‘Trigun Stampede’ Episode 12 review: “High Noon at July” will leave viewers speechless in epic finale

Trigun Stampede was always a tragedy. It just managed to trick us for a moment in that first episode. Vash’s story, his lack of bodily autonomy, his armor being gifts bestowed on him by human kindness, his love for humanity stemming from a need for atonement, and his century-long grief, all resolve themselves (for now) in “High Noon at July,” a visually devastating and operatic season finale.

Garishly grandiose, Trigun Stampede lays it all out bare as Vash’s succumbs to violence in a confrontation of ruinous reckoning. He unmakes himself in a bid to regain the physical and mental agency his brother had come so close to stripping him of.

At the end of its season one finale, Trigun Stampede sets the stage for a follow-up while making it clear that this may have been more of a prequel to the main story all along. Perhaps, there’s a reason why this version of Vash was drawn softer this time around.

Because, despite the horrors he’s faced and the trouble that’s followed him, nothing quite obliterates hope like watching your sibling plummet and burn to nothing in a desperate chase for annihilation. One has to wonder what version of Vash we’ll meet next and if his prior pacifism will have been shaken.

The tale of two brothers and their inevitable war of morality.

“High Noon at July” picks up immediately where the penultimate episode left off. Knives has seemingly won, completely taking over Vash, allowing Knives to pass through the gate into the higher dimension. He plans to connect with the plant core to impregnate all the plants and create new independent plants artificially.

Once finished, he plans to wipe out all of humanity to create a new world in his image. Part of the brilliance in Knives’s characterization is how often his ideals and actions are at odds, made worse by the hint of truth in his accusations against humanity. He wants to save his brother from human error, believing that humans use and abuse plants against their will. Yet he’s subjecting his brother to a similar fate, using him to try to manufacture life without his consent.

Vash awakens due to his warped memories and Meryl’s pleas, the roots folding back into the cube, becoming yet another would-be catastrophe that Vash plans on stopping by getting it as far away from the city as possible. One of the roots that had grown from him becomes a wing, a pair with the one Knives produced from his own shoulder blade. In Knives’s eyes, they are two of a pair, angels who have fallen from heaven to build a bridge to another world, ushering in peace and tranquility for their kind. They’re mirrors of one another, but while Knives sees it as a means to unite, Vash is only given the stark reflection of how much his twin no longer resembles either him or the brother he once knew.

A staggering clash of wills. 

ORANGE / Trigun Stampede

While it’s unsurprising that Vash can break free, the manner in which he did so and the fury that urges him straight into combat with Knives is staggering nonetheless. Not a single part of this fight is triumphant, and each frame aches with desperation. From the start, with Vash firing his gun, to the ending coda, where we learn 90% of the city’s population died with Vash taking the blame.. It’s been two years since the city became a crater. Even still, the emotional wound delivered with brutal accuracy comes mid-ascent, as Vash cries out to his brother:

“Since when have we been so different?”

He pleads with Knives to see that they aren’t so different from humans; he seeks in their final flight to understand just how his brother could be in such opposition to the one he grew up with. Yoshitsugu Matsuoka delivers a tremendous performance this episode. The series tracks the ups and downs of this character as he shakes off, barrels through, or barely weathers the weight he endures. But the notes of despair he hits in Knives’s final moments, the determination that pierces through his voice, messy and jagged, as he vows that he’ll continue to run as humanity chases him until they forget his sins bruise. He can peacefully stand beside them, fully embodying what drives this character forward, to keep on running.

Directed by Kenji Muto, “High Noon at July” exemplifies a creative team firing on all cylinders. Even after demonstrating refined skill and detailed artistry in the previous eleven episodes, still manage to up the ante. We see it in the crescendo and freefall of Vash and Knives’ battle.

The finale is visual poetry.

There are the roots that spool from Vash, signaling his transformation and undoing, his growth and decay as it overtakes July. Then there’s the plant that looms over the city, made in the likeness of his caretaker, Rem, a symbol of destruction despite its extraterrestrial beauty. The red geraniums return this episode, symbolic of the protection of youth’s naivety; the visuals are breathtaking.

There are such Western influences in Trigun Stampede, from the title of “High Noon” (a reference to the 1952 classic) to the exploration of new frontiers and endless spaces of a forgotten and decimated town filled with outlaws and misfits. It’s part of what makes the science-fiction and fantastical elements so effective: the dissonance of styles coming together to create a picture larger than life, with scenery that seems to reach beyond the frame. It’s endless, it’s torturous. The heat rolls off the screen, and yet there’s beauty in each episode through the heightened elements.

“I’ll run, run, run, and keep running as far as I have to!”

The gravity-defying grace distilled into that showdown between Vash and Knives, where their fight styles both balance each other and cancel each other out, makes for a balletic sequence. This crescendo curls like the crest of a wave, always on the verge of breaking. Add to that an image of Knives as he burns to nothing, becoming completely unmade after he tried to remake Vash, using the same thing he used as a weapon, and the result is visual poetry.

Trigun Stampede will continue, even if Vash seems to have lost his memories. For now, we too stand in the wake of “High Noon at July,” a mournful, visual, epic. Orange has drawn its own impossible bar to scale – it’s certain, though, they’ll clear it.

Trigun Stampede is available on Crunchyroll.

Read our Trigun Stargaze coverage here. 

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Featured Image Courtesy of ORANGE / Hulu