Trigun Stampede

Episode 9

So it looks like I was right about the plants being a source of moral conflict in Trigun Stampede. I'm glad we're going right into this shortly after fully establishing that these are living creatures, and this episode also introduced some additional variables to this conundrum. First off, this episode made Knives somewhat sympathetic, which is surprising. Don't get me wrong; he's still a violent sociopath, and his whole mentality towards humans comes across as a little bit cliché. However, humanity has constantly shown that it's not very good at learning very basic lessons, so I feel like I can't really fault a show's lack of subtlety with its message that humans suck because…yeah we kind of do. Look me in the eye and tell me we're not a century away from repeating the same exact mistakes that are highlighted here.

Knives' big plan is to retrieve all of the plants that are being used to power towns and machinery throughout the entire world. Humans completely destroyed the earth and subsequently took to the stars in order to colonize another planet. Knives tried to kill everybody because the humans are relying on living creatures as batteries (like in The Matrix) but Rem seemed to at the very least put a partial stop to that. Now, ironically, we have humans stranded on a planet that is barely inhabitable without the use of these plants and it's been about 150 years since the crash. This means there is at least one generation of people that don't know anything about earth based on Meryl's reaction towards the end of the episode.

Another fascinating angle that I didn't even think about was the fact that STAMPEDE introduces a third party into the story: the worms. Unlike the plants and humans, this was the worm's planet and it was established in previous episodes that they have their own ecosystem, like a giant electric network that connects them all together. I felt kind of bad when that was brought up because it basically means that Knives is declaring war against the human race while this planet's inhabitants are left wondering whose side they should stick with for the sake of survival and prosperity. STAMPEDE is making it clear that it doesn't want to ask the same questions as the original anime did, but I like the fact that the foundation for these moral conflicts are pretty solidly laid out.

Though the biggest question now is: how Vash will fit into all of this? I love the debate of knives versus guns that was established here. Knives thinks that a gun is a coward's weapon that humans use because it allows them to murder from a safe distance, which is also probably why he prefers knives—it feels more like he's killing people and enacting change with his bare hands (as someone who lives in America, I'm not even gonna get into the thorniness of a gun being used as a symbol of humanity ). What I want to know is how will Vash justify his stance in all of this because so far, from where I'm standing, Knives kind of has the moral high ground. While we don't know how humans came across the plants and started using them for energy, they're not infinite batteries, and using up all their energy directly leads to their death. However, it also doesn't seem like they're able to live outside of their containment, and even Vash says that without humans containing them, they would all just burn up and die. I want to hear more convincing arguments for keeping these things captive because outside of Vash's desire to not kill anybody and keep life going for as long as possible, I don't really know just yet what his actual plan for everything is. It's interesting and thought-provoking which is definitely more than I could say for early episodes of the series. But that awkward start aside, I'm very satisfied with where we are now and the questions that are being asked.

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Trigun Stampede is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.