Trigun: Stampede made a lot of changes to Trigun‘s story when it premiered in the early part of 2023, bringing in a new generation of fans to enjoy Vash the Stampede’s tale and his seemingly doomed quest for love and peace. Beyond just the animation’s aesthetic, the first season also received some revisions while holding onto the central themes and plot beats of the original for the most part. The major changes made to this retelling of the series are most apparent when viewers look at the changes made in Vash and Knives’ dynamic, the latter known originally as Nai in this canon.
The biggest change in Vash and Knives’ dynamic comes with a very interesting shift in the characters themselves, particularly regarding Vash’s own bodily autonomy in the face of Knives’ desire for what he should be. Studio Orange, the animation studio for Trigun: Stampede, is no stranger to stories that place gender and gender roles as an undercurrent to their narratives, as demonstrated in their previous work with Land of the Lustrous and Beastars. For Trigun: Stampede and its story, this extra layer adds something incredibly complex to the relationship between Knives and Vash. The greatest ability of science fiction throughout history has been the usage of fantastical circumstances to comment on things that happen in the real world. Trigun: Stampede has followed that tradition as it recontextualizes gender and violence in its world.
Vash And Knives’ Visual And Emotional Coding Has Changed
The most major change that has been made to Vash in Trigun: Stampede isn’t visual but based firmly in his character. In the 1998 series and Trigun Maximum, Vash’s deep tragedy is concealed behind his overly flirtatious mannerisms and outward buffoonery. He does his best to keep people at a distance with his behavior while still working to save as many people as he can, despite the fact that the world around him is built on survival of the strongest. Vash is more classically masculine in a literary sense, given a more active role in his fights and seeking out employment that plays on the legend of the Humanoid Typhoon. He’s a cowboy in a Western, all sharp angles and mystery as he blows into and out of town. Vash is portrayed as a protector and vanguard against humanity’s most vile impulses, but one that engages in other vices of the flesh to further tie him into the aforementioned cowboy aesthetic.
Vash’s Trigun: Stampede incarnation is a lot different, though. This Vash is more subdued, less outwardly jovial, and far more quick to allow people in. This is a Vash who seeks to protect people not just out of a sense of responsibility, but from a place of fathomless love that borders on motherly. Vash isn’t the flirtatious idiot from before, and even his design is more subtle and soft compared to his ’90s counterpart. Vash’s position as a protector isn’t entirely established yet, and his more immediate concern is keeping himself out of Knives’ reach. He’s shown as an active participant in the past of multiple communities with a reputation that isn’t as established.
This shift in Vash is mirrored in Knives as well. While Knives in the ’98 version was far more passive and willing to sit back and enjoy the show as Vash would inevitably end up in his clutches again, the newest version of Knives is far more aggressive and active. He makes overt attempts to keep Vash isolated and position himself as the only one in the universe that Vash needs, as they belong together. The Knives of ’98 had the goal of proving Vash’s worldview wrong, but there was still a sense of them considering each other equals. Conversely, Stampede’s Knives wants to control Vash in body and soul. His ideal version of Vash is one that cannot run away or move and is exactly what he wants Vash to be, a support that’s always there for him, which puts Knives’ in the same vein as the humans he hates so deeply: Vash is a tool to be used just like the other Plants, but it’s different because Knives is the one doing it, and of course he knows what’s best for all of them.
These story changes seem subtle and innocuous at first, but it is in the final episodes of the season that they become far more blatant in their gendered presentation. By shifting these very small things, such as visibly making Knives bigger and wider than his twin Vash, the animation is saying something about their relationship with each other and those around them. Knives is constantly manipulating and controlling those around him while Vash’s single-minded determination to protect people from Knives is what ends up with him being captured and subjugated.
Knives’ Happiness Requires Vash’s Identity To Be Stripped
Studio Orange is no stranger to narratives that use the interplay of sex, gender, and predation as a way to underscore their overarching themes. Beastars is the most blatant example, with the art style of the anime using looming shadows and specifically focused shots to inject a sense of danger into even the most benign interactions of specific characters. Trigun: Stampede is not as subtle with its imagery when it comes to the climax at the end of season one.
In the way that women in multiple cultures were stripped of their bodily autonomy through the act of propagation, Knives does the exact same thing to Vash in the climax of the season. After he invades Vash’s mind forcefully, making him experience the past through Knives’ eyes and undercutting his own experiences, he strips Vash of his ability to move and unlocks Vash’s abilities to open a portal behind the now prone and frozen Vash. Knives treats this as something to celebrate, his brother now immobilized and at his whim, and the anime doesn’t pull punches in its imagery going forward. Knives literally subsumes Vash’s identity and treats it as a birthday gift because Vash’s prior behavior was something akin to a child rebelling rather than a man taking a stand for his own values. Knives only values Vash as an extension of himself and not as an individual.
Knives physically enters the yonic portal he forces open using Vash’s innate powers and uses these abilities to involuntarily impregnate the other Plants using Vash as a conduit. The imagery shown isn’t subtle, as Knives is manipulating a round sphere that is evocative of an ovum while the more feminine plants grow more visibly pregnant. The Plants throughout the Trigun franchise are shown to be integral to the continuation of human existence in space and are basically drained dry of their abilities, but they are immobile and cannot move of their own free will. Knives’ contention is that humans use them and are torturing them but he, in turn, does the exact same thing to Vash as he strips away his autonomy before the final fight. The plant-like structure that comes from Vash’s own abilities even takes on a form close to that of Rem’s, Vash’s only image of a mother whose motherhood ultimately led to her death.
Procreation has been used as a locus of control over women for centuries and Trigun: Stampede uses traits associated with women in media to show that same sort of violence imparted in a different context. While these are intense concepts for an anime to explore, Trigun: Stampede manages to use them to make the story even more heartbreaking as Vash now navigates the consequences of Knives’ actions in the future. Much of Knives’ behavior mirrors abusive relationships that work to make the woman within the relationship subservient. Vash’s body is a commodity, a way for Knives to ensure a legacy whether Vash wants it or not. His compliance is not a factor in Knives’ plan because Knives doesn’t expect Vash to want anything else, and when he strips Vash of his autonomy, he makes him into the most perfect version he can be in Knives’ eyes.
Trigun: Stampede has fundamentally changed the relationship between Vash and Knives, rooting it in a much deeper trauma for Vash, who now needs to live in a world seemingly without Knives. Knives invaded his mind and body in ways that had massive consequences for the world as well as Vash. The last we see of him for the season, he’s staring at a piano with his memories seemingly gone.