI looked pretty great!
I know Stampede was supposed to be more a self-contained version, that started as something of a prequel to where the manga and '98 anime start off, with the city of July (JuLai?) not yet destroyed. Okay, cool, sounded neat.
Meryl's new design? Not bad. This Roberto fellow? Who the hell is he? Random new character, okay. What a trope too - typical older guy, mentor type, deep in the alcohol and cigarettes. Cliché, but what can you do? He's there now. Wolfwood hasn't changed much. Nice.
Vash's new design? The two layered hair with two colours is odd - especially when you factor in how hair works for Plants (not that the typical Plants in '23 have any hair at all, so... Something only a previous fan would know.) The new arm prosthetic is very different and immediately in-your-face. Hang on, his left arm being fake was such an important plot point that didn't get revealed in the manga (and the '98 anime) until some time had already passed. No cool secret reveal? Disappointing. His wardrobe? Eh, no big complaints from me. He does blend in a bit more in '23, even with the red coat. It seems to swallow his form instead of accentuate it, but oh well. My biggest gripe is actually with Vash's ankles and just above. They look waaaay too skinny, like toothpicks ready to snap under the slightest pressure. Fine when he's a kid, not okay as an adult.
But what about the story?
Stampede adds things from the manga that '98 never got to explore. Cool! Seeing extra manga lore is fantastic.
The problem comes from the pacing. Stampede hides no secrets. There's nothing held back. All that lore the manga and '98 series took ages to tease, peel apart, and display? BAM, you can have the majority of it in the first 3 episodes. A massive let down. Everything is shoved under your nose as fast as possible, and some parts honestly feel like blink-and-you'll-miss-it. If you have a short attention span it's fine, I guess, but it's way too quick for a proper story to be told. It hops from point A to point B with no time for the story to settle and expand in between, like the manga and '98 series do. Granted, '98 is much shorter than the manga, but the pacing is decent, especially compared to '23.
And the prequel aspect? Well, that's just the first season, 12 eps. It may be the prequel story of the Third City, but you get so many spoilers for what should come later that it ends up feeling like a massive jumble of story and timing. Can you follow it? Yes. Is the pacing good? All of the no.
The second season, titled Trigun Stargaze, starts right off with the well-known 2 year time-skip from the manga (and '98). It's definitely in the wrong spot, but they couldn't have Meryl and Wolfwood back without it. (Considering we're supposed to hop into the story 20 years after that incident!)
The time-skip is an important point in the story. Vash gives up for a bit. Tries to retire. But Wolfwood comes along, gives him back his gun, and prods him to get up off his butt and back into the game. He's the only one that stands a chance against Knives after all. He doesn't get the luxury of taking it easy. Still, for that short 2 years, he got a taste of the life he's always wanted, with a lovely old lady and her granddaughter that found a defeated vagabond and adopted him. It's a beautiful story arc.
But no, we don't even get that. We get an entire episode on the backstory of one of the Gung-Ho Guns, Hoppered the Gauntlet, even though he's not a GHG in this version? No, he's the one taking care of a Vash that hasn't retired, but is an empty husk that does nothing, says nothing, and has to be spoon-fed all his meals. WTF? Even worse, we get all of Hoppered's manga backstory squished into one episode and then we never see him again.
The PACING. It's an awfully slow episode - slower than any other '23 ep - and it wastes all the time giving us backstory for one character that lasts one episode. Ridiculous. If a character's only in one ep, we don't need to know their life story, thanks.
Hey, look, Milly Thompson is here! Her intro feels so forced to me. Like, hey, old fans, here's a humongous nod to the manga and '98 that you can't ignore! It certainly is that. You get Meryl and Milly in a bar ordering desserts and tea. This time the girls actually get them. Go figure. To me though, it feels like they shoved that in there to satisfy the older fans since criticism of the '23 version among them was no small secret. For me it didn't land.
I haven't even finished watching Stargaze, but I'm disenchanted with it a mere 3 episodes in. And this 12 eps is the last of it? "Hey, '98 only had 26 episodes! It got a whole story told!" Fans say.
Yes, yes it did. But it told it properly, not the whizz-bang-flash, lay all your cards on the table from the get-go '23 version. They ended the '98 series on their own terms since the manga wasn't done yet, and it wasn't a bad ending. (Unlike FMA '03 that went so far off the rails and had multiple train accidents along the way) At least they never tried to squish the manga's worth into 26 eps - they had to leave a lot out because it didn't exist yet, so the ending works for what it is. But the '23 version tries to squish much of the manga plotline into 24 eps and it just doesn't work.
Is the '23 version BAD? Well, that's up to each person watching it. Some adore it, some think it's okay, nothing special, while others hate it. I don't hate it, per se, but I am severely disappointed by it. I hoped for so much more, only to be let down by the writing and pacing.
I would absolutely love a Trigun remake like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was to FMA '03 - a series that stuck to the manga and followed it until the end, to make up for the earlier anime that only got halfway and made up its own ending. That would be so amazing.
I can't see it happening, sadly, especially since Trigun's creator, Nightow, loves the '23 version.
No offence to any fans out there, this is merely my opinion. The '23 version does have some cool stuff all of its own (the Plant markings and that they show up in Vash's eyes under light? That's cool as hell!) so it's worth a watch for any fan.
Vash the Stampede is a fantastic character with a deep, enduring story. I love him, he's one of my blorbos. No matter which version you may like or dislike, I'm sure we can all agree on that point at least.
