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You cannot compare Trigun to Trigun Stampede. They are completely different stories, which is what a reboot/reimagining SHOULD be! That being said, is Trigun Stampede a good story that can hold its own?

...In my opinion, no. The writing is kind of awful actually. And despite what I just said, it is REALLY difficult to not compare the two stories, at least in terms of character.

SPOILERS BELOW!

Wolfwood is turned into a superhuman test subject, which completely negates the symbolism of the heavy cross he bears. What made him a compelling character originally was he was a very flawed human.

Knives is just... idk what they did to ... him, but I don't like it. I really don't enjoy that they made Vash kill him and then nuke the city of July anyway in an attempt to save it. It didn't feel good.

Also, characters spell out events and character motivations as if I don't have a brain. I personally cannot stand having things explained to me after the fact of it being clearly shown. Example: Why is Wolfwood's cross so heavy? It's revealed to be a giant gun. Random old guy then states "that's why its so heavy" BRO NO WAY ITS ALMOST LIKE I HAVE EYES AND MADE THE CONNECTION WITH MY BRAIN. Stuff like that. Drives me nuts. It's almost like the writing and complexities of character were dumbed down for "modern" audiences. There isn't even that much action/gun play. I would say it's a time constraint issue, but I've seen 12 episode shows that make you care a lot more than this one. No one has chemistry together. I don't care about any of these characters, not even Vash, and I loved Vash. It's kind of like scenes were just happening in succession and I WANTED to feel things, I WANTED to like it, but it was mostly a disappointment for me.


But hey, I love Vash's new look, they made him spicy!

Note: This review is coming from someone who watched the series when it aired on Toonami and is now revisiting it. SPOILERS!

This anime is not as amazing as I once thought it to be. While I am a little disappointed, there are a few interesting ideas and characters in this series that I think could create a more solid reboot (if they were to choose this anime, we are in the age of bringing back the oldies as it were). Don't let its age deter you, the colors, environments, ships, and action all look great, even today. It's the story I have my qualms with...

The ... most fearsome villains in Outlaw Star are the MacDougal brothers. However, they make fewer appearances than I recalled. If the series were to focus more on them instead of the K-Pirates (side note: we aren't looking at the manga either, this anime can barely be called an adaptation of the comic as it is so I'm going to treat the anime as a separate entity), as well as the lost ancient space magic, and why Melfina and the Outlaw Star are so important, I think it could be a really solid space series.

Having a main character who has a severe space phobia, but desperately dreams to explore space, I find very interesting. I like Gene's character (for the most part) and the way he has to overcome this fear. His connection to the MacDougals is there, which solidifies their villain role beyond Harry's random and creepy out-of-the-blue obsession with Melfina. That being said, I think Harry and Melfina's relationship could be explored more with better writing and setups. He's not a synthetic. He was a test tube baby. He's an augmented person (after being crushed). Melfina IS a synthetic. But it's never explained why he goes apeshit over her. Harry is SCARY and CRAZY. He makes a good villain, I just wish the writing centered more on it.

Space ships that fight with grappler arms and like... 50 tiny cameras you have to look into through one viewfinder is an insane skill that I think Gene should have been seen developing at least a little bit. It's a very cool idea and I wanted to know more about it. Also, bullets that have spells writ upon them that are then "cast" by a gun, that's such a neat idea, and I wanted to know more about that, but it's hardly talked about. I also assume that the number on the more powerful bullets (i.e. #4, #9, #13) are the years of your life they strip from you when casting.

One thing that always makes me really angry is when Gene is randomly mean af to Melfina for NO REASON. His character really needs some work tbh...

If you like space anime with a weird twist, you might enjoy this one. It definitely has a lot of cool stuff in it, and a lot of nothingness. The dub is okay too, I like Gene's voice actor a lot.

For some reason I was so enamored by Gilliam that I chose it for my namesake on every internet site. Except, if you haven't noticed, I couldn't fucking spell when I was 12 apparently.

Also Aisha turned me into a furry you're welcome.

Spoilers, please do not read if you have not watched the OVA OR the OG series:

I would like to preface my review by saying I understand a 1.5 hour OVA cannot possibly encompass the nuanced story of an entire seasonal arc of an anime. That being said, I am glad the narrative of this OVA was...different and not a beat for beat reboot.

In terms of the art: I don't think this anime looks good in this OVA--HOWEVER... I have seen the trailer for the 2023 "remastered" series and I have high hopes for it to be gorgeous. The characters at least look more on model ... and while (I feel) animators would never do another series where it's all about every strand of hair...I hope they still care about the hair ngl... That's probably the dumbest thing to be nitpicky about but when I think beautiful anime hair it's always Rurouni Kenshin and Basilisk that comes to mind.

In terms of the story: If you have never seen RuroKen before, I think you would still find this OVA feeling rushed. They really tried to cram ALL of it in there and it is not great.

The action: While I am not a big fan of how a lot of the fights were handled in this OVA, I did enjoy the more modern, exciting, and quickened pace of the choreography, and I have high expectations for the 2023 release, especially for the big name versus moments (Kenshin vs Saito comes to mind). I will admit I am extremely biased because the OG series holds a big place in my anime heart, and I am super let down they didn't give Chou his whip sword and that Shishio was just randomly fighting people and then letting them go like what he would NEVER LOL I just felt like there was character assassinations left and right and just... I feel bad if this is anyone's first introduction to RuroKen... Kenshin splitting Shishio's whole brain in half was pretty dope tho tbh

My personal feelings: I rated this low and I don't feel bad about it. I was not enjoying my time with this OVA and kept thinking about watching the OG anime over and over. I'm really looking forward to the 2023 remaster but... please don't let me down with some bullshit y'all.

WOW.

Wow, wow, wow.

Someone explained to me that this was an anime created to get kids interested in learning science? Whether or not that is true, I was expecting this to be a very juvenile anime, very basic. I was prepared to be bored.

WOW I cannot state enough how insane this series is. It is science-centric, for sure, but it uses that in such a wild and interesting way I could not stop watching to see what crazy thing Senku would try to do next. The message of the show as a whole is also so positive and forward thinking. It is very "we are a ... community and we should do our best to help one another even if we don't agree" and that makes me feel GOOD. It's a GOOD SHOW.

Also can we talk about how anime is getting its teeth game on??? Everyone in this show has some detailed ass mouths, like I can count those molars. Anime is getting more and more gorgeous every year. TAKE MY MONEY!!

Senku, by the way, is the ultimate asexual of any anime I've seen.

This anime suffers from epic first episode syndrome, just like Ergo Proxy does.

The first episode of this anime was such a cool experience, with the experimental camera angles and the action and the animation, it was EPIC. I was so excited to see more.

And then it became boring!! Sorry, but I am not really into political warfare a lot of the time and that is what this series turns into. You'd think the vampire angle would keep things interesting but it really didn't do it for me.

I wanted to like this way more than I did, but it did not click with me :(

Ahh, another fetish anime to add to my list beside Prison School and Speed Grapher. Don't try to tell me its not! There's bondage man and tentacles n shit! Fetish anime!!!

Was this supposed to be a parody or tongue-and-cheek representation of anime tropes as a whole? I mean, with the whole super-powered clothing turning you with your titties out kind of thing, it felt very aware of what it was doing. But then it was like...not about that anymore?? And then there was a random lesbian moment? And then a random molestation moment??????? What??????

If anything, the art and the style of this show is really ... great! I liked the things they did, all the characters looked interesting, the action was exciting, it was a fun time. There are just some things that were like...HUH????? Like came out of nowhere for no reason kind of HUH????????

Overall I would say I enjoyed it. It certainly wasn't boring!

I watched this anime dubbed and you should too if you enjoy Steve Blum as a voice actor. This is some of his best work as he is the star of the show and allowed to actually act instead of his usual type-casted villain rolls. It's a really fun experience.

The character of Onizuka himself... that's a little complicated. At first, he is disgusting and horrible. He is (I believe) 22 and only wants to become a teacher to be predatory to the high school girls (gross). But that's a throughline that only comes up every so often after the pilot? He slowly begins to really ... care about being there for his students and being a good teacher (even though he is terrible at it, let's be real, he should be in jail), and it really warmed my heart to see such a doofus ex-yakuza(?) really be a rock to all these kids.

The students have their own arcs throughout the show and Onizuka helps them through it. Onizuka...well I wanted him and the teacher to get together, but whenever they had scenes together he randomly started being terrible to her again and that was kind of annoying and backwards imo but w/e its anime, gotta neg all the women who look normal for the ones with huge titties for no reason.

The running gag with the principal and his car is top tier. I really love that rivalry he has with Onizuka.

Also the first opening theme????? SO GOOD???? The art and the song are just SO GOOD. I watch it every time.

The story of this anime is nothing new: it is basically a Romeo and Juliet setting. And that is okay! There are so many variations you can do with a well-known storylline, and warring ninja clans with super powers is a pretty cool one!

The thing that grabbed me the most about this anime was the art. Goodness, have you seen these characters eyes?? And their luscious eyelashes????? It's incredible how beautiful anime can be.

Everyone had some really cool powers too. I really enjoyed how (I forgot their names I'm SORRY) Romeo and Juliet's powers complimented each other, it really worked in their favor for their ... romantic chemistry and the whole idea of marrying into each others clans in the first place.

If we're gonna poll the Iga vs the Kouga clan uhhhh tbh both of them have equal footing when it comes to characters with cool powers and characters with LAME AS HELL powers. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the guy who can throw hands with the wires and the girl who can suck your life out with her skin.

How do I put this...

I was disappointed to see this anime was rotoscoped. Rotocoping is not my personal favorite genre of animation, however, I am sure the artistic team chose this style for a reason. I believe that reason to be discomfort. Seeing these moments almost acted out in real time. This then begs the question of why not go completely live action? Aku no Hana certainly has enough dramatic content to create quite a shocking TV series. I personally don't think the animation style suited the story in any way. In fact, I found it alienating.

The anime also pulled some punches, as most anime ... does, when compared to the manga. While I understand some folks just cannot get into reading manga, I always push people to find a way to consume it, otherwise you will never get THE REAL STORY. I'm not saying that animes which soften the blow (see Naruto, plenty of examples in that), are inherently bad or missing the main story beats, it just takes away the real impact of a lot of scenes.

I encourage you even more to read the manga considering the anime never made it past the first incident. It gets even worse from here. This is a story that goes to very dark and believable places. Out of everyone in this story, the character the audience is expected to hate is the one who arguably has done the least offensive things.

This is another one of those FEELS BAD stories. It is uncomfortable and horrible what these kids do to each other. I would not recommend watching this if you are in a bad place mentally. It could potentially make it worse. In regards to the manga... I am still not sure how I feel about the ending...

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Two things I absolutely praise about this series. One is the art and the other is the raising of the stakes.

Art:
The idea that a character is so powerful that they break conventional animation, visually, is ingenious. The Spiral King is what I mean. There are other instances of intense emotion that are portrayed with scratchy lines, and it all works in the series favor to express bigger feelings.

Stakes:
First, it was get out of the hole. Last, it was save the human race by killing god.
First, it was a tiny robot. Last, it was a tiny robot inside of a bigger robot inside ... of a voltron inside of a bigger voltron.

This show is insane and I love it. The story is honestly, kind of garbage, and so are all the shallow characters, but I don't care! This show is the epitome of "because we can". "Hey Simon, make your robot combine with mine", "LOL OK" and then IT JUST WORKS. It Just Works, the anime.

How lame of a protag do you have to be when, the first time I watched this show, I thought KAMINA was the main character?? Imagine my shock and disappointment after realizing Simon is the real MC. I don't particularly like Simon. There's just something about him that I can't click with. Maybe it's the fact he needed constant approval from Kamina, not sure. Just did not like him. Even when he became an adult, still didn't like him, but it was less aggressive.

Kamina was my boy. And then look. Look how they massacred my boy. Y'all can't do this to me. Didn't know I was gonna be feeling such a fat void inside so soon in a series. Simon just can't fill that space. And he's not supposed to. But it still feels bad man.

Yoko and her kiss of death, I don't particularly enjoy her either. She is just another Boobs the Character kind of person.

This show saved its budget for all the fight scenes, GOOD. They're all amazing.

The music is great ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH!

I watched the dub, and while its not...the best and the translation definitely glossed over some parts (i.e. the turtle man and Nia) the mixing they did to achieve the adrenaline inducing moments of GIGA DRILL BREAK with the power and the echo and whatnot, it works SO well, such big powerful EPIC ENERGY from this show.

Like yeah, it is kinda the dumbest shit ever, but I love this anime to death. Y'all, they throw GALAXIES at each other, come ON