Trigun Stampede (Amazon Prime Video) 2023 - Ongoing anime series

 

Short Review

What I liked more: Beautiful animation, superb voice acting, focused narrative, intriguing plot that sets its own direction unique from the previous Trigun anime

What I liked less: brisk pace that did not allow much time to get to know the characters, seemingly shallow villain motivations, plot reveals to the viewer but not the characters.

Recommendation: Worth following as the story intrigues me and I wish to see how it proceeds.

Long Review

I have been a huge fan of the original TRIGUN anime so when this remake was announced I was stoked. Premiering on Amazon Prime video, TRIGUN STAMPEDE features gorgeous animation, great voice acting, and a story that respects the original while taking its own unique direction. 

As of posting this review, 5 episodes have been released and that is usually the number I give a show to hook me and I form my initial impressions on whether to continue with it or not. For TRIGUN STAMPEDE, I can safely say I am hooked. Now this would not be a comparison between the manga or the original anime with this remake. I will present my thoughts on this show as it is. 

The story begins with space colonization mission gone wrong. The human colony ships crash on a distant planet and among the survivors are the brothers Nai and Vash. It is soon revealed that Nai, now clearly unhinged and christening himself "Knives" had deliberately sabotaged the mission to wipe out humanity but a good number survived. Vash is horrified by Knives' actions and this kicks off the “Cain and Able”-esque plot of two brothers and their deadly rivalry that would span many years. 

Fast forward to present day and Humanity had settled across the planet in small retro techno town inspired by the old west. Vash the Stampede is an outlaw and two intrepid reporters are hot on his tail to find out more about this mysterious gunman. 

Immediately apparent is how beautiful everything looks. Colours are vibrant, action is fluid, and the faces are so expressive it is almost Pixar level at times. Though clearly using cel shaded CGI, the animation does a great job of replicating a lot of 2D animation's look and feel.  At the same time, all elements are integrated so well one could forget this was CGI and it just looks like a really fluid traditional anime. 

In terms of narrative, the pace is very brisk. There is barely any time to get to know our main character of Vash, to establish who he is, his motivations, his worldview. Like in the first episode Vash is seemingly hailed as a hero of a town and everyone in that town seems to know him. But then in the next episode they turn on him, hoping to collect the bounty on his head to save the town's PLANT (the main source of power and resources). It might have been a big thing if we had a couple more episodes of seeing how Vash has helped the townsfolk and how close they got before desperate times brought out desperate measures, but for it to happen so quickly the emotional impact just feels lessened. 

There is also a lot of information that is shown to the viewer which the main characters are not aware of. Certain allegiances, certain hidden histories, unseen relationships etc are all shown to the viewer, almost like spoilers. I get that it helps build tension when we know such plot information and the characters are still in the dark about it, but I felt that it might have worked better as plot twists further down the story. Perhaps the issues with the plot can be narrowed down to its pacing. It is paced very briskly. The first 3 episodes alone feels plotted like a movie and then divided into episodes. The next 2 also feel like incomplete parts of a second movie (likely encompassing up till episode 6)

Minor quibbles aside, I very much enjoyed Trigun Stampede. Each episode hooks me to watch the next and this is a rare anime that I would be glad to follow as each episode is released (normally I prefer to binge watch whole seasons). Highly recommended.