Trigun Stampede’s ending animation is a secret hiding in plain sight

There’s been quite a lot of discuss Trigun Stampede. The brand new CG anime from studio Orange (Land of the Lustrous, Beastars) primarily based on Yasuhiro Nightow’s beloved house western manga premiered early this month, and has spawned takes each constructive and … not a lot. Wherever your emotions fall with regard to this new iteration of Trigun, one factor is unmistakable: Trigun Stampede has probably the most lovely finish credit score sequences of any anime this season.

There’s been quite a lot of spectacular anime credit airing this season, from Vinland Saga season 2’s shifting ode to the liberating energy of affection to the colourful wheat paste mural-inspired aesthetic of The Hearth Hunter’s credit score sequence. For my cash although, I’d argue that Trigun Stampede’s ED (“EnDing tune”) finish animation simply ranks as this anime season’s most mysterious, affecting, and memorable ending sequences.

First showing on the finish of Trigun Stampede’s second episode, the sequence’ finish credit sequence takes on the aesthetic of a stellarium, with chalk-drawn constellations marching and flickering throughout a black and blue watercolor background. The sequence opens with a picture of a youthful model of sequence protagonist Vash the Stampede, smiling reverse his twin brother Nai, earlier than their resemblance melts right into a tableau of taking pictures stars and wisping mild trails.

Set to an unique tune composed by Haruka Nakamura and sung by Japanese sing-songwriter Salyu, the scene regularly morphs as the celebrities turn into granular traces of sand, ebbing and flowing just like the symmetrical patterns of a Chladni plate experiment earlier than dissipating and reforming into constellation. For a second, the celebrities briefly type a sample of dots and dashes resembling Japanese Morse Code (Which some eagle-eyed Redditors have managed to roughly translate as “Welcome dwelling”) earlier than dispersing once more.

The credit culminate with an association of stars resembling a crimson geranium (a flower with deep symbolic significance within the universe of Trigun), which then morphs right into a sample resembling one of many biomechanical “Crops” seen all through the sequence earlier than remodeling once more into a picture of Vash the Stampede as a toddler. For these acquainted with both Yasuhiro Nightow’s unique 1995 manga or Madhouse’s 1998 anime adaptation, the animation is as understatedly lovely as it’s profoundly shifting. For anybody else new to the sequence, it’s nonetheless an excellent and inventive sequence.

Whereas the director and storyboard artists behind the sequence haven’t but been revealed, the sequence does bear a putting resemblance to the paint-on-glass animation of Miyo Sato (Mob Psycho 100) and the evocative animation of Yoko Kuno, who beforehand work as a key animator on each Land of the Lustrous and Beastars.

Trigun Stampede is offered to stream on Crunchyroll and Hulu.