Awesome / Trigun Stampede

Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

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Episode 1: Noman's Land

• Vash single-handedly stopping the missiles from falling onto Jeneora Rock with one bullet. He throws a rock into the air and shoots it, using the debris to scatter shot all of the missiles in the air. Then he dodges everything the MP fires at him point blank, effortlessly flips him over and delivers a neck chop that puts him down in a blink.
• Despite his sour personality, Roberto actually has good reads on people given his years of being a reporter. He calls out Vash for actually being scared of the Plant, realizes he's a fighter and even tricks the July Captain into duelling Vash instead of immediately turning him in.

Episode 2: The Running Man

• Vash dodging all of the bullets being rained down upon him by the citizens of Jeneora Rock. He might look (and sound) like he's flailing around pathetically, but he knows what he's doing.
• During his fight against Nebraska and Gosef, Vash dodges all of Gosef's attacks with the grace of a dancer. When Nebraska shoots at him, he shoots his bullet out of the air.

Episode 3: Bright Light, Shine Through The Darkness

• Meryl comes up with an idea to stop E.G. the Mine and she, Roberto and Vash all work together to carry it out. As E.G. gloats about his apparent victory over Vash, Roberto and Meryl tag team him with Roberto running in front of Meryl and ducking so she can stun E.G. with a camera flash. The two reporters then cling to the mad bomber, refusing to let go and threatening to take him down with them if he doesn't deactivate the bombs. Vash gets it together and puts E.G. in a chokehold, and it's clear E.G. is down for the count: he surrenders.
  E.G. the Mine: Let go, or I'll detonate your ass!
  Roberto: Go ahead and try!
  Meryl: Yeah! If we die, you die too!
• Knives's entrance. He's eerily casual about it, strolling calmly through the town and killing or maiming everyone he encounters as though he's swatting flies. It's easy to see why Vash is so frightened of him — particularly when he also activates Vash's "Gate" and leaves him standing there, stuck in his own mind, unable to move as Knives simply walks past his brother.
  • The moment Knives destroys Jeneora Rock is magnificent and terrifying. The raw power on display makes him look like the angel of death he compares himself to, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop him.
• Vash musters the will to fire on his brother and though he doesn't hit Knives, he does manage to do visible damage to his blades when whole magazines of bullets and a rocket launcher didn't leave a scratch. He also reloads his gun with impossible speed — which is awesome both for Vash and for the animators who had him perform such an intricate movement so quickly and perfectly.

Episode 4: Hungry!

• Wolfwood accidentally gets side swept by the carriage part of the car... and gets back up a few minutes later none the worse for wear. It'll take a lot more than that to put him down.
• Wolfwood unveils his gun full of "mercy" inside the bug creature, shooting down the swarm of bugs inside and unleashing a laser beam that cuts the creature in half from the inside out.
• Roberto once again demonstrates his eye for people's character, figuring out almost immediately the "undertaker" isn't what he claims. By the end of the episode, Zazie speaks with Wolfwood on how well he's done to earn Vash's trust... but in retrospect, Vash had Wolfwood pinned even faster than Roberto and began to deprogram him, simply by being kind.

Episode 5: Child of Blessing

• Vash non-lethally manages to take down Monev the Gale by shooting above his would-be assailant, causing the overhead bars above them to fall and flatten him.

Episode 6: Once Upon a Time in Hopeland

• Vash manages to dodge Livio's initial onslaught and calmly holds him at gunpoint, his aim never wavering even as Livio moves. He then manages to block Livio, getting a good punch in, before sending him flying across the deck with a shoulder ram. And that was with his non-prosthesis arm.
• Livio gives both Vash and Wolfwood trouble. Vash can barely restrain him despite doing his best, and Wolfwood's shots do almost nothing as Livio quickly heals.

Episode 7: Wolfwood

• Below deck, Vash takes out a group of Bad Lad Gang members with just himself and his gun acting as a tonfa.
  Vash: Sorry, guys. I've got places to be.
• Livio proves to be an even bigger glutton for punishment than Wolfwood, able to get back up even after being walloped in the back with the full weight of the Punisher.
• Vash and Wolfwood working together to push the ion cannon up so Meryl can shoot the beam out without hurting anyone.
• Meryl steadfastly refuses to flee, even given the danger she's in, because she can't stand by while people get hurt again. Despite his previous complaints, Roberto silently moves to stand at her side, as wordless in his encouragement of her as he was vocal protesting.
• Wolfwood manages to turn the burning handles on the steamer's controls when a full team of men couldn't. He believes what's been done to him made him a monster — but he doesn't have to be one.
• The reveal of the Plant on the ship, with Vash placing his forehead against the container and begging for its help. It's as alien and ethereal as its manga counterpart.

Episode 8: Our Home

• Young Vash doesn't believe he can actually contribute to anything, and would have been better off had he died. However, as he hears the cries of the ship's Plant, he begs Luida to let him out and see it. Vash sees the Plant, he puts his hands and forehead against its tank, and the Plant stops its panicked movements and moves to mimic his gesture. The once-dying plant is now back to recovering thanks to Vash.
  • Over the next few years he spends with Ship Three, Vash travels to other ships to restore their Plants. He may not feel like he has much to offer, but he has an invaluable skill. The humans and Plants of No Man's Land owe their survival of the crash to Rem, but can credit Vash with allowing them to keep surviving on such a hostile planet.

Episode 9: Millions Knives

• While it becomes tearjerking in hindsight, Knives continuously plays the one song he and Vash once played together as children. After five years of practicing, he can perfectly play a duet on his own.
• In the past, Knives seemed to only be able to form knives from his hands and feet. However, he makes excellent use of them to make quick work of the humans who went to inspect the Plants, slaughtering all of them in seconds flat almost before they can get a shot off, even when he was surrounded, out-numbered, unarmed and restrained.
• Vash's Gate ability, summoning a black hole that starts to swallow up everything around him. One can see why Knives devoted over a century to acquiring control of that power for himself.

Episode 10: Humanity

• In a Freeze-Frame Bonus as the camera pans around the city of July, a familiar black cat can be seen.
• July itself is a bustling and thriving city, living up to its reputation as one of the more advanced areas of human civilization.
• While mostly from pure dumb luck, Roberto manages to fire off two shots that repel Elendira's nails.
• Wolfwood being the only person thus far to scratch Elendira with her own nails, allowing Roberto and Meryl to escape with their lives.
• Roberto finally makes a moral stand: after ten episodes complaining about Meryl's self-righteousness, he cuts right through Dr. Conrad's justifications in an instant and manages to shake his otherwise unwavering conviction. Then he gently absolves Meryl of any blame for his own death and tells her that as long as she's in charge, she should follow her heart. You can see the words taking root in Meryl as she stands up carrying his — now her signature — derringer.

Episode 11: To the New World

• Although what's happening outside makes the entire situation horrifying, Vash's power's manifest as dark vines/roots that rapidly begin to overtake July, turning the area into a garden unimaginable and unprecedented on the desert planet. Even more, the vines start to form together sprouting flowers and a giant humanoid figure. Knives might believe he's destroyed any trace of her in Vash's mind, but there's still enough of Vash left that he creates the shape of Rem.

Episode 12: High Noon At July

• Tiny Meryl, armed only with a derringer, saves the world by refusing to run from danger, breaking Vash free of Knives's control.
• Vash regaining consciousness and control over his Gate powers. He breaks free of the tank just in time to pull Meryl out of harm's way wearing his trademark vertical spikes, calmly and effortlessly draws back the mass of roots and vines into a simple crystalline cube, and tells Knives with in a voice full of cold rage that his plan has failed and they need to finish this. In the ensuing fight, Vash doesn't hesitate to fire every one of his remaining bullets at Knives, then starts pulling even more, marked with Plant patterns, from the cube, making his supply effectively inexhaustible. Knives always claimed Vash was powerless, but he couldn't be more wrong.
• As the two brothers fall whilst fighting over the cube, Vash summons a dark wing from his left shoulder, and though he struggles to fly without hitting buildings he learns fast — it's only when he gets shot multiple times that he's actually knocked out of the air.
• In a last ditch effort to get rid of the cube safely, Vash smashes it into his gun, turning his right arm into a dark angel canon, with the cube acting as its core.
• The sensation, in short, that Vash is sick to death of Knives's bullshit and focusing his rage into a display of power, all the incredible skills he's demonstrated coming together at once in an awe-inspiring dance of grace and control while Knives falls apart into a howling lunatic. And Vash still never actually harms his brother, sticking to his principles. Vash finally knows exactly who he is and whose side he's on, and all Knives's viciousness won't take that conviction from him.
• Vash's tearful declaration that despite everything Knives has said about the apparent wickedness of humanity, he will continue trying to coexist with humans is sorrowful, but still triumphant. Vash wants no part of the "paradise" that Knives tried to force on him, not when it involved taking everyone's choices away, and instead he embraces the moniker the humans have given him because of Knives's actions: Vash the Stampede.
  Vash: I don't care if they hunt me! I'll just run away. I'll run, and I'll run, and I'll keep on running for another lifetime if I have to! But after everything calms down, I'll always go back to their side. There's no choice, 'cause I'm Vash the Stampede!
• And as horrific as it is, as twisted as his devotion has become, as utterly incapable as he is of realising he's the problem... Knives flying directly into the discharge of Vash's planet-cracking Angel Arm to grasp its source one final time and not even flinching, burning himself alive in his insane persistence in achieving his goal, laughing as he kills himself in front of Vash and denying him his moral victory, is a level of emotional damage and nightmarish determination to which few villains can aspire. Vash will carry the trauma of his brother's destruction for the rest of his long, long life even if he doesn't actually remember it — achieving what Knives always wanted, ensuring Vash will never leave him again.
• The episode title card marking the episode as #0 instead of #12 pays homage to the manga chapter it shares its name with, which was a prologue narrating that the city of July was destroyed. This definitively marks Stampede up to this point as being a Stealth Prequel, and is incredibly satisfying to see both to fans who had deduced this would be the case based on hints in prior episodes, as well as people who only realize it in that moment.

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