Tag Archives: kyara

Trigun Stampede, Cowboy Bebop, and Scrapbook Worlds

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When Studio Orange announced that they were making Trigun Stampede, I was pleasantly surprised. Trigun is a title that a lot of anime and manga fans around the turn of the 21st century cut their teeth on—I myself remember seeing it thanks to my school’s anime club. However, aside from a singular film in the form of 2010’s Trigun: Badlands Rumble, it hasn’t gotten much love, and it also isn’t as enduring in the general fandom consciousness as Cowboy Bebop. To be fair to both, they’re only vaguely similar, but they did come out around the same time and were anime convention staples together for years.

But here was a new Trigun TV series, and what’s more, it was clear that Trigun Stampede was going for an updated aesthetic. Anyone who’s familiar with the manga or anime remembers the iconic look of hero Vash the Stampede in his signature red trench coat and ultra-spiky hair—and both have been significantly altered for this remake. As I watched it, one thing became clear: While a lot of elements are similar to the 1990s anime, the story had been rearranged in noticeable ways. Where the previous iteration has a 50/50 balance of slapstick comedy via larger-than-life personalities and twist-filled science-fiction drama, Stampede is a lot more focused on telling a serious story. That said, I didn’t mind the changes, and was able to take all the changes in stride and appreciate them on their own terms. 

But as I was going over how I feel about Stampede, a thought occurred to me. Why is it that I was able to easily accept a different Trigun, yet the very idea of a new anime remake of Cowboy Bebop feels wrong? I’m not even someone who reveres Cowboy Bebop as a sacred cow, though I think it’s excellent in many ways. (I know there’s the live-action Cowboy Bebop, but I consider adaptations like that their own separate topic regardless of quality, so I‘m setting that aside.)

What I think the difference comes down to is just the way each series generally approaches storytelling. Cowboy Bebop is like a finely tuned machine, intricate and delicately balanced to give a very specific experience. Removing even one or two gears can throw the entire thing off, and overhauling it entirely feels pointless. Trigun, on the other hand, comes across as more of a scrapbook. Narratives can still be formed, but the strengths of the individual elements are more important, and they can be rearranged in different ways.

This brings to mind an old favorite topic of mine: the contrast between “character” and “kyara” as written about by manga scholar Ito Go. Essentially, character is how a figure exists within their greater story, whereas kyara is how much of their identity can be maintained if divorced from their original context. I think neither Cowboy Bebop nor Trigun are severely lacking in either category, but the former has a relatively stronger  emphasis on character, while the latter focuses more on kyara. 

It’s why Trigun Stampede can be this more somber experience wholly lacking in things like a wacky black cat who makes cameos and meows a lot, yet still identifiably be Trigun. In fact, this new series can often feel like Trigun leaning in the direction of Cowboy Bebop without thoughtlessly aping it. So even though there’s a sequel to Stampede on the way that will actually incorporate more of the 1990s Trigun look, the new groundwork laid out makes me look forward to seeing both how similar and how different things get. And despite the fact that the franchise has its origins in the 1990s, I can’t help but wonder if the pacifist nature of Vash might actually resonate harder among fans today.

Superhero Fans Are from Mars, Venus, Krypton, and Everywhere Else

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It’s the 4th of July, so here I am to discuss my ever-changing relationship with American superhero comics fandom.

I’ve been an avid comics reader since childhood, and having interacted with many fellow fans over the years, there’s one truth I’m often reminded of: there’s no one type of fan. It’s not just that Fan A might like Spider-Man and Fan B might be into Jimmy Corrigan, either. How people approach the very act of experiencing comics can be so fundamentally different that calling them both “comics fans” ends up being a gross simplification, and failing to understand that can stifle one’s own understanding of the power of comics.

I recall a conversation with someone who’s a big fan of the Batman franchise. The topic of spoilers came up, and they basically replied, “Oh, I don’t care about that”—not so much because knowing in advance what happens didn’t bother them, but because the actual story isn’t the biggest priority for them and their fandom experience. Rather, it’s the characters themselves (Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, etc.) and the values and traits they embody in and of themselves. It’s what allows these characters to be placed into alternate-universe fanfics. It’s also what allows them to be protected, in the eyes of such fans, from bad writers and plotlines. If Batman is written to be a racist, they can remember the perfect version of him instead. Japanese manga scholar Ito Go calls this kyara: the capacity for a character to be removed from their context and still exude a sense of identity, and superheroes certainly are iconic.

I’ve noticed more and more fans like this, and I believe their passion is real and wonderful. At the same time, this is not the type of fan I grew up with, and their interactions with both one another and with their comics are not the kind I cut my teeth on. Instead, I’ve generally been more accustomed to textual analyses, plot speculation, and the classic “who would win in a fight?” I caught up with an old friend at New York Comic Con 2019 two years ago, and their explanation of the ambitious nature of Marvel’s House of X and Powers of X stood in stark relief from the Batman fan’s way.

In his book Comics and Narration, French comics scholar Thierry Groensteen writes about a generation gap he feels with younger comics fans:

“For readers of my age…comics has always meant being exposed to a certain type of fiction, divided into genres and series, and being hooked on adventure stories. It went without saying for us that comics…was a “narrative type within the narrative genre.” Of course, we have to acknowledge that comics…arouses among certain groups of younger readers different expectations…. [O]ne needs only to consider the phenomenon of “cosplay”…to realize that these young people who dress up as their favorite hero have little interest in the story—what they are seeking…is the hero or heroine with whom they identify. The emphasis is on the characters themselves, their costumes, their attributes, possibly the values that they incarnate, but not at all the context in which they appear or the adventures that they have had. The phenomenon of identification is difficult for readers of my generation to understand…[W]hat mattered to us was how they gained hero status through their actions and how they swept us up in the excitement of their adventures.”

Unlike Groensteen, I feel I can relate to both his perspective and the “cosplayers” he finds inherently difficult to connect with. Still, I myself have noticed that when I talk with people from different groups about comics, the gears in my head turn in ways to accommodate the type of fan I’m talking to. Understanding their priorities also means understanding the kinds of questions that will bear fruitful responses. I don’t mean that I am constantly making intensely conscious decisions as to what to say or ask, but that talking with the Batman fan and the HoXPoX fan almost requires a different frame of mind.

While we all have our own ways and preferences, I think failing (or refusing) to acknowledge these differences creates tension among comics fans. People can even like the same comic but have very different ways of deriving their enjoyment. Trying to reconcile them (in the sense of trying to judge then with the same parameters) may be a fool’s errand. Recognizing that perspectives can be incongruous but appreciating them all the same lends strength to comics fandom as a whole, and all its possibilities.