Johnny Yong Bosch Returns For Trigun: Stampede, Confirms English Dub Release Date
Voice actor Johnny Yong Bosch is going back to his roots. In a tweet from Crunchyroll, the voice actor confirmed that he will be reprising his role as Vash the Stampede in the soon-to-come English dub of "Trigun: Stampede." Said dub will be arriving on January 21, 2023, a mere two weeks after the premiere of "Stampede" this past January 7.
Yong Bosch is a prolific voice actor and Vash in the original "Trigun" anime was his very first voice-over role. He'd acted before, most famously as Adam Park (the second Black Ranger) in "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers." However, during an ADR session, a producer decided he had a "hero's voice" and asked him to audition for animated roles. A few weeks later, he was voicing Vash. The return of Yong Bosch in "Stampede" comes as a pleasant surprise. He'd previously expressed uncertainty about returning and Vash's original Japanese voice actor, Masaya Onosaka, was replaced with Yoshitsugu Matsuoka.
Last year in 2022, Yong Bosch returned to his other most famous anime role: Ichigo Kurosaki in "Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War." His other famous anime dub roles include Lelouch vi Britannia in "Code Geass," Rossiu Adai in "Gurren Lagann," and Brock in "Pokemon: Origins."
Trigun's return
"Trigun" takes place in the far future on the desert planet Gunsmoke/No Man's Land. Vash is a seemingly immortal gunslinger, nicknamed "the Humanoid Typhoon" because wherever he goes, trouble follows. As a result, he has a 60 billion "double dollar" bounty on his head. However, despite his feared reputation, Vash is actually a goofball pacifist, not to mention a total sweetheart. In the original series, Johnny Yong Bosch always excelled at playing Vash's humorous side, but he was just as good in the quiet, somber moments too.
"Trigun: Stampede" is produced by Studio Orange with 3D CGI animation, unlike the original series which was traditionally animated courtesy of the studio Madhouse. The first anime's 26 episodes (aired in 1998 in Japan and in 2003 in the US) loosely adapted the early volumes of Yasuhiro Nightow's original manga. Said manga kept going as "Trigun: Maximum" for many more chapters after the anime's conclusion. However, "Stampede" is not a more exact adaptation of the manga, à la "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" or "Hellsing: Ultimate." Rather, it looks to be a full-on reimagining of "Trigun." The characters have been redesigned, most obviously Vash himself: he boasts a side-cut instead of his original spiky hairdo, plus his cybernetic left arm is more obviously metallic.
Milly Thompson, one of the main characters of the original manga and anime, is also absent thus far. Her partner Meryl Stryfe is there, but instead of an insurance adjuster, she's a journalist accompanied by veteran reporter Robert De Niro (no relation to the actor). It's unclear thus far if any other familiar faces, including Bosch's old dub co-stars, will pop up in "Trigun: Stampede."
"Trigun: Stampede" is streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu. New episodes air every Saturday.