Trigun Stampede is an action anime adapted from the Trigun manga series and its animated counterparts, Trigun (1998). Created by Yasuhiro Nightow, Trigun Stampede is simultaneously a reboot and a remake of the original Trigun anime. While both animes are different in their own rights, Stampede is said to maintain the original’s dark themes but funny humor.
While I’m not here to compare the two, especially as I’ve never seen the original anime or recap Stampede, I am here to talk about how tragic of a character the main lead is; Vash, also known as Vash the Stampede or Humanoid Typhoon.
From here on out, this article will contain major spoilers in Trigun Stampede. I really recommend watching this amazing show before reading this character breakdown.
We are introduced to Vash as our protagonist with a quick backstory on how he lost his caretaker, Rem, seemingly at the hands of his twin brother, Nai. However, Vash also contributed to the destruction of all the spaceships the humans relied on and all survivors crashed landed on this desert planet called No Man’s Land.
Later, two characters, Meryl and Roberto stumble upon Vash hanging in a tree, and the duo quickly realize there’s an obscenely large bounty on his head. Vash is described as the humanoid typhoon, a force of nature that wreaks destruction wherever he goes. However, when we meet Vash as an adult, he has a funny sense of humor and an aloof nature, not quite like someone who wants to cause such destruction.
We follow him to the town of Jeneora Rock, where the townsfolk find out about the bounty over his head, and try to turn him in to collect the money for them to buy a new plant, a rare source of water and power for the town. However, multiple enemies show up and Vash saves everyone.
That, until Nai, now called Millions Knives, shows up. Vash confronts him and tells him to stop, but Nai ends up destroying the town and Vash is shunned by its remaining people.
At this point, this introduces my theory now that I’ve seen the show in its entirety. Vash is not the enemy the people fear. Nai is. But because of their relations, people don’t trust Vash and assume he’s in on Nai’s destruction, and brings them chaos and fear, earning him his unfortunate nickname of Humanoid Typhoon.
In actuality, Vash grew up with Rem and other kind hearted humans- because spoiler alert, Vash and Nai aren’t human- he vows to do everything he can to protect them, even the enemies after him. When the Nebraskas come, he saves the man’s son even though they were trying to kill him moments beforehand. He’s actually a pacifist and wants to belong so badly.
Nai, on the other hand, relishes in human death and believes as Indepedents, he and Vash are superior beings. Now I won’t get into the overarching plot of his fight with Nai and the reasoning, but it does contribute to why Vash fights so diligently to save lives, often putting himself in danger against enemies or his brother.
After Jeneora Rock is destroyed, Vash vows once and for all to confront Nai and try to change his mind by going to the largest city, Julai, where Nai is. He even has a moment where Meryl asks why he could be smiling at this time, and Vash responds with, “I don’t deserve to cry” placing so much on his shoulders and carrying the burden of his brother’s actions, and somewhat his too from the ships’ crashing.
On their journey they meet a chaotic neutral character, Nicholas Wolfwood, also referred to as the Punisher for his grisly way of killing with his machine gun and his inability to die easily. For a time, Vash and Nicholas are on a sand ship to get to Julai, and end up having to fight people and save a nearby orphanage from being destroyed by the runaway ship. Nicholas planned on handling things in a deadlier way, but Vash convinces him to try and take a pacifist route, which Nicholas begrudgingly relents and it ends up working out.
To me, this shows how Vash’s pacifist ways were slowly getting to Nicholas and it speaks to the impact Vash leaves as a person and his way of life.
In the end, Vash and Nai have a final battle in Julai, where Nai uses Vash’s powers to try and destroy the entire city, but Vash flies into space, releasing the power there and potentially sacrificing himself so that nobody would die. Sadly, things don’t go that way. Nai, so driven by his beliefs, tries to send the power down to the city, and they have a struggle, and ultimately Vash is forced to release it, killing Nai in the process. It also vaporizes the city anyway.
Vash, who spent the entire show (so far) refusing to kill and only apprehending people, went to Julai to try and convince Nai to see his side, only to be forced to kill perhaps the one person he wanted to save most.
Vash wasn’t killed in the blast, but we get a jump cut two years later where he seems to have lost his memory, and the bounty on his head is higher than ever at $60 billion.
He is truly a tragic character to me. A truly good person who was perceived as evil and wanted nothing more than to belong with them and not spend his life running, like he had been for so long. Even more tragically, he killed his brother when he only wanted to persuade him to stop hurting humans.
It was also interesting to see the development of Meryl. I didn’t cover her much but she’s a fresh-faced reporter who is intrigued by the “Humanoid Typhoon”. Originally, she was planning to write a piece about Vash’s actions and his crimes, but over time getting to know him and seeing his compassion, I like to imagine she changed her mind and instead wanted to write about proclaiming his innocence. However, once Julai is destroyed, it hardly matters to try and clear his name, but has stuck by his side nonetheless.
Trigun Stampede is a worthy watch, and I desperately want to know what’s in store for Vash and the other characters when season 2 eventually makes its appearance. So far, there aren’t any updates, but I will for sure be tuning in when the new episodes come out.
