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← view full thread · [Spoilers] Trigun Stargaze - Episode 8 Discussion
I wanted to be emotionally invested, but Livio and Razlo are both such terrible characters and the fight while visually appealing was all over the place with their weapons that were previously established to shoot bullets, lasers, and rockets suddenly turning into light sabers.
When you combine that with Wolfwood's constant unironic trope-y one-liners, Razlo randomly going on a rant about getting erect for no reason, and the constant need to shout 'tri-punsher of death' took me so out of the episode that by the time Wolfwood died and came back to life I didn't even care.
I had to go back and re-watch it a little bit just to see if they set up Livio/Razlo as having some kind of extreme healing but they didn't so how his blood, pumped full of the same crap that makes you age super quick saved Wolfwood instead of killing him is just one of many glaring plot holes this season has.
Like Knives being able to reach out across the planet and in seconds destroy all of the satellites, if he can do that he can just reach out and kill entire cities of the humans in seconds too, we are constantly shown that the blades he use move faster than normal humans can perceive.
If I we weren't so close to the end this episode would have made me drop the show.
I think the current writer for the story is too focused on shoe-horning in every one of the manga characters that didn't make it into the anime and not focused enough on making an over arching story that follows the growth of the characters.
Wolfwood is a great example, dude spends not even a month worth of time with Vash and is so in love with him he's thinking about him as he's bleeding out in the sand.
The first season was pretty good and did a good job of developing the characters and story. But I don't know what their goal is for this second season other than to have a new flavor of the week bad guy show up.
You managed to put into words all my thoughts about this episode and the show so far. As a TriMax fan, I really really enjoyed what Stampede was going for. It felt like a breath of fresh air: the characters (new and old) were treated way better than whatever Stargaze is doing to them now; the pacing felt way more natural and I was way more invested with the story, etc. It wasn't a 1/1 of the manga, but the elements and themes WERE there so it was an extremely enjoyable watch for me and many fans.
Stargaze though, feels like they're rushing everything from the manga and trying to sandwich all content in 12 episodes, so naturally that's gonna backfire. They're trying to appeal to TriMax fans making all the possible panel or manga references they can, but as a fan of the manga? I wish they didn't. It's like they put all of TriMax in a blender and served whatever slop came out. They should've done their own thing like Stampede so the pacing would flow much better than... whatever this is we're watching; and, as you mentioned, the plot holes are driving me crazy as well. It feels like witnessing a car crash to me at this point.
Three Wolfwood fake outs in a single episode is insane to me. A moment that is so highly regarded and praised from the Trigun community, was completely watered down to whatever this episode tried to convey. It feels like I'm watching Hopper from Stranger Things almost dying 5 times but nothing happens.
It really is unfortunate, Stampede had it's own plot holes and issues as well. But they were minor things that either could be glossed over or didn't carry over from episode to episode so they weren't relevant.
The motivations and redemption of each of these characters are all pretty lack luster too. They at least gave Midvalley some decent development to show case how he was just looking for a way to lose and escape, but everyone else has just gotten a macguffin so far.
The Puppeteer was shown to be a controlling jerk who always wanted to be in charge. He's redeemed by Vash remembering his name and just... Being nice to him? The issue wasn't that he was ostracized, it was that he had a superiority complex and it drove all of his friends away.
Livio/Razlo experienced so much trauma as a child that he developed split personality disorder so that he could imagine all the abuse being shirked onto someone else (Razlo) instead of himself. That would mean that he inherently knows of Razlo and Razlo doesn't know of him. After basically killing his adoptive brother 3 separate times in a fight and being effectively killed 2 times Livio interjects to tell Razlo he isn't needed anymore. Razlo asks who is talking, but then remarks 'oh you must be the other guy' meaning he is ALSO aware of Livio. It isn't like there is a good conversation between Razlo and Wolfwood to prompt this, it just happens while Wolfwood is beating the crap out of him. (Never mind that Livio was a completely brainwashed, emotionless basically automaton in Stampede from implied torture and reconditioning, which should have just brought out Razlo instead then.)
Trigun did tragic villains really well, but it also had irredeemable villains like Legato and Monev the Gale. Villains don't just have to have a sad back story, they can be tragic because they are led astray and only realize the error of their ways or the pointlessness of their struggles in the very end. Like Elizabeth from the anime: The girl who dedicated her entire life to killing Vash the Stampede for Juli, only to realize at the end that he was the one who saved her. They managed it with Hoppered the Gauntlet, so I don't know what the hell they have been doing since lol.
You two are missing the whole idea that not Stampede nor Stargaze are adaptating Trigun's manga. This is a whole new reinterpretation done using elements from there, that's all. The whole issue Stargaze has is that it is using a material while thinking that the viewer will know the background from the manga, that's a bit suicidal, never worked.
But the whole thing is that this isn't an adaptation. Instead of shitting on Trigun manga doing a poor adaptation they did a whole new thing just like they did with the OG anime.
It isn't perfect and sometimes it shows weakness, for sure. But you can't attack it of being a poor adaptation when it never planned to be one.
I'm not missing the whole idea lmfao. Did you read my comment? I said Stampede was a great adaptation despite most of it not coming from the manga.
"This is a whole new reinterpretation done using elements from there, that's all."
Yes, that's exactly what me and Paix are talking about, we are complaining that the elements aren't there for Stargaze, hence our disappointment. I never ever expected this to be a 1/1 adaptation or I wanted it to be, and as I said in my reply, I wish they never tried to reference TriMax so much and did their own thing instead of cramming up all the manga content.
Hey, if you like it more power to you. My comments come from a place of deep love to the source material, in no way I'm judging fans who are enjoying Stargaze. Actually, if most are enjoying I can only say I'm grateful because that means more fans and more love to the series. But I can and will "attack" (or we can be normal and say the word criticize) for it being a poor adaptation and missing the messaging, elements and themes that Trigun is known for. Stampede/Stargaze are still an adaptation of the series regardless of the writing or AUs they do, because the word "Trigun" and their characters are there, just like the 98's adaptation.
The 98's also has its flaws (manga will always be the best to me) but at least it still felt I was watching Trigun until the finale, just like Stampede. And again, I'm not here claiming that Stargaze is unwatchable. In the contrary, it has great voice acting, great animation, etc. It's completely watchable and enjoyable for new fans or old fans, it's just not, for me at least, what Trigun is.
Let's say we agree to disagree. But hey, your stance is way better than literally most of ppl who went here to attack (yes, in that case it was attack, not crittize) Stampede all the weeks.
The reason why I can enjoy it despite loving the manga is because they distanced enough from it, believe me that this is a way better option than doing a poorman's version of Maximum. I have enough beloveds adaptations turning into shit, if anything I want more studios to have the balls Orange have in an era where ppl are neurotical about being 1/1 carbon copy to manga.
The final outcome will be judged without comparisions, just for what they did. And for now I can agree that Stampede felt more apt.
I hope that they never do a 1/1 adaptation of TriMax, for the same reason as you stated. It's just so good that I just can't see it being adapted correctly. Maybe it can, but chances are very slim and I rather have Maximum stay in its manga form forever without being soiled.
My main issue with Stargaze is that yes, they're not doing a 1/1 copy of Maximum thank god for that, but it seems like they're trying a bit too hard to please the manga readers by throwing the most panels from the manga as they can, and injecting all the characters as well without having their proper arcs and time to breathe. And unfortunately, with 12 episodes that's an impossible feat. I rather if they had cut content or characters of the manga so they could enhanced in their own way the parts that feel most important, making the pacing and story feel more cohesive with Stampede.
I agree with you there, I think people are being too harsh on it. I know and read a lot of comments on fans expecting it to be a carbon copy, when Studio Orange itself said it was never gonna be a 1/1 adaptation. While I myself am disappointed, personally it's a 5/10 for me, it's not an horrible sequel as people make it out to be!
Sorry but I think there is some misunderstanding here. I am not comparing Stargaze to the Manga or Original Anime for my complaints.
While I did use the original anime to highlight how you can have tragic villains and also irredeemable villains, my criticism remains that as a story, Stargaze is leaps and bounds behind Stampede. Stampede had small issues of it's own with the story, characters, and world building falling flat however, Stargaze has had almost no real character development, world building, or story progression even.
The story starts with the hunt for Vash
We find Vash and learn Knives is coming back
Knives attacks and Vash gets captured without a fight
Wolfwood continues to have to do all the work while
Vash is either passed out or busy hesitating even though he said his new haircut style was to show his motivation to push forward and stop hesitating.We are almost at the end and so far all we've done is collect side character back stories, side characters who despite being strong and potentially good allies are all side lined to take care of large groups of children so Wolfwood and Vash can continue going out and Wolfwood can keep doing the fighting.
In Stampede if you missed an episode you'd be lost/confused (that happened to me because CR put me in the middle of the dub at one point instead of the sub) but with Stargaze you could have missed 80% of what has been shown so far and you'd probably still be fine.