#ALSO how stampede has wolfwood call vash out on his savior complex

[shalpilot]

a future like that...

[guideaus]

stampede ep 5 thoughts pt. 1 i guess

WAS THAT REALLY WOLFWOOD'S OLD VA???

i kinda like theyre putting more abt the plant worshippers. in the manga that cult just seemed to be solely an explanation for wolfwood and livio's upbringing, i remember i desperately wanted worldbuilding, but that was about it... not that i expect too much more here

i kinda wanna say smth abt vash being shown sleeping so much, either its an original performative "im not awake, go talk abt whatever serious thing u want" w one eye open, or maybe its him being exhausted from previous events, or maybe it doesnt mean anything idk (which i'd hate). i'd say wolfwood would absolutely be the one to play dead in a fake way, but idk abt this wolfwood yet.

i guess the cult also being located in july sets up livio/others potentially being there?

roberto being a bit more playful, but hes also setting up the ep's conflict i think so :/ again i cant help but think how does he know this

meryl is once again a bad driver in an empty desert

wolfwood's either been let in on the gang (vash)'s issues w knives, or he's just being way too blunt

the animation is nice as always

i just now realized it, but i dont think stampede has ever said why vash is so pacifistic?? obviously no normal person wants to kill anyone, but i think most ppl would understand for a normal case of self defense, not to mention the wacky version of whats going on here. im not sure why theyre holding out on that, or hopefully they will share

its been 5 eps and theyre not very far from jenora's rock (the setting of the first ep), idk how theyre gonna get to july within 12 eps at this pace

hate meryl being useless. in the 2nd ep she at least provided some support

it also doesnt give a reason for wolfwood helping vash (its clearly not friendship)

wolfwood's also got the super perceptive thing going on, so of the main characters, vash purposely is obfuscates, and meryl... is clueless uwu girl, so im wondering if stampede just has an incredibly bad case of telling instead of showing

stampede kind of repeats stuff from the original anime/manga, but doesnt give a reason why. there was a crazy depiction of vash in ep 1, but they never showed any reason for that (while i always disagreed w it in the first place bc his bounty is the key thing causing ppl to wreak havoc trying to get him, i thought originally it was going to be given to him bc he trespassed trying to interact w plants or smth). theres never been a reason shown for him to be called vash the stampede or the humanoid typhoon, it could lead to the revelation of it in this ep, but...

that flashback was kind of weird lmao. i expected more to happen, idk what changed within that short amount of time showing vash and that kid interacting for the kid to go "ok, sure, i'll go back to my village and willingly get sacrificed :)" and its not like vash gave him some out of context advice the kid wrongly misunderstood to interpret as "I should sacrifice myself"

the "if god wont save you, i will" line also felt out of nowhere considering all that happened was vash said his mom sent him to look for him, the kid recognized him as vash the stampede, said he's going to die young bc his sickness, and then seemingly became ok with getting sacrificed before then. i understand theyre giving vash a savior complex (that im not sure was present before..? like obviously hes mr. pacifist, but idk if he ever willingly likened himself to god lol??)

they put conrad with the cult group...

not a fan of how the flashbacks are presented against the current time

and wtf was the group even doing w rollo lmao. turned him into action figure material and then let him loose again lol??

why are meryl and roberto just exploring random buildings instead of trying to help vash...

i wanna say the vash + baby photo is cute, but also im like that implies vash didnt just randomly get saddled w a rescue mission job for a child he just met. how did he not know that town was fucked up then lol

the photo of him looking the exact same (i dont mean age, i mean clothes/hair) reminds me that i wish the characters changes their models in some way

i dont get whats up w rollo, did the cult just experiment on him and let him loose and vash happened to stroll in and he took it out on him, is he attacking as revenge for vash not saving him, is he just a mindless monster?? nothing is really... understandable for some reason

again its reminding me idk wtf stampede is doing concerning the gung ho guns. are they not formally organized here, or not in a group at all... the previous ep's mention by knives abt the gate doesnt mean anything w/o knowing the 90s anime or manga, so here it doesnt mean anything yet...

NOOOO NOT THE KILL WOLFWOOD JUICE NOOOOOOO

i am not sure why whoever at orange chose this moment to have wolfwood do his classic "goes against vash's wishes and kills someone" moment. i think in the manga he did it first w the samurai guy and it was a moment where he stood down, vash turned his back and walked away, and samurai guy was in the middle of doing his super special anime move, and wolfwood said nope. then the anime i think he did it very late and it was w zazie. there i think it was more too that he shot a kid fjhsdjsksds. but here its like... way too early for that. the manga relatively was, but ww had a full volume w vash at that point, and his pre maximum stuff, here in stampede i think that'd just warrant vash telling him to get away from him. ww has done nothing in stampede to solidify his position with vash, in fact doing, something completely against his wishes would earn his hate i think. it wasnt framed as ww showed up and thought vash was going to die, it wasnt a moment where ww saved vash instead of rollo, it wasnt as urgent as zazie or the samurai guy's actions. frankly, i think if they just flat out stole the anime's "legato forces chapel to attack wolfwood after ww shows mercy" v mogami mp100 minori style, that wouldve been more convincing, but... yeah i dont see why that happened lol

ive already seen the manga and anime, so i forgot again, but i think ww probably just seems like an asshole at this point. the previous ep portraying him as a complete liar is v bad for his character, then w him killing someone vash didnt want dead, that makes it worse. ww being the one to call out vash's conflicting ideologies doesnt work here either bc he doesnt have a role of friend yet, he's just someone who heard vash's story, then tried to tell him he's messed up when ww was the one who shot rollo in his least aggressive state. if i was vash, there's no way i'd listen to some guy i just met thats acting superior

the topic of ww killing whoever (rollo in this case) also is different because wolfwood's excuse isnt out of concern for vash this time. zazie or the samurai were potentially about to kill vash, and wolfwood intervened citing his "its us or them" mentality, which vash argues with bc of his skill in avoiding harming others. ww's recognition of vash's skills also lead to his later point that he cant afford to go about life like that since he is human. but the 90s anime and manga that moment was significant bc it highlighted vash's inherited ideals (at least in the anime if i remember right, im not sure if the manga went as hard abt it) from rem abt people's potential for change. stampede also had meryl call vash a coward instead of wolfwood... which is then used for vash to call out nick's behavior in acting in a way that's not true to himself. so idk all in all, it felt like it repeatedly took moments from the original, but in a way where none of it made sense.