Why Is Milly Thompson Not in Trigun Stampede? What Happened to Her?

Back when the original Trigun manga appeared, along with its now-cult classic anime adaptation, Milly Thompson was one of the most important characters in the series. Working together with Meryl Stryfe, she accompanied Vash and the trio had numerous shared adventures over the course of the story. When the remake, Trigun Stampede, was announced as a more faithful adaptation of the original manga, people were certain that Milly would be coming back, but that never happened and so far, it doesn’t seem like Milly Thompson will be appearing in Trigun Stampede, at least not in the same capacity as she did back then. In this article, we are going to discuss that problem.

No official reason has been given for Milly Thompson’s absence from the Trigun Stampede anime, which aims to be a more manga-accurate reboot of the series. Her character was replaced with that of Roberto De Niro and seeing how the Stampede anime did change a lot of smaller elements and brought in some original twists, Milly’s absence seems to be a production-based one. It is not known whether she will appear later on.

The rest of the article will give you some more information on Milly Thompson as a character in the series, as well as answers to some important questions regarding her overall role in the story and the reasons behind her absence. The article is, of course, going to contain spoilers, so we just wanted to warn you.

Why is Milly Thompson not in Trigun Stampede?

When Trigun Stampede was first announced, fans did not really know what to expect. A reboot, a prequel, a sequel? Something was bound to happen, but initially, everyone was pretty much in the dark. As time passed by, it became obvious that Trigun Stampede was going to be a reboot of the franchise and that it is going to be more faithful to the original manga than the original 1998 Trigun anime. But, at the same time, it became obvious that Trigun Stampede would be a reboot for the current generation, which meant that a lot of things were about to change as well.

And while changing Vash hairdo wasn’t such a big thing, the trailers for Trigun Stampede revealed a surprisingly small amount of scenes involving Milly – namely, zero. The fact that Milly, who was a pivotal character in the original anime, was absent from these trailers had fans worried that Milly had been completely removed from Trigun Stampede and that proved to be correct as the show premiered.

Milly Thompson was replaced with a male character known as Roberto De Niro, who is a completely original character whom we know very little about. The reasons for this have never been explained so we do not know why Milly was left out; it is possible that Milly might appear later in a different capacity, but that is something that remains to be seen.

As for the possible reasons, since this is something that Nightow obviously agreed to, we can think of two. One explains Milly’s absence by the fact that Trigun Stampede wanted to give the franchise its own, original stamp, and that resulted in the creation of an original character to replace Milly. The second reason is that the producers wanted a different sidekick dynamic, so they replaced Milly with Roberto. How is that going to work out? We’ll have to wait and see and while we wait, let us see why Milly is so important for the series.

What happened to Milly Thompson in Trigun?

As we have said, there is no plot-driven reason for Milly’s absence from the series. She was an important character in the original manga and anime, and there doesn’t seem to be any plot-related reason behind her absence. This is why we have decided to tell you Milly’s story from the original Trigun series so that those who haven’t read the manga or seen the 1998 anime know what happened to her.

Meryl and Millie are tasked with finding Vash and accompanying him. Vash has been declared the world’s first natural disaster of humanoid origin, so the bounty for his capture has been canceled, and the insurance company wants to cut insurance payments to minimize the damage it causes. Vash invariably tries to escape from the girls, but they find him again and again, getting to know him better. Meryl and Millie were at Jainora Rock when the incident with the fifth moon happened, after which they had to return to the company’s office since Vash was missing.

When Vash’s return was reported to the Bernardelli Insurance Society, Meryl was denied a request to resume surveillance of him, as another agent was hired, who turned out to be a common hitman. Meryl volunteered to go on a mission with Millie and neutralized the hitman. They subsequently continued their pursuit of Vash, ending up in the ship city, where they learned some information about Vash’s past.

After Meryl was kidnapped by Zazie the Beast, she went to the kidnappers’ lair with Vash and Wolfwood, helped Wolfwood fight Midvalley the Hornfreak, and was seriously injured. In the last showdown between Vash and Knives, Meryl and Millie don’t actually take part, but they do what they can to help Vash, such as preventing the defense forces from shooting him along with Knives. At the end of the conflict and the disappearance of Vash and Knives, the girls begin to work on television; Millie is employed as a cameraman, because, thanks to her strength, she can easily control the movie camera. Despite the new job, the task of the girls remains the same – to pursue Vash, only now they will tell the whole world about it.

And that is the gist of it. As you can see, Milly Thompson did, indeed, play a major role in the series, and after reading everything, it is even more confusing as to why they decided to replace her in Trigun Stampede. It might work out well in the end, who knows, but Milly was a beloved character and it is definitely a shame that we won’t be seeing more of her.