When Yasuhiro Nightow created the first chapters of Trigun in 1995, I wonder if he had any idea what his story about a peace-loving gunslinger would become.

 

Over 25 years later, the fourth reimagining of Trigun, Trigun Stampede, has become one of the biggest new releases in 2023 anime. Its popularity has brought a surge of interest to the other versions of the story. These are Trigun Maximum (or Trimax for short), the manga that ran from the late 90s until 2007; the original Trigun anime that aired in 1998; and Badlands Rumble, a 2010 film that is hard to watch and harder to recommend due to its treatment of female characters. With this newfound interest and wave of nostalgia for the original work, it is only natural for people to compare and contrast them all. Their conclusions, however, are far from universally agreed.

 

Many wrote off the 2023 anime, known as Tristamp, because of its use of 3D modelling and non-traditional animation techniques. This is an unreasonable complaint. The animation in Tristamp is gorgeous, as the 3D modelling allows the animators to create visual sequences that wouldn’t have been otherwise possible to construct. The animation style, however, is far from being the only change the new team at Studio Orange has made to the Trigun canon—and I would like to explain why I think the choices the new adaptation makes with its two main characters render them both weaker and far less interesting. 

 

Set on a desert planet, Trigun follows Vash the Stampede, a legendary outlaw with a $$60 billion bounty on his head who, despite his reputation, lives by the seemingly incongruent motto of ‘love and peace’. Neither Vash nor his brother Knives, the main antagonist, are human; they are Plants, a species created by mankind to generate water, energy, and other things necessary for their survival. With the exception of the brothers and a few others, all Plants are dependent on humans for their upkeep and have no resemblance of individuality or free will. The Plants that aren’t are known as Independents and have huge power and lifespans. Imagine Vash and Knives like angels mixed with nuclear reactors in the bodies of blond seemingly 20-somethings. 

 

The main conflict presented in Trigun is enacted between mankind and the Plants. Humanity is shown time and time again to exploit the sentient beings whom they rely on for their survival on their new planet, frequently working the Plants to death. Whereas Vash is determined to see the good in people and understands they wouldn’t survive without using the Plants, his brother Knives takes a far less sympathetic view and spurns the exploitation of other Plants, whom they refer to as their ‘sisters’. Although the new adaptation retains the basic outline of this set-up, it has decided to characterize the principal cast very differently.  

 

While it is true that a reboot has no obligation to remain entirely faithful to the original material, the changes made by Trigun Stampede, in my opinion, make for a worse narrative and a far less interesting central conflict. This adaptation repeatedly makes choices that are to the detriment of both Vash’s and particularly Knives’ characters. 

 

In Volume 7 of Trigun Maximum, we see Vash and Knives’ childhood. Twin Independents are born on a spaceship carrying millions of humans in cryo-sleep to a new planet: an event without precedent. The only other Independent to have existed at this point is Tesla, born on the same spaceship a few years prior; her existence is a secret to Vash and Knives until they stumble across her suspended and destroyed body shortly after their first birthday. Reading the files, they learn she was experimented on to death by human researchers—which their mother figure, Rem Saverem, was aware of, having kept Knives and Vash’s existences a secret for their safety after seeing what was done to Tesla.

Above: Knives (L) and Vash (R) discover Tesla’s body in Volume 7 of Trigun Maximum.  Below: In Trigun Stampede episode 11, Tesla is still alive despite suffering similar abuse at the hands of human researchers.

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This discovery and the twins’ reactions are fundamental to the rest of the story. The different ways in which the manga and Trigun Stampede handle this distinction are key to understanding where, in my opinion, Trigun Stampede went wrong. 

 

In Trigun Stampede, Knives is portrayed as a sullen and apathetic child who believes himself above humans because he possesses ‘powers’. Vash, who believes that he doesn’t have any such abilities, is shown to be closer to humans, which Knives sees as weakness. Knives feels superior to humans, dependent Plants, and Vash. This apparent God complex leads him to crash the spaceships on the desert planet. His reaction to discovering Tesla is hardly explored in this adaptation, whereby the twins are only shown screaming before a harsh cut takes us to the subsequent scene. Tesla’s death has no bearing on the plot and becomes a minor detail in the brothers’ separation.

 

The characterisation of young Knives in Trigun Maximum is utterly different. Instead of his villainy being an inherent personality trait, the Knives we see as a child is the polar opposite. In place of his disdain and aloofness in Tristamp, Knives is desperate to be accepted by humans. Knowing that he and Vash are different from the rest of the ship’s sleeping inhabitants creates a sense of anxiety rather than superiority. We see him brought to tears when they are accepted by the second human they meet instead of being shunned as monsters. It is Knives who discovers the dismembered body of his sister, upon which he faints from the shock, leaving Vash to confront Rem alone—a scene that does not exist in Trigun Stampede. Trimax shows us an emotionally sensitive boy who desires friendship but finds himself face-to-face with the worst of humanity.

 

In Tristamp, just as Knives’ evilness is exaggerated to the point of cliché, Vash’s character is noticeably watered down. His unwavering goodness is never challenged by himself or others, being presented as plain naiveté. In Trigun Maximum, Vash’s no-killing principle is shown to be a conscious and difficult choice that he has to repeatedly reaffirm. In the aftermath of finding Tesla, Vash first resolves to kill himself to avoid a life surrounded by humans. When Rem prevents him from stabbing himself, he then turns the knife on her, watching with pleasure as she bleeds out in front of him before he experiences an agonized change of heart and saves her. It’s this decision, along with his subsequent conversation with Rem, that makes Vash who he is: having seen the consequence of hatred, he chooses love. The fact he was less sensitive than Knives, which is entirely reversed in Tristamp, worked in Vash’s favour—as it is the sudden loss of hope and security that makes Knives feel forced to become a murderer.