NOMAN'S LAND
NOMAN'S LAND (Eng: NOMAN'S LAND) is the first episode of Trigun Stampede.
| NOMAN'S LAND | |
|---|---|
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| Japanese Name | NOMAN'S LAND |
| Episode No. | 1 |
| Original Airdate | January 7th, 2023 |
| Director | Naomichi Yamato |
| Previous Episode | None |
| Next Episode | The Running Man |
Synopsis
The episode opens with a view of a flotilla of ships navigating through space. Onboard one of those ships, number 5, a boy enters a room full of hundreds of people in cryosleep and greets them. Shortly after this, an explosion occurs. The boy runs to go find his other companions: another kid like him, Nai, and a woman he addresses as Rem. Rem hustles both boys to an escape pod as the ship falls apart around them. Nai beckons for Rem to come too, but she hangs back. She tells the boys she loves them and that meeting them has brought her joy. Then she launches the pod. Nai is stoic, but the other boy - Vash - is devastated. The escape pod falls to the desert planet below...
Cut to the present day: May 25, 10:00 AM. Two people are listening to the news while driving across a desert in what looks like an SUV, towing a battery pack with a satellite atop it. One of them, an older man named Roberto, is giving the other, a younger woman named Meryl Stryfe, grief. It turns out that they are reporters working for a news agency and are in search of a story, and that she is the newest recruit to be brought on. She is eager to prove herself while Roberto thinks that being so eager is a good way to get killed quickly - he points out that the planet they inhabit, No Man's Land, is a harsh and unforgiving place. Meanwhile, the radio reports that the July city government is after a fugitive who is wanted in a series of mass murders and plant thefts. Roberto keeps trolling Meryl until the battery powering the car dies.
Roberto and Meryl continue on foot as Meryl asks if the so-called "Humanoid Typhoon" even exists. Roberto tosses her a tabloid-style magazine with an article on the topic while telling her he's bad news - anyone who meets him is done for. She scoffs, saying that real people aren't monsters like that. They start to walk past some bodies hung upside-down when Roberto stops short. He points them out as the work of the Bad Lads Gang, and then draws her attention to the corpse in the red coat...who isn't a corpse. Roberto turns to leave, but Meryl insists they help him down. Roberto notes the large gun and the prosthetic arm, and asks if the mystery man is a gunman of some kind.
Just then, the July military police show up looking for someone. They produce a "Wanted" poster bearing the face and name of the man that Meryl and Roberto just rescued, and refer to him as the "Humanoid Typhoon" - it turns out he's worth $$6,000,000. Realizing what this means, Meryl lies and sends the military men off in the wrong direction before throwing a rope around Vash and demanding an exclusive interview. Vash agrees and says that they can do it at the diner in the nearby town. Meryl gets excited and has a whole slapstick moment with Vash while Roberto puzzles over just who he really is.
The group gets to the nearby town of Jeneora Rock, where Meryl is the first to walk into the saloon. The reception is chilly until Vash walks in, causing the lady behind the counter - the proprietor, who is pregnant - to loudly and boisterously greet him. It's revealed that Vash saved the town once before. He introduces Meryl and Roberto to her and they all order waters. Meryl is surprised to see that the water is dirty, and is told that the town's water-producing plant is broken. The proprietor wants to have Vash take a look at it again, since he was able to fix it last time, so the group heads over to the building where the plant is kept. Roberto asks Meryl if she knows what a "plant" is, and tells her that they can't be built anymore: they either have to be bought or stolen. Meryl notes that one of the plants is red, and is told that it is dying.
Just then, the July military police show back up. They've tracked Vash to Jeneora Rock and arrest him without a fight. The saloon proprietor learns that Vash is worth $$6,000,000, which is about the cost of a new plant...so she chooses to say nothing in his defense. Meryl is appalled. Roberto, however, goads the July MP Captain into having a duel, because he suspects that Vash the Stampede is quite a capable gunman despite his unwillingness to fight. The two face off atop a scarp of rock overlooking the town. It's a quick-draw duel, so the last man standing wins. Vash doesn't want to fight and tries to convince the Captain to stand down. It seems like he might be successful until the Captain pulls out a rocket launcher and fires a cluster bomb.
Everyone in town takes off running as Vash tries to figure out how he's going to address this crisis. He takes aim to fire his gun, and in true Vash fashion realizes he is out of bullets. He calls for ammo, and the saloon proprietor - who's name is Rosa - gives a bullet to Meryl to toss to Vash. The July MP Captain makes him scramble for it, though he is able to grab it and stick it in his gun. Vash then incapacitates the police Captain before picking up a good-sized rock and flinging it into the air. With a single well-aimed shot at the rock, Vash is able to make the fragments take out all of the cluster bombs that were threatening the town.
The next day, Vash tries to play off everything that happened as though he were scared but got really lucky. However, Roberto calls his bluff. He notes that Vash wasn't fazed at all by the military police, and asks him what does scare a man like him. Vash reveals that he has a brother, and there is a flashback to the moment just after their pod crashed as kids. Nai is laughing maniacally atop a pillar of rubble as the flotilla of colony ships rains down around them, declaring that his work was successful while outing Vash as an accomplice to it. In the present, some of the weird birds that had been hanging around Jeneora Rock are shown returning to a city with a tower. It turns out that they were scouts for Vash's brother, who now knows his location and wants to be taken to him...
Notes
Gallery
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Meryl's resume
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The Wanted poster
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Some prostitutes
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Currency
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Werid bird-bug thing
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More
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Approaching a city
