Trigun Stargaze

Episode 3

It's all about the gunplay this week, as Vash finally lets loose with his revolver against enemies he doesn't need to worry about hurting: an army of Terminator-esque puppets. Awoken from his two-year-long torpor by Jessica, a young girl from the crashed Home ship, he follows her back to, well, Home. This was the place where Vash and Knives grew up, and where a small contingent of humans survives to this day, along with what's probably the most advanced intact technology on the planet. We saw the Home residents under attack from unknown assailants in the last episode, and now we learn they were the string-controlled minions of Leonof the Puppet Master, himself one of Knives' acolytes. We witness a little of his backstory as the unpleasant child once known as Emilio, who willingly followed Knives after witnessing his capability for ruthless violence.

I'll admit I was taken in by the initial fakeout where Knives stands atop a mountain of technological rubble (were they cryopods?), once more entreating Vash to join him in his ideological purge of humanity. Of course, it wasn't Knives, but a puppet displaying a holographic projection. Not that the show plans to keep us in suspense about Knives' fate for too long, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Much of the episode's second half is taken up with Vash's spectacular battle against Leonof's countless, relentless puppets. Say what you like about CG in anime (and sometimes I do find the frame-skipped character movements distractingly jerky, I wish Orange wouldn't do this), but there's no way this scene could be portrayed so dynamically in hand-drawn animation. It's thrilling stuff, as Vash desperately empties and reloads his barrel on multiple occasions, struggling to keep the hordes back, even as Jessica assists by manipulating the ship's gravity control lever.

It's only with Wolfwood, Meryl, and Milly's improbably timely (and amusing) intervention that the good guys win the day. We never even get to see what was supposed to happen when Leonof injected himself with that suspicious pink liquid. At least Leonof survives, with the promise that he will “have a chat” with Vash after the dust settles. Vash looks like he wants to hug Wolfwood and Meryl looks like she wants to hug Vash, but sadly, no hugs are shared.

Although Vash ruminates on Hopperd's words that he was “born to suffer,” agonizing over the deaths he unconsentingly caused in JuLai, now that he's reunited with his old friends and family (plus Milly, as this is their first encounter), they all promise to share the burden of his grief and guilt with him. Will Vash really let them do this, though? JuLai wasn't just a random place he visited before its end. Over one hundred and fifty years of his long lifespan, he visited regularly, making friends with the people, now all dead, whose names he lists. It'll take a lot more than mere friendly solidarity for Vash to give up his deeply ingrained sense of responsibility for the humans he loves.

Likewise, Knives is unlikely to ever drop his enmity towards the humans he hates. Reduced to little but a brain and nervous system in a vat, we see that the JuLai disaster didn't leave him unscathed. Will he be rebuilt back to his previous form, or something altogether more disturbing? I'm sure we'll find out soon.

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Trigun Stargaze is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.