Trigun Stargaze has recently concluded its season and the Trigun reboot as a whole is finished. Unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about this season in comparison to the masterclass that was Trigun Stampede.
As we continue along, do note that I will be getting into spoilers about the reboot. As a whole, I would still recommend watching this second season, as there’s a lot to love about it, but the pacing and narration suffers for it.
The Plot
Stargaze picks up where Stampede leaves off. Vash is in hiding two years after the Julai incident and stays that way until someone from his Home, a young girl named Jessica, comes to retrieve him as their home is in danger. Meanwhile, the villains from the previous season are stealing plants to revive Nai. This is so he can commence his ultimate mission that Vash foiled in Julai.
Once Vash is awakened from his stupor, he slowly comes back to life as the legendary Vash the Stampede and defeats a few enemies.
Meanwhile, Nai is revived, and has a plan to destroy an immigrant fleet coming to rescue people from No Man’s Land, as well as destroy the last large civilization on the planet. He wants to wipe out humans and force upon a new era where plants are free and not serving humans.
Vash defeats Nai, and in a single moment of compassion for his brother, Nai sacrifices himself in the final battle between brothers. Nai’s death brings on the terraforming of No Man’s Land and the main cast departs from the planet to explore space.
While an interesting plot, it really suffers in quality as the pacing is breakneck speed from episode one to twelve. We are not given a lot of time to breathe and let the characters introspect and interact the way they did in Stampede. In the first season, we have ample time to explore different characters and their motivations, but this season was very plot centered and we lost a lot of that character work.
I’ve heard that the original intention was for three seasons instead of two to finish out this story. This was a huge missed opportunity and I wish they did do three seasons. There was also a director change from season one. Stampede was directed by Kenji Muto while season two was Massako Sato, and this is very apparent as you watch both seasons.
The Characters
Vash’s character suffers the most this season, but he’s far from the only one. He does grapple with the events of Julai and the genocide of an entire city, but we don’t see a lot of that present. We have the timeskip of two years in hiding, and moments where his guilt is apparent and he doesn’t want to fight again, but it’s not to the extent we see him act in season one.
There is one scene near the end of the show where it should’ve been a character-defining moment and it just wasn’t. Vash and Wolfwood are in a fight with Legato. Wolfwood will die if he doesn’t do something, so Vash makes the deliberate choice to shoot Legato. It is an impossible choice he had to make because despite his immobile stance on not killing, he ultimately is forced to to save someone else.
He ends up not killing him as Nai comes in to stop the bullet, but you would think, after Julai, that Vash would’ve been horrified by this. In Julai, he did his absolute best to stop Nai and failed. Here, he makes a distinct choice to kill and he just doesn’t get a moment to react to his actions. It’s basically forgotten about and it really showed me how different this season was. How many missed opportunities there were.
Also, Meryl and Milly are quite passive for the majority of the season. In the end, they do help the plants unite and help Vash, but it felt as though there wasn’t much purpose to their presence beyond this scene. I enjoyed the inclusion of Milly, but she wasn’t a standout character for me.
One of the only characters who went in a more positive direction was Wolfwood. In the beginning, he was still in the belief that sometimes you just have to kill someone to prevent more violence. But, Vash’s insistence on not doing so eventually rubs off on Wolfwood. It ultimately led him to be able to save his friend, Livio, whereas previously Wolfwood would’ve killed him. It’s a nice change and it was great to see how Vash’s morals can influence others to lead the path he does, even though it’s hard. Wolfwood’s reward is having his friend back.
Conclusion
I don’t dislike this season at all. The animation was beautiful and the fights were even a step up from season one, and I love some of the fights in season one. I regularly rewatch the scene where Vash stops the guy from bombing the place in episode one and Vash stops the bombs with a single bullet. It’s incredible and our first glimpse of just who Vash the Stampede is.
However, as I said, the pacing suffers heavily in this season. It’s nonstop action and pushes the plot along. It makes me miss the episodes where you learn more about each character and their motivations. I miss some of the quiet moments and character work that I adore in season one. Comparatively, they’re not a lot of focus.
I did enjoy this season, but I wish they could’ve allotted the time for two more seasons to really flesh everything out and give this reboot a well-rounded story. While I probably won’t revisit season two anytime soon, but I thought it was decent for the time allowed in the series conclusion. I recognize that Trigun as a whole isn’t a super mainstream show as the 1998 show is more of a cult classic, but I enjoyed what we got as a reboot.
Now, it’s time for me to continue watching Trigun 1998.
