This Week in Anime

LOVE AND PEACE!

Coop
Chris, have you heard any of the tall tales regarding a lone gunman known as "the humanoid typhoon?" They say he's so dangerous, he's been classified as a living natural disaster by insurance companies far and wide. But it seems that no one's been able to keep the story straight around this guy for over thirty years.

With the latest version of this deadly outlaw's story crunchyrolling around like a tumbleweed these days, I'd say it the perfect time to piece together this tale for ourselves. Some refer to it as "The Ballad of Vash the Stampede," but most know it best as Yasuhiro Nightow's space western classic, Trigun.

We all love beautiful, tall woman who carries big guns.

With Stargaze recently kicking off, I started thinking a lot about my experiences with the manga and pair of anime series. Despite having caught a glance of Madhouse's 1998 Trigun series on Adult Swim once or twice as a babbo, it's really only been over the past five years or so that I've really sunk my teeth into this badlands buffet. But I have a feeling you probably go way back with Trigun, Chris.

What a twist! Well, I guess that Revolutionary Girl that Sylvia and I rattled on about last year must be next on your list! I actually watched through '98 around the same time as you did, but the exact timing of it all is kind of blurry in my mind. It's been a long couple of years.

For me, the series really started to grab my attention sometime around 2020. In between watching episodes of Gundam Seed Destiny, my close friend (and fellow Macross rememberer), Dylan, would sing the gospel of Trigun to the high heavens—specifically Trigun Maximum. His passion for the work, its world, and the intricacies of the manga's North American localization were incredibly infectious. Around the time Stampede was set to air, we'd talked about some deep spoiler elements (ones the Studio Orange's adaptation would end up getting to right away), but my interest had been majorly piqued regardless. So, I eventually did what any dork does, and bought a DVD years later to finally check it out for myself.

As we sit at the top of 2026, I now have you, Dylan, and Dark Horse's new editions of the manga to thank for drawing me even further into Nightow's sci-fi saloon. Also, I'm usually not a huge fan of these gigantic special editions as they tend to be a touch unwieldy to flick through, but this trio of tomes feels REAL NICE.

Madhouse's Trigun is on such a pedestal among most older anime nerds, to a degree where it might make the constant comparisons a bit silly. I talked a bit about this with Lucas in regards to Chainsaw Man, but when audiences (young audiences in particular) lock into an image of a work, they'd want everything that follows to maintain that image to a tee. I felt that a bit more often when I was younger, but today, I see the adaptational process as a new group of creatives baking me another delicious cake. Some of the ingredients might be different, but that's fine. Most people might get sick of the same cake after a while. And no, Chris, I will not search "Trigun Cake" because I am sure I will be greeted by the largest Bigolas Dickolas known to man.

That's true, I could stumble upon the next great classic...and so much porn.

Packing pastors aside, I love that Trigun's adaptations feed into Nightow's long-documented love of American comic books. Each new spin on Vash and the gang feels like the newest run of your favorite superhero floppy. The base details around the characters, world, and history are generally the same, but the current creative team isn't afraid to remix those concepts in bold ways to suit their vision. After actually reading a bit of the manga for myself, I appreciate even more how '98, Stampede, and Stargaze each do something new while remaining true to what made the series work to begin with.

The strongest parts of the 1998 series and the manga itself come from the downtime we spend with these folks. I'm not sure everyone would be as head over heels for Milly if it weren't for all the mundane hijinks she gets into with Meryl.

All the business between Vash, Knives, and the Gung-Ho Gun is fascinating, but it loses its punch without the quiet moments connecting to these characters.

And among those names, we can't forget about the one and only Tsuneo Imahori.

Every time I think of Trigun, this tune plays in my head. Imahori's eclectic score is a defining element of the series in my ears—from the scratchy guitar riffs to the Eurobeat synths that pop in every once in a broken moon. If you listen through a bit of this score and ask yourself "where can I get more of this?", you've got to check out his work on Hajime no Ippo—the Madhouse and Nishimura joint that followed Trigun... And full disclosure, a series I wrote a little copy for with its most recent Blu-ray release. When I first heard that show's tunes, I was like, "Is that... Imahori?" and proceeded to scream once I confirmed it for myself.

Interestingly, you mention Madhouse's characterization of Vash. In my recent chats with Dylan, we've often discussed how this version of Vash is way more of a Ryo Saeba (the hero of City Hunter) in these proceedings. What did we mean by that? Well, both Vash and Ryo hide their past trauma behind the mask of a goofy womanizer...and you don't want to be anywhere near them when that mask slips. It doesn't necessarily line up with the source material or Orange's characterization, but the emphasis placed on Vash's false persona adds another layer of drama and tension to the '98 series.

While it might not be a favorite among Trigun fans, Badlands Rumble serves as a celebration of the special sauce that made Nishimura and co's vision really sing. It's not some grand, next chapter in the story, but rather, a chance to hang out with this version of Vash and the gang one last time. Goofy womanizing mask and all.

It's not amazing, but there are some interesting factoids surrounding the flick—including Kobayashi's involvement.

Tonight I learned that Yasuko Kobayashi was brought on to write Trigun: Badlands Rumble partially because Nightow really liked Kamen Rider Den-O.

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— Coop (@riderstrike.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 11:39 AM

It's "Ore Sanjou!" all the time, Chris! We'll never escape! Seeing Nightow say that he wanted Kobayashi on the production because he dug Kamen Rider Den-O was a wild thing to discover while going through Badlands Rumble's special features in the dead of night. However, it might not actually be all that surprising considering that Nightow was seemingly friends with Den-O's uber-talented creature designer, the late Yasushi Nirasawa. In an afterword for one of the manga's volumes, Nightow shows how they both had their minds blown when they went to San Diego Comic Con for the first time.

The idea going around for the longest time was that it was primarily North American fan demand that got Badlands Rumble rolling, but in a recent episode of AnimEigo's The Anime Business, anime scholar Jonathan Clements revealed that South America played a huge role in scoring that green light. I always enjoy hearing stories of how other region have left their mark on the art form and industry. It's nice considering how much of the media is pointed toward American sensibilities—anime included.

More importantly, I see Badlands Rumble as a potential spark that led to Stampede and Stargaze. It all comes down to the film's CG Director, Eiji Inomoto...who just happens to be the CEO and Founder of Studio Orange. Doesn't hurt either that there are a handful of former Madhousers over there.

Stampede is a real special series in my eyes, because it finally sold me on the potential of fully CG anime. I'd sat through a few other CG series, but always kept getting thrown off by inconsistent frame rates and occasionally janky animation. Then Studio Orange just comes out from under my radar and is like "take a look at this!"

That character animation reminds me that more people should check out Leviathan if they want to see the studio's craft evolve between seasons. I'd briefly spoken with series producers Kiyotaka Waki and Yoshihiro Watanabe, along with other Orange staffers, back at Otakon 2024, and they'd said Leviathan was built on what they learned from Stampede. I'd imagine that iterative process probably flowed back into Stargaze as well. Still a shame Netflix dumped Leviathan onto their platform all at once, it's a real good one.

I might share the concerns of some that this season might be blasting through some of Trigun Maximum's initial beats, but Vash's 0G standoff with Leonof the Puppetmaster rules.

I've got a feeling that the Stargaze will probably level out going forward, because boy, this one had a decent handful of narrative threads and fan requests to address right away. Like, we've established that I love tall women, but it felt as if she were slightly shoehorned on in just to make the fans happy. Nothing wrong with that. However, the rapid pace doesn't give viewers much time to hang with her. We all want to sit with a tall woman and get to know her, after all.

All right, I've given you that one! Ha ha ha!

I might be in a similar place with Stargaze at the moment, but I'm going to wait until it all plays out before I make up my mind on it. We're only three episodes in after all.

Though on the topic of sequels, I do have to take a page out of Dylan's book and sing the praises of Trigun Maximum for a moment. The initial series run felt to me as if Nightow was firing on all cylinders regardless of the time or runway he had left to drive on, Maximum comes off as a little loose yet immensely more confident. Like he'd maybe said to himself, "I don't need to prove myself anymore, I'm just gonna have a great time going ham with these characters I love!" And oh boy does that resolve bleed from every page!

Since I'd just mentioned Vash's scuffle with Leonof in Stargaze, the fight's original form in Maximum just rules, man. It's a perfect example of that loose yet locked-in focus I'm talking about.

I'd call it "MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE."

Will this year end with all of those giant red tomes in my possession? It's more likely than you think.

We'll have to wait and see what awaits us down the dusty road.