Out of all of the unique qualities that separate humankind from the rest of creation, none have defined us as thoroughly as our sense of motivation. Driven by far more than just the basic need for survival, we all carve paths through life that reflect who we are as people, and at least attempt to satisfy our individual desires. Motivation can fuel the absolute best of humanity, but in the wrong hands, it can cause just as much chaos and destruction. One such pair of hands belongs to the outlaw Gasback, who attempted to satisfy his desires twenty long years ago... In his attempt to pull off the perfect robbery, he was both betrayed by his followers, set up by the police, and thwarted at every turn by a mysterious fool in a red trench coat. Now, two decades later, he seeks to settle the score against his former lackeys, but those dirty mutineers aren’t the only ones who are being stalked by a ghost from the past. Hot on Gasback’s heels are a mysterious girl who’s out for his head, and a strangely similar scarlet-clad fool, who aims to show him once and for all that anybody who goes around looking for trouble on Planet Gunsmoke will find it at the hands of the Sixty Billion Double Dollar Man... The Humanoid Typhoon... Vash the Stampede.

Just like the original anime series, Trigun Badlands Rumble was animated by Studio Madhouse, and the time that passed between projects has made itself known. I have a tendency to be very forgiving with the visual quality of the series... For having extremely limited resources, I still think it’s directed about as well as anyone could hope... But even being in that camp, I am still happier than diabetes during the body positivity movement that there is at least one piece of Trigun media where I can enjoy it without having to defend it. Not only does Badlands Rumble have a much higher budget than the original series, but it’s used well enough that it doesn’t ironically leave you with a stronger appreciation of the cheaper version. Like, remember how Berserk was derided for so long for being cheap, but then the movies and newer series came out, and they had really awkward and butt-ugly CGI that made it feel like the animators were taking their new funds for granted and just not bothering to put any effort into the aesthetic? And then everybody just went full circle back to the classic, happy to just treat the manga as a separate entity?

Badlands Rumble does not do that, and Thank God. The animation is a lot more lively and fluid, the few frozen key frames are reserved for extended shots of dialogue, so they’re very easy to miss, and Gunsmoke finally feels like an environment where people live, and not just a sandy armpit full off old and dirty infrastructure. There is CGI now, but it’s used sparingly, animating pieces of the background like cars and guns, while the characters themselves are almost always represented through traditional 2D rendering. The only exceptions to this are a handful of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shots of characters depicted in that kind of framey CG that looks like 2D drawings wrapped around a 3D model... That’s a bit awkward, but it’s rare. Everything is crisp and clean, bright and vibrant... Admittedly, I can see someone missing the grainy texture of the hand drawn cells of the series, but personally, I think the trade-off for higher quality in digital painting is worth it. I’m also not too bothered by the slight, subtle change in nearly every character’s facial design, removing some detail in order to allow a higher range of expression. I get if that’s not a trade you would have made, but I approve.

I’m also pretty damn happy to finally see this show in widescreen, because while the original standard aspect ration did kind of work with the taller and lankier character designs, there’s no better way to view the intriguing world of Gunsmoke than through a more modern lens. The character designs were also changed slightly for this alteration, and given more normal proportions to compensate, but with the exception of Milly in a handful of shots, every characteer just looks like upgraded versions of themselves. The background is a lot more densely packed with nameless masses than the series, and while a fair few of them are just as intricate and weird-looking as you’r probably used to, there are just as many generic bystanders in view, likely for the sake of just filling out all the space that was created as a byproduct of the aspect ration change. Turning our attention to the new named characters, they slot right into this world, as Gasback looks like any number of big bad evil dudes from the manga, and Amelia seems to take some design inspiration from both Dominique the Cyclops and Elizabeth. Badlands Rumble definitely looks and feels different from the TV series, but it also just looks more high-quality in general, so pick your poison.

The English dub is a bit more hit or miss, as for a variety of reasons, most of the cast has been replaced with new actors. The only castmate from the original who has returned to reprise his character is Johnny Yong Bosch as the titular Vash, and I’m going to insert another Thank God here, because he’s really the only actor that this ship would have sunk without. Slipping right back into the role that both started his voice acting career and turned it into an immediate legend, Vash is every bit as lovable, goofy and duplicitous as you remember, although there really isn’t a lot of sober material in this movie, so scenes of his true persona are slim to nil. As for the rest of the cast, Funimation DOES have a pretty decent track record for reuniting the casts of old anime that they originally didn’t dub, and from what I’ve heard, they did try to repeat that success here. I don’t exactly have sources on this, but apparently Jeff Nimoy and Dorothy Elias-Fahn turned down the opportunity to reprise their roles due to the necessary commute to Funimation studios conflicting with their schedules, and as far as Lia Sargent was concerned, well, she was basically retired at the time, so what can you do?

The answer is Recast, and I’ll give them this, they tried. On the one hand, Luci Christian was a very smart choice for the role of Meryl Stryfe, as while she doesn’t QUITE manage to parrot the original performance... Luci Christian is an absolutely wonderful actor, but she’s never been much of a vocal chameleon... She is able to carry the same pitch, attitude and over-all delivery that Fahn originally perfected. You can tell she’s not the same actor, but she still captures the character perfectly. Milly, on the other hand, is a bit of an issue due to one bafflingly obvious casting mistake. Now I have nothing against Trina Nishimura, but she is a very easy actor to misuse... At least in theory, as she has a very specific wheelhouse, and I can’t imagine any studio deviating too far from it. She plays stone cold badasses like Mikasa Ackerman, mischievous imps like Francesca Lucchini, the occasional in-universe foreigners, and yeah, there are exceptions, but Milly Thompson? I don’t think her vocal register even goes that high, and it sounds like she’s constantly struggling to force it to. Similarly, Brad Hawkins doesn’t do a bad job as Wolfwood, but he doesn’t have the edge of both comedy and tragedy in his voice like Jeff Nimoy did, and he never even bothers to nail the accent. Colleen Clinkenbeard is here, and she’s also amazing, no surprise. It’s a solid dub all around, but if you’re looking for more authenticity, well, the sub didn’t have to recast anybody.

It feels weird that not only is the Trigun movie twelve years old right now, but it was originally released when the series was also twelve years old. That’s an interesting half-life for a movie to have, but what’s even more interesting is that despite being only half as old, the movie seems to have slipped from the public consciousness, while the series largely has not. This is nothing new, of course, and it’s not without precedent... Each version of Fullmetal Alchemist has it’s own movie, and each one manages to handily dwarf it. Cowboy Bebop has a pretty damn cool sequel, but you’re still perfectly well off just watching the series. Yet, even in comparison to all of these attempted spin-offs and sequels, the one comparison I find the most fascinating is to The Big O. Go back and read my reviews of the series if you want a full history lesson, but The Big O was a series that kind of flopped in Japan, but wound up becoming so popular overseas that the studio who owned it wound up releasing a sequel several years later catering specifically to the American market... And guess what other classic anime had a similar journey to the west?

Much like Big O, Trigun was far more successful in the west than it was in its home country. It’s pretty much the same song I’ve sung in countless reviews already... The Japanese didn’t really take to it, likely due to its largely western inspired design and setting, so it didn’t experience an explosion in popularity until it start airing on Toonami and Adult Swim. The story does divide here a little, away from the story of Big O, because instead of being commissioned by the network, Badlands Rumble originated from several encounters that the series creator, Yasuhiro Nightow, had with a member of the Trigun United States distribution team during visits to the states for Sandiego Comic-con. According to Nightow, who seems like a pretty chill and down to earth guy in the interviews I’ve seen, this one American member of the distribution team kept asking him when he was going to make a sequel to the series, and this allegedly straight up badgering wore Nightow down until he finally committed to the idea and started to move forward with it. As far as I can tell, this was never really an artistically inspired decision for him... He wrote the movie specifically as a gift for western audiences, especially for the Americans who had always showed his work so much unexpected love.

Badlands Rumble was designed to not only appeal directly to the American market, but to have a wide appeal within that market. Nightow wanted to create something that was accessible enough to new viewers that it could be viewed as a standalone, but also faithful enough to the series and the manga that it would still please returning fans, and as for whether or not he was able to hit the sweet spot... Well, yes and no. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a noticeable amount of exposition in the dialogue, and while it’s not constant enough to become overbearing, I wouldn’t fault you for skipping through some of it. It’s also fanservicey on the grounds that not every character needed to be there... Vash himself is only tenuously connected to the plot, and while Milly, Meryl and Wolfwood do have stated reasons to appear in the story, but they DO feel contrived and could have been written out with little change. Still, it could be worse on both counts... Movies like FF7 Advent Children and FMA Sacred Star of Milos were loaded with exposition dumps that took valuable time away from the plot, and were chock full of recognizable characters whose lack of actual purpose was obvious to the point of near-parody, and Badlands Rumble does strike a better balance than either of them did.

On the other side of the coin, you have to wonder just what Nightow thinks of westerners, judging by what part of Trigun he decided to give us. The original anime never shied away from exploring the juxtaposition of comedy and drama, even if it meant resorting to an uneven and at some points jarring tone. There was always action and humor on display, but there was also a dark underside to it, even if you could only barely see it on the surface. For the movie, they went hard in the opposite direction. Badlands Rumble is pure action and comedy from start to finish, and while there is an attempt to explore Vash’s ongoing dilemma between letting events take their course or intervening and potentially causing mire lasting long term damage, it’s fairly simple in the way it’s presented, and it seems like 20 years of history were constructed for the specific point of pulling a gotcha and saying “See? Vash was right all along!” Whereas anyone who’s familiar with the pre-existing material is used to a more murky, nuanced presentation of Vash’s pacifist values through complex scenarios where the right answer isn’t always clear. There are episodes where it honestly feels like Vash’s efforts caused more harm than good and seem objectively wrong from a future perspective, but nope, not here.

One of the bigger problems, and on a far more objective, on-the-surface level, is a noticeable increase in sexism compared to the series. Don’t get me wrong, Gunsmoke was always presented as a tough place to live, but things like rape and assault were always either vaguely implied, or played for a joke whenever Vash was trying to disarm or investigate a female opponent. In Badlands Rumble, we’re introduced to Amelia McFly when a bandit on a passenger ship figures out her gender, and like your average incel who just heard a female voice on his MMORPG voice chat, he instantly becomes sexually aggressive with no hint of self awareness. It is satisfying to see him and his buddy get put in their place, but we then find out why she doesn’t want to be touched... She’s literally allergic to men. If a man touches her, she literally breaks out in hives. Pro tip, if an idea seemed stupid in Girls Bravo, probably best not to try it yourself. This is an idiotic detail that makes no sense, never comes into play after the end of the first act, is openly contradicted numerous times, and oh yeah, it leads to some extremely cringey interactions with Vash, who converts every attempted strike she makes at him into an opportunity to just gleefully rub her bare flesh. I’m not going to pretend Vash didn’t cross a line occasionally in the series, but it was never this blatant.

There’s also the fact that, in his efforts to make the movie more accessible to newcomers, Nightow didn’t even bother to write a story that fits canonically into any part of the series. It is a mid-quel, rather than a sequel, but if you want to know which two episodes it fits between, just give up. For reasons I’m not going to go into because of spoilers, it really is best to imagine this as an alternate universe that’s not connected to the previous anime. Still, all that aside, I really enjoy this movie. It’s obviously not as good as the TV series, it doesn’t hit the same profound notes or offer any kind of r\genuine depth, but it manages to bring the four most important characters in the franchise back together in a way that, with the exception of Vash’s increased lecherousness, never feels like a betrayal of any of their personalities. Unless you’re paying close attention to canonical details from the series, the film’s only major problems are all over and done with by the end of the first act, and from that point on, it’s just a really well animated, fun and exciting extended episode of the series, for better or worse.

Trigun: Badlands Rumble is available from Funimation, as is the original series. The original manga by Yasuhiro Nightow, and a continuation called Trigun Maximum, are currently out of print from Dark Horse comics, but they’re fairly easy to find online.

While I have a definite soft spot for this movie, I don’t know if I’d recommend it, even to a hardcore fan of the Trigun franchise. If it had offered at least one thing that the series couldn’t... Like, a look inside one of the plants, which is something they were never able to do in the series for various budgetary and content related reasons, but which I don’t think would have been asking too much here... Then I’d be a little more enthusiastic in my praise, but as things are, Badlands Rumble has no actual reason to exist. It doesn’t add anything to the series, it doesn’t stand out in any special way outside of its improved animation quality, and you would lose absolutely nothing by skipping it entirely, marking it in the eyes of many as one big wasted opportunity. Still, if this is fanservice, you can consider this fan happily serviced. It offers more content from a series I love, it does its own thing, and it's able to do so without retroactively damaging what came before... And for a movie that's this much fun to watch, that's all I really need from it.

I give Trigun: Badlands Rumble a 6/10.