Trigun Stampede

With a bounty so massive that entire cities evacuate at the mere mention of his name, Vash the Stampede is the most feared man on the planet. The thing is, he's basically a lanky goofball who refuses to kill anyone. That gap between reputation and reality is the engine of Trigun Stampede, a 12-episode reimagining of the classic Trigun manga brought to life by Studio Orange using some genuinely striking 3D CGI animation. Two reporters, Meryl Stryfe and the grizzled Roberto De Niro, head out across the desert planet Noman's Land expecting to find a monster. Instead they find a guy beloved by the locals of a dusty little town, someone who'd rather talk his way out of a fight than draw his gun. But the peace doesn't last, because Vash's twin brother Millions Knives has very different feelings about humanity, and the destruction that follows him is what gave Vash his reputation in the first place. The show looks incredible — Orange went all in on the animation, and the desert landscapes and action sequences have a weight and texture that most CGI anime just don't hit. Underneath the gunfights, it's really about a pacifist trying to hold onto his ideals in a world that keeps testing them. If you liked the bounty-hunter-drifter energy of Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo, this scratches a similar itch but with a different kind of protagonist. You don't need to have seen the original Trigun either — this is its own thing.