Characters / Trigun Stampede

A list of characters that appear in Trigun Stampede. This is a specific character page for the 2023 adaptation; for information regarding the original manga and 1998 anime, click here.

Due to the source material being almost 30 years old, some information may be treated as a Late-Arrival Spoiler. As such, please proceed with caution.

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Protagonists

Vash the Stampede

Voiced by: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (JP, Adolescent and Adult), Tomoyo Kurosawa (JP, Child), Johnny Yong Bosch (ENG, Adolescent and Adult), Kristen McGuire (ENG, Child)

Humanoid Typhoon

^{Episode 12 spoilers}

"I am Vash the Stampede."

The titular "Stampede", a gunslinger who hates drawing his gun. With a $$6,000,000 bounty on his head, he wanders between settlements to help those in need. Despite his desire to make the world a better place, he is a wanted man for a good reason.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Vash has one more failure to add to his list in Stampede, being that he actually knew this iteration's version of Monev the Gale, a boy named Rollo. He failed to keep his promise to find a cure for Rollo's illness and unknowingly handed him over to be experimented on. Needless to say, Vash's encounter with Rollo years later is much more emotionally charged as he desperately begs Rollo to come back to his senses and makes his anger towards Wolfwood's willingness to kill much more personal when Wolfwood Mercy Kills Rollo.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Vash's general backstory is more or less the same as his previous incarnations with a few minor differences, but there has been one significant alteration: Unlike his predecessors who wandered around the planet with Knives post-crash for several decades before they eventually parted ways, this Vash was rescued by and raised by a surviving SEEDS colony very shortly after the crash. While in the manga and 1998 anime Vash also keeps in contact with a surviving SEEDS colony, he met them after he was fully grown and thus they had much less of a formative influence on him.
• Adaptational Badass: Despite the fact he's arguably even more averse to conflict than his previous counterparts, Vash's skillset is much more diverse in Stampede. While his previous counterparts relied almost entirely on speed and accuracy, often scurrying around the battlefield and dealing trick shots, Stampede's Vash is more direct when dealing with his opponents once it becomes obvious words won't work. While he's still fast and inhumanly skilled with his weapon, he's also an experienced defensive martial artist, using his gun as a makeshift tonfa to knock his opponents out. His prosthetic arm also has additional functions: a piston mechanism that allows for boosts of strength and a grappling wire.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed. Vash was hardly a Jerkass in the original anime or manga and he remains no different in that regard here, but his demeanor is more mild-mannered, much less irritable, and he lacks the skirt-chasing habits that was especially present in his 1998 counterpart.
• Adaptational Personality Change: In part because he doesn't get to interact with strangers too often in this version, and partly because plot developments based around Knives enter much earlier, Vash is rather melancholic in his off-time, rarely engaging in the goofy antics that his manga and especially his 1998 anime counterparts did to hide their pain. He still has his goofy moments (mostly notably, a lot of background physical comedy), but his serious face is engaged more consistently. He also doesn't have as much bravado as his previous counterparts.
  • His personality as a child also differs from his manga incarnation. In the manga, he was the more distrustful twin and attempted to kill himself after finding out what happened to Tesla. It's only after he almost accidentally kills Rem and she tells him about her "blank ticket" dream does he start to change. In Stampede, he's the cheerful and hopeful twin who retains his faith in humanity even after learning of the Awful Truth, which is more similar to his 1998 anime counterpart.
  • Many of Vash's differing traits can largely be traced to him having a different upbringing than his previous counterparts. Previous versions of Vash had to learn how to rely on themselves not very long after the ships crashed and despite their friendliness, were Ineffectual Loners almost to a fault. While they had allies, they often maintained a certain distance from them. Stampede's Vash was rescued and raised by a surviving SEEDS colony while still a child. 150 years later they provide him a stable home and support system that he is emotionally close to, and he seems less resistant to forming new bonds. This upbringing is also responsible for at least some of the different skills he has compared to his predecessors.
• Adaptational Wimp: In some ways this Vash seems less threatening: his prosthetic arm lacks the built-in gun it had in previous continuities, he doesn't struggle as noticeably with his counterparts' undercurrent of rage, and spends more time avoiding conflict than they did, characterizing him as yet to solidify his ideals. It's only at the end of the season that he seems to gain a firm grasp upon who he is and what he wants. That said, this version of Vash can be a frighteningly competent fighter when need be, and his rage is still there, just kept firmly under control. Much of his difference in attitude can be traced back to Knives Gaslighting Vash into believing himself responsible for what Knives does.
• Age Lift: Superficially. While Vash is roughly the same age as his previous counterparts, (over 150 years old and looks like he's in his twenties), his overall design and personality have been intentionally made more youthful, and compared to his previous counterparts, he's 'younger' in terms of major life-changing events. The July incident that haunted his previous incarnations pasts doesn't happen to this Vash until Stampede's finale.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: His first appearance has him begging Roberto and Meryl to untie him when they start to leave due to finding him creepy. When he finds out he's out of bullets, he proceeds to scream, cry and beg the townsfolk of Jeneroa Rock for ammunition.
• All for Nothing:
  • His efforts and actual success in confronting the Nebraskas non-lethally become tragically moot when Jeneora Rock is put through a blender due to Knives's appearance and the Nebraskas are both horribly wounded with no help in sight. None of the people he saved ever want to see him again.
  • The July Incident, in this continuity. Vash tries his best to minimize casualties: preventing Wolfwood from firing on the military police, attempting to subdue Knives without killing him, and discharging his Angel Arm harmlessly into space. Despite his efforts, July is obliterated along with 90% of its population from the backblast of Gate energy from Vash's Angel Arm, and Knives is seemingly killed due to his unflinching persistence. On the plus side, Vash's determination ensured that only July was destroyed, not the entire planet. On the downside, having survivors mean there are witnesses who will further scorn and vilify the Humanoid Typhoon, and Vash will have to live with the knowledge of his involvement, as well as his brother blaming him for own gruesome "death".
• All-Loving Hero: He genuinely believes the best of everyone, even those trying to kill him, and is more than willing to forgive anyone so long as they lay down their arms peaceably. This love of humanity is what seems to really upset Knives, who wants Vash to love only him the way he loves only Vash, unaware that Vash wouldn't be himself if he did.
• Ambiguously Human: He's capable of superhuman feats like dodging bullets at point-blank and the freakish accuracy required to accomplish his Improvised Scattershot. Meryl also finds a photo of him that's dated twenty years ago, and yet he hasn't aged a day. He can hear tones explicitly inaudible to humans. Then there's his relation to his brother, Knives, who's capable of even crazier stuff. Since he's an Independent Plant, something between an Artificial Human and a profoundly alien interplanar being, as properly revealed in the seventh episode.
• An Arm and a Leg: Lost his left arm to Knives in a past confrontation. Unlike in previous versions, this was done less maliciously and more to stop Vash's Gate before it could kill him after he lost control over it, although it was also Knives's fault the Gate was activated in the first place.
• Artificial Limbs: His left arm is more obviously a prosthetic in this iteration, a powerful piece of Lost Technology that can withstand bullets and punch apart rocks. Brad built it for him after Knives cut off his original arm to save him from his out of control Gate. During the final battle in July, he combines his prosthetic with his pistol, the cube of energy, and his remaining arm to form the Angel Arm. In the aftermath two years later, in his identity as Eriks, the arm is missing and has not been replaced.
• Badass Adorable: Always true of the character, but this version of Vash seems designed to be especially huggable while still being every inch the badass he's always been, and while he's less prone to cracking jokes, he retains the rubbery, exaggerated body language of his counterparts.
• Badass Longcoat: He sports a red coat with a high collar, like his manga and 1998 anime counterpart. However, it has a hoodie and is noticeably shorter, only reaching about his knees. It also appears to be in better condition, if not outright bulletproof. His coat is given an origin story in Stampede, being a gift from the crew of Ship 3. It's a little too large for him, which hides both his height and his muscular build, making him seem less threatening.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Episode 9 reveals his gate power is to create black holes that suck everything around him into it until there's nothing left. This arguably makes him even more dangerous than Knives. In present day, Vash is a strict pacifist who believes in the good of everyone, and becomes anguished at the sight of anyone being hurt.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Vash is quick to forgive the town of Jeneora Rock and Rosa for trying to turn him in for his bounty. When Nebraska points out how eagerly they turned their guns on him despite calling him a friend, Vash simply states that they were kind to him, which is all that matters.
• Bespectacled Cutie: His signature sunglasses are much bigger in this version and he wears them all the time, adding to his air of harmlessness.
• Biblical Motifs: Vash's character is evocative of Jesus Christ, as a pacifistic All-Loving Hero of nonhuman origin who lives among humans, and not unlike Jesus, is a scapegoat for various atrocities. Knives, who likes to draw inspiration from the Bible, mockingly compares Vash to Christ as proof that trying to play savior for humanity will ultimately lead to humiliation and death.
• Big Eater: Though for various reasons he doesn't get to indulge much in the series, Vash loves to eat even though he might not actually need to. It's to the point his first reaction as a little boy when he sees a flower he thinks is pretty is to ask whether he can eat it, and Nai used to tease him for it.
• Birds of a Feather: Roberto comments that Vash and Meryl are similar in their optimism to the point of naivety and tendency to be reckless and stubborn, especially when other people are in trouble, and warns that it could mean downfall for both of them.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: All of episode 10 through 12 is Vash, enduring a horrific assault, causing the destruction of July and losing Knives, all on his birthday.
• Boxing Battler: Uniquely, this version of Vash is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, which seems to be his preferred method in dealing with adversaries, far more than drawing his gun.
• Break the Cutie: Stampede lays its foundation on showing how gentle a person Vash is, and how the world (and his brother) runs him through the wringer for it. By the end of the season Vash is now living as Eriks, and still doesn't seem to have recovered from all he endured and witnessed in July.
• Cain and Abel: Even in the new continuity, Vash remains the Abel to Knives's Cain, seeking to protect humanity while Knives would have them all die. As before, however, neither wants his brother dead, particularly not Vash, who feels responsible for Knives's actions but unable to confront him about them.
• Call My Name: Tearfully calls out for Rem as she sacrifices herself to save him and his brother. He does the same as he screams for Nai after his Angel Arm incinerates him down to his muscles, seemingly killing him.
• Clingy Child: If he shares a scene with Rem, he's almost always either cuddling her or holding her hand or about to cuddle her or get his hand held.
• Combat Pragmatist: Liberally shoots at Knives during their climactic battle in July due to knowing that he's tough enough to survive the bullets, but they're a great way to keep up the pressure. He even resorts to biting Knives at one point.
• Color Motif: Red, a traditionally heroic color and one symbolically associated with humans in Stampede as a tenacious, emotional, and violent species. Rem grew red geraniums, and Vash wears his coat in memory of her just as he protects people to honor her sacrifice. Red is the colour of sick or dying Plants, contrasting the blue of healthy Plants and his brother Knives though Vash himself is a Plant, albeit one who believes himself monstrous. It also contrasts Meryl's association with blue, though she's an ordinary human unlike Vash.
• Cool Shades: His signature orange-tinted sunglasses are bigger this time around, allowing him to take advantage of Scary Shiny Glasses in comedic, dramatic or emotional moments. They also conceal the most obvious indicators that he's an Independent Plant. In episode twelve they get tinted purple but then wind up cracked; they're missing in his final scene.
• Covered in Scars: Like all of his other counterparts, under Vash's clothes is a body ravaged with deep, nasty scars and the feeble attempts to patch them with cybernetics and wire mesh, attesting to the heavy toll his pacifist ideals take on him — but also how Knives's emotional abuse has left him disinterested in defending himself from harm he feels he "deserves".
• Cute Little Fangs: An odd trait of Independent Plants is slightly extended and pointed canine teeth. On Vash, of course, they look adorable.
• Dance Battler: Against Gofsef, Vash pulls off some amazing jumps, twirls and spins. When fighting against Knives, he even does some impressive spins in the air while free falling.
• Dark Is Not Evil: In the climactic showdown between him and Knives in Episode 12, the colors on Vash's coat invert, leaving it black on the outside and red on the inside, contrasting with Knives's Light Is Not Good motif. His wing and Angel Arm also have blackened, vaguely demonic appearances, yet Vash manifests them both in his desperation to keep everyone safe.
• Death Seeker: An unhealthy drive towards self-sacrifice greatly informs his actions. After the SEEDS colony ships crash, Vash expresses a desire to die in their wake out of guilt for being Nai's "accomplice". Even after being rescued by Luida and Brad, crewmembers from a ship that managed to survive, Vash is depressed and refuses to eat. He's finally snapped out of it by Luida's encouragement, realizing that he can help the Plants on the ship and mitigate the disaster, but he never quite shakes off the belief that the crash was "his" fault and he needs to atone.
• Denied Food as Punishment: Self-inflicted. After failing to help Jeneroa Rock and being driven out, Vash hadn't eaten any kind of food for a couple of days. Meryl notices and worries over his health. At the end of the episode, Vash allows himself to eat again. This is something he did as a little boy inspired by Knives/Nai, both because Nai was resistant to consuming human food and so Vash could punish himself for giving Nai the information he used to cause the crash.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: While Vash starts the story using miniscule .22 caliber rounds, his return from Knives's Mind Rape grants him more power over his Gate, allowing him to generate black and silver-patterned bullets that absolutely roar with clear power capable of fighting off Knives's blades, not to mention jamming the energy from the Gate into his gun is what turns it into the Angel Arm.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Knives claims this of Vash, saying Vash needs people to love him because he's too weak to protect himself, so he performs "tricks" and submits as though he's a pet. As with anything Knives says this has a sliver of truth but isn't the complete picture. Vash does very much want to be accepted and loved the way Rem loved him, but he also loves people and really doesn't want them dying or being hurt (and still suffers the Guilt Complex Knives himself afflicted by making Vash complicit in the Big Fall, among other things). He's all too willing to lay down his own life to save them.
• Dodge the Bullet: As demonstrated in the first episode, he can dodge shots fired from point blank range. Which makes him allowing himself to be shot out of guilt in episode ten heartbreaking.
• Doom Magnet: In the first two episodes, he keeps furtively trying to leave town, certain that something terrible is coming for him and unwilling to let anyone else to be caught up in it. Unfortunately, he fails when in the third episode his twin brother arrives and razes the town. The remainder of the season is dedicated to Vash journeying to confront Knives, knowing he can no longer evade his attention.
• The Dreaded: Vash's reputation as a Walking Disaster Area is widely feared, earning him the nickname the Humanoid Typhoon. His presence in July causes panic among the city's military police, resulting in them launching a manhunt to avoid a similar fate that befell other settlements Vash has traveled to. Sadly, the entire city gets leveled by Vash's Angel Arm, and his feared reputation subsequently increases ten-thousand fold afterwards.
• Dream Tells You to Wake Up: After Vash gets rendered comatose and trapped in a Mind Rape sequence by Knives in an attempt to destroy his memories, Meryl's voice calling out to Vash breaks through to him so he can awaken.
• Empty Promise: Vash always promises the people around him he will help them in their time of need, but time and time again his promises come up empty. From promising Rollo he'd come and save him, to getting Jeneora Rock their plant back. Each of his promises have lead to more tragedy and isolation for Vash. The people close to Vash chide him on making idealistic promises that he can never feasibly deliver on, to which he ends up having no rebuttal. However, it's never actually Vash's fault that he can't fulfil his promises — it's always a result of Knives's actions, often via direct and purposeful sabotage. Rollo was abducted by Knives's cult before Vash could return with medicine, and both Jeneora Rock and July's destruction were because of Knives.
• Establishing Character Moment: How to demonstrate who Vash is as a person when he's still a little boy in a featureless tunic? He cheerfully greets a ship full of people in cryogenic suspension by name, then initiates a flying cuddle on his foster mother.
• Evil Laugh: Played for laughs. In the first episode when Meryl and Roberto stumble upon him, he lets out a comically villainous cackle. Upon seeing the two walk away after finding him creepy, he drops the act and begs to be let down.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: While Vash's previous counterparts deliberately styled it that way rather than it being natural, Vash's modern redesign notably lacks the trademark spikey, broom-like hairstyle his previous counterparts have until his battle with Knives in episode 12, where upon awakening from his Mind Rape coma, Vash's hair stands on end. As Stampede operates as a Coming of Age story for this Vash, this is the moment he symbolically truly becomes Vash the Stampede.
  • In the timeskip post-July, Vash is living as a civilian named Eriks and has apparently suffered memory loss. His hair has grown out to just above his shoulders, reflecting his somber and listless demeanor.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Vash's large orange sunglasses often get the Scary Shiny Glasses effect to obscure his facial expression in comedic or serious moments, particularly early on when he's still a mystery to the other characters. After the two year timeskip in episode 12, Vash is living as a civilian named Eriks. We see his hair has grown out to the length of a bob, and his bangs are long enough to obscure his eyes.
• Facial Markings: When interacting with the Plant on the ship and asking for its help, he gains glowing markings across his face and eyes — revealing to Meryl and the others that Vash is actually a humanoid Independent Plant. Said markings appear when Knives destroys his mind, and again when Vash builds his Angel Arm in the finale.
• Fantastic Nuke: Even after discharging his Gate harmlessly into space via his Angel Arm, the sheer power and him falling back to earth results in a massive blast of Gate energy that completely disintegrates the city of July, killing 90% of the city's inhabitants and leaving behind a giant crater. He says outright that if he doesn't shoot upwards into space, he likely would annihilate the entire planet.
• Flower Motif: The purple flowers that appear when Knives forces Vash's Gate are purple geraniums, which convey admiration and adoration towards someone.
• Foil
  • To Wolfwood. Where gruff Wolfwood finds the use of fatal violence necessary, gentle Vash hates violence and refuses to kill anything. They often argue about how to handle dangerous situations. That said, they have more in common than appearances suggest. Wolfwood doesn't want to be a killer, for one.
  • Meryl as well, who's tiny but loud, assertive and desperate to take up space. Vash is tall and athletic, but when not engaged in goofing off he's reserved, even withdrawn, and tends to duck beneath notice. Also, Meryl is sheltered and inexperienced but a bit of a know-it-all, while Vash is perceptive and has already lived a hard life, but often plays dumb.
• Friendship Denial: After it seems like Meryl and Roberto have left the group, Vash denies they were close when Wolfwood asks. More than likely he's purposefully distancing himself to keep them safe, as usual, since he doesn't deny it when Luida calls them his friends.
• Friend to All Children: He's shown to be gentle and friendly with children. One of the first people he goes to greet upon returning to Jeneora Rock is the young Tonis, Meryl finds a photo of him holding a baby Rollo, he promises an older Rollo to find a cure for the latter's illness, and he gratefully accepts a hug from an orphan boy with complete trust even when he likely knew said boy's innocent appearance was a lie. He shows concern towards Elendira when she whines over her wound, even when she angrily turns down his help.
• The Glomp: As a child, he gave plenty of these to Rem. Even when he dives back into his memories, his first instinct upon seeing his mother figure is to run over to her, jump and give her a hug.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Inverted. During the climax of Episode 12, Vash's black wing, which resembles decaying tree-branches, contrasts Knives's metallic angelic wing.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: If he can get close enough, Vash usually resorts to punching his enemies, such as his fight with Livio and the Bad Lads Gang.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: His artificial arm can fire a wire to help him scale heights. He even uses it to grab Meryl and get her away from Knives in the finale.
• Green Thumb: During the battle in the city of July, Vash's powers end up manifesting as a mass of roots and flowers that sprout from his body and take on various shapes, suddenly making the fact his species are called Plants superficially mean the literal organic kind.
• Guilt Complex: From the moment Nai told Vash he was an accomplice in the crash, Vash has struggled with feeling responsible for what his brother does and in a way, everything that's gone so badly for humanity on No Man's Land. Vash is so convinced that it's all his fault and he has to atone for it that Wolfwood outright asks him, in bafflement, "Got a god complex or a death wish?" Knives, being the one with a god complex, has done nothing to improve this attitude by directly blaming Vash for the horrible things he does, a way of eroding Vash's willpower and making him more susceptible to Knives's manipulations.
• The Gunslinger: As always, though he never shoots to kill, Vash the Stampede remains the greatest gunman ever to walk the planet. He has a blindingly fast draw and doesn't seem capable of missing a shot.
• Gun Twirling: The only flaw in Vash's otherwise excellent trigger discipline is a habit of showing off by spinning his pistol by its guard before or after he takes a shot with it. He can perhaps be forgiven on grounds of superhuman dexterity and looking cool.
• Hand Cannon: This time around, his pistol is quite an unconventional take on the trope. It's got a relatively weedy calibre (.22, the same as Smith and Wesson's first ever revolver) and a none-too-impressive ammo capacity, so it's mainly just a big block of metal for the sake of being a big block of metal. As a Martial Pacifist, Vash needs a club far more often than he needs a gun. Episode nine reveals it to be a modified version of a pistol Knives took off of the corpse of a SEEDS crew member and handed to Vash in order to mock Vash's love of humanity. By episode 12, the gun regains more "Hand Cannon"-like attributes thanks to Gate-generated bullets that pack way more punch than their size indicates, not to mention it eventually turns into the Angel Arm that obliterates July by accident.
• Happily Adopted: Shortly after Rem perished, Vash was found and taken aboard Ship Three by its crew. The de facto leader Luida became his main caregiver, while Brad kept a close watch to make sure Vash wasn't a threat. They grew to love each other as a family over time, a bond that remains strong after more than a century.
• Healing Hands: While in early childhood Vash didn't display any of the usual Plant abilities, it's eventually shown that he has the ability to calm and rejuvenate distressed and/or sick Plants, which seems to be completely unique to him.
• Heroic BSoD: When we see him as Eriks, two years after the July incident, it is very clear that the events have not left him well.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Thoroughly explored, bordering on Deconstructed. Vash is very reluctant to take personal credit for any of his achievements, waving off his obviously hard-earned skill as luck and his kindness as something he has no choice in. His interactions with Knives gradually make it clear that this is because Knives's abuse has left Vash with such deep emotional scars, Vash can't consider himself or any of his achievements worth admiring, because Knives will always find a way to undermine them.
• Hidden Depths: A certifiable goof who's knowledgeable about Lost Technology, able to understand Plants and use old spaceship interfaces with ease. Because he himself is Lost Technology — an Independent Plant, who can live outside a case and looks human on the surface. He's also suffering beneath a huge burden of guilt, loss and pain that he's carried for over a century. Also like his brother, Vash learned how to play the piano when he was a child, but in the season finale, all he can muster is playing a couple of keys while looking lost in his own mind. He's also much more perceptive and calculating than his demeanour would suggest.
• Humble Hero: He sheepishly tries to shrug off any praise for saving Jeneora Rock from the police captain's cluster bomb, laughing it off as a lucky accident to keep up the pretense of being a normal human. He also uses ''boku'', which is a Japanese pronoun perceived as being non-threatening, humble, and deferential. Even his clothes seem designed to make him look smaller and softer than he is.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: As kids, Vash and Knives were more or less identical. The difference was that Knives was paler and their asymmetrical bowl cuts were slanted in opposite directions. Plus, their beauty marks are mirrored (left eye for Vash, right eye for Knives). The less harsh lighting in episode nine also reveals that their eyebrows are different colors, with Vash's being dark brown while Knives's are pale blond.
• Ill-Timed Sneeze: Sneezes loudly while sneaking around July, causing Captain Chuck Lee to notice him.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Manages to shoot a rock in the sky in such a way that the shrapnel harmlessly detonates a shower of missiles. He hones in on E.G. the Mine's location atop a building and accurately fires at E.G.'s feet with no scope on his gun. Later, he hits Wolfwood's gun just as Wolfwood pulls the trigger. This not only saves Wolfwood's target — which he was aiming for point blank — the stray bullet also takes out some hostile surveillance, at least ten metres away at an awkward angle.
• Improvised Scattershot: In the first episode, Vash destroys all cluster missiles falling towards Jeneora Rock by throwing a rock he pulls from the ground and then firing a single bullet at it to fragment into to multiple pieces to hit and detonate each missile.
• Improvised Weapon: An unusual example as Vash is essentially using a weapon in a manner in which it wasn't designed for. Since he's averse to shooting people, Vash tends to wield his gun like a tonfa to knock his opponents out.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Upon finding out he has no ammo during his duel in Episode 1, he's reduced to snot and tears while begging anyone for a bullet.
• Inhuman Eye Concealers: His eyes usually look perfectly normal even without the sunglasses, but if a light is shone directly into them his Plant patterns are revealed in his irises and sclera. Thus, he wears his signature shades day and night, indoors and out (only once is he without them, when he wakes up aboard Home) to keep this trait concealed.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: A gorgeous pair of baby blues to suit the softness of his heart. His glasses mute the effect, but when unconcealed the colour is striking.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Little boy Vash's first reaction to Rem showing him some potted red geraniums? He asks whether they're edible. Rem has to explain this one is ornamental.
• It's All My Fault: Vash blames himself for the Big Fall because he gave Nai the codes he used to access the ships' navigation. What's worse, Knives later claims he's done everything he's done (Big Fall included) because he thinks Vash needs to be protected from humans. Vash feels responsible enough that the guilt mentally destroys him.
• Leitmotif: "Vash the Stampede/Trigun Stampede", an energetic and brassy techno-Spaghetti western piece with rap lyrics. It doesn't turn up much, but the melody is incorporated in several places in the soundtrack, usually via harmonica and whistling. Contrasting Knives's unmistakable and overwhelming theme, usually played by itself, Vash's theme has bits and pieces associated with other characters included and has its melody woven throughout other themes, demonstrating that he's the sum of all his friends and their help.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: Knives needs Vash to arrive to July alive and unharmed because he needs Vash's Gate to access the Core, a source of limitless power. His plan is to use that power to overtake No Man's Land and build his "paradise", as well as artificially impregnate the Plants he stole in order to create a race of Independents that can rule the planet.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Gets shot in the gut, walks off to pick the bullet out. In fact, getting the bullet out gets more of a pain reaction than getting shot. Him being Covered in Scars implies that he has a high pain tolerance from enduring past injuries, and since he's a Plant, it's unlikely that such a wound would kill him.
• Martial Pacifist: He avoids jumping to violent solutions first, instead attempting to reason with his opponents even if they clearly refuse to listen to him. However, the moment innocents and bystanders are drawn into the line of fire, he'll do all he can to save as many people as possible.
• Martyr Without a Cause: As in all his incarnations, Vash has taken many wounds keeping other people from getting hurt, firmly believing no one has the right to take someone else's life. While an admirable idea in theory, in practice it means he's endured a lot of pain for people who won't be in the slightest bit grateful. Knives claims that he accepts the suffering as penance for his part in causing the Big Fall, rather than out of compassion. Though not completely true, it's true enough that Vash can't muster an argument against it, and Knives uses it to break his will.
• Meaningful Name: How he interprets his moniker as "The Stampede", that being a man who will quickly run away from misguided innocents when they try to persecute him rather than risk hurting his pursuers, and also a protector who will rush back to their defense whenever villains oppress them.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: While Vash, to his credit, is very muscular under his clothes, his build is on the thin side and he can perform amazing feats of strength beyond what he looks like he should be able to. He easily catches Rosa after she's tossed into the air, barely manages to hold up Gofsef by his grappling arm on his own, punches Livio clear across the steamer's deck with his non-prosthetic hand, and with Wolfwood's help manually re-aims a cannon hundreds of times his size.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Like the first episode of the original anime adaptation, Vash's first attempt to use his gun onscreen is thwarted due to lacking ammunition.
  • When he's hanging upside-down in Episode 1, the way his hair hangs down resembles the spikey style of his original incarnations. During the climax of Episode 12, his hair is blasted back into this style on its own.
  • The gun he carries around is much bulkier than that of his previous incarnations, yet has a smaller caliber. Episode 9 establishes that it originally looked like its counterparts and was later heavily modified.
  • He shows his famous "Love and Peace" sign in a photo of the group at the end of episode 12, where Meryl is placing gifts down for Roberto's memorial.
• Named Weapons: His gun is named "Peace Bringer", a fitting name for a pacifistic man like Vash.
• The Needless: It's implied he doesn't really need to eat or drink for nourishment, but he does so anyway because he enjoys it. Even when it looks like he's sleeping, he's shown to be aware of whatever conversation is going on.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Look like he's about to do something cool to stop the police captain from destroying Jeneora Rock... only to find out he's out of ammo and proceeds to cry and beg the spectators for spare bullets.
• Nice Guy: All his secrets aside and despite the chaos that ensues in his presence, Vash is a gentle, loving and sweet man who just wants to help people (and Plants), so much so that most people who meet him refuse to believe he's really that nice, assume that he's an idiot, or try to take advantage of him.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: One thing that hasn't changed with Vash even in the alternate continuity. He arrived at Jeneora Rock to help them look after their Plants and spends two episodes protecting the town. However, he ends up alerting Knives to his location by doing so. Knives arrives immediately and not only takes the Plants but levels the entire town to the ground, wounding and killing many in the process. Vash's response to getting blamed for the destruction (as Knives only showed up because Vash was there) indicates it's far from the first time this has happened.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: After Meryl ties him up and drags him to the diner of Jeneora Rock, he acts like a helpless guy. It takes Rosa asking about the ropes for Vash to reveal he could have untied himself at any time. He initially tries to play his skills off as pure dumb luck, but Roberto doesn't buy his lies. He immediately knew what Wolfwood was when they met, probably before even Roberto did, and chose to trust him anyway, figuring he was in a tight spot. In general, he puts on an air of oblivious harmlessness while being far more perceptive, experienced and dangerous than you'd know from his behavior.
• Older Than They Look: Meryl and Roberto find an old photo of Vash holding a baby, dated twenty years ago, and not looking a day older than he is now. He's a hundred and fifty years old, making him Really 700 Years Old.
• One-Man Army: He non-lethally takes out the group of Bad Lads Gang members boarding the Sand Steamer, showing only mild annoyance that they were taking up his time in helping out Wolfwood.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You know Vash is not playing around when he finally decides to start shooting at someone. In the beginning of their climactic fight, Vash does not hesitate to shoot at Knives to slow him down or momentarily incapacitate him.
• Person of Mass Destruction: As always, Vash the Stampede is a very sweet and gentle person, and also inherently capable of unthinkable carnage and destruction. In fact, his unique Plant ability manifests as an ersatz black hole that sucks in and destroys everything around it. Even Knives could only barely withstand it. With encouragement in the form of Knives wiping his identity, Vash forms a huge mass of roots and flowers that consumes an entire city and begins to crush everyone inside. His attempt to discharge his Angel Arm without obliterating the planet he stands on sees him annihilating the city of July with the back-blast, leaving nothing behind.
• Pistol Whip: Due to his pacifism, he hardly ever shoots at people with his gun. He usually attempts to get in close to his opponents so that he can knock them out by swinging it at them or uses its weight to pin them down. His gun can even be flipped into a tonfa like weapon when he needs it. In fact, given its massive bulk and tiny calibre, it's more specialised for clubbing people than shooting them.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Even factoring out Knives's deranged misanthropy, Vash and his brother couldn't be any more opposite, even in early childhood. While Vash was an energetic and happy-go-lucky child who had no problems engaging in human activity, Knives was consistently reserved and soft-spoken and found engaging in human-like behavior pointless.
• Power Fist: His prosthetic arm is strong enough to pulverize a chunk of rock out of a cliff and punch Livio across the deck of the Sand Steamer, seemingly using some sort of piston system. But since he's a pacifist, he generally avoids using it like this (unless, as in Livio's case, the target can withstand it).
• Power Gives You Wings: In his fight against Knives, he's able to harness his Gate into a wing-like void. Unfortunately, due to his inexperience with his own powers, he has to learn how to use it very quickly under enormous stress, and ends up flying into a lot of obstacles. That said, he adapts — it's only when he's shot that he drops from the air.
• Power Incontinence: When he was younger, he didn't exhibit obvious abilities like Nai or other Plants did, worrying him, and partially fuelling Nai's supposed desire to protect Vash from humanity. Midway through Episode 12, Vash gains control of his power, allowing him to generate/manipulate matter and even create a wing for flight — of the latter ability, it happens so suddenly he's barely able to fly, as he slams into July's buildings. Of the former, the concentrated energy is so intense and unstable Vash has very limited time to find a way to discharge it safely before it wipes the planet.
• Power of the Void: When he first released his Gate when he was younger, Vash created a black hole in his left arm that swallowed up everything around him. The only reason it stopped was due to Knives chopping his arm off before it could do any more damage. It turns out his Gate is actually a portal to the "higher plane", an immaterial in-between space that is the source of everything Plants produce. While most Plants can only draw from the higher plane, Vash can bring things into the plane as well, which explains his ability to heal sick Plants (output) and the black hole (input).
• Power Strain Black Out: He passes out after communicating with the Sand Steamer's Plant, which also reveals his inhuman nature to his companions.
• Pretty Boy: Vash and Knives are almost identical even in build, but Vash's clothes make him appear smaller and more slender and the framing emphasises his fine and delicate facial features, complete with Tareme Eyes and long, dark eyelashes. This is in line with his manga depiction; his new hairstyle and eyewear simply render it more obvious.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: His big round glasses seem specifically designed to highlight the effect. He tries it on the July MPs in the first episode so they'll go easy on him as they arrest him (they don't). Then on Meryl and Roberto in the second to convince them he's telling the truth (they aren't moved, and Meryl tells him crying won't help).
• Purple Is Powerful: When he finally unlocks his powers, they're tinted purple (contrasting Knives's pale blue). Even his clothes and glasses change to suit them. The colour specifically seems to represent both his love of Rem, who had purple eyes, and his desire to unite and protect humans (associated with red) and Plants (associated with blue), starting with embracing his nature as a bridge between the two.
• Red Baron: Known as the Humanoid Typhoon for the massive collateral damage that occurs around him.
• Red Is Heroic: From his red coat to his association with Rem's red geraniums, Vash is defined by the color red as a symbol of his passion and love for humanity and all the bloodshed he has been witness to.
• Reverse Grip: Somehow manages to hold his Hand Cannon like this to Pistol Whip.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Despite the presence of more advanced guns, Vash uses a revolver modified into a bludgeon. The original revolver was a mocking gift from Knives five years post the Fall, a dig at his love for humans. The fact that Vash still carries it signifies its purpose as a reminder of his sins.
• Sad Clown: Like in the original, Vash presents a goofy and joyful front, but underneath he's weighed down by his failures and the past harm that he has caused, whether it was directly his fault or not.
  "I don't deserve to cry."
• Shirtless Scene: He takes off his coat and shirt after evading the July military police in order to remove a bullet, displaying quite a well-muscled chest — which is unfortunately covered in various scars and pieces of technology keeping him together. Other than that, he's as pleasantly buff and attractive as his twin, Knives.
• Shoot the Bullet: A neat trick he can do to stop enemy bullets from hitting him or those around him.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Vash is loud, friendly, emotional and a pacifist. Knives is reserved, soft-spoken, detached and remorselessly violent. They also have opposite levels of attachment to their dignity — Vash will flail, wail and shriek, whereas Knives is almost always icily calm (though with a flair for the dramatic and grandiose). Amusingly, these emotional states reverse completely in the final episode, or more precisely both of the twins drop their masks: Vash is coldly enraged and moves with absolute precision and efficiency, while Knives spends the entire fight in one continuous emotional meltdown.
• Significant Birth Date: Files on the SEED ship show him and Knives were born on July 21st. After episode 12, it becomes an inauspicious date, as it marks the day of July's destruction.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: In episode twelve, emerging from Knives's Mind Rape-induced trance, Vash's coat colors invert to black lined with dark red-violet, his glasses are tinted purple, and his hair stands on end in a style reminiscent of his original trademark spiked design. His attitude also becomes more serious and confident, as he is determined to stop Knives with everything he has and willing to take command of his powers to do so.
• Sins of the Father: Vash is banished from Jeneora Rock following Knives's rampage on the basis of Vash being Knives's brother and seemingly the reason why Knives showed up in the first place. Vash's quiet acceptance, to say nothing of the bounty he already has, indicates that he's been dealing with this mindset from people for a while. In fact, he seems to regard Knives's crimes as his own.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Just like in the manga and the first anime, Vash's optimism is contrasted against the harsh cruelty of the setting, with his attempts to do good undermined either by Millions Knives's machinations or the very people he's trying to protect. This also puts him at odds with the more cynical and bitter Wolfwood, leading to them butting heads over their differing moral codes, as well as the strict and assertive Meryl, who calls him out on running from problems he'd be better off facing head-on.
• Super-Hearing: On top of all his other weird abilities, he's capable of perceiving the tones Zazie uses to control the worms, which Zazie explicitly states are inaudible to human ears.
• Super-Speed: He's able to dodge bullets at point-blank range, and can close the distance between himself and an opponent without his opponent realizing where he is. He's even faster than Knives, who flounders in a fight he can't instantly win with his powers.
• Take a Third Option: The whole season consists of Vash being asked, "Whose side are you on?" between his brother and humans, but he doesn't want to choose and believes he can save both — reconcile with Knives and retrieve the stolen Plants for the humans who need them. Sadly, despite all his efforts, he achieves neither of those goals.
• Telepath: Well, sort of. He can't read human minds, but he can commune with Plants (who don't speak human language), which he uses to stabilise and comfort them, as well as ask them for help. He even has them singing along with him when he's no longer capable of speech. Interestingly, this is something Knives seems unable to do without even being aware he isn't — he can hear their cries, but not communicate with them otherwise, nor can he convince them to do anything.
• Tender Tears: Though he claims "I don't deserve to cry," Vash still sheds plenty of tears, most notably sobbing as he flees the destruction of Jeneora Rock and crying in the final showdown with Knives, as Vash realises the rift between them has grown so great they can no longer understand each other and his brother won't simply be talked down from his genocidal crusade.
• This Is Gonna Suck: As he prepares his duel against the July captain, he puts on a cheerful front. However, once he's out of the crowd's sight, it's obvious what he's actually thinking as he trudges towards his opponent.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: In the season 1 finale, Vash as Eriks stands in front of a piano blankly staring at the wall while pressing a few keys.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Just like the manga and 1998 anime, Vash follows a code not to kill anyone. Because he holds himself responsible for the Fall, he feels he already has enough blood on his hands and wants no more.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Episode 12, after spending the story seemingly outmatched by Knives, he manages to take control of his Gate and use his abilities to fight off his brother. Fittingly, when he does, his hairstyle changes to resemble his manga counterpart's, symbolically becoming the legendary Vash known by fans.
• Tranquil Fury: In episode twelve once he emerges from his trance he might be the angriest he's yet been in the series, but he just coldly says to Knives that his plan has failed and it's time to Bring It. In the resulting fight Knives is roaring and snarling, but Vash doesn't say a word until he realises he needs to dispose of the energy cube.
• Trauma Conga Line: Hoo boy. It wouldn't be Vash without it. Stampede makes sure to put him through hell for all viewers to witness; it's no wonder why he's in a Heroic BSoD state bordering on catatonic when we see him as Eriks at the end of season 1.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: In episode 9, he activates his gate for the first time in response to seeing Knives attempt to choke Luida to death. His gate creates a black hole over his left arm that Knives quickly chops off, as Vash was too stunned and didn't know how to make it stop. And it doesn't get much more traumatic than Knives wiping his identity and forcing open his Gate, but when he gains the will to seize back his control over it, he demonstrates an astonishing array of new abilities as a result.
• Unorthodox Reload: In episode 12, Vash throws a clip of ammunition in the air and then swings his gun into it to reload. Which is an impressive enough feat of coordination, but even more considering he did it mid-flight. He also shapes bullets from the cube formed by his Gate, creating a near-inexhaustible source of ammunition that he uses to harry Knives relentlessly.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The source of his immense guilt. He was the one who gave Knives the access codes to Project SEEDS, not knowing that Knives would use them to sabotage the ships in a bid to exterminate humanity. Knives repeatedly makes Vash complicit in his atrocities, even just by claiming they were motivated by a need to protect Vash, as a means to solidify control over his brother.
• Walking Disaster Area: It's not for no reason that Vash is called the Humanoid Typhoon. So far, almost every last one of the settlements he's travelled to for any length of time has been destroyed as a direct result of his presence. The only one that wasn't was already deserted. He's obviously noticed and tends to take it hard, even if he did everything he could to keep people safe.
• Weak, but Skilled: "Weak" is a relative term, but Vash certainly doesn't demonstrate the same flashy powers his brother does. He is, however, so incredibly skilled and experienced he can practically dance through combat. When Vash gets serious, it's really only Knives who outclasses him and once Vash starts to tap into his own powers, the gap vanishes.
• Younger and Hipper: Like the rest of the cast, Vash has been redesigned to fit with the visual trends of modern anime. His identifying brush-like hair has become an undercut (though still noticeably spiked) and his red long coat is more like a baggy hoodie jacket rather than the distinctive red duster. His personality also feels a lot more youthful and less sure-footed, despite him being roughly the same age as his previous counterparts.
• Younger Than They Look: Remember the opening sequence where Vash is a kid? He's actually only just over a year old despite looking ten years old. By the time he's six or seven, he already looks like a teenager and his voice is starting to break.

Meryl Stryfe

Voiced by: Sakura Andou (JP), Sarah Roach (ENG)

Reporter with a Heart of Gold

"Don't call me newbie!"

A budding Intrepid Reporter and Roberto de Niro's protégé. New to the job and very ambitious but somewhat sheltered, she initially follows Vash for the sake of writing an article on the infamous Humanoid Typhoon. However, she quickly becomes emotionally invested in his quest and him as a person, and finds that she can't treat accompanying him as just a job anymore.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Meryl's hair and eyes are tinted violet in the manga but dark blue here.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Due to the first season being in fact a Stealth Prequel re-imagining of the infamous July Incident, Meryl having any presence within the events that unfold means that she's involved in Vash's life far earlier than she originally is supposed to compared to either the original anime or manga.
• Adaptational Expansion: Despite on the surface seeming less impressive than her previous counterparts due to being an unarmed civilian, Meryl's character has been fleshed out in Stampede more than her other incarnations, who only ever got a few pages worth of backstory. She's been given background details and motivations for her job of choice, and ultimately a proper origin story for how she began using a derringer.
• Adaptational Job Change: Meryl Stryfe is a reporter for the Bernardelli News Agency rather than a claim investigator for the Bernardelli Insurance Society. In the manga she did become a reporter, but only in the very last chapter.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Meryl and Wolfwood have developed a camaraderie they've never had before in previous versions of Trigun, as travelling together before Milly comes into the picture has given them more opportunities to interact. The two of them bicker like little kids and seem to grow to care for each other.
• Adaptational Wimp: Meryl is completely unarmed and has no combat experience in this series, while she carried around many derringers and was proficient in the quick draw in the original. She also serves as The Driver of the group for most of her screen time early on. While she can't participate in combat, however, she does try to involve herself if she can, even against Roberto's advice. This is eventually explained by the fact that Stampede serves as a re-imagined prequel to the main events of the Trigun story, thus rather than suffering a downgrade in capability, the Meryl introduced in this adaptation is simply the one from her younger and more inexperienced days. Further supporting this is Roberto handing her his derringer in his last moments, and the epilogue sequence revealing her to be assigned a new partner: Milly Thompson.
• Age Lift: A minor example. Meryl is slightly older in Stampede compared to her manga counterpart, starting it at 23 years old and becoming 25 during the two-year timeskip after the July incident. In contrast, her manga counterpart was 21 in the beginning and became 23 during the timeskip after the Fifth Moon incident. This is Zig-Zagged, however, as while she's chronologically older, this iteration of Meryl is portrayed as more youthful and naïve than her other counterparts.
• Apologizes a Lot: Given her inexperience in the field, Roberto often scolds her for putting her life at risk or not considering the danger. Meryl usually apologizes to get him off her back, and then does whatever she was going to do anyway. In episode 10 as she watches him die, she profusely apologizes, believing his death by Elendira's nails was her fault since he had to protect her.
• Audience Surrogate: She's unfamiliar with the way the world at large works, and stands in for the audience to receiving exposition.
• Biblical Motifs: Meryl being witness to Vash's resurrection from his "death" in the season 1 finale evokes Mary Magdalene to Vash's Jesus Christ.
• Big Sister Instinct: Tries to help out Tonis when she sees the boy in danger, and when she fails to hold him up when Jeneora Rock falls, she blames herself for his injuries. She even throws herself onto the mysterious kid they find abandoned at the Plant station when the group is swallowed by a Grand Worm. Too bad for her that the kid turns out to be Zazie the Beast, an associate of Knives... Or perhaps not: Zazie takes a personal interest in Meryl not long afterwards.
• Birds of a Feather: Roberto comments that Meryl is similar to Vash in their naivety and tendency to be reckless and stubborn, especially when other people are in trouble, and warns that it could mean downfall for both of them.
• Brainy Brunette: Academically. While she has much to learn in terms of street smarts, she graduated at the top of her class, and can parrot off information like a textbook. She's also a quick thinker and good at improvising, though her sheltered upbringing hasn't allowed her to hone those skills.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: When Rosa invites everyone back to the bar for a celebration, Meryl is already tipsy barely a moment after the drinks are served.
• Color Motif: Meryl seems to be associated with dark blue, with the color being present on her hat, shirt, and shorts, as well as in her eyes. The first flower field she ever sees is a field of blue flowers in the geodome on Ship Three and there's an extended scene of her frolicking among them. This is interesting since Meryl is human, and in Stampede the color blue is otherwise primarily associated with the Plants; the color primarily used to represent humanity is red. It also contrasts with Vash's main association with red and red flowers, even though he's a Plant.
• Cool Shades: She gets a pair of these two years after July's destruction.
• Crisis Catch And Carry: Being an ordinary and unarmed human civilian, Meryl ends up a frequent recipient of this, often getting pulled by the jacket like it's the scruff of a baby animal or hauled around like a bag of rice in the middle of battles involving superhumans.
• Determinator: Even when faced with danger at every turn, Meryl refuses to turn her back on those who need help, or on Vash. Her refusal to leave Vash and doing everything she can to snap him out of his Plant stasis manages to wake him.
• Drives Like Crazy: Downplayed. She's a competent driver, especially considering that she's driving through a desert with no roads. In fact, she's the only character ever seen driving the truck. However, she will intentionally start driving like crazy if you piss her off, and Wolfwood's introduction to the team is precipitated by her nearly running him over.
• Due to the Dead: She arranges Roberto in a sleep-like position in the elevator, and removes Elendira's needle from his gut. Two years after the fall of July, she seems to go there annually to drop off a new packet of cigarettes next to his flask under a photo of the group.
• Fearless Fool: Meryl develops a somewhat unfortunate habit of diving into dangerous situations, even though she's unarmed and totally outclassed by the superhumans around her. While her efforts occasionally end up panning out, and indeed, save the day multiple times, all too frequently her traveling companions have to pull her out of harm's way.
• Foil: Meryl and Wolfwood contrast each other strongly, but both are following Vash in the name of their jobs only to grow close to him. Meryl's educated and wealthy background as well as her determination to do the right thing contrast Wolfwood as a dirt-poor orphan who knows survival isn't pretty. Meryl comes to bear the same faith in Vash that Rem did, while Wolfwood finds himself with no choice but to carry out Knives's will.
• Genki Girl: Significantly genki-er and more youthful (even childish at times) in this version, especially when compared to the rest of the group, but still relatively reasonable, down-to-earth, and very driven.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Meryl is a tiny 145cm tall girl surrounded by huge guys who are all at least a head taller than her, if not more.
• Hypocritical Humor: Is seen lecturing Roberto about his alcoholism, when she's already tipsy and chugging her drink like it's going to run from her.
• The Idealist: She believes in doing the right thing and refuses to treat Vash as just another aspect of her job, leading to her decision to keep following Vash instead of leaving to complete her article. Her more world-weary coworker, Roberto de Niro, frequently complains about her stubbornness but ultimately does nothing to stop her.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Darker than Vash's, but evidence of a nature as sweet as his.
• Insult of Endearment: Roberto refuses to call Meryl by her name and instead refers to her as "newbie". He does it to annoy her, but there is a hint of affection in it.
• It's All My Fault: She blames herself for not being able to protect Tonis, and knows that if she abandons Vash, she'll likely feel the same way. When she realizes Roberto took a hit from Elendira's nails and is slowly dying as a result, she believes he wouldn't be like this if he hadn't been protecting her.
• Light Is Good: She's dressed in mostly white, and she does her best to help anyone around her.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Wolfwood. They form an almost instant dynamic that consists of Wolfwood pushing her buttons and Meryl calling him out for his bad habits, with moments of genuine care for each other in-between.
• Meaningful Echo: After being informed by her superiors that a new reporter, Milly Thompson, has applied to become her assistant, Meryl smiles as she playfully practices meeting her new partner by calling them "newbie", the same nickname Roberto used for her.
• Mirror Character: Like Rem and Luida before her, Meryl is a dark-haired female character with a strong sense of idealism that Vash develops a bond with, and who becomes a symbol of Vash's faith that humans can coexist with the Plants. She likewise becomes a target of Knives's rage and hatred for being someone who in his mind 'poisons' Vash and steals him away. Ultimately, it is Meryl calling out to a comatose Vash telling him to wake up that invokes Rem's memory in his mind, allowing Vash to break free from Knives's control.
• My Greatest Failure: After the attack on Jeneora Rock, Meryl is deeply haunted by the fact she failed to save Tonis from falling and losing his arm. She cites this as the reason she refuses to run from danger, because she'd rather she tried to do something to help a situation, instead of running and doing nothing.
• Mythology Gag: Meryl working as a reporter instead of an insurance claim agent is in part a nod to her taking that job at the end of the manga's run. Then in episode 12, her superiors threaten that they'll send her to work at the "Insurance Society" if she keeps acting out of turn.
• Naïve Newcomer: The reason why Meryl sympathizes with Vash so much is because, being new to her job, she hasn't learned just how harsh life is in the desert, and finds his efforts to save everyone bizarre but intriguing. Unfortunately for her, Vash is superhuman and she isn't; with no means of defending herself, she often has to be bailed out of trouble, usually by Roberto. This gradually changes as she gains experience.
• Never Bareheaded: She's shown with her blue cap on all throughout the first season until the two year timeskip at the end.
• Nice Girl: Is openly friendly and polite towards most people she meets, which Roberto chides her for, claiming her kindness will just get her killed sooner or later. However, she's also a chronic scold, prone to lecturing people for engaging in activities she perceives as immoral — a habit Wolfwood wastes no time teasing her over, and that Roberto occasionally has to rein her in on.
• No Listening Skills: Much to Roberto's chagrin, all attempts to convince Meryl to pull away from following Vash, even while they increasingly realize what kind of danger he attracts, are completely ignored point-blank. By episode 12, Meryl seems to have developed a reputation for defying her superiors.
• Non-Idle Rich: Supplemental materials reveal Meryl is from a wealthy family, which is subtly implied by Roberto when he jabs at her for having gone to an elite school. Despite this, Meryl doesn't really show any indications of it in her personality beyond possibly her naïvety and a minor degree of prissiness (she's grossed out by Worms and refuses to eat their meat, even when it's all there is without access to Plant-produced food). She's eager to do her job and very willing to help people even in extremely dangerous situations, and her information file also states that she wanted to become a reporter for humanitarian reasons.
• Older Than They Look: Her certification paper says she's twenty-three, but with her naivety and short stature she sometimes comes across as younger.
• Plucky Girl: As much as she dislikes violence, she won't meekly surrender to anyone who threatens it. She's the one who comes up with the Taking You with Me plan to convince E.G. the Mine to back down when Vash's own threats failed, and as often as Roberto tries to curb her righteous risk-taking he's yet to actually convince her not to take risks.
• Point of View: Outside of a prologue and epilogue sequence, the first season bookends itself with scenes of Meryl driving through the desert in the beginning and end, showing that the story is more or less being told through her eyes.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Defied. Roberto tries to convince her to abandon the Sand Steamer once things take a turn for the worse, saying that the risk to her life isn't worth it. She refuses and instead encourages him to leave her behind, since she won't leave when there's something she can do to help.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: After the two year timeskip at the end of episode 12, Meryl is shown looking far more rugged than she was at the beginning of the series, swapping out her white shirt and jacket with a gray sleeveless top, and her jean shorts for long brown trousers. Her signature gold dangling earrings have been swapped out for silver ones, and she's sporting a pair of sunglasses. Unsurprisingly considering the events that transpired, her attitude seems to have also become more somber and jaded as well.
• Tragic Keepsake: A dying Roberto gives Meryl his derringer in his final moments. Following the two-year Time Skip after the July incident, it is shown to be still be in her possession.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • In Episode 2 she calls Vash out for running away from the Nebraskas rather than fighting to protect himself or the town, and he counters with the first overt declaration of his pacifism, saying that a head-on battle risks people's lives and isn't always the right approach. She also tells off Rosa for trying to hand Vash over for his bounty, which Rosa acknowledges isn't something she's proud of.
  • In Episode 11 she encounters Wolfwood and asks him where Vash is. Wolfwood says he neither knows nor cares since he just handed Vash over to Knives himself, which infuriates Meryl so much she kicks Wolfwood hard in the shin and tells him she's disappointed in him. This seems to get under his skin, considering he eventually comes back — just in the nick of time to save Meryl from falling off a building, no less.
  • Similarly, she's horrified by Knives destroying Vash's identity so he can forcibly turn the other Plants into Independents via impregnating them, something Vash would never agree to, and threatens to shoot Conrad unless he stops the procedure. Unfortunately, by that point breaking the connection might kill Vash.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She hates bugs and arthropodal creatures like Worms, flinching and recoiling away from them when they appear.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: More than Vash, who despite his optimistic front has learned the hard way how cruel the world can be in the century and a half he's been around. Meryl wants to do the right thing and holds both herself and people around her to high standards, but at the series' beginning is not yet aware of how much that idealism will cost her.
• Younger and Hipper: Like the rest of the cast, Meryl has been redesigned to fit with the visual trends of modern anime. Her cape has been replaced by a poofy jacket and her overall look is more street-casual than the business-like appearance she had originally.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: In the elevator, the only way Roberto gets her to take his gun while he slowly dies from his wound is by calling Meryl by her full name.

Roberto de Niro

Voiced by: Kenji Matsuda (JP), Ben Bryant (ENG)

I Need A Drink 24/7

"This newbie's more trouble than most."

Meryl Stryfe's supervisor and a senior reporter. Roberto is an old hand at his job and he knows the ugly side of it, so he tries to discourage Meryl's more naïve tendencies. Still, he's not totally amoral.

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• The Alcoholic: Frequently takes swigs from his flask and has the slurred speech of a drunkard. Meryl regularly criticizes him for drinking while he's technically on the job.
• Canon Foreigner: Roberto de Niro has no counterpart in the original manga or anime. At most, he has Milly's intuition mixed with Wolfwood's "gruff and cynical smoker with a kind heart" persona, but much older and more cautious than either since he has almost no combat ability.
• Color Motifs: Brown and yellow, earthy colors that match the dusty surface of No Man's Land. Roberto is down-to-earth, surviving on such a desperate, hostile world by lingering in the background rather than trying to stand out.
• The Cynic: Likely as a result of what he's witnessed in the field, he believes that no ordinary person has the ability to affect meaningful change on the world and that it's foolish to try being a hero.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has a bunch of zingers ready to fire at his comrades when he's in the mood, which is most of the time.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He can tell Vash is actually scared of looking at the Plant despite his cheery demeanor and is quick to realize Vash knows how to use the weapon he carries. He doesn't believe Wolfwood's story of being an undertaker, and indeed Wolfwood's actually an assassin for the Eye of Michael, Knives's cult. With the July captain, he doesn't trust him and even manages to convince him to duel Vash by calling him a coward.
• Functional Addict: Roberto drinks enough to appear red in the face in many scenes, but it doesn't seem to hinder his movement or judgment. Even while speaking in a slurred and tipsy manner, he's able to pick up just fine that Vash is clearly hiding something behind his goofy behavior.
• The Gadfly: Refuses to call Meryl by her name and intentionally messes with her at times because he finds it funny. The fact that he calls Meryl by her full name in his final moments shows just how aware he is of his impending death.
• Hair Color Dissonance: His dark brown hair looks greenish in dim lighting.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: He gets impaled by one of Elendira's nails trying to protect Meryl, and dies from his wounds soon after.
• I Need A Drink: His reactions to most situations involving Vash is to break out the flask.
• Irony: He criticizes both Vash and Meryl as marked for death due to their recklessness and naiveté. Roberto ends up dying the night of the July tragedy, while Vash and Meryl make it out alive.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all his abrasiveness and cynicism, Roberto clearly cares a lot about Meryl and even saves her a few times. He's also as disgusted by Dr. Conrad's experiments as anyone and bluntly tells the doctor his abstract justifications mean nothing to the victims of his cruelty. He's strongly hinted to be a moral, caring person who's gone through so many hardships and witnessed so many deaths it's significantly affected his outlook on life.
• Little Useless Gun: A tiny, battered derringer, looking even more pathetic next to the absurd weapons carried by Wolfwood and Vash — enough so that Wolfwood feels compelled to make fun of it. He does manage to shoot two of Elendira's nails from out of the air in Episode 10, though he seems a little surprised by his own success. Sadly, he's killed shortly after this display of proficiency.
• Mentor Archetype: He acts this way towards Meryl, with heavy amounts of snark on the side.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Roberto serves as mentor to Meryl and overall is the Team Dad. He dies protecting Meryl from Elendira in Episode 10, which hits the accelerator button on Meryl's Character Development and provides an origin story for how and why she comes to wield a derringer.
• Mr. Exposition: As a senior reporter, he knows a great deal about the setting, often bringing tidbits up about characters and places in dialogue or prompting Meryl to explain instead by questioning her.
• Mythology Gag: He uses a derringer pistol, which was Meryl's signature weapon in the original manga. It turns out it isn't just a call-back to the original material. In this continuity, he's the one who gives Meryl her signature weapon.
• Named After Someone Famous: His name is very close to Robert De Niro.
• The Nicknamer: Apart from "Newbie," in the English dub he runs with some of Wolfwood's nicknames, tends to call Vash "the Stampede" and bestows upon Knives the name "Hundreds Spoons", though sadly not to his face.
• Not Enough to Bury: Roberto is killed in July the night it is wiped off the map, leaving his body disintegrated. Meryl mourns him at a memorial for the population on the city outskirts.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: Poor Roberto repeatedly tries to get Meryl to heed his warnings about how dangerous it is to follow Vash around. It goes in one ear and out the other. The same goes for Vash after Roberto tries to warn him not to put too much trust in Wolfwood. Vash literally waves it off because he already knows exactly what Wolfwood is. He just doesn't mind.
• Properly Paranoid: Given his long time as a reporter on such a desperate planet, he's naturally inclined to distrust strangers. He's on the mark with Wolfwood, who turns out to be an assassin for the Eye of Michael and not an undertaker as he claims.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Roberto's nature as a Canon Foreigner mentor character in what is ultimately a Stealth Prequel re-imagining for Trigun meant he had a target on his back. Roberto is killed in episode 10, his role mainly serving to jumpstart Meryl's Character Development.
• Sarcastic Devotee: The oldest (by appearances), grumpiest and most likely to protest a heroically suicidal course of action, but he just can't talk himself into leaving Meryl behind no matter how dangerous things get.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He keeps trying, bless him, but it's subverted. Meryl won't leave and he won't leave Meryl.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: More than once goes on rants about desperate and cruel the world is and how kindness or heroism are good ways to get killed. He ends up proving himself right when he's mortally wounded protecting Meryl, but ironically absolves her of blame as he dies, telling her to follow her heart.
• Smarter Than They Look: Roberto de Niro is a drunkard who seems content to laze in the background, but he repeatedly correctly guesses the true character of multiple people, immediately identifying Vash as a Sad Clown who is hiding his true abilities and figuring out that Wolfwood is actually an assassin and his intentions can't possibly be good. Indeed, Wolfwood tries to convince Vash to leave both reporters to die not half an hour later. He's also the first to recognize Vash's prosthetic arm as Lost Tech.
• Smoking Is Cool: Though he does it less often than drinking and he's nowhere near Wolfwood's commitment, Roberto does smoke when inclined. Chain-smoker Wolfwood naturally takes advantage to bum cigarettes, to Roberto's annoyance. After Roberto dies, Wolfwood inherits (read: loots) his smokes.
• Taking the Bullet: He ends up taking one of Elendira's nails trying to push Meryl out of harm's way and succumbs to his injury shortly after they escape her.
• Team Dad: More or less the group's designated adult — for this bunch, a role that would drive anyone to drink. While obviously Meryl's mentor and pretty much constantly hoisting her out of danger, he also talks the July MPs out of arresting Vash by convincing them to duel instead and gives him advice, warning him not to trust Wolfwood.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Roberto dismisses Dr. Conrad's justifications to call out the inherent cruelty of his experiments, which actually manages to get a rise out of the person he's addressing when nothing else did.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Upon realizing the Sand Steamer has an ion cannon and is careening towards an orphanage, he immediately sits down and pulls out his flask.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya (JP, Adult), Mirei Kumagai (JP, Child), David Matranga (ENG, Adult), Emily Neves (ENG, Child)

The Punisher

"Uh... Our Father who art in Heaven... Forgive us our trespasses, and those who trespass against us. To our brothers who passed. Let the dead come back to you and... what's next?"

A self-proclaimed undertaker encountered when the crew accidentally broadside him with their car. He ends up tagging along with Vash's group for reasons unknown to the others.

---

• Adaptational Badass: His weapon, Punisher. In the original, the heaviest weapon installed in it was a rocket launcher. In Stampede, it gains a Wave-Motion Gun that's strong enough to cut a whale-sized worm in half lengthways.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Due to the first season being in fact a Stealth Prequel re-imagining of the infamous July Incident, Wolfwood having any presence within the events that unfold means that he's involved in Vash's life far earlier than he was either in the '98 anime or manga.
• Adaptational Job Change: He claims he's an undertaker rather than a priest. In reality, he's an assassin assigned to keep Vash alive while his original counterpart had that aspect as only his backstory, having rebelled by trying to kill his mentor some time before he met Vash. Episode 10 does confirm he was a priest for the Eye of Michael after all, technically, but he despises them and understandably doesn't regard it as part of his identity.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Wolfwood is much more rude and emotionally volatile than his previous incarnations, even moreso than his manga counterpart who he otherwise more closely resembles, with a more cutthroat and impatient attitude, bordering on childishly surly. While all of his counterparts had their moments of cynicism, it's particularly noticeable in this version of Wolfwood, since he comes off as being cocky rather than jovial when in a good mood. On the flipside, he wears his heart on his sleeve more and seems easier to render emotionally moved. It's possibly because in this continuity, he's still working for the Eye of Michael and trying avoid becoming attached to a guy he's been tasked to betray. Furthermore, him having the personality of an edgy teenager this time around seems fitting considering that the experiments that gave him his superhuman abilities drastically accelerated his aging, taking him from prepubescent to adult in six months. It's highlighted how traumatic this was, leaving him noticeably still bitter and hurt in a way his previous counterparts had learned to repress. Like Vash and Meryl, he's "younger" in terms of life events, having yet to turn on the people who made him a killer.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Wolfwood and Meryl have developed a camaraderie they've never had before in previous versions of Trigun, as travelling together before Milly comes into the picture has given them more opportunities to interact. The two of them bicker like little kids and seem to grow to care for each other.
  • In the manga and 1998 anime, Legato only ever gave consideration to Wolfwood in relation to Vash, who was his real target. In Stampede Legato seems to have developed a more pointed fixation on trying to antagonize Wolfwood, ever since Wolfwood attempted to run away from the Eye of Michael shortly after he was experimented on and got mouthy when Legato told him his mission.
• Affectionate Nickname: His peers at the orphanage called him Nico (Nico-nii in Japanese, an affectionate way for children to address an older brother).
• Age Lift: In the manga, Wolfwood was a man in his twenties who looked like he was in his thirties because his powers came at the cost of accelerated aging. In Stampede, not only is Wolfwood designed to look more youthful than his previous counterparts, it's implied that his chronological age is in turn also significantly younger than his physical age, as we are shown that a child Wolfwood developed the body of a fully grown adult after only six months' worth of experimentation.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Although he only inserts himself into Vash's ragtag caravan to escort him into Knives' clutches, they are the first people to treat Wolfwood like a human being and believe in his capacity for good since before the Eye of Michael turned him into the Punisher. Vash's unshakable faith in him makes Wolfwood more and more uncomfortable with his mission, but it pays off in the season 1 finale when he leaps into the twins' battle to rescue Meryl.
• Biblical Motifs: Wolfwood is the apostle to Vash's Christ. His role in season 1 specifically evokes Judas, as he leads Vash, the man who tried sincerely to save and redeem him, to certain doom while his victim bears him no ill will.
• Big Brother Instinct: The reason he even goes along with being the Eye of Michael's assassin was in hopes they wouldn't use Livio as his replacement (they use him anyway). He's also extremely hesitant to attack his old friend when he sees him again. Vash takes notice of this and insists they try and take out Livio non-lethally. He also cherishes the children of Hopeland and only does his job, which he hates, to keep the kids safe.
• Bottomless Magazines: Wolfwood's always ready to shoot first with Punisher and ask questions later. He's never shown to be running out of bullets.
• BFG: His Punisher, a huge cross-shaped multi-purpose weapon that's around as tall as he is and yet he's still able to swing it around with one hand. It contains machine guns, a Wave-Motion Gun, and can be used as a club.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: As Wolfwood explains when Vash asks, he's babysitting. While Vash is more than capable of taking care of himself, his self-sacrificial streak puts him in almost constant mortal peril that Wolfwood feels compelled to bail him out of. Because Knives and Dr. Conrad want Vash to reach July alive, and are holding the Hopeland Orphanage hostage until Wolfwood fulfils the contract.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: Although it's rare to not see Wolfwood smoking, a pile of butts on the ground is a sign that he is wrestling with something, e.g. when confirming with Zazie that he has gotten close to Vash.
• Color Motif: Gray. The other versions of Wolfwood wore white shirts under their dark suits; this one wears a gray shirt. Being earlier in his development as a character, unlike them, he's yet to fully turn on his masters, even as he grows more uncomfortable with his mission, and remains torn between 'dark' Vash and 'light' Knives.
• Cool Shades: Wears dark sunglasses, in contrast with Vash's tinted sunglasses, reflecting how he has a darker outlook and that he's hiding his real emotions. Also crosses over into Sunglasses at Night.
• Crash-Into Hello: Emphasis on "crash". Wolfwood's introduced when Meryl almost runs him over with her truck. While she tries to swerve out of the way, Wolfwood's still sent flying by the trailer slamming into him.
• The Cynic: He often takes Vash to task on how unrealistic and sometimes hypocritical his ideals are, trying to enforce the fact that Violence Really Is the Answer, or at least to convince Vash to listen to his survival instincts once in a while. Though it's initially ambiguous how much of this is genuine concern versus protecting the asset he's assigned to escort, over time he seems to become more and more horrified by how willing Vash is to throw away his life for people like himself, who simply aren't worth it.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He wears all dark in a desert wasteland. Although his mission is to hand Vash over to Knives, Vash looks him in the eyes and immediately calls him a "good guy". Deep down, Wolfwood does only want to do the right thing for the people he cares for, and he'll subject himself to all sorts of horrors and dirty his own hands to keep them safe.
• Dirty Business: In the end, though reluctant, he hands Vash over to the Eye of Michael to protect the Hopeland Orphanage, but implies he hasn't "laid down [his] cross" for doing so even with the job complete, nor has he forgotten or forgiven what they did to him. What really shakes Wolfwood is that Vash knew it all from the moment they met and liked/trusted him anyway, genuinely believing Wolfwood needed the help.
• Disappointed in You: Wolfwood is on the receiving end of this from Meryl when it appears he's just going to abandon Vash and leave his fate up to Knives. Considering that Wolfwood does end up coming back, it would seem she struck a nerve.
• Due to the Dead:
  • Spoofed when the group finds a fuel station whose owners have been slaughtered. Wolfwood props up his cross and tries to recite what sounds like The Lord's Prayer for them... but he only knows the first line, "Our Father who art in Heaven", and in the dub, he gets even that wrong. When called on this he denies being a priest, but his claim that he's an undertaker isn't that much more believable. And then he tries to charge Meryl and Roberto for the service they didn't solicit.
  • He does a little better when he comes across Roberto's body. Though he does take Roberto's cigarettes, his own supply having run out, it's with gratitude.
• Fanservice Pack: This version of Wolfwood has more youthful features in this continuity than he did in the 1998 anime. His shirt is also slightly more open than it originally was, since he doesn't button his jacket closed. His appearance in the present is also subject to some Fan Disservice; he's Younger Than They Look, though it's unclear how much younger.
• Foil:
  • To Vash. Where gruff Wolfwood finds the use of fatal violence necessary, gentle Vash hates violence and refuses to kill anything. They often argue about how to handle dangerous situations. Not unlike Vash who grew from an infant to a child who looked around eight or ten years old within a year, the experiments Wolfwood underwent caused him to grow from a child to an adult in six months. However, in contrast to Vash, who eventually stopped aging and is now a century and a half old, Wolfwood is significantly younger than he looks.
  • Similarly Meryl, who's from a wealthy family to Wolfwood's past as a poverty-stricken orphan. She's also white and dark blue to his black/gray and deep red, repeating established color motifs that are also seen in Knives and Vash. Both Meryl and Wolfwood are following Vash because of their jobs, only to grow closer to him than professionalism warrants. But where Meryl is learning that survival means moral compromises and sacrifices have to be made, and repeatedly chooses to follow Vash of her own free will despite the job, Wolfwood becomes more and more bothered by his conscience and was coerced. Where Meryl unknowingly comes to mirror Rem and her ideals, Wolfwood has no choice but to carry out Knives's will.
• Forced into Evil: Turning Vash over to Knives was the only way he could get the Eye of Michael to stop abducting children from his orphanage or otherwise just generally threatening it. When Wolfwood confirms he's handing Vash over to protect the orphanage, Vash is glad to know it's for a good cause and doesn't resent Wolfwood's betrayal when the time comes.
• Foreshadowing: So Wolfwood, how'd you recover from being hit by a truck that fast? He says it's a blessing from God. And it is. But not the "god" one typically thinks of. He takes quick-healing drugs forced on him by the Eye of Michael, which worships Knives as a god.
• Friendship Denial: When Brad and Luida call Meryl, Roberto and Wolfwood Vash's friends, Wolfwood is the only one to deny that they are even that close.
• Friend to All Children: Played with. He comforts and gives candy to the surviving kid they found at the fuel station, who was Zazie the Beast playing along to help Wolfwood ingratiate himself to Vash. As a kid, he cheered up and looked after Livio when he first arrived at Hopeland, leading the two to become nearly inseparable. All of the other kids at Hopeland liked Wolfwood enough that they refer to him as "Nico-nii". The children of Hopeland serve as his main motivation to keep working under the Eye of Michael — as long as he does his job, no other children will be taken to do it in his place.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Since he can take a Fantastic Drug to immediately heal himself, he just tanks enemy fire rather than attempting to dodge.
• Gun Twirling: When he first brings out the Punisher's Wave-Motion Gun (which requires flipping it over vertically), Wolfwood makes sure to spin the entire weapon on his shoulders as flashily as he possibly can. He has the excuse that it's enormously heavy and may have needed the momentum, but we all know that wasn't the real reason.
• Hypocrite: Despite multiple arguments complaining about Vash's pacifistic tendencies, Wolfwood wants to avoid killing Livio, his Childhood Friend and surrogate brother. Whereas he could Mercy Kill Rollo on the basis that keeping him alive only prolonged his suffering and as just another job, he can't do the same for Livio despite knowing that he underwent similar experimental conditioning. Credit where it's due, he does eventually muster the constitution to put his surrogate brother down... only for Vash to intervene when he decides to go through with it.
• I Am a Monster: Wolfwood believes he can no longer be considered human due to the experiments done to him, nor does he deserve to be because of the hits he's carried out in the Eye of Michael's name. In a moment of extreme stress, he angrily denounces the name "Wolfwood", and says he's "Nicholas the Punisher", the moniker the cult knows him by. Vash, being Vash, does not believe anyone is too far gone to be saved, and that includes Wolfwood.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Meryl. They form an almost instant dynamic that consists of Wolfwood pushing her buttons and Meryl calling him out for his bad habits, with moments of genuine trust and affection for each other in-between.
• Mercy Kill: When Vash tries to call out to a mutated Rollo, he promises to help him. Then Nicholas kills Rollo and claims it was because he was suffering and too far gone to be saved, which angers Vash. However, William Conrad considered Monev a failed experiment and may have requested he be put down, Wolfwood realises Rollo went through something similar to what he himself did, and Wolfwood was tasked with protecting Vash from harm — difficult when Monev was on the verge of strangling Vash to death — so Wolfwood's true intentions here are muddled.
• Mirror Character: Wolfwood is the older brother to Vash Millions Knives can't be. Between messing with him and pretending not to care as much as he does, he comes to Vash's rescue when he's in danger, and his criticism of Vash's staunch pacifism comes from a place of concern rather than an effort to control. His unkempt black hair, drab dark clothes and red sunglasses also heavily contrast with Knives's slicked back platinum blond hair, pristine white clothes and pale blue eyes. Knives even takes on Wolfwood's appearance inside a Lotus-Eater Machine to manipulate Vash, furthering the comparison.
  Wolfwood: I'm like a cool big brother. You won't smash the bullies' skulls, so it falls to me.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He doesn't look that much more buff than Vash. Yet he can swing the Punisher using one arm with ease, turn a burning valve that a group of men failed to budge, and push up ship-sized ion cannon with the help of Vash. He can even lift Meryl up alongside his weapon as if both weigh nothing and juggle them as he runs.
• Mythology Gag: This is not the first time he's killed an attacker that Vash was trying to talk down or spare. In the manga, it was Rai-Dei; in the 1998 anime, it was Zazie; here it's Monev.
• The Nicknamer: Calls Vash "Needle-Noggin", Meryl "Shortie", and Roberto "Drunkard" or "Uncle Downer". (In English, Meryl is "Little Lady" and Roberto is "Old Druncle" or "Grandpa". Vash is still Needle-Noggin, though. Or sometimes "Needles," "Blondie," "Dumbass", and once, "Dipshit.") None of them are very appreciative of their new names.
• Oral Fixation: Spiritually fulfilled; it looks like he's replaced his cigarettes with lollipops, but he hasn't and remains the heaviest smoker in the cast. That said, he does keep a number of flavored lollipops on him, apparently just in case.
• Pet the Dog: He proves he's not a bad guy at heart when he gives a traumatised kid a lollipop he happened to have on his person and tries to console him. Then it's subverted: the kid isn't a kid or traumatised. Both characters are members of Knives's cult running a two-man con to gain Vash's trust. It's later revealed this wasn't even necessary — Vash knew exactly who and what they were from the start. A straighter example comes up when Livio is introduced, a surrogate brother to Wolfwood. "Nico" took it on himself to comfort and protect "crybaby" Livio when they were both kids even when it meant performing contract killings for the Eye of Michael, if it meant Livio wouldn't have to do the same.
• Pistol Whip: He sometimes uses the Punisher to hit people, though given how ridiculously huge it is, it comes across more like a pistol smash. He really lets loose during his fight with Livio, since he knows Livio can take it.
• Power of Trust: The way he reacts when Vash tells him he doesn't have the eyes of a killer. Wolfwood is visibly struck and uncomfortable with the sincerity. Because he's there to escort Vash to July and betray him to the Eye of Michael, well aware that whatever they'll do to him won't be pleasant. Much later, Vash reveals he knew it from the start and trusted Wolfwood anyway, figuring the orphanage was good enough cause for the betrayal, which Wolfwood finds deeply troubling.
• Rank Inflation: His "chemical aptitude" is S+. And it's vaguely implied Livio might be even better than that.
• Reduced To Rat Burgers: So hungry that he bites into a live worm. Good source of protein, apparently. Although doing so was probably a dig at Zazie, who he knows can see through the Worms.
• Robbing the Dead: Upon finding Roberto's corpse, Wolfwood is quick to help himself to his cigarettes.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After scooping Meryl up in July he takes one good look at the sight of Vash and Knives locked in mortal combat over some weird cube, nearly gets his head sliced off by Knives's blades, and wisely gets the hell out of dodge (with a protesting Meryl tucked under his arm).
• Second-Face Smoke: A uniquely benevolent variation. Wolfwood lights up a cigarette and blows smoke into the face of his opponent because Livio associates the smell strongly with his memories of Wolfwood, allowing him to remember who he is and stop attacking.
• Seriously Scruffy: Nothing about Wolfwood is neat or tidy. Along with being a heavy smoker whose cigarettes are always crooked, his hair is unkempt, his suit is poorly fitted, his shirt is untucked and partially unbuttoned, and he doesn't bother to stop it getting riddled with bullet holes. Most notably he wears shoes without socks, even in the desert. He doesn't try very hard to hide that he's following Vash to do a job, and he doesn't have much experience taking care of himself away from the cult's constant supervision.
• Smoking Is Cool: He smokes like a chimney. While idling his time away at one point, he completely litters the floor with cigarette butts. This was apparently a habit he had even as a child and smoking is so much a part of his identity that the scent of cigarette smoke is what finally breaks through Livio's conditioning and allows him to recognise his surrogate brother.
• Super Serum: Drinks ampoules of a chemical that allows him to heal from all sorts of injuries and possibly boosts his strength and reflexes as well, since he takes one before using the most powerful gun hidden in his cross. Their resemblance to the drugs Monev is dosed up on is not coincidental.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: He didn't acquire the strength necessary to wield the Punisher because he wanted to. He was a part of William Conrad's experiments, taken from his orphanage as a child, forcibly drugged and conscripted into performing assassinations for the Eye of Michael. It turned out Wolfwood's body was well-suited to the chemicals, so he can't escape even through death, because another child would be taken and used in his place — likely more than one until they find another as compatible as him.
• This Is Gonna Suck: As he reaches for the red-hot steering controls of the Steamer, you can see how reluctant he is to close his hands. Cut back to his face and he's already got one of his healing vials between his teeth in anticipation of the burns.
• Tsundere:
  • Always ready to yell at Vash or threaten bodily harm should he mess up in some way. When Luida refers to Wolfwood as one of Vash's friends, he immediately denies it. Yet Vash can tell how much Wolfwood does care and never takes the threats to heart.
  • After saving Meryl from almost falling off the tower trying to follow Vash's and Knives's fight, Wolfwood claims he was just paying her back for the pack of cigarettes she left on Roberto's dead body.
• Younger Than They Look: He already had some of this in the manga, looking about a decade older than he actually was, but it's taken even further here, where the results of William Conrad's experiments transform him from a child into a grown man in less than a year. It's more noticeable because his clothes don't fit him, which makes him seem unkempt and scrawny.

Major Antagonists

Millions Knives

Voiced by: Junya Ikeda (JP, Adult), Yumiri Hanamori (JP, Child), Austin Tindle (ENG, Adult), Megan Shipman (ENG, Child)

Angel of Destruction

"Whose side are you on?"

Vash's twin brother, originally named Nai, and his opposite in every way. He despises humanity and seeks to wipe them out. In an effort to take back "what belongs to me [and Vash]", he has been stealing Plants from various settlements, thereby dooming them via energy crisis if they aren't razed to the ground first.

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• Adaptational Badass: Millions Knives was already a Person of Mass Destruction in the original, but he is far more proactive in putting it to use in Stampede, appearing in the third episode to personally take Jeneora Rock's Plant and effortlessly carving up his opposition. Contrast that with how he was an Orcus on His Throne in the anime and for part of the manga. This display of power does match up with his manga incarnation once he finally takes action, however. Also unlike especially his 1998 anime counterpart, he doesn't immediately freak out upon feeling pain. In fact, he seems almost completely indifferent to it, allowing himself to be Stripped to the Bone in the climax of Episode 12 just so he can grab Vash's discharging Gate.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Millions Knives shows up in the first episode, and terrorises Jeneora Rock's inhabitants in person by the third, compared to his much later debut in the manga and anime.
• Adaptational Name Change: Millions Knives in this continuity is a name he picked for himself. When he was being raised by Rem, he was named "Nai".
• Adaptational Intelligence: Knives in the manga and 1998 anime never really had any concrete plans for his so-called utopia outside of exterminating humanity and hurting Vash, reflecting how he was just as immature as Vash was. In Stampede, his goals are much more defined, with him planning to use Vash's Gate to artificially impregnate the Plants he stole to create a whole race of Independents and to wipe out humanity in one fell swoop, creating a planet for the Plants alone. That said, he has no plans what to do after that, and can't cope at all when that plan falls through.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A twisted version of this trope. Knives doesn't torment his brother to punish him like in the manga and 1998 anime continuities. He does truly love Vash but legitimately believes that humanity has turned his brother into something unrecognizable. From Knives's own distorted perception, he's only trying to get Vash to come around to his view of humans, not comprehending how much trauma or pain he's inflicting on Vash in the process.
• Adaptational Personality Change: His personality as a child differs from his manga incarnation. In the manga, he was the hopeful and sensitive twin who wanted to get along with humans, which was why he took the revelation about Tesla so badly. In Stampede, Nai is the distrustful twin and acts more clinically distant.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Millions Knives in the 1998 anime, serving as Vash's Evil Counterpart, fought with firearms just like his brother. The manga has him using various Plant abilities. In Stampede, he instead manifests long chains of blades from his cloak, incidentally making his moniker "Millions Knives" much more appropriate, though the blades have a feathery shape that recalls his manga counterpart's Plant abilities. Episode nine reveals that this is actually just a further extension of the Plant abilities he shares with his manga counterpart.
• Alas, Poor Villain: In spite of everything he has done and all of the blame he has deflected onto his brother, his seemingly last moments as he's burning himself alive trying to grab Vash's discharging Gate frame him in a tragic light. In the end, all he wanted was to go back to the happy and innocent days when they were both children, free from the fear of being exploited and tortured by humans, with his very last words being a vow that he'll find a place where the two of them can belong. Vash's shattering screams of grief just drive it home.
  "No fear. No pain. No humiliation. I'll win a place for us... A paradise... for us..."
• All Take and No Give: The second disturbing Giver variant. Knives genuinely seems to believe he's helping his brother, and does indeed say outright that everything he did, he did for Vash; however, Vash's other loved ones, identity, wellbeing and ironically enough for an Independent Plant, his independence are all acceptable casualties.
• Ambiguously Human: His powers and disdain for humankind suggest that, despite resembling a human, he isn't one. Vash demonstrating various inhuman traits (as detailed under his entry) over the episodes and his relation to Knives further calls their humanity into question. Like his brother, Knives is an Independent Plant, and therefore something between an Artificial Human and a profoundly alien interplanar being.
• Ankle Drag: You can't beat the classics. He uses his bladed chains to drag one of Jeneora's townspeople screaming to her death by the ankle.
• Armed Legs: As a teen, he could grow a long claw out of his feet to slice at enemies. He presumably still could as an adult, but doesn't need to.
• As the Good Book Says...: He read the Bible as a child and references it as an adult both when he talks and in the iconography of his cult (crosses, angels etc). Surprise surprise, his preference seems to be for Revelation.
• Badass Arm-Fold: Maintains this posture while forcing open Vash's Gate.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Sans cloak, he wears only a skin-tight bodysuit covered in Plant markings which he keeps partially merged with his skin at the ankles and wrists, likely something he created himself in the same way as his blades, so he would look more like his sisters than a human. Full shots reveal that he possesses no visible genitals.
• Berserk Button: As a child, Knives was so badly upset by the suffering of Plants in a Last Run when he witnessed it that it almost visibly damaged his mental state. Like Vash, he could hear their screams of distress and wanted desperately to help; unlike Vash, there was nothing he could do to save them. The sight drove him to kill all the humans he saw in a rage. In episode twelve, Vash seizing back control of his Gate and causing Knives to be ejected from the higher plane strips Knives of his emotional control, and he descends into roaring, childish mania. In general, his façade of lofty calm reliably cracks (sometimes spectacularly) if he perceives Vash as rejecting him, even if it's only by talking back to him.
• Biblical Motifs: Though he likes to play at being a wrathful God, Knives has a lot more in common with Satan. He presents himself as a beautiful angel, pretending at the power and benevolence of God, while tormenting humanity out of pride, spite and jealousy. It was Knives who instigated the Fall from the Edenic paradise of Ship Five, and it's Knives who argues with Christ-analogue Vash that humanity doesn't deserve his grace or forgiveness for their sins. He also wants more than anything to return to the paradise where he was born and blames everything else for being unable to, even though it's his own actions that have rendered that impossible.
• Big Brother Instinct: He was (and still is) angry with Vash for siding with the humans, but when they were younger he launched himself towards Vash to chop off his left arm that activated his Gate. Had he waited any longer, it would have likely swallowed up Vash and killed him too. In episode 11, he outright tells Vash the reason he crashed the ships was because (he claims) he thought Vash was too naïve and would be taken advantage of by the humans who had abused another Independent Plant.
  I did it all for you.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Though it's entirely self-inflicted and thus less emotionally devastating than Vash's ordeal, on the cusp of his victory, over a century of obsessive planning and work blows up in Knives's face and finally sets Vash, the only one he loves, against him forever. It's a defeat so total he'd rather burn himself alive than accept it, which he does. And all of this happens on his birthday.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: In the past, he created blades that extended out of his feet and hands like Wolverine Claws. With how much his powers have grown since then, he doesn't really rely on them anymore, as he can easily carve things up from a distance, only using the claws to emphasise a point or for their symbolic value.
• Body Horror: When he confronts William Conrad after the Big Fall, telling him to Join or Die, his Wolverine Claws disturbingly sprout a living, moving eye growing out the side of Knives's hand. Conrad reacts in horror at the eye and begs for forgiveness for some 'irreparable' deed. The focus on the photo of Conrad and Tesla implies that this eye was originally Tesla's and Knives absorbed it somehow. This is further supported when the twins are seen discovering her body, and her severed eye is prominently shown.
• Cain and Abel: The genocidal Cain to Vash's pacifistic Abel — though Knives has no desire to kill Vash, instead attempting to help him, albeit in the least helpful way imaginable and ultimately for selfish reasons.
• Childish Older Sibling: Vash is hardly the epitome of maturity, but he is at least willing to accept the bad with the good in life. Knives, on the other hand, never grew out of being a scared, angry child who wants to lay waste to everything that won't bend to his whims. And that's if you believe Knives is the older twin — the only source for this claim is Knives himself.
• Color Motifs: Pale blue. Blue is the color of healthy Plants, which are strange pieces of organic Lost Technology, and Knives is often in artificial or elevated environments with cold blue lighting; his powers are also usually tinted metallic gray-blue. He views himself as emotionless, rational, pragmatic, and remote, as well as a "higher" being than humanity, both in the sense of being more technologically advanced and that he is divine in nature. His cool, washed-out colors contrast the more brightly and warmly colored Vash.
• Combat Tentacles: He can use his knife-chains like this, whipping them outward to cut things or grab things, as demonstrated by his fight against Vash in July.
• Consummate Liar: Almost nothing that comes out of Knives's mouth is truthful. Just ask Zazie.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Though technically not romantic (not textually, anyway), Knives's relationship with Vash is one riddled with jealousy. As far as Knives is concerned, Vash belongs to him and the only reason they're not like they were as children is because his brother has been stolen from him. The irony is that Vash does still love his brother; it's Knives's efforts to destroy these perceived threats that have driven the twins apart. Each of their most painful confrontations has come about because Knives either tried or succeeded in hurting someone Vash cares for. Rem died in the Big Fall and the memory of her Vash takes comfort in nearly deleted from Vash's mind, Luida was nearly strangled to death, and only Vash's intervention saved Meryl from being sliced apart simply because Knives couldn't stand what they meant to his brother.
  Knives: (to Luida as he strangles her) You witch. How many times? How many times will you steal him away from me?
• Create Your Own Hero: Knives trying to demonstrate how cruel humanity is by ensuring Vash had to fight every day of his life among them incidentally equipped Vash with the skill, allies and resolve he needs to stand up to his brother. The agony he puts Vash through to unlock his powers results in Vash using his powers against Knives and undoing all of his plans. It's a testament to the strength of Knives's denial that he blames either human corruption or Vash's weakness for this outcome.
• Cruel Mercy: After dragging two of Rosa's fellow townspeople to their grisly deaths, Knives slowly approaches Rosa. She's paralysed with terror... and then he steps over her without even bothering to look at her. This comes across less as kindness and more showing his contempt for her as Not Worth Killing, or allowing her to witness her town's destruction so she can suffer a slow death afterwards. Either way, the encounter turns her against Vash as well, tormenting and isolating his brother. Also, while he does everything he can to avoid injuring Vash out of genuine regret for slicing off his brother's arm, it seems extensive abuse and efforts to assume control over Vash's body and power do not fall under the heading of "hurting" in Knives's mind, and he gleefully engages in both.
• Dance Battler: Before he gained enough fine control over his powers, he struck with blades on his hands and feet in a series of graceful leaps, flips, kicks and spins. In contrast with his goofball brother, his moves come across as precise and elegant, which clashes with their horribly lethal effect.
• Dead Guy on Display: Knives keeps the preserved husks of Plants who've died at human hands on display on his piano room, explaining to Vash that they're "reminders". He seems to have put worrying effort into posing them like angels or martyrs in a church.
• Determinator: He's so dedicated to creating a world without humans that he tries to pry Vash's Gate from his Angel Arm even as its raw power strips him of his flesh. He never lets go of his own volition, instead having his mostly skeletal form blown away by the Gate's power, and even then, before his grip slips, he vows to Vash that he will never stop trying to create his paradise.
• Didn't Think This Through: As orchestrator of the Big Fall, Knives condemned his Plant brethren to a planet completely unsuited to their needs. It's possible he was too busy panicking at the thought of becoming a lab rat... or that whatever he claims, the wellbeing of the other Plants wasn't his first priority.
• Dissonant Serenity: Knives almost always has a smile on his face and speaks in a calm tone, even as he's carving people up and spreading destruction. As a child, he was completely calm as the ships were suddenly crashing, but seeing as he was the one who orchestrated the Big Fall, his calmness becomes more chilling.
• Domestic Abuse: His mistreatment of Vash is nearly a textbook case of this. Knives heaps on emotional abuse to break down his brother's confidence and independence and keep him under his heel, resorting to physical abuse when Vash tries to stand up for himself. He also wants to isolate Vash from having meaningful relationships outside of them by driving away or killing any person he gets close to. Although Vash does still love Knives, he's also frightened of him. Knives's efforts to "break" Vash and take control of his powers are framed to have a very disturbing resemblance to sexual assault, justified in Knives's mind by Vash belonging exclusively to him. In the twelfth episode, Vash finally comes to the realisation that his brother is abusive, isn't going to stop being abusive, and arguing with him about the Plants will achieve nothing. The only option left is to escape from him.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Knives is convinced that humanity will never accept Plants as equals, much less Independents like him and Vash, and that they are locked in a war that will determine whether humans or Plants will survive. But as The Stinger of episode 12 reveals, just like in the manga, humanity and Independents have already learned to coexist as equals in the three hundred and fifty odd years since Project SEEDS took off. Knives couldn't be any more plainly wrong.
  • He seems to believe Vash is too weak and fragile to exist independently from himself, since Vash appeared to lack powers; he dismissively refers to Vash being like a human, and appoints himself a vengeful champion of the Plants to protect him. Just as in the manga, Vash is the more powerful of the twins by far. It's Knives who cannot live without Vash, both to carry out his plans and in that he's totally fixated on ensuring Vash can never leave him. It's also Vash who can communicate with and heal their sister Plants, not Knives, something Knives seems unaware of.
• The Dreaded: While many people fear the name Vash the Stampede, Vash himself is terrified of Knives. When Roberto asks Vash what he's so afraid of in the first episode, Vash's response is, "I have a brother." When Vash hears a piano playing a familiar song at Jeneora Rock, he panics and yells at everyone to get the hell out of the town knowing that Knives has arrived. The fear that Vash attracts is implied to be because of Knives exploiting their resemblance as twins to frame Vash for his own murders and Plant thefts. This differs from the older versions, where Vash was more angry than frightened and pursued Knives to take revenge for Rem's death; by contrast, in Stampede Vash is the one being hunted by his brother, and he outright says that revenge is pointless.
• Enemy Rising Behind: A variation where he descends instead, pausing as he climbs some stairs to quietly walk up behind Father Nebraska. He then allows the smoke concealing him to clear, giving us a nice close-up look at his many, many, many sharp blades before he lashes out with them.
• Entitled to Have You: He barely treats Vash as a person, more like an object that belongs solely to him. Knives refuses to listen to Vash's opinions, instead deluding himself that his brother is "ill" and he'll fix him and make Vash a perfect Independent — just like him, of course. In the German dub, he even refers to Vash as "my Vash". His relationship with the dependent Plants is similar — while he cares about them, it's in much the way he cares about Vash: they are objects, and they belong solely to him, to be used however he alone wills.
• Establishing Character Moment: How to demonstrate who Knives is as a person when he's Vash's identical twin and still named "Nai"? He's absolutely calm, focused, and non-demonstrative as the ship begins to tear itself to pieces... and then after it's crashed, Vash finds him cackling gleefully over the wreckage, whereupon he immediately refers to Vash as his "accomplice".
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Contrasting Even Evil Has Loved Ones, there can be no doubt that Vash truly loves Knives in spite of everything his brother has done. Even when they're fighting a climatic battle for the fate of the world, Knives has to force Vash to harm him by leaping straight into Vash's discharging Angel Arm against all his brother's protests. After Knives crumbles away Vash screams his name over and over in grief.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Zigzagged. It's clear that he loves his brother very much. The song he plays on the piano is one he composed with Vash as a child, a fond memory. Unfortunately, he is also incapable of understanding Vash as a person and why he might find Knives's actions objectionable. Even though all he wants is to protect his brother, even make him happy, Knives is entirely unwilling to listen to Vash, assuming that only he knows best, and becoming confused and frustrated when Vash doesn't react the way Knives expects him to. This leads to Knives punishing Vash by blaming him for the tragedies Knives is responsible for, saying that he caused the Big Fall for Vash's sake. He also gleefully attempts to erase Vash's identity, declaring that he's finally getting his brother back, when said brother is at risk of becoming an Empty Shell. He is possessive, controlling, and loves Vash more as something to be owned than a person and a brother. Nothing else matters.
• Evil Laugh: He just can't help but indulge as he tears Jeneora Rock apart. It seems he picked up the habit as a child, laughing wildly over the burning ruin of the SEEDS ships, and he often chuckles in regular conversation. He even laughs as Vash's Angel Arm melts away his skin.
• Evil Twin: One of manga's defining examples. Where Vash is a kind and self-sacrificing pacifist, Knives is a cruel and self-absorbed mass murderer, and the two oppose each other's philosophies in every way they can. Knives is even outright described as an "evil twin" by the reporters, though they don't believe Vash's story at first.
• Facial Markings: His face and eyes can light up with a rather pretty glowing blue pattern like his twin brother. The markings even seem to be identical between them, when Plants usually have unique patterns.
• Fangs Are Evil: Just like Vash, his fellow Independent Plant, he has unusually pointed canines, especially noticeable when he's distressed. Unlike Vash, this makes the sight of him burning alive even more horrifying as his skin gets stripped away and reveals a sharp-toothed, demonic skull.
• Fatal Flaw: Three.
  • For all of his lofty proclamations, in reality, Knives is ruled by fear. Finding out what the SEEDS crew did to Tesla caused him to fear the same thing happening to him and Vash, and in his fear, he only continued to dig up more of humanity's past sins, eventually convincing himself that humanity turning against him and Vash was a guarantee. This led him to tossing away his old life and beginning his campaign to exterminate humanity. It's also his paranoia about what humanity is capable of that keeps him from truly reconciling with his brother, as Knives is too afraid to entertain Vash's suggestions of coexisting with humans, instead choosing to delude himself into believing Vash has been corrupted so Knives doesn't have to face what he fears most or admit he might have made a mistake.
  • His blind obsession with Vash. Knives could destroy humanity easily if he gave up on Vash and let him die with them, and he'd also do a better job protecting the other Plants if he wasn't completely occupied with his plans to get his brother back. But he truly believes his crusade is necessary to keep them both safe. Then his efforts to force Vash to help him just drive his brother further away, until Vash finally snaps and gains the resolve to fight back.
  • He believes himself perfect, meaning he refuses to take any responsibility for his mistakes... which also means he doesn't learn from experience and tends to double down on tactics that don't work.
• Firearms Are Cowardly: Knives regards guns as worthless and cowardly weapons, no better than the humans that wield them — despite being a huge fan of cowboys as a child. He pushes one on Vash because he thought it would suit a "human-lover" like his brother.
• Freudian Excuse: Like his manga counterpart, discovering Tesla's remains screwed him up badly, though it's elaborated on in Stampede that he came to the conclusion that humanity was a threat after finding out about how much of its history was defined by war and exploitation. Vash choosing to side with humanity despite this is what prompted Knives to cause the Big Fall, as he believed Vash had become too emotionally dependent on humans to realize his true potential as an Independent. Or at least, so Knives claims; his obsessive jealousy suggests he was in truth motivated to isolate Vash, deluding himself that Vash needs his protection to keep Vash from forming relationships with anyone else.
• Gaslighting: He wields it expertly to make Vash believe he's the one at fault for all that Knives has done. The effect it has had on Vash is a person is unmistakeable — he is passive, accustomed to being used and mistreated, and constantly questioning himself until episode twelve. The moment Vash is blamed for something that was actually Knives's fault, Vash always shuts down emotionally and stops defending himself.
• A God Am I: He openly calls himself a god bringing vengeful fury to humanity, citing the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as inspiration. The Eye of Michael Apocalypse Cult specifically seems to regard him as, if not outright a god, at least a great prophet and messenger.
• Hates Their Parent: This iteration of Knives has developed a particularly intense and obsessive hatred for Rem, despite the fact that he clearly cared for her as she was raising him and Vash enough that he asked her to escape with them during the crash. He has come to despise even people who remind him of her, because of her role in shaping Vash into a person who loves humanity and therefore causing Vash to be diametrically opposed to him. Rem choosing to save the cryo-sleeping humans instead of escaping seems to have crystallised his hatred, since in his mind she chose to die rather than remain with him and Vash, by implication rejecting the twins.
• Hidden Depths: Expressed an interest in cowboy films as a child, which may have influenced the current atmosphere of No Man's Land.
• Humans Are Insects: "Parasites", specifically. He regards humans as disgusting and greedy consumers of anything they touch in doomed efforts to draw out short, pathetic lives. In truth he's afraid of being hunted, destroyed and consumed for the threat that he and Vash represent, just as Tesla was.
• Hunk: Contrasting Vash and his softer look, under his cloak Knives is very noticeably buff. He looks much more threatening and masculine beside his slimmer, gentler brother (who's just as buff under his own clothes, but trying to avoid being scary).
• Hypocrite: He hates humans for their "zealous assertions of dominance/despotic reign" and how they greedily consume resources for their own benefit. And yet, he subjugates his unwilling brother, mentally destroying Vash to make his brother more like himself and forcibly impregnating the other Plants to make more Independents. He keeps Dr. Conrad alive well past his natural lifespan to continue his experiments on children like Tesla (with Conrad outright saying he's not allowed to die until Knives achieves his goals). He also told Zazie humanity would consume No Man's Land just like they did Earth, and then immediately begins overtaking the planet himself when he has Vash's power. In terms of zealous domination and despotism, Knives has humans beat.
• Icy Blue Eyes: He shares his eye colour, slightly tinted green, with Vash, but the lighting when they're seen (which is rarely due to his hood) makes them look much paler, crueller and more intense than those of his twin.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: As kids, Vash and Knives were more or less identical. The difference was that Knives was paler and their asymmetrical bowl cuts were slanted in opposite directions. Plus, their beauty marks are mirrored (left eye for Vash, right eye for Knives) and Vash has darker eyebrows.
• In the Hood: He wears a large, deep hood that often hides or obscures his face. It's noticeably similar to the one on Vash's coat, but Vash doesn't wear his hood up. Revelations later on suggest that the hood is Knives's attempt to replicate the base state of his less humanoid Plant brethren and that it's generated from his own body. It also resembles a caterpillar's cocoon and after he sheds it he manifests wings, recalling his anime counterpart's metaphor of spiders and butterflies.
• Ironic Echo: The third of three characters to ask Vash, "Whose side are you on?" There's every chance he knows the question's already been asked and decided to use it as a taunt.
• Irony: When he and Vash were being raised by Rem, before he developed his hatred of humanity, Knives took some joy in mimicking gunmen from old Westerns while Vash was uncomfortable with the prospect of even wielding a gun. After becoming misanthropic, Knives would show disdain for guns as a cowardly weapon for humans, while Vash would end up wielding one very much like the sharpshooting cowboys of old.
• It's All About Me: Knives's noble crusade is nothing more than an excuse to force his ideals on others. He kills humans to assuage his paranoia of ending up on their dissection tables, and wants to essentially turn back the clock to the last time when he felt truly safe and happy: his and Vash's childhood. Humans, Vash, his sister Plants — none of them have opinions worth taking into account in his eyes, because he's obviously in the right, so he never bothers to ask what they think or gain their consent, nor does he care how much he personally harms them if he can justify it to himself as advancing the cause.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Though he's chiefly arguing against it to be combative, he's not wrong that giving him and Vash a birthday cake is rather wasteful given that the two of them don't need to eat food for sustenance. As Rem herself notes, however, it's not about sustenance, it's about fairness — it's not a waste for the twins to be equally included in the same celebration they'd have for human children.
• Knight of Cerebus: His appearance in Episode 3 in Jeneora Rock heralds the rest of the series taking a significantly Darker and Edgier tone shift, from one that matches the tone of the original manga and anime to one that matches the Maximum run of the manga.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Unlike his manga counterpart, Knives doesn't hurt Vash to punish him — rather, he will without hesitation do anything and everything it takes to keep him safe, no matter what objections Vash might have or what kind of pain it might cause. If this means murdering all the humans, he'll do it. If it means slicing his brother's arm off, he'll do that. If he has to mentally destroy his brother to make him forget he ever loved humans, so be it. The same applies to the Plants, his sisters, at least for now and his intention is to build a paradise for them all together. Vash drawing a gun on him with what seemed every intention to shoot to defend a human is shattering — how could his brother, whom Knives is only trying to protect, turn his back in favour of these vermin? But Knives has no interest in what his brother wants, making decisions for him, coldly or violently shutting him down when he tries to argue, and refusing to understand why Vash rejects his efforts to "help". He's not protecting Vash so much as as asserting control over him and calling it protection, and as the limb removal demonstrates, he's not actually very good at keeping Vash — or the other Plants — safe. For bonus Templar points, in the English dub Knives calls what he's doing a "crusade", verbatim, and makes a number of Biblical references.
  Don't touch him! Don't touch Vash!
• Leitmotif: "Millions Knives" plays whenever he's in the scene, a piano piece leading a classical orchestra that builds to become soaring and grand. Naturally he plays it himself (it seems like his only hobby). It's a duet he composed with Vash when they were kids that Knives has taught himself to play both parts of. When it's played it tends to overwhelm every other part of the soundtrack, demonstrating that Knives considers himself the centre of events and is willing to override everyone else to achieve his goals.
• Light Is Not Good: He's nearly covered from head to toe in white, with pale skin, platinum blond hair and ice-blue eyes, and seems to consciously model himself as an angel. But this adds to his icy personality and makes him look even more horrifying once he slaughters anyone in front of him.
• Love Makes You Evil: Knives's obsessive love for Vash is what causes many of the main conflicts in Stampede, claiming to believe his little brother was too naïve to continue trusting humanity after what they did to Tesla and the weaker sibling who didn't have any noticeable abilities, meaning Knives (who does) had to protect him. All the horrors he visits upon the people of No Man's Land and Vash, he claims he did for Vash's sake. Though this is absolutely not the whole truth (Knives has a real penchant for Gaslighting and deluding himself), it's obviously not a lie.
  "Everything that I did was for you."
• Loving a Shadow: A sibling kind of love (though with some disturbing subtext). He doesn't so much love Vash as he loves his version of Vash, who would have agreed with his decision to wipe out humanity as a fellow Plant. Knives is continuously in denial that this version of his brother never existed.
• Magical Barefooter: As an adult he's always barefoot, demonstrating both inhuman physical resilience and a refusal to conform to human social conventions... something highlighted when he walks with eerie indifference through pools of blood from people he's killed.
• Making the Choice for You: After Knives offers Vash the means and some encouragement to kill Luida, Vash hesitates, and Knives impatiently calls him useless and moves to kill her himself. This leads to Vash fully turning against Knives and holding his brother at gunpoint.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's very emotionally manipulative of Vash, never hesitating to prey on his insecurities or intimidate him into silence.
• Mask of Sanity: As the series progresses, it's clear that Knives's cold, rational stoicism is a façade covering emotional instability, extreme fear, and single-minded obsession with his delusion of an ideal brother. The mask falls in episode twelve, and he spends the remainder of his screentime in a truly spectacular Villainous Breakdown.
• Meaningful Name: "Nai" is a Japanese word that can be used to denote a negative meaning, similar to the English word "not". It can also be read as "nothing", and it rhymes with "ai," which means "love" (and sounds like the English "I" as well).
• Meaningful Rename: Originally named Nai, he renamed himself Millions Knives as a reflection of his powers, which involve manifesting chains made up of hundreds if not thousands of razor-sharp blades. In episode nine, he reveals that he gave himself that name to represent the millions of Plants who are suffering at the hands of humans, seeing his abilities as extensions of their righteous vengeance.
• Mind Rape: There's really no other way to describe it when Knives tries to "remake" Vash. He invades Vash's mind (physically impaling him with his bladed chains even as Vash struggles and screams) and revisits his most painful memories of failure, deleting and overwriting what positive associations Vash has ever made under the assumption that they keep him chained to humankind. Once he's done Vash is left a hollow, literally colourless shell of himself.
• Mirthless Laughter: As often as he laughs, there rarely seems to be any real joy in it. Especially in episode 10, after Vash points the gun Knives gave him towards his brother, Knives looks like he's having an internal struggle. He covers up his confusion, disbelief and sadness over Vash not choosing him before humanity with a cold laugh, devoid of any amusement.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Just like in previous incarnations, he hates humanity with a burning passion and wants to exterminate them all. Stampede places particular emphasis on his loneliness and belief humans have stolen Vash from him.
• Moral Myopia: As described under Hypocrite, he finds humanity's exploitation of Plants and other resources to be despicable. But if the painful exploitation is for Knives's benefit, then it's acceptable. He'll even enforce it. He also has no need to eat or drink to sustain himself, which makes his judgement of those who do need those things ring hollow considering how ruthless he is when he decides he needs something. Knives also personally contributes to the violent and desperate conditions of No Man's Land and thus the suffering of the Plants — his home city, July, which he rules from behind the scenes, has a monopoly on Plants that produce clean water and manufactures and sells weaponry. This makes it the most powerful of the seven cities, but its population is very strictly gated and controlled, and Knives's own cult preys upon the desperate beyond its walls. His Plant thefts force humans to rely on a dwindling number of Plants to supply their survival needs (burning them out even faster) while the city's government denies any involvement in favour of pointlessly dedicating resources to pursuing and persecuting the innocent Vash.
• Mr. Fanservice: While both twins are attractive, Vash is an amputee who's look hews closer to cute and non-threatening and his clothing obscures how athletic/chewed-up he is. Knives's body beneath his cloak is perfectly unmarred and incredibly muscular, and his skin-tight suit leaves practically nothing to the imagination.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Once effortlessly Neck Lifted a grown woman, and had no problem using his blades and a series of precise kicks and punches to cut down a group of armed adults who tried to restrain him, despite his somewhat gangly and scrawny teenaged frame at the time.
• The Needless: He doesn't appear to need regular nourishment like humans. He points this out to Rem when she celebrated the twins' first birthday by giving them food, believing it to be a waste, and boredly repeats Rem's lines about eating and drinking in front of humans even if he doesn't need to so he can blend in. It may also play into his god complex — having basic needs clearly makes humans (and Vash) weak, and therefore he is superior to them.
• Never My Fault: Accepting responsibility for anything he's done seems utterly beyond him. Knives is lonely without Vash, but won't accept that his own actions have led to Vash being alienated from him, blaming humans (especially Rem) for making Vash "sick" and stealing him away. He attributes Vash himself no agency, calling him too "weak" or "foolish" to survive, then turns around and says whatever he does is Vash's fault. He frames Vash for his own Plant thefts and likely posted Vash's bounty, but he calls humanity the greatest threat to his brother's happiness. And while Knives's outrage at the way humans have treated the Plants is understandable, he doesn't recognize his own role in their suffering after stranding the SEEDS colony on an unsuitable planet that rendered the survivors and their descendants totally reliant on Plants for survival.^note The Last Run, where Plants are painfully burned out to harvest their last great surge of power, is a desperation tactic only used post the Fall, not aboard the fleet. Plants can live indefinitely as long as they aren't pushed beyond their production thresholds. On top of that, the environment isn't compatible with the Plants' needs either, meaning he condemned them alongside humanity. Even burning himself alive, when all he needs to do to survive is let go of the thing killing him, he blames Vash for his own self-destruction. Knives is so consistently unable to accept he's at fault for anything he does, and so consistently blames it all on Vash, that Vash indeed accepts all blame in his brother's place.
• No Cure for Evil: For whatever reason, unlike Vash, he doesn't possess the ability to heal ailing Plants. The fact that he can only watch as they wither away from humanity's overreliance contributes to his twisted mental state — along with the fact that it wouldn't be happening if he hadn't crashed the fleet, to which he refuses to admit being solely responsible.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Knives talks a lot about humanity's mistreatment of the Plants, and how he's making a better world for them, free of human abuse. He's deluding himself. In truth for all his anger over the dying Plants and Tesla's mutilation, Knives's paradise is only for him and Vash, out of selfish fear both of loneliness without his brother and that he could personally be hurt by humans. If he has to exploit the other Plants or abuse and mentally destroy Vash so they can be together, he'll gladly do it under the belief that it's for their own good.
• Older Than They Look: If Vash can experience twenty years without aging visibly, the same applies for Knives, since the two are twin brothers. He's a hundred and fifty years old, make him Really 700 Years Old.
• Ominous Walk: Knives does not bother to rush as he confronts his victims in Jeneora Rock, simply walking purposefully through hails of gunfire and dismembering anyone in his way. It's only once he detects the Plants there that he moves any faster, and it's by using his blade-chains to lift himself off the ground rather than anything so undignified as breaking into a run.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He can use his blades to cut through metal walls several feet thick without a problem, and the less said about living beings he targets using them, the better. He finishes his visit to Jeneora Rock by cutting the entire settlement to pieces, collapsing the buildings and razing it to the ground.
• Playing the Family Card: If Vash dares to even seem like he might try to retaliate against, or even defend himself from Knives's abuse, Knives guilt-trips him for turning on "big brother".
• Polar Opposite Twins: Even without taking his misanthropic insanity into account, Knives couldn't be any more different from his brother. During their childhood, Knives was quiet and reserved as well as reluctant to engage in human customs and activities, while Vash wholeheartedly embraced human customs like sharing meals and was more energetic and emotionally open. Amusingly, the emotional dynamic reverses in episode twelve; for all intents and purposes, Knives is throwing a screaming tantrum like a spoiled child who isn't getting his way, while Vash is angry, but controlled, focused and coldly efficient.
• Powers Do the Fighting: His Variable-Length Chain has offensive and defensive capabilities, and he barely has to lift a finger to control them. In the past, he was shown to fight hand-to-hand very effectively, but seems disinclined to do so when it isn't required by the present, given his apparently improved abilities. Turns out that he's gotten rusty in the intervening century. He can also fold the blades on his chains inward so he can pick things up without damaging them or use them non-lethally (not that he bothers with the latter except when fighting Vash in episode twelve).
• Power Gives You Wings: He can form a metallic wing out of his back, giving him additional offensive capabilities and the power of flight.
• The Power of Creation: As with all the Plants, Knives can shape matter seemingly from nothing (technically, drawing it from a "higher plane", using his body's Gate to bring it from there into reality). He's spent enough time refining the skill that there seems no upper limit to how much he can make or control beyond the effort he decides to exert (and it doesn't have to be much). Given that he's chosen razor sharp metal blades to focus on, he subverts the benevolent associations of this ability to be terrifyingly destructive to any human he meets. He's happy to consider himself a god because of it, however.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: In Japanese, "Just let me hear your screams." In English, "I only want to hear your screams."
• Psychopathic Manchild: For all his attempts to appear above it all, in the end Knives is a child processing the loss of trust in his parental figures in the most destructive way imaginable. Even his final fight against Vash sounds more like a child throwing a tantrum over losing a toy.
• Sadistic Choice: Attempted one in the past, forcing a gun into Vash's hands, telling him that he can either turn his back on his beloved brother or forsake humanity by killing Luida. But then he got too impatient when Vash couldn't decide, instead moving to kill Luida himself, which ends up inspiring Vash to save her, making his choice for him.
• Sanity Slippage: With every appearance he makes, it becomes clearer that Knives's cold rationality in the present day is a front and he is in fact very emotionally unstable, growing more unglued each time he perceives Vash's rejection. His habit of laughing to himself at inappropriate moments, his odd facial expressions when he does emote, and his brief but explosive outbursts of rage do not paint a healthy picture of his mental state. When Vash throws off his control in episode twelve any appearance of stability crumbles and he's reduced to bellowing like an animal.
• Satanic Archetype: Of the twins, Knives comes across as the more traditionally angelic, with his flawless good looks, chiselled physique, platinum blond hair and "wings" of feathery blades that emerge from his back. He's even shown to be likely sexless, as angels are usually represented. But if he is an angel, he's undoubtedly a fallen one: instigating the crash that stranded everyone on No Man's Land, forming a cult that worships him as a god and offers him human sacrifices, brokering contracts in blood for people's lives to further his efforts to wipe out humankind, and plunging his brother into an emotional hell so he can open his Gate and enter the "higher plane". At the end of the first season he plummets from the sky to his fiery destruction, his pale skin peeling away to reveal a demonic and fanged visage, vowing he'll build paradise for them both right to the moment he physically disintegrates.
• Self-Destructive Charge: His final act in the struggle to control the energy from Vash's Gate. Knives flies straight into the discharge of Vash's Angel Arm and seizes its energy source, never flinching or turning aside even as the raw power flays him alive. He barely even seems to notice his flesh getting peeled away as he calls to Vash.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Vash is loud, friendly, emotional, and a pacifist. Knives is reserved, soft-spoken, detached, and remorselessly violent. They also have opposite levels of attachment to their dignity — Vash will flail, wail, and shriek whereas Knives is almost always icily calm (though with a flair for the dramatic and grandiose). When playing the piano, Knives prefers playing a structured elegant piece whereas Vash was more wild and carefree. In Japanese the way the twins refer to themselves is drastically different, from Vash using "boku" while Knives refers to himself using the masculine "ore" even as a very young child.
• Significant Birth Date: Files on the SEED ship show Vash and him were born on July 21st. After episode 12, it becomes an inauspicious date, as it marks the day of July's destruction.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Millions Knives rarely raises his voice, even as he uses his bladed chains to carve people up and spread destruction. Other than Vash, he never says so much as a word to his victims but clearly toys with them before slicing them apart, one by one. Episode Nine showcases that in the past he was more vocally and emotionally expressive, but by the time of his and Vash's reunion, he'd just witnessed hundreds of Plants dying in agony after their human handlers drained all of their energy, leaving him emotionally volatile. He similarly goes ballistic in Episode 12 after Vash manages to overcome Knives' mental conditioning and regains control of his Gate.
• Spell My Name With An S: Most translations spell his childhood name the way it's written in Japanese, ナイ or Nai. Episode 11 shows that the official spelling is Kni.
• Stalker without a Crush: On top of all the other creepily obsessive ways Knives behaves towards Vash, he's implied to have been searching for him for a long time, and Vash has been desperately avoiding being found. When the two finally meet at Jeneora Rock, Vash trains his gun on his brother and asks if he came for the Plant... or something else. Partly because Vash's Gate is apparently a means to create more Independent Plants, something Knives's Gate isn't capable of, overlapping with Stalker with a Test Tube and, indeed, Stalker with a Crush.
• Stripped to the Bone: Happens to him when he tries to grab Vash's discharging Gate from his Angel Arm. Given what he and Vash are, it's unknown if even this is enough to actually kill him... but it almost certainly isn't.
• Super-Speed: Like his brother, if necessary he can close the gap between himself and a target in the blink of an eye, sometimes before they even think to react. Unlike Vash, Knives discourages retaliation by turning the target into sashimi.
• That Man Is Dead: Despite everything, Vash tearfully keeps trying to talk his brother down, calling out to Nai. Knives declares that Nai is dead and that Vash killed him, possibly the single cruellest thing he could have said.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: In a flashback, he's shown cackling over the destruction wrought by his sabotage of the SEEDS ships, which also resulted in the death of his surrogate mother. When Vash tries to call him out, Nai only turns to grin at him, backlit by explosions.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Knives is strong enough to punch through walls, fast enough to dodge bullets, and tough enough that being bodily flung into hard surfaces only disorients him. Against an opponent he can't use his lethal powers against, however, he's actually pretty clumsy. This never becomes a problem until he has to fight Vash, who is uniquely an opponent Knives refuses to harm with equal physical capabilities but far more experience in combat.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: A flashback shows that while he was a serious kid, he still had the innocence of a normal child and clearly cared for Vash and Rem. He made jokes, liked movies and enjoyed playing music. Discovering Tesla's remains and humanity's history of war and conflict led to him causing the Big Fall under the belief he needed to "protect" (in truth: isolate) Vash. Then he witnessed firsthand how humans mistreat and abuse Plants for their own gain, heedless of the fact that they're living, sentient beings — and staunchly refused to face that his own "solution" to the problem drastically worsened conditions for the Plants.
• Variable-Length Chain: Knives's bladed chains are shown extending thousands of feet, able to wrap around the entirety of Jeneora Rock several times. Justified as the "links" aren't actually physically connected and he can make more of them at will.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Chillingly Averted. In the past, Knives's demonstrated use of his abilities was apparently limited to sprouting Wolverine Claws on his hands and feet, and he had to physically get close to people to slice them up. When he shows up in Jeneora Rock by the present, he's apparently upgraded them to a Variable-Length Chain of interconnected blades, using them as Combat Tentacles to slice up hapless humans whilst maintaining a Ominous Walk. He even possesses telekinetic control over every single blade, allowing him to dice the mountain looming over Jeneora Rock to rubble in a single move and devastating the town with the debris.
  • And then played straight on the one occasion he doesn't want to kill his target: trying to grab the cube from Vash, Knives keeps his blades folded and flails with his hands with no idea how to position himself. His blades, usually precisely controlled, just lash out wildly. Vash, with his extensive experience fighting without powers, has much more self-control.
• Villain Has a Point: One delivered on his behalf by Zazie, but valid nonetheless. Humanity destroyed their original home world through their selfish exploitation of its natural resources and came to No Man's Land implicitly to repeat the process, leading to Knives coming to see them as a race of Planet Looters who will inevitably destroy any world they reach. Given that it's repeatedly shown that humanity struggles to survive on the hostile planet without monopolizing the Plants, and the communities that tried to survive without them are incredibly precarious as a result as shown by Rollo's village, it's not hard to see why Knives would come to see humanity as a species that can only take and destroy. Zazie even summarises it with an Armour-Piercing Question to Meryl that rings out over the whole series so far: What reason do we have to accept humans over Plants? What can you offer our world that the Plants cannot? Whose side are you on? ...On the other hand, when Knives gains control of Vash's powers, he immediately uses them to begin overtaking the planet himself, which Zazie witnesses. Zazie is very, very displeased.
• Villainous Breakdown: Vash overcoming Knives's mental influence and regaining control over his Gate sends Knives into a screaming rage, alternating between attempting to reason with Vash and trying to beat him into submission and snatch the power from his hands like they're children fighting over a toy.
• Villainous Incest: While an unhealthy obsession with his twin's abilities coupled with disinterest in Vash's consent was always part of Knives's character, this iteration turns the subtext way, way up. Vash is the only living thing Knives cares about and he will do anything to hold onto him, blissfully oblivious to how his actions traumatise, violate, and strip Vash of his autonomy in a manner disturbingly reminiscent of intimate assault.
• We Can Rule Together: Knives doesn't want his brother dead. He just wants him back. After he met Vash again years after they crash-landed on No Man's Land, he proposed that they work together to realise Knives's paradise for Plants free of humans, something Vash rejected out of love for humankind and in memory of Rem. In the present, he still hasn't given up on the idea of both him and Vash leading his paradise, and he doesn't think he needs Vash to actually agree to helping him build it.
  Knives: I'm taking it back. It belongs to me. Or rather... it belongs to us.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His genocidal campaign against humanity was brought about by his discovery of how they abused the Plants they were supposed to care for, as well as learning that their original home planet of Earth was ecologically devastated by their actions, with Nai coming to see humanity as a race of unrepentant Planet Looters that will inevitably destroy whatever world they try to colonise. He now seeks to create a paradise for Plants with no humans to hurt them. However, some of his later actions and certain revelations strongly imply that Knives is only deluding himself. What he really wants is Vash back beside him again as they were as children, regardless how much he has to hurt Vash to make it happen, and the emotion that drives him at his core is not moral outrage, or even his truly sincere love. It's fear.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: While he doesn't physically punish Vash as his older incarnations did, Knives does not treat Vash as though he's a person with autonomy, more as a part of himself. He often blames Vash for driving him to commit his atrocities, and it's strongly suggested Vash's terrible reputation comes from people mistaking Knives for his brother as he commits murders and steals Plants, a mistake that Knives encourages to "prove" Vash can't live among humans. It's heavily implied that that Knives was the one responsible for posting the original bounty on Vash, another means for Knives to assert control over his brother. In many ways, Knives's behaviour reads as an intra-sibling example of Domestic Abuse, particularly given Knives's habit of referring to Vash as weak, fragile, useless or foolish to justify dismissing his decisions even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, and his frightening outbursts of rage whenever he's thwarted.
• Wicked Cultured: In this series, he seems to know how to play the piano. Vash immediately knows Knives is at Jeneora Rock based on the song he hears being played. On the whole he has a consciously elegant bearing beside his more animated and goofy brother, which makes the violence he engages in more shocking.
• Winged Humanoid: He uses his powers to create the appearance of lopsided wings — one side a typical, metallic wing-shape, and the other a set of his chained blades.
• Yandere: To potentially romantic levels considering the sheer amount of subtext behind his interactions with Vash. He loves his brother and only his brother and is violent towards anything and anyone that could get between them, including Vash's love for everyone else.
• You Have Failed Me: It's wordless, but this seems to be partly his motivation for arriving at Jeneora Rock: to punish a subordinate there for not living up to his promises.
• Younger Than They Look: Remember the opening sequence where Nai is a kid? He's actually only just over a year old despite looking around ten.

Legato Bluesummers

Voiced by: Kōki Uchiyama (JP), Daman Mills (ENG)

"Love, attachment... I simply don't get it. There's no need for emotion."

A high-ranking member of the Eye of Michael and a fanatical follower of Millions Knives himself. He believes in "spreading the good word", and regards loyalty to any other cause as pointless, or even a punishable offense.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the 1998 anime and manga, he had powerful telekinetic abilities, but they only extended to controlling people. In Stampede, he can use his telekinesis to seize control of a massive ship.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the manga and 1998 anime, Legato Bluesummers was only focused on Vash at the behest of Knives. In Stampede, he has a connection to Nicholas D. Wolfwood, torturing him after he attempted to escape William Conrad's lab and informing him of his role as an assassin for Knives. In the present, he seems more focused on getting rid of Wolfwood's emotional attachments in order to turn him into the perfect assassin rather than torturing Vash.
• Arch-Enemy: Wolfwood at least considers Legato to be his, as the face of the cult that groomed him, his surrogate brother and countless other children into killers. Legato seems to view him as a tool that may yet be more trouble than he's worth.
• Cold Ham: He speaks flatly, but he's not opposed to Milking the Giant Cow when frustrated, and he activates his abilities by gesturing dramatically with his hands.
• Demoted to Extra: He was the second-most important antagonist in the original manga and 1998 anime, being the first main indication of Millions Knives's presence as he personally tortured Vash by putting him in increasingly dire situations. In Stampede, being that Knives makes his appearance much sooner, Legato ends up functioning more like just another of Knives's underlings. However given Knives is now out of commission this is likely to change.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Telekinetically tortures Wolfwood for insulting his hair.
• Hair Colors: Legato inexplicably has vibrant blue hair in a world of people with otherwise realistic hair colors. Apparently commenting on it is a Berserk Button for him. According to one of the writers, this is the result of an extremely rare genetic inheritance from humans who underwent body modification to have unusual hair colors.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Keeping in line with his original appearance. The major difference here is that his bangs are much neater, blunted at the ends, and parted to the right side of his face. It emphasizes his cold, unapproachable demeanor.
• Light Is Not Good: Just like his boss, he's dressed from head to toe in white. His first introduction shows him brutally torturing a prisoner for trying to escape, and his next appearance has him wrecking the inside of the sand steamer to send it hurtling towards the Hopeland Orphanage.
• Mind over Matter: Bluesummers has telekinetic powers which he can use to sadistic effect as shown by how he restrains and tortures Wolfwood in a flashback.
• Misanthrope Supreme: He is working for Knives, after all.
• Mundane Utility: Uses his telekinesis to control a car rather than stoop so low as to drive it like a normal person.
• Sinister Minister: His interactions with Wolfwood paint him as a preacher of Eye of Michael's gospel trying to create converts.
• Slasher Smile: In contrast to his usual cold demeanour, he flashes a deadly grin as he moves to activate the ship's huge ion cannon and blow Hopeland off the map.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He's usually stoic and claims to not need emotions, yet Legato doesn't try to hide how much he enjoys hurting people. His specialty is overkill, using his power to torture and/or break anyone who so much as annoys him.
• They Were Holding You Back: Tries to destroy Wolfwood's links to a past outside the Eye of Michael under the belief it will make him totally loyal to the cult. This, he says, is how he shows love.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: He expresses an inability to understand concepts like love and attachment, and finds them useless. He treats Wolfwood's brotherly relationship with Livio with disdain.
• Would Hurt a Child: Given Wolfwood is likely still in his teens mentally, or maybe even younger, Legato cruelly twists his body almost into pretzels and crushes him into the floor, with Dr. Conrad being the only one able to call him off. Legato refers to the boy with contempt as "a stray" and needs a reason to stop torturing him. He likely recruited Livio not only to have leverage over Wolfwood but also to turn him into another test subject regardless of what Wolfwood did. Legato was also willing to destroy an entire orphanage by having a Sand Steamer ram into it.
• Younger and Hipper: On top of looking younger than his original incarnations, his hair is straightened and blunted at the ends, as opposed to his messier old style, and his long coat has been changed into a crop jacket. Though this actually makes sense in hindsight: the crop jacket was in the manga, just before and after the obliteration of July, which is precisely when the first 12 episodes of Stampede take place.

The Eye of Michael

A fast-growing Apocalypse Cult of Plant-worshippers based in the city of July. They venerate Millions Knives as one of twin angels of salvation that will reunite and lead them to the land of God. Among its human followers are individuals who've been chemically and cybernetically altered — not always with their consent — to become more than human.

Knives himself seems largely uninvolved in (or even indifferent to) the cult's doings as long as they get him what he needs, leaving high-level members Legato Bluesummers and Dr. William Conrad to handle practical concerns.

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E.G. the Mine

Voiced by: Wataru Takagi (JP), Mike McFarland (ENG)

"Thanks to someone, I've been reborn. E.G. the Mine... That's my new name!"

Ethan Gilbert Hamilton, better known as E.G. Bomber, is a Mad Bomber and one of Knives's underlings. He holds the inhabitants of Jeneora Rock hostage in a bid to steal their healthy Plant.

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• Adaptational Badass: His gimmick in the manga was a lame "mine-shaped" spike-shooting shell and he was taken out when Vash hit him over the head with his luggage. He's now a more name-appropriate Mad Bomber and a cyborg, armed with landmines, suicide drones, and a bomb-laying armored vehicle, whose control unit resembles the spiked shell his original incarnation used.
• An Arm and a Leg: Gets his arms swiftly cut off by Knives for his failure to capture Jeneora Rock's Plant.
• Bandaged Face: His face is entirely bandaged under his One-Way Visor, even over his ears. Somehow, the bandages perfectly conform and flex with his lips.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In his previous incarnations, he was likely killed offscreen by Legato after failing to kill Vash. In Stampede he gets his arms lopped off by Knives after failing to secure Jeneora Rock's Plant and dies of blood loss.
• Dirty Coward: He finds great enjoyment in the death of others and likes to gloat about it, but the moment the tables are turned, he folds easily. He threatens the town in a way that discourages confrontation, he's visibly nervous once Vash gets serious about confronting him, and he only deactivates the bombs on all the townsfolk when Meryl, Roberto, and Vash attempt a Taking You with Me.
• Face Death with Dignity: Despite being afraid to die when threatened with a Taking You with Me at the hands of Meryl, Roberto and Vash, E.G.'s reaction to Knives mortally wounding him is just awe at his master's power.
• Laughing Mad: Spends the majority of his time on-screen cackling like a maniac.
• Lean and Mean: A lanky serial bomber who thrives in the destruction he causes.
• Mad Bomber: He's a serial bomber who enjoys witnessing his victims being blown to smithereens.
• Meaningful Name: E.G. both represents the initials of his name, Ethan Gilbert, and reflects how "easy" he finds taking lives to be.^{(Shouldn't it be E.Z. then?)}Japanese doesn't have a "zee" sound. The closest equivalent is "ji/gee", hence why it's E.G. and not E.Z. The English dub offers a mildly amusing explanation by having Roberto complain that it would have been "E.Z." if the guy's ego could withstand not using his own initials.
• Meaningful Rename: Since coming into Knives's employ, he goes by E.G. the Mine now. Even though that's not grammatically correct, it does fit the naming scheme of the higher-ranking experiments, reflecting his new position.
• Monowheel Mayhem: His vehicle looks like a giant bear trap normally but when the "jaws" are closed, it functions as a bomb-dropping monowheel.
• Mythology Gag: There's a wanted poster for him that can be seen in Rosa's bar, under the name of Ethan Gilbert. The picture used is his manga appearance. And while his vehicle isn't attached to him, the spiked shell resembles his look from the manga.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He isn't even around for more than half an episode before getting offed, but his appearance heralds the arrival of the Eye of Michael and, more importantly, Millions Knives.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Remote bombs, regular bombs, land mines, grenades: you name it, he has it and he'll blow you up with it for laughs.
• Tom the Dark Lord: The crazed bomber working for a Misanthrope Supreme and threatening to level an entire town to the ground is named Ethan Gilbert Hamilton.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Attempted. He picks up Vash's gun after he drops it and moves to shoot him with it before being distracted by Roberto and Meryl, who end up using E.G.'s own mines to threaten him into surrender.
• You Have Failed Me: Gets his arms lopped off and then turned into a smoothie because he failed to steal Jeneora Rock's Plant.

Zazie the Beast

Voiced by: TARAKO (JP), Madeleine Morris (ENG)

"See ya! That is, if you can escape in one piece. Hahaha!"

Initially appearing to be the lone survivor of a killing at a Plant station. In actuality closely connected to the Worms, No Man's Land's native inhabitants, and usually tasked with covert surveillance and observation.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: While nominally in an alliance with Knives, like their previous counterparts, Zazie does not actively participate in fights and is open to discussions with humans. When they kidnap Roberto and Meryl, they have no malicious intentions (unless you count luring Vash somewhere he was heading anyway) and only want Meryl's opinion on who should "rightfully" live alongside the Worms. In the season finale, they are shown to be genuinely disturbed by the humans blaming Vash for July's destruction. Zazie even warns Meryl about humans from Earth who will be arriving at Noman's Land soon, which confuses her.
• Adaptational Wimp: So far, Zazie does not appear to carry a gun unlike their previous incarnations and doesn't directly engage in physical combat. He seems to focus mainly on reconnaissance and leave the fighting to the other Eye of Michael members. However, he's still able to control bugs of various sizes - with the Grand Worm capable of easily swallowing a charging station and a group of people with no problem. He's also able to reconstitute his body when shot at, appearing to take no damage.
• Ambiguous Gender: While most translations default to masculine pronouns, Zazie is presented as androgynous, leaving it out in the open what gender, if any, he has. It's revealed in episode nine that he wouldn't necessarily have one, considering he's just a representative for a worm Hive Mind.
• Ambiguously Human: Aside from some insectoid features and Hellish Pupils, he looks human. Yet, he speaks of humans with contempt, as though he isn't one. Just like the manga, it's revealed that he's actually a representative for a Hive Mind of Worms.
• Animal Eye Spy: Can extend his sight through the Worms he controls. Wolfwood later exploits this by eating a Worm he's using alive in order to annoy him.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Zazie is a hive mind with no basis for individuality. It's because of this they find human relationships and the urge to protect loved ones puzzling, if not amusing to test.
• Children Are Innocent: He exploits this, appearing as a young boy to gain Vash's trust, acting like a child who just lost his parents and has been struck mute by the shock and clinging to the first friendly person he sees. His initial design even looks a bit like Tonis of Jeneora Rock (and, though it only becomes apparent later, Rollo as a child), just to twist that knife.
• Color Motif: Worms, regardless of shape, fluoresce a brilliant shade of acid green. In disguise as a human, Zazie wears a shirt in that color. Out of it, their mask has glowing green eyes.
• Cute Mute: Pretends to be this when he first meets the group in order to gain their trust and sympathy.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Zazie seems to be genuinely aggrieved at the way humans vilified Vash for July's destruction.
• The Fake Cutie: Seems to have deliberately set out to exploit Vash's protectiveness of children, remaining mute and timid until after the cover is pierced.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Their left pants leg is a lot shorter compared to their right leg.
• Genius Loci: Claims that "the Worms are the planet", though it's unclear how literal this is.
• Giggling Villain: Seems to find the suffering he causes or witnesses very funny.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His bangs cover the right side of his face, to represent deception.
• Horrifying the Horror: Zazie displays amused indifference to most things, confident that there's nothing out there creepier than he is, but the sight of July being consumed by the roots produced by Vash's Gate and in the belief the rest of the planet will follow, he grows agitated and flees after exchanging some snark with Wolfwood.
• Ironic Echo: "I can tell by his eyes." Vash says this first, as proof that Wolfwood is a good person. Zazie repeats this later, as proof that Wolfwood is a killer.
• Keet: Once the mask is off, he's very animated and energetic, although in this case it's meant to be creepy rather than endearing.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Wears an insectoid mask with many glowing green eyes when using his powers. The shell even opens up to reveal two "eyes" and a grinning sharp-toothed "mouth".
• Non-Action Guy: Zazie doesn't actively fight, only using the Great Worm to capture Vash and his group. In fact, their main job seems to be information-gathering, as the birds who were pecking at Vash's "corpse" in the first episode flew back to Knives at July to report on Vash's location. He even uses small bugs to watch battles from afar.
• Punch-Clock Villain: After failing their task of trying to make Wolfwood choose what to save, Hopeland Orphanage or his brother, Zazie gives off this vibe to Legato by tiredly asking if they could "go home now" once Vash and the group manage to successfully stop the Sand Steamer.
• Race Lift: In the manga and anime, Zazie (and both of his following bodies) was white. Here, he's tanned.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Upon seeing July being engulfed by Vash's Gate roots and flowers Zazie makes a beeline out of the city, and scoffs at Wolfwood's snide remarks about them fleeing.
• Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: In his case, the significance is secretly being a host for a swarm of Worms.
• Stomach of Holding: When Zazie needs new worms to be his Animal Eye Spy, he drags them out of his mouth.
• Stronger Than They Look: In episode 9 they are able to easily lift up an unconscious Meryl whilst flying, despite being smaller than her.
• Uncanny Valley Makeup: Part of his androgynous appearance comes from what looks like crimson lipliner and a lot of very pale eyeshadow. (Look closely and his original disguise has been slightly damaged by his coloured nails.)
• Wild Card: Zazie ultimately has no actual loyalty to Knives or his cause; the Worms are simply intrigued by these newcomers. At best, Knives's explanation that humans consumed and ruined their home and will do so again given the chance is relevant to Zazie's interests. But he's open to being convinced otherwise, even offering Meryl incentive to try, and disappointed when Conrad cuts the conversation short.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Pretends to be an innocent civilian to lure Vash's group into being attacked by his Worms.
• The Worm That Walks: His body is actually just an empty vessel controlled by Worms; when shot it just bursts into insects and reforms again nearby unharmed with a snide remark.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: While not wounded, he still pretends to be a lone kid surviving what appeared to be a brutal murder of his parents. Zazie does pull this off better with Meryl to trap her inside the monster's stomach.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Zazie seems to be singling out Meryl due to her job as a reporter, telling her about the motives he and Knives have for the Plant thefts, and in the final minutes of Episode 12, deliberately seeks her out to strike up a casual conversation and warn her about the fleet of ships that will arrive from Earth.

Monev the Gale

Voiced by: Megumi Han (JP, Rollo), Chikahiro Kobayashi (JP, Monev), Macy Anne Johnsonn (ENG, Rollo), Ray Hurd (ENG, Monev)

The Gale

The Sacrifice

"VASH THE STAMPEDE!"

A hulking juggernaut that pursues Vash through the Windmill Village. 20 years ago, he was a normal boy named Rollo. He was, unfortunately, chosen as a sacrifice and unknowingly handed over to the Eye of Michael, where he suffered cruel experiments at the hands of Dr. William Conrad.

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• Adaptational Badass: Zigzagged. Rather than just being a really buff guy armed with Gatling guns, he's really buff from an experimental Psycho Serum that also grants him regeneration, while his Gatling guns also have attachments that blast gusts of air. On the other hand, he's also become an Adaptational Dumbass, with the experimentation turning him into a frothing berserker barely able to contain any thoughts beyond "attack Vash the Stampede" and "scream 'Vash the Stampede'".
• Adaptational Name Change: He is humanized with the original name of Rollo, only being dubbed "Monev the Gale" by William Conrad much later, while his 1998 anime and manga counterpart was presumably actually named "Monev". As a Mythology Gag, however, the people who experimented on him note that he's filled with the "venom" of hatred, referencing his original name and the fact it is a reference to Marvel Comics' Venom. "VENOM" is even printed on the wall of the lab where he was changed.
• Adaptational Sympathy: This incarnation of Monev is treated as a Tragic Monster rather than the violent berserker he was in the 1998 anime and manga. Instead of just being a large brute trained solely to kill Vash, Monev was originally a young frightened boy named Rollo who was subjected to horrific experiments that turned him into a monster and robbed him of his mind. The fact that he doesn't threaten any civilians like his previous counterparts ^note It's implied he wiped out his hometown, but he wasn't in control of himself even then. only makes him easier to pity.
• Ammunition Backpack: Carries two ammo drums on his back to feed his gatling guns.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted to be cured of his terminal illness. The experiments that turned him into Monev did cure him, at the cost of his sanity.
• The Berserker: He has lost any higher brain functions and is incapable of any sophisticated reasoning. He chases after Vash and Vash only, despite Wolfwood peppering him with bullets, and will tear through the village to achieve his goal.
• Blow You Away: He's equipped with wind cannons on his arms, which allow him to release blasts or sustained streams of air with the power of a wind tunnel.
• Born Unlucky: Was born on a "windless day" and his town is slowly dying due to having no winds for their windmills to generate energy. He has a an unknown illness that is slowly killing him, and then he is taken by the Eye of Michael to be experimented upon. He gets turned into Monev the Gale, driven mad by what he's become and violently attacks Vash. Finally, in an act of "mercy", Wolfwood shoots Rollo in the head and claims the boy would have been too far gone to save.
• Broken Record: He can only shout "Vash the Stampede" over and over.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the original series, his corpse was crucified and hung as a warning from Legato for failing to kill Vash. In Stampede Wolfwood kills him out of "mercy", claiming Rollo was too far gone for Vash to save.
• Dies Wide Open: His body is last seen staring wide-eyed at nothing, making Vash begging him to Please Wake Up all the more heartbreaking in how obviously useless it is.
• Distinguishing Mark: He has a wine stain birthmark over his left eye. He retains it as Monev.
• Flawed Prototype: Could be seen as this for the rest of William Conrad's experiments. While Rollo turned into a hulking monstrosity that lost most of his mental faculties, children in Conrad's future experiments such as Livio and Wolfwood would gain superhuman abilities without becoming uncontrollable monstrosities. When Wolfwood puts him down, Dr. Conrad regretfully writes him off as a failed experiment.
• Gatling Good: Wields two gatling guns on his arms.
• Guns Akimbo: Holds a gatling gun on each arm.
• Healing Factor: Wolfwood riddles his body with bullets at one point only for his bullet holes to immediately heal. However, he can't come back from getting a Wave-Motion Gun to the head.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just when it seems like Vash might be getting through to Rollo and capable of talking him down, Wolfwood takes Rollo out with a headshot. Vash demands to know why, believing Rollo could've been saved, but Wolfwood claims the kid was too far gone and a mercy kill was the best option. It's left ambiguous whether Vash or Wolfwood was right.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Suffered from one as a kid and was estimated to have a short life expectancy, if not for the experiments.
• Ironic Name: His title of "The Gale." The Windmill Village relies on turbines for power, but has been suffering from a lack of wind when Rollo is still himself. As well, Rollo is noted as having been born on a windless day, implied to be a sign of misfortune. Even after becoming "The Gale", the windmills stay motionless. It's only after he dies that the wind returns.
• Mirror Character: Wolfwood sees himself in Monev. Taken and altered by the Eye of Michael, rendered monstrous and inhuman, and in the end good for nothing but being put down before they harm the people they were sacrificed to protect. They're even both referred to as "Child of Blessing"; Rollo in the title of his episode, Wolfwood by the cultists who came to take him from the orphanage. Vash trying to save Rollo infuriates Wolfwood because on some level it ignites hope that he's afraid to have, in case it winds up dashed (as Rollo's was when Vash couldn't keep his promise). It is, in part, why he goes through with betraying Vash, and it's definitely part of his motivation for killing Monev.
• Self-Made Orphan: Heavily implied. His mother handed him over to be sacrificed to her cult's god, which ended up with Rollo instead being used as a lab rat and turned into monster. The last time his mother appears, she's screaming after Rollo "comes home", breaking through the front door as Monev.
• Shoot the Dog: Just as Vash seems to be getting through to him, Wolfwood puts him out of his misery.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: As a part of William Conrad's experiments.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Clearly his legs weren't the focus of the experiments. Plus, his head is almost swallowed up by his shoulders.
• Tragic Monster: He was a kid dying of a terminal illness whose mother planned on sacrificing him to the god of her cult. After a run in with Vash where he promises Rollo his help and unknowingly hands the boy back over to the cult, Rollo ends up experimented on by William Conrad, turned into a hulking monster, has his rage amplified by Conrad's experiments and set loose on his old home. By the time Vash encounters him again, Rollo's hatred and rage towards Vash for being unable to help him has consumed him to the point he does nothing but bellow Vash's name while trying to kill him.
• Younger Than They Look: Rollo would be in his late 20's at most in the present, given that he was a young child when Vash first encountered him 20 years ago, but his freakish musculature and deformed face make him look significantly older. It's shown in flashbacks that he was horribly mutated into this form by William Conrad's experiments when he was still a child.

Elendira the Crimson-Nail

Voiced by: Ayumu Murase (JP), Molly Searcy (ENG)

"I'm an angel."

A strange girl almost always accompanying Dr. William Conrad.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Even disregarding her Early-Bird Cameo, she shows up much earlier than she originally did, even before the Bad Lads Gang make an appearance.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: In both continuities she is transfeminine, but whereas in the original manga she was an assigned male at birth transgender woman, according to a tweet by Nightow she is now nonbinary or intersex in Stampede.
• Adaptational Species Change: In the manga, she was for all intents and purposes just a really strong human. In Stampede, she's an Artificial Human created by William Conrad with Knives's cells.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In the manga, she fired nails out of a large briefcase that could fold out into a crossbow. In Stampede, she psychically manifests the nails into existence and telekinetically hurls them. Or rather, just like Knives, she can create them by drawing from the higher plane using her Gate.
• Adaptational Wimp: It took a lot to even hit her in the manga (though thankfully that shot was all it took). In the anime, Wolfwood easily incapacitates her by hitting her with debris from one of her own destroyed nails. Albeit it seems to be more that she didn't want to continue fighting rather than being unable to, throwing a childish tantrum over her injury instead.
• Artificial Human: She was lab-grown by William Conrad using Knives's genes, meant to be the first in a line of humans that would neither hunger nor thirst.
• Age Lift: A visual example. In the manga, she appeared to be an adult woman. In Stampede, she looks like a short young girl, so much so that Rollo initially mistook her for being around his age.
• Berserk Button: When Meryl lamenting at the fate of the Artificial Humans created by William Conrad, calls them 'poor children' within earshot of her vat, it pisses her off enough to awaken from her apparent slumber and pursue Meryl and Roberto with the intent to kill them. She hates the idea of humans applying their own set of rules or values to things they don't understand, and that anybody would consider her lesser than them because of it. She also gets upset when Vash approaches her with concern, refusing to let him touch her and spitting with genuine outrage, because he's a "traitor" to Knives.
• Cute Little Fangs: It's prominently displayed in Episode 10 that she has vampire-like canines. This is likely due to her being at least partially Plant-derived, since the dependents have mouths full of sharp teeth and even the Independents have unusually pointed canines.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Tries to violently murder Meryl and Roberto just because Meryl felt sorry for her.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Upon Meryl seeing Elendira floating in a tank and saying she pities her, Elendira wakes up and starts to throw her nails at Meryl, feeling insulted.
  Elendira: This is why I hate humans.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She appears at the end of Episode 3 accompanying William and Grey, long before she's formally introduced.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: She looks like a Mysterious Waif dressed in pale pink, even calling herself an angel. But she's actually Older Than They Look, working for a Misanthrope Supreme, and very dangerous to an ordinary human.
• The Fake Cutie: When Roberto has her at gunpoint, she starts crying and whimpering about how cruel he must be to be willing to shoot an innocent little girl. Even though he knows it's an act, he still hesitates, causing her to laugh at him for being so easily swayed by appearances.
• Hero Killer: One of her nails manages to fatally injure Roberto, though she isn't around to see him succumb to his wound.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Her hair hides the right side of her face, which seems to be a common stylistic choice among Knives's followers. It serves to make her seem mysterious and to hide that her right eye is a different color (amber or gold, while her left eye is blue).
• Minor Injury Overreaction: She completely crumples to the floor a whining wreck after getting a single scrape on her arm. Wolfwood calls her out on it and even makes snide remarks about it.
• Older Than They Look: She is over twenty years old but resembles a young child. Or a dependent Plant.
• People Jars: Spends at least part of her time floating in a tank of liquid, much as dependent Plants do.
• The Power of Creation: Being at least part-Plant, she is in possession of a Gate, albeit a weak one. It allows her to create and throw her nails at will.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: She throws a tantrum after getting scraped a single time on her arm and generally behaves like a particularly cruel child. At least part of it seems to be her leaning into her childish appearance to mock humans for being so easily swayed by surface-level appearances and applying their own rules and values to things other than themselves.
• Voice of the Legion: Sometimes when she speaks, it sounds like there are at least two other people speaking with her.

Livio the Double Fang

Voiced by: Genki Muro (JP, Adult), Ikumi Hasegawa (JP, Child), Patrick McAlister (ENG, Adult), Krystal Laporte (ENG, Child)

"I have to catch up..."

An assassin that ambushes Vash and Wolfwood on the Sand Steamer. He was Wolfwood's Childhood Friend and surrogate brother, though he doesn't seem entirely mentally present.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: He is introduced in Episode 6, before we even meet the Bad Lads Gang. The 1998 anime didn't even come close to introducing Livio's character, as the chapters containing his story didn't exist yet in the manga at the time.
• Age Lift: Like with Wolfwood, Livio was estimated to be in his 20's in the manga, albeit Younger Than He Looks due to the experimentation he underwent to get superhuman abilities accelerating the aging process. In Stampede this is taken to a greater extreme where the experimentation transformed his body from that of a child to an adult in less than a year, and we have no frame of reference for how old he actually is.
• The Berserker: Loses his cool partway through the fight and starts screaming and swinging with reckless abandon, disregarding any injury. It should be noted that this only happens after his mask is damaged, harkening back to his manga depiction where he had a whole other personality that needed to be restrained.
• Big Brother Worship: Always followed Wolfwood around when they were children and clearly looked up to him. It's because of his desire to catch up to and protect his older brother figure that he becomes the killing machine he is today.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Livio appears to be sleepwalking, with Empty Eyes and jerky movements. It's implied to be due to his mask, as he becomes alert after it's shot. Given his condition in the manga, he may not be "brainwashed" so much as heavily sedated.
• Creepy Crosses: There are crosses on his blazer buttons and gloves. There's also a stylized cross consisting of a circle with branching lines on the back of his jacket. This marks him as a subordinate of the Eye of Michael.
• Cross Attack: His guns are cross-shaped.
• Driven to Suicide: Attempted. After briefly regaining his memories of Nicholas, he shoots himself in the head. However, given his Healing Factor and Legato ordering his body be brought back, it's clear that it's not enough to put him down.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Gets riddled with bullets multiple times since he doesn't have enough presence of mind to try dodging. As well, he and Wolfwood take turns shooting each other at point-blank.
• Guns Akimbo: Dual-wields his eponymous Double Fang, two cross-shaped, double-sided sub-machine guns that allow him to shoot in multiple directions at once.
• Healing Factor: Any wound he sustains will heal itself in a matter of seconds, even if that wound is to what should be a vital area of his body. Unlike Wolfwood, he doesn't need to ingest a drug in order to activate it.
• Madness Mantra: "I have to catch up." It (or some variant) is the only thing he says until he recognises Wolfwood.
• Marionette Motion: The way he moves is jerky and stiff, like he's not entirely in control of himself (as he might not be).
• Punched Across the Room: On the receiving end, courtesy of Vash, who almost sends him flying into Wolfwood.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: As a part of William Conrad's experiments.
• Undying Loyalty: Legato tells Wolfwood that Livio volunteered to be experimented on to follow after him. However, considering who's talking, it's possible that this was a lie made up to force Wolfwood to cooperate, as Livio was suspiciously absent when the other children were saying goodbye and could have left or been taken before then. Either way, Livio did allow himself to be experimented on in hopes of being able to protect Wolfwood instead of the other way around.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was cute as a kid, crying a lot over the death of his parents but being able to find joy in his brotherly bond with Wolfwood. Now he's a stoic experimental Super-Soldier assassin and very likely not in his right mind.
• Younger and Hipper: Despite initial impressions, Livio's design is direct from the manga — specifically, a single flashback panel that depicted him as a youth, when he wore a suit much like Wolfwood's and was quite lanky, tall but yet to build up the muscle he had in the manga's present day. Stampede's changes are the addition of black gloves, a black turtleneck, and a more technological version of his half-mask which keeps him only semi-aware. Overall, he has a more tailored and professional appearance, verging on Bishounen and Sharp-Dressed Man. And the suit is also the uniform of the Eye of Michael.
• Younger Than They Look: Since he underwent a procedure similar to Wolfwood's, he physically went from being a child to an adult in less than a year.

Grey the Ninelives

Voiced by: Kento Fujinuma (JP)

A hulking, armored humanoid seen around Dr. William Conrad. Primarily performs manual labour.

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• Adaptational Badass: He's a hulking mecha that makes his previous incarnations look like midgets.
• All There in the Script: His identity is cited in the voice credits. He has yet to be properly introduced.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Even more so than Monev. At least Monev could run, this guys gets around like a gorilla.

Dr. William Conrad

Voiced by: Ryūsei Nakao (JP), Larry Brantley (ENG)

"Time is of the essence. We don't have the luxury of exploring alternatives."

A scientist working for Millions Knives, researching Plants and attempting to develop a human race that doesn't need to rely on Plants for survival.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Vash and Knives's backstory and the situation with Project SEEDS were revealed much later in the manga. Because Stampede introduces these elements from the get-go, Dr. Conrad is introduced earlier than he was originally.
• Adaptational Origin Connection: He plays a role in the origin story of several characters in this continuity, with his experiments resulting in the creation of Monev, Livio, E.G. the Mine, and Nicholas D. Wolfwood. In the manga, he really only played a role in Vash and Knives's backstory.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the manga, he intentionally goaded Knives into releasing more and more of his power in order to shorten his lifespan, in the hopes that Knives realizing his mortality would get him to stop his genocidal campaign (though the fear of death unfortunately ended up pushing Knives to further extremes, particularly since Knives, unaware of the danger, had been forcing his brother to release his own energy, pushing him far closer to death). Conrad is genuinely loyal to Knives in Stampede and in full support of his plans, albeit for well-intentioned reasons. At least for now.
• The Atoner: Just like in the manga, he works for Knives as his means of atoning for the part he played in Tesla's horrific fate.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Subverted; Although he's gone from experimenting on Independent Plants in service of humans to experimenting on humans in service of an Independent Plant, neither is morally better. Conrad is the same Mad Scientist he's always been, merely joined the other team.
• Berserk Button: When Roberto accuses Conrad's experiments of being the glorified torture of innocents, Conrad angrily snaps back that he is respectful of his subjects and never demeans them. It's notably the first time he expresses any emotional extremes in the current day.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He appears during the destruction of Jeneora Rock in Episode 3, before he's formally introduced.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • William Conrad performed a lot of horrific experiments on children to help Millions Knives's cause, but either out of pragmatism or a legitimate attachment to his test subject. He's insulted when it's suggested any of his experiments demeaned his test subjects, he tried to stop Legato from torturing Nicholas D. Wolfwood and asked Nicholas for forgiveness before locking him in his cell.
  • He politely tells Rosa not to confront Knives because it will only go badly for her, and he's right.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Conrad provides enhanced troops for the Eye of Michael cult, attempts to improve the human race, and explores the unknown capabilities of Plants - especially Independent Plants like Knives, whom Conrad refers to as "the perfect life-form". For all that he regrets the subjects that don't survive, Conrad chooses them from "expendable" populations like the poor, disabled and sick (explicitly including Vash, whom he's willing to sacrifice if it comes to it, though it's unclear whether he ever said so to Knives's face) and takes comfort in the idea that he's giving their lives purpose. As much as Conrad talks about atonement and necessity, his methods as a scientist haven't changed a single jot since he did what he's trying to atone for.
• Hypocrite: Roberto points out that no matter how much respect he treats his test subjects with, it doesn't change the fact that his experiments are fundamentally humiliating. Plus, his attempts at saving humanity has him preying on the most vulnerable people: the young, impoverished, and ill. Unable to muster an argument, Conrad goes back to explaining how Utopia Justifies the Means.
• It Is Dehumanising: Conrad doesn't call Elendira "her" while explaining what she represents to Meryl and Roberto, using a more clinical and neutral pronoun of the language he's voiced in – which, in English, is "it". Of course, Elendira would probably take being dehumanised as a point of pride.
• Long-Lived: At present, he has some wrinkles, grey hairs, liver spots, and is balding, but he definitely doesn't look over 150 years old. There are metal plates in his head, implying some self-modification that might be contributing to his longevity.
• Mask of Sanity: A mask so convincing you might mistake him for Crazy Sane. Conrad is so consumed by admiration of Independent Plants like Knives, whom he considers the Ultimate Life Form, that it drives him to literally turn people inside out to make them more like him.
• Mirror Character: To Luida. A scientist familiar with Plants who became leader of a community (in Conrad's case, the city of July, whose population he screened and limited strictly as Count Vasquez) and an odd surrogate parent to one of the twins in the wake of Rem's death. Like Luida, he's extended his lifespan to ensure he can remain with Knives and oversee his experiments. Unlike Luida, Conrad prioritises expediency and results over ethics, which may have influenced Knives's own (lack of) morals or simply be a reflection of them.
• Must Make Amends: Deconstructed; as much as he should make up for the fate of the Plant Tesla, aiding genocide masterminded by another Independent Plant is not going to balance the scales at all, nor is experimenting on human children as a substitute. Conrad is simply too pigheaded and blinded by guilt to look for another way.
• Older Than They Look: As a human survivor of the SEEDS ship crash, he's over 150 years old in the current day.
• Parental Substitute: Knives's caretaker in the wake of the Big Fall. That Knives personally sought out a member of Ship Five's crew, coerced him to serve, and seems to have had him modify himself to live longer, suggests Knives is not as happy about Rem's death as he says he is — which makes Conrad doubly a substitute.
• Pet the Dog: Strangely, for all that his experiments are absolutely despicable and his boss wants all humans dead, Conrad tries to be respectful of life. He warns Rosa away from Knives, sternly calls Legato off torturing one of his subjects, pulls Meryl away from Vash and Knives to safety when they're locked in combat and she slips over dangerously, and tries to prevent her following them outside.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The Doctor has a eugenicist streak, believing that he is doing the poor and sickly a favor by butchering and mutating them. Even if they aren't breakthroughs, they still became part of something bigger by contributing to Conrad's oh-so precious research.
• Psychological Projection: The fact Conrad thinks Knives shares his vision of a better breed of mankind just proves how obsessed with his research the doctor is.
• Secretly Dying: It turns out the methods he used to prolong his life way past its expiration date were less effective than what Ship 3's crew utilized. Conrad implies that Knives in some fashion has been keeping him on life support until his mission is accomplished, so when Knives seemingly accomplishes all of his objectives in Episode 11, Conrad starts coughing blood.
• Uncertain Doom: Though starting to cough blood, he's still on his feet when Knives orders him to detach the lab from the tower, which he does. It's clear it wasn't caught up in the city's destruction, but unknown where it might be located now or what condition Conrad is in.
• Villainous Friendship: Though Knives threatened Conrad with death to recruit him, he is the only human Knives ever deigns to speak to directly with anything approaching politeness (any other human suffers his vicious contempt and/or an immediate, gruesome death if he doesn't ignore them), and Conrad seems to respect and even admire Knives, feeling protective of him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The experiments he performs are horrifying, but it's all in service of creating a human race that won't need to rely on Plants to survive No Man's Land.
• Would Hurt a Child: Children are the main subjects of his horrible experiments, though there are some hints that he's not happy about the ones who failed to survive.

Master Chapel

Voiced by: Hiroshi Naka (JP)

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• All There in the Script: His identity is cited in the voice credits, as the voice speaking during Livio's breakdown. He can also be seen briefly, although the darkness makes it hard to see and his face is obscured.

Other Antagonists

July Military Police

Chuck Lee voiced by: Tomokazu Sugita (JP)

"A fight should be a show!"

A police squad sent from July City to capture Vash and claim his bounty. Roberto manages to convince Captain Chuck Lee to duel Vash for the right to arrest him; if they lose, they have to leave.

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• Bait-and-Switch: During the duel, the police captain seems like he's going to use his pistol... only to toss it aside and pull out a Macross Missile Massacre rocket launcher.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: The captain has a gold-plated gun... that he doesn't even use for the duel. Or ever, really.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The police captain is only ever referred to as "Captain" in-show. It turns out his name is Chuck Lee.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: In Episode 12, the squadron hunting Vash in July are quickly cut down by Knives.
• Hammerspace: It's never clear exactly where he was storing that rocket launcher.
• Police Are Useless: They are of no help when they first appear in Jeneora Rock, acting excessively violently and endangering the entire town, attempting to bribe Rosa, and beating up the one guy who can do anything about the malfunctioning Plant. Then, in their home turf of July City, they're hopelessly outmatched against Vash's Gate, and then by Knives's personal intervention, when he casually murders every single one of them in the blink of an eye.
• Rabid Cop: The members of the squadron use unnecessary force on the non-violent Vash and brag about redeeming his bounty. The captain also tries to collude with Rosa for her cooperation, using the town's energy crisis as incentive. Roberto outright calls them out as "cowardly". Furthermore, the captain unleashes a giant cluster bomb without any regard for collateral damage or friendly fire, even knowing they're supposed to bring Vash in alive, and actively tries to prevent Vash from saving the town. Even the other MPs are alarmed.
  Vash: He's crazy...
• Starter Villain: The first opponent(s) that Vash faces on-screen and the least threatening comparatively.
• Uncertain Doom: Chuck Lee is never seen when his squad is cut down by Knives, with his last appearance being Goomba Springboarded by Nicholas and Meryl while they are trying to escape. It's unknown what happens to him when July is destroyed afterwards.

The Nebraskas

Father Nebraska voiced by: Shigeru Chiba (JP), Derick Snow (ENG)
Gofsef voiced by: Kenji Nomura (Gofsef), Chris Rager (ENG)

"I can't have my son turning stupid!"

The Hard Puncher Nebraskas is a family of criminals with sixty-nine counts of manslaughter and twelve counts of attempted murder. Father Nebraska and his son, Gofsef, appear at Jeneora Rock in hopes of cornering Vash. When that doesn't pan out, they settle for stealing the settlement's Plant.

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• Adaptational Wimp: Gofsef, by virtue of not being the twenty foot giant from the manga and original anime, is nowhere as strong or dangerous as previous versions.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Compared to his more murderous prior versions, Father Nebraska is much more affable and gives up the Plant he stole when pressed by Vash. Their crimes are also reduced from deliberate murders to manslaughter and attempted murder, painting a picture of their being more reckless and inattentive than malicious.
• An Arm and a Leg: Father Nebraska loses an arm for challenging Knives.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: At first, Father Nebraska treats his son like a minion, barking at him for blunders and calling him stupid. However, he drops everything to save an imperilled Gofsef, and Gofsef getting blown up puts Nebraska on the warpath.
• Continuity Cameo: In the background of Rosa's bar, a wanted poster for Marilyn/Merilyn Nebraska, the daughter, can be seen.
• Cyborg: Gofsef appears to have some mechanical augmentations, making him look like a Frankenstein's Monster. This is presumably why Father Nebraska wants the Plant, since the mechanical augments likely can't function properly without an external power source, which is a scarce resource.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • When Father Nebraska asks Gofsef to shut up their complaining driver, Gofsef ends up punching him out of the car. Father Nebraska quickly reprimands Gofsef because now no one is controlling the car. In this case, it's likely that Gofsef couldn't think it through because, due to his mechanical augmentation, he literally doesn't have enough power to think.
  • The father-son pair being so careless while fighting Vash collapses the bridge they're on and nearly leads to the Plant and then Gofsef plummeting off.
  • More tragically, it was really ill-advised of Father Nebraska to try and confront the man Vash the Stampede is afraid of, even if he thought he was avenging his beloved son. He learns why that is very quickly and very painfully.
• Einstein Hair: A characteristic of Father Nebraska, further emphasizing the Mad Scientist look he has going on.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Father Nebraska begs Rosa to help save his son despite being held at gunpoint. Though it's clear that Rosa wants to pay him back for the destruction he caused, her Mama Bear nature ultimately has her empathise and lay down arms.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played for Laughs; Father Nebraska is a hardened criminal and troublemaker who doesn't approve of day-drinking.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Though he's only very badly wounded rather than killed, Gofsef's final moments in episode two come across this way. In contrast to his brutish appearance and limited vocabulary, he seems to realise that he's been covered in explosive drones before anyone else works out what's happening, and flees the diner (a place packed with innocents) so no one else will be hurt when they go off. Though the events that follow render his efforts somewhat moot, at least he tried.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Even though all Gofsef can say is his own name, Father Nebraska reacts as though he understands his son perfectly.
• Jaw Drop: Father Nebraska's usual reaction to Vash's stunts and reticence, stretched to cartoonish proportions.
• Last-Name Basis: Father Nebraska's name is never given, only being referred to as "Nebraska".
• Papa Wolf: Father Nebraska quickly figures out Knives is ultimately behind his son being badly wounded by E.G. the Mine's attack and tries to avenge him. Sadly, he makes himself just enough of a threat that Knives exerts the effort to stop him being one.
• Pet the Dog: Gofsef tries to suggest to his dad that they should give up on pursuing Vash once their truck breaks down, but the elder Nebraska just calls him a coward.
• Pokémon Speak: Gofsef is only capable of repeating his own name.
• Rocket Punch: Gofsef can perform a variant, shooting off his fists and being able to reel them back onto his arm by using an attached rope, functioning like a Grappling-Hook Pistol. Additional materials reveal it's a tool used in hunting Worms for food.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Spoofed with Gofsef, who wears a nice collar, a bow tie, and a very neat pair of socks... and nothing else except a pair of boxer shorts. The bow tie matches his dad's, at least.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: The two of them can almost be seen as symbolic of the anime revealing its Darker and Edgier tone compared to the 1998 anime. Though still dangerous to Jeneora Rock's inhabitants, they are goofy in nature and ultimately persuaded to surrender the settlement's Plant with no complaint, reflecting the optimism of Vash's ideology. Then Gofsef gets blown up by E.G. the Mine (though he survived according to a Freeze-Frame Bonus in the aftermath) and Nebraska gets gruesomely dismembered by Knives, showing the cold hard reality Vash must face and the threat to Vash's ideals his brother presents.
• The Teetotaler: When Rosa offers Father Nebraska a drink, he refuses it, stating he doesn't drink.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The only explanation for Father Nebraska having an RPG as a signature weapon is that he likes blowing things up.
• Uncertain Doom: In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, during the aftermath of Jeneora Rock's destruction, Father Nebraska and Gofsef are shown among the survivors, miraculously still alive. However, since they're left in the doomed town, it's unknown whether they will die of blood loss or another cause eventually.

Bad Lads Gang

"Make sure to get my good side!"

"All that glitters is ours!"

A group of bandits that claims anything that glitters as theirs for the taking.

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• Animal Motifs: Their headgears seems to be invoking axolotls.
• Continuity Cameo: There are wanted posters of Brilliant Dynamites Neon, the leader of the gang, in Rosa's canteen in Episode 1.
• Gas Mask Mooks: They wear black gas masks with glowing blacklight details.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Legato forces the Sand Steamer to deploy its ion cannon, the gang is quick to get the hell out of dodge.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Their presence provides some levity, with their goofy mannerisms and cartoonish animations, but once shit hits the fan, they're out.
• Shout-Out: As pictured here, some of the Lads can be seen making the Ginyu Force pose from Dragon Ball Z.
• Zerg Rush: They perform raids in large groups, swarming their targets.

Civilians

Rosa and Tonis

Rosa voiced by: Kimiko Saito (JP), Lydia Mackay (ENG)
Tonis voiced by: Tomoko Ikeda (JP), Sara Ragsdale (ENG)

"I wouldn't dare if it was just adults here. But we're mothers. I won't stand by while our kids get sick and starve."

Rosa is the local bartender and apparent leader of Jeneora Rock. Tonis is her young son and she is pregnant with another baby, though the father is nowhere to be seen.

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Tropes that apply to both

• Adaptation Expansion: Both Rosa and Tonis had minor roles in the manga series. Here, Rosa has already been acquainted with Vash and Tonis interacts with him more.
• Uncertain Doom: Vash being exiled and Meryl and Roberto following after him leaves the survival of the remaining inhabitants unknown. As Rosa says herself, it's unlikely that they will live for much longer considering the loss of their Plants, the destruction of their town, and the grievous injuries sustained by those remaining. But since we don't hang around to see whether they make it somehow or not, it's left in the air.

Tropes that apply to Rosa

• Apologetic Attacker: Rosa apologizes to Vash while holding him at gunpoint, stating the necessity of her actions.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: Rosa's attempt to stop Knives taking the town's Plant leaves her physically unharmed, but covered in the blood of her friends.
• Broken Pedestal: Her feelings about Vash. She was his friend, happy to praise and welcome him to her town and subtly threatening anyone who might try to do him harm, and she trusted him with Tonis. After she reluctantly betrays him, she tries to make it up to him by welcoming the Nebraskas, and when the town is threatened by E.G. she reassures Tonis that "Vash will save us." It's when he can't that her faith in him shatters — and there's a sense, too, that Knives spared her after killing her friends to ensure this result. It's no wonder she can no longer look Vash in the face after seeing the face of his monstrous twin.
• Heel Realization: Rosa has an unspoken version of this when Father Nebraska asks why Vash would bother to protect her and the rest of Jeneora Rock's people after they so eagerly turned on him upon finding out about his bounty.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: She tries to be a Pregnant Badass, willing to threaten and shoot anyone who endangers her town and people. Up against a man like Millions Knives, however, even armed she is helpless and he makes sure she knows it.
• Mama Bear: The reason why Rosa and the other townsfolk turn on Vash is because they need the bounty money to keep their town afloat and secure a future for their children. When Tonis gets injured, it's clear that Rosa is restraining herself from attacking Vash with her bare hands as she tells him to Get Out!.
• Struggling Single Mother: She claims to have kicked her "lazy" husband out, something which Vash expresses approval of, and both she and the town are very short on resources needed to survive.
• Take My Hand!: There's a gruesome subversion when she tries to stop one of her people being dragged away by Knives. They play tug-of-war over the poor panicking woman for a few moments, and then Knives gets tired of it and slices through the victim's arm. Rosa is left clutching it as the woman vanishes into the smoke for a Gory Discretion Shot.
• Tranquil Fury: While her voice gets slightly raised, her overall demeanor is a chilling calm as she orders Vash to never come back to her town. If she weren't holding her son and grieving over the loss of her town and people, Rosa would have likely (albeit foolishly) tried to do more than verbally lash out at Vash.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even after saving and helping the town on various occasions, Rosa and the other inhabitants are quick to turn their guns on Vash in hopes of redeeming his bounty. Subverted as detailed under Heel Realization, and then Double Subverted when Millions Knives destroys the town, maims Tonis, and Rosa learns of Vash's relation to him.
• We Used to Be Friends: When Vash returns to Jeneora Rock, she calls him a friend and is quick to accept Roberto and Meryl if they were with Vash. However, after Knives destroys Jeneora Rock, causing harm and death upon those she loves, Rosa cuts all ties with Vash and orders him to never return to her town.

Tropes that apply to Tonis

• An Arm and a Leg: In the aftermath of Jeneora Rock's destruction, Tonis is shown to have lost an arm. Knives uses this image of Tonis to guilt trip Vash in episode 11.
• Bug Catching: Appears to be Tonis's hobby, since he carries a bug net and a cage full of worms (think mutated dragonflies) that he likes to show other people.
• Children Are Innocent: Tonis, with his Youthful Freckles and Innocent Blue Eyes, which makes his injury and possible death at the hands of Knives all the more tragic.
• Disappeared Dad: His father is not present when Vash and co. visit Jeneora Rock, with Rosa informing Vash she had "kicked his lazy ass out".
• Nightmare Fetishist: Tonis keeps Big Creepy-Crawlies as pets and likes to show them off to new friends. He gives a cage of them to Vash as a gift.
• The Quiet One: Tonis only speaks a handful of sentences over the course of three episodes.

SEEDS Crew

Rem Saverem

Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto (JP), Emily Fajardo (ENG)

"Vash, Nai... I want you two to survive. Meeting you... has brought me so much joy!"

Ship navigator aboard Ship Five of the SEEDS fleet, and Vash and Knives's surrogate mother.

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• The Atoner: Like in the manga, her dedication to raising Vash and Nai as her children was, in part, motivated by a desire to atone for what happened to Tesla and to prevent something like that happening again.
• Biblical Motifs: Although aesthetically comparable to the Virgin Mary, Rem's place in the story has a lot in common with the Abrahamic God. She is the parent of both a Messianic Archetype and a Satanic Archetype, and the source of a message of love and tolerance Vash holds as gospel. Knives's resentment of Rem for seemingly favoring humans over him and Vash is also similar to how Lucifer rebelled against God for ordering the angel to serve humanity.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: While the twins saw her as a surrogate mother figure, they referred to her by her name, even 150 years after her death. While Vash says her name with full affection and sorrow, Knives only ever says her name when he's being spiteful — if he uses her name at all, rather than spitting "her" or "that woman".
• Doting Parent: Was very insistent that the twins celebrate their first birthday, and loved her boys with all her heart. As she views the birthday video she took of them that day, Nai even calls her doting.
• Fanservice Pack: While conservatively dressed, and very 90s in her original appearance in the anime and manga, her updated appearance has her being wide hipped and very busty, giving her a pronounced but still plausible hourglass figure.
• Flower Motifs: Associated with red geraniums, which symbolize protection, love, and other positive emotions. Despite all of Knives's best efforts to brainwash Vash, these flowers always appear to help guide Vash back.
• Giver of Lame Names: At least in this adaptation, "Knives" isn't his given name but rather a name he later chose for himself. However, Episode 11 shows that the official spelling of his name is Kni, not "Nai", which is one half of the word "knives" anyway. So in the end, she still named her children what sounds like the French word for "cow" (vache) and what sounds like the Japanese word for "not".
• Heroic Sacrifice: Stays behind in an exploding spaceship to ensure that Vash and Knives can flee in an escape shuttle and to save as many of the cryogenically frozen passengers as she can, even though Nai asked her to escape with them. Knives resents her for this, complaining she ruined his meticulous sabotage of the human ships that would leave the Plant ships unharmed. That Rem gave her life in this way is partly what motivates Vash to protect people and refuse to kill — every human alive on No Man's Land owes everything to her, and he won't let his mother's sacrifice be in vain.
• The Lost Lenore: For Vash, who even 150 years later mourns her terribly. Rem is Vash's main motivating influence, as he tries to live his life in a way to honor her memory. She is the reason for why his favorite color is red and why he has such a staunch pacifistic creed of never killing anyone. Even when Knives tries to erase Rem from Vash's mind, Vash still subconsciously creates the vines of his gate in her image.
• Mama Bear: When the ships started to go down, she quickly retrieved her boys and just as quickly took them to the escape pods to save them.
• My Greatest Failure: She regrets the experiments the ships performed on Tesla, even leaving a vase with a geranium flower in the room where her remains are located as a memorial. Which is why...
• My Greatest Second Chance: When Vash confronts her about what happened to Tesla off-screen, she swears she would never let the same thing happen to the twins. This is why despite Nai's reluctance to eat and drink like a human, Rem insists he does so, and also hide his powers, the twins wouldn't be outed as Independent Plants.
• Parental Substitute: Essentially, she was foster mother to Vash and Nai since as Independent Plants, their biological mother wouldn't have been able to take care of them outside the case.
• Posthumous Character: She dies at the beginning of the first episode, but even 150 years later, her impact on Vash is still very apparent. In fact, Rem's spirit seems to be guiding Vash when he's almost brainwashed by Knives, and he follows her back to reality.
• Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: Just before she ejects the twins to safety, she tearfully tells them they were the best thing to happen to her as she hits the button to send them away.
• Repetitive Name: Rem Saverem.
• Technicolor Eyes: Her eyes were dark purple, a shade impossible to have naturally. It could be a subtle way to evoke Graceful Ladies Like Purple, or possibly a symbolic representation of her hope to see humans (associated with red) and Plants (associated with blue) communicate with and understand each other with the help of the twins.

Luida Leitner

Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa (JP), Katelyn Barr (ENG)

"Starting today, we'll call this place "home"! Yours and ours."

A survivor of the SEEDS ship crashes and the supervisor of the intact Ship 3. She's familiar with Plants and looks after a young Vash after he's rescued from his crash site.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: She doesn't appear until much later in Trigun Maximum. In Stampede, she appears considerably earlier as one of the SEED passengers who looked after Vash when he was younger.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In Trigun Maximum, Luida meets Vash when she is roughly the same age appearance wise. In Stampede, she becomes another maternal figure for Vash when he is still a child. With Brad, the two have been acquaintances for over 150 years unlike in Maximum.
• Biblical Motifs: Like Rem, Luida is likely a Virgin Mary allegory, as Vash's human mother figure.
• Fill It with Flowers: In the present day, she wants to help take the strain off the Plants with ordinary flora, and has a beautiful park-like dome of trees and flowers she plans to use the seed the desert. Conrad even notes that Luida's specialty was geo-Plants and geo-science.
• Long-Lived: She's still alive in the present day, over a century later, thanks to periodic cryogenic sleep.
• Mirror Character:
  • She has similarities with Rem, being a dark-haired female crew member of project SEEDS with a strong sense of morals and ideals who takes Vash in after the Fall and becomes a mother figure of sorts to him. She also, like Rem before her, instils faith in Vash that he can coexist with humans, and as a result becomes targeted by Knives for 'poisoning' Vash and stealing him away.
  • Also to Conrad. A scientist familiar with Plants who became leader of a community (in Luida's case, Ship Three/Home, which she assumed responsibility for after the crash) and an odd surrogate parent to one of the twins. Like him, she's extended her lifespan to ensure she can remain with Vash and oversee her projects. Unlike Conrad, Luida is determined above all to do what's right and harm no one, no matter how long it takes, and seems to have either influenced Vash to do the same or been influenced by him.
• Mother Nature, Father Science: Luida is an optimistic and nurturing botanist, contrasting with Brad the engineer.
• Neck Lift: On the receiving end, courtesy of Knives, despite being taller than him at that point. Vash stopped him from going any further.
• Nice Girl: Is openly friendly and kind towards Vash after they find him as a child, even knowing he's an Independent Plant. She's the first to trust him to help the dying Plant.
• Older Than They Look: Luida's over 150 years old by present day, but despite her graying hair and wrinkles, definitely doesn't look it. She and the rest of Ship 3 have managed to live this long by periodically cryogenically freezing themselves.
• Parental Substitute: Takes over as Vash's maternal figure after Rem's death. Roberto even tells her she talks like Vash does about her staunch refusal to do what's expedient over what's right, even if she can't really afford to.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Luida and Brad are good friends who work closely together, and they became Vash's surrogate mother and father.
• Plucky Girl: Even in the face of being stranded on an alien, desert planet with reduced resources and a large death toll, she refuses to give up and stays optimistic. She's initially the only person not to be suspicious of Vash and tries to motivate him.
• Survivor's Guilt: She seems to recognise it in Vash and tries gently to pull him out of it by talking with him about what he might be able to do. Since she wasn't initially in charge of Ship 3 before the crash, it seems likely either she's had to cope with those feelings herself or seen them in other members of the crew.

Brad

Voiced by: Jun'ichi Suwabe (JP), Christopher Wehkamp (ENG)

"I still don't trust him. One wrong move and I'll let you have it!"

A survivor of the SEEDS ship crashes who works closely with Luida.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: His hair was a mid-tone brown in the manga and 1998 anime, but this iteration has blond hair.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Brad was younger than Vash in the original anime and manga, but in Stampede he's part of the original SEEDS crew and eventually comes to be a surrogate parent for Vash after the Big Fall. He's also closer with Luida, with the two working together for 150 years.
• Age Lift: In the original manga and 1998 anime, Brad was born into a SEEDS colony that still had a functioning ship, and met Vash while a child, eventually growing up to help assist in making his equipment. In Stampede Brad was part of the crew of the SEEDS colony when it crashed, 150 years prior to the story.
• Biblical Motifs: As his human father figure, Brad is the Saint Joseph to Vash's Jesus. Similar to Joseph, Brad is doubtful and distrusting of the strange, otherworldly child at first.
• Big Brother Instinct: He'll deny it, but he looked out for Vash after the kid proved himself in restoring the dying Plant. As one of the passengers of Ship Three walk near Vash, he holds his hand out protectively in front of Vash. When the two travelled to help other ships, Brad offered Vash some water during their trip and, in his own roundabout way, says Vash's help greatly improved conditions post the crash.
• Composite Character: Brad of Stampede combines elements from the original canon Brad, who was a resident of a SEEDS ship that assists with maintaining Vash's equipment, and incorporates a significant amount of characterization from a character in the 1998 anime named Steve, taking the latter's blond hair and role as a member of the original SEEDS crew. Like both characters, he is initially antagonistic towards Vash. Luckily, this version of Brad outgrows the worst qualities of both characters, and played no part in turning Knives into a misanthrope. He also takes elements from Sensei/Doctor as an older figure who Vash takes advice from and is the original creator of Vash's prosthetic arm.
• Fantastic Racism: He initially treats Vash with distrust on account of Vash being a Plant, but he does eventually warm up to him (not that he'll ever admit it).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Initially very abrasive and confrontational before warming up to Vash over the years, although he still tries to pretend otherwise. Luida calls him a nice guy who has trouble being honest. His real feelings can be seen in the prosthetic arm he built for Vash, which is quite advanced and full of useful extras (a grappling rope, a piston, a bulletproof shield).
• Long-Lived: He shows back up in the present, which is over a century since Ship 3 crash-landed on No Man's Land. This is because the crew periodically cryogenically freeze themselves so that they can continue to maintain the ship.
• Mother Nature, Father Science: Brad is a gruff and secretly kind engineer, contrasting Luida the botanist.
• Older Than They Look: In the present, he has some wrinkles on his face, and his hair is graying, but he definitely doesn't look over 150 years old. This is due to the crew periodically freezing themselves in order to extend their longevity.
• Only One Name: Unlike Luida, he's only introduced and referred to by his first name.
• Parting-Words Regret: Upon realizing that Vash had lied about Nai's survival, Brad angrily jumps to the conclusion that Vash is a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. When he finds out that Vash had been eavesdropping and had run away as a result of his outburst, he asks Luida to apologize for him when she leaves to find Vash.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Luida and Brad are good friends who work closely together, and they (despite Brad's reluctance) became Vash's surrogate mother and father.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the present day, he's much more patient and willing to openly act warmly towards Vash. He also defends Vash when Wolfwood dismisses his idealism.
• Tsundere: Even after warming up to Vash over the years, he still refuses to admit he's grown fond of him, always making up excuses for his kind gestures.

Spoiler Characters

Tesla

An Independent Plant who was born 50 years prior to Vash and Nai.

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• Body Horror: Her body is in pieces and what's left is mangled. The containers she's suspended in are also red, an indicator of a dying or sick Plant.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Like in the manga, what happened to her serves as one for Nai, sparking the distrust and hatred that would eventually cause the Big Fall and his spiral into misanthropy. Unlike in the manga, he says she isn't his sole motivator, and that what happened to her is but "one grain of sand" among humanity's misdeeds — but certain actions of his give the lie to that claim, particularly relating to the Eye of Michael.
• Fate Worse than Death: She's still alive when the twins find her, although cryogenically suspended.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Rem's failure to prevent Tesla's fate led her to adopt the twins in an effort to protect them. Later, the twins discovered Tesla's remains and were deeply traumatised. Vash trusted Rem, but Nai could not and caused the Big Fall in an effort to eliminate the perceived threat of humanity.
• Strong Family Resemblance: As another Independent Plant like Nai and Vash, she shares many similar features with the twins (particularly Vash), such as hair and eye color.
• They Would Cut You Up: Among the severed body parts include an eye, a tongue, an ear, an arm, plus her torso has been left vivisected open.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: She has this expression, combined with Dull Eyes of Unhappiness, in a photograph with Conrad.

The Girl (Episode 12 spoilers)

Lina

Voiced by: Aria Asakura (JP)

A young girl taking care of Vash, who is now going by Ericks, two years after the July incident.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the manga and original anime she didn't show up until after the Fifth Moon incident, while her she appears two years after the destruction of July.
• Boyish Short Hair: Sports this cut, much the same as her other incarnations.
• The Caretaker: She's apparently been looking out for Eriks/Vash for a while
• The Faceless: She's only seen from behind in her first appearance.
• Last Episode, New Character: She shows up at the very end of episode 12.

The Newbie (Episode 12 spoilers)

Milly Thompson

Meryl's boss: "Stop by headquarters. They're assigning you a newbie."

Meryl: "To me?"

Meryl's boss: "Some weirdo who wants to be under you, of all people."

Meryl: "A newbie..."

Meryl's boss: "I think her name's Tom? Thompson? Milly Thompson or something like that."

Two years after the destruction of July, Meryl is informed while returning from visiting July's crater that her superiors want to assign a newbie reporter and assistant to her, who is none other than Milly Thompson.

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• Adaptational Job Change: Like Meryl was two years ago, Milly is a junior reporter who was recently hired by the Bernardelli News Agency rather than a claim investigator for the Bernadelli Insurance Society in the original manga and anime.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Much like her original manga and anime counterpart, Milly is remarked by Meryl's boss as being a weirdo.
• The Ghost: Unlike the original manga and anime where she appears throughout the story, Milly neither appears nor is mentioned until Episode 12, where Meryl's boss namedrops her while talking with Meryl about plans to assign Milly as her assistant.

The Inbound (Episode 12 spoilers)

Chronica

Voiced by: Mikako Komatsu (JP), Morgan Garrett (EN),

Two years after the July incident, Chronica, an Independent Plant who serves as the lieutenant colonel onboard Project Pieces of Earth, detects fluctuating energy from the Gate, prompting her to discover that, to her surprise, the source of the fluctuation is Project SEEDS.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Whereas Chronica in the original manga does not appear until the final story arc, Chronica's voice is heard in The Stinger of Episode 12, two years after the July Incident.
• The Voice: She's first heard in The Stinger of episode 12 as a mysterious voice transmission.