TRIGUN STARGAZE gives us a peculiar combination of hope and hypocrisy between the heroes and villains in Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker”. On one hand, the heroes experience both the loss of hope and its restoration. On the other hand, the villains, well, Knives specifically, show off just how much they are hypocrites to the cause they theoretically believe in. It creates an interesting duality between them as they prepare for the final battle for humanity’s survival.

TRIGUN STARGAZE Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker”: Details in Brief

TRIGUN STARGAZE NA key visual
The pieces are all falling into place here.

TRIGUN STARGAZE Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker” is the seventh episode (you can read my reviews of Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, and Ep. 6 here) of the second and final season of this reboot anime, with TRIGUN STAMPEDE serving as the first season. Said reboot anime is the reboot of the 1998 Trigun anime series, which itself was the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Yasuhiro Nightow.

Studio Orange (Land of the Lustrous, BEASTARS, Leviathan) returns as the animation studio behind this anime. Interestingly though, Kenji Mutō is not returning as the director, and none of the writers from TRIGUN STAMPEDE are returning either. Instead, Masako Satō will be the director, with Kazuyuki Fudeyasu as the writer. Tatsuya Kato does return as the composer though.

The opening theme song for TRIGUN STARGAZE is “Picaresque Hero” by ano. Meanwhile, “Stardust” by FOMARE is the ending theme song.

Synopsis

It will be a while before we see them happy again like this.

Alas, TRIGUN STARGAZE is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker” only just made its debut on February 21, 2026 exclusively on Crunchyroll. Thus, to prevent spoilers for those who haven’t watch this episode yet, here’s the official synopsis from Crunchyroll below:

“As the arrival of the fleet imminent, both factions begin preparations for the final showdown.”

TRIGUN STARGAZE Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker”: The Good

You can’t help but admire the effort Orange put into this.

Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker” is funnily enough another preparation episode for the action incoming in the next episode. However, that means that we also get some more characterization for the characters, both the ones on the side of Vash (voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (JP)) and the ones on the side of Knives (voiced by Ryūji Satō (JP)).

The main theme of Vash’s group in this episode seems to be basically hope in the face of adversity. Much adversity in this case, since Knives seems to be in the process of destroying remote towns and villages with the goal of driving humans into a single area for him to strike to complete his goal of genocide. It all seems quite dire and it is, but none of our heroes are giving up hope, and that hope appears to be paying off in time for the impending battle. Even a little tidbit involving Legato and Leonof now enjoying peaceful lives as part of Ship Three’s crew shows off how Vash’s seemingly unrealistically idealistic views can pay off.

Meanwhile though, Knives is really showing his true colors here in this episode. It’s this episode where he reveals that he does in fact know that his subordinates sacrificed numerous Plants to revive him. And you know what? He doesn’t care. In fact, he happily sacrifices numerous Plants just to give himself a power-up, and justifies it as him gaining strength to save the other Plants from humanity. He sentences humanity to death for using Plants to survive on the barren Noman’s Land, all while consuming Plants to help himself. In short, he reveals himself to be a hypocrite of immense proportions. We already knew he was evil before, but this new revelation just takes his villainy to new heights. Enough heights that even some of his own people are starting to question his motives, giving us some more moral complexity for the story.

All while Orange’s animation team gives us some lovely CGI animation to boot. When you can see sand realistically billowing in the breeze across a very well-drawn desert, you know that animation team put a lot of effort into it. Not only that, but there’s even a neat bit of traditional handdrawn animation sequence when Nicholas (voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya (JP)) reminisces upon his childhood as he left his orphanage, giving us a splash of animation diversity to enjoy.

TRIGUN STARGAZE Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker”: The Bad

Bad to the bone, this one is. So bad that it’s making even his own followers question him.

Alas, if you still despise CGI animation due to bad experiences with horrible applications of it in anime history, then this is not the anime for you. Again, the CGI animation in TRIGUN STARGAZE is very good. Studio Orange is well-known for this, having previously worked on Land of the Lustrous and BEASTARS. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it still has that CGI look to it.

Not only that, but Ep. 7 “The Hurt Locker” lacks in action. All of this episode is preparation for the action in the next episode, as evidenced by the return of Livio…or rather, Razlo the Tri-Punisher of Death. A bit pretentious a name that is, but he did have an understandable reason for that in Yasuhiro Nightow’s original canon…and he does actually look surprisingly cool in his pre-battle speech. We’ll just have to wait to see if he can deliver in the next episode of TRIGUN STARGAZE.

Anime Recommendations

In the meantime, if you want to see some bloody action, then you might want to watch Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, Blue Box, Solo Leveling, Black Butler, Nyaight of the Living Cat, and/or May I Ask for One Final Thing?. However, if you want more quiet, whether it’s before a storm or not, then you might like Spy x Family, Senpai is an Otokonoko, Apocalypse Hotel, Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, My Dress-Up Darling, This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Hana-Kimi, and/or Journal with Witch.

What did you think of this week’s episode of TRIGUN STARGAZE? Tell us your calm thoughts before the storm hits in the comment section below.

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