In March 1995, mangaka Yasuhiro Nightow’s series Trigun was published in Monthly Shonen Captain, going on to be serialized until December of the following year. The iconic series following “The Humanoid Typhoon” Vash the Stampede brought cowboy Western movie aesthetics into a fictional world set in the distant future. Vash is a character with a personality and worldview that contrasts with the world around him, giving way to character arcs that explore (and sometimes problematize) notions of pacifism and nihilism. The series would go on to get an anime adaptation which aired from April to September 1998, later going on to be broadcast in the United States on Adult Swim to tremendous reception, capturing the hearts of many and inspiring people across the country.
Following the run of the original anime, a second anime adaptation called TRIGUN STAMPEDE, produced by Studio Orange, aired in the beginning of 2023. TRIGUN STARGAZE is a direct sequel to TRIGUN STAMPEDE, serving as the final phase of Vash’s story. During this year’s New York Comic Con, alongside a premiere of the first two episodes of TRIGUN STARGAZE (to the delight of fans) we at Anime Corner had the opportunity to speak with staff involved with the series. This included Yasuhiro Nightow-sensei, the original author of the series, Masako Sato, director of TRIGUN STARGAZE, Yota Shirasu, a producer for the anime from Studio Orange, and Yoshihiro Watanabe, also a producer from Studio Orange.
Portions of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity. This interview was conducted with the assistance of an interpreter.
Q: Nightow-sensei, what does your involvement and collaboration with the project look like?
A: When they provide me with designs, the script, the series composition, background designs, art designs, all those kind of things, my job is to say, “Okay.” And when I go to recordings, I say, “It’s amazing!”. That’s my job.
Q: Sato-san, as a director, what do you tend to focus on most with an anime project? Is that usual focus the same for STARGAZE?
Sato-san: As a director, usually the process for creating a show is similar. But, as a mindset, what I really try to focus on for this project in particular is that every team member can do their best and how to direct them in what they want.
Q: Nightow-sensei, you’ve spoken in the past about relating to different characters and having various thoughts about the deeper meanings of the series. As we move into TRIGUN STARGAZE, have the characters you relate to or your thoughts on the series changed at all?
Nightow-sensei: Trigun is a manga that I created, and I spent everything that I could to create that manga. For STAMPEDE and STARGAZE, the anime staff basically took my manga and adapted it to the current world. In that sense, these shows feel like they’re shining a new light and showing me different sides of Trigun that I’ve never seen before.
Q: For the production team, when it comes to the balance between maintaining the spirit of the original manga and creating opportunities for the anime to shine in unique ways, what is your approach?
Shirasu-san: The original Trigun manga has a multitude of factors that are very entertaining, from serious things to humorous things to very crude things. In that case, I think adapting in it into STARGAZE, we were able to really put more emphasis on those elements.
Q: Sato-san, without going into spoilers, what is your strategy for approaching high energy action scenes vs more emotional or character-driven scenes?
Sato-san: Both are equally very important. For action scenes specifically, Orange is very good at 3D animation, and the animators are really great at describing the actions. So what I did was prepare environments for them to do their best and direct them. For the character scenes, I don’t just focus on expressions. There are many forms of expressing the characters such as hands, or even a shot from behind them. This is one teaching that I took from Director Takahata: he usually said that to describe a character, you don’t really need to place the camera near them. As long as you present the situation of the character to the audience, the audience will interpret that character, so you don’t really need to place the camera close to them.
Q: For the production team, when it comes to the animation this season, are there any aspects that you’re paying special attention to, any new techniques you plan to make use of, or any lessons learned from previous projects that you hope to put into practice?
Shirasu-san: We really put focus into expressions for the characters. This is not only because of staff working and putting their best into it, but also from experience as our staff tends to stay on from previous shows to later shows. Previously, we worked on a show called Leviathan, and they really put effort into the expressions then in a realistic sense. I strongly feel that that experience has lived on to this show, TRIGUN STARGAZE. That’s what people can look forward to.
Q: Are there any decisions you’ve made about the anime that you would consider risky? And what was the reasoning behind taking those risks, if so?
Shirasu-san: A lot of TRIGUN‘s staff are similar between STAMPEDE and STARGAZE. A few of the core members are new staff — new creative staff — that joined us to create STARGAZE. One of the challenges, of course, was to make that decision to have new staff come in but with the backbone of the previous staff also supporting to make a quality work. For example, Composition Director Murayama-san has joined to create such a quality screen.
Q: Nightow-sensei, we heard that you watched episodes 1 and 2. Can you share your thoughts on it?
Nightow-sensei: I felt a ray of emotions after watching episodes 1 and 2. Those episodes contain very serious things and very humorous things, from the light side to the dark side of storytelling. And the scale of the world itself is really enormous, from the micro size to the macro size. As I said earlier, this experience made me rediscover the world of Trigun.
We’d like to thank Yasuhiro Nightow, Masako Sato, Yota Shirasu, and Yoshihiro Watanabe for taking the time to speak with us during a very eventful New York Comic Con. We’d also like to thank Crunchyroll for assisting with the coordination of the interview. TRIGUN STARGAZE will arrive on Crunchyroll in January of 2026. In the meantime, you check out TRIGUN STAMPEDE here.
Featured image: © 2026 Yasuhiro Nightow, SHONENGAHOSHA / TRIGUN STARGAZE Project
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