Deep space planet future gun action!!
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Like most 90s manga/anime, Trigun has always been at the back of my mind as 'something that I've seen little of but left a distinct first impression', the first impression being Spikey-haired Man in Red Coat With Guns In A Desert. The original manga by Nightow started in 1995 and went on till 2007 so it would have been in my radar... but dad never touched it so neither did I.I wouldn't even consider watching Stampede but I'm a basic bitch that is easily influenced by the stupid bird app, so this happened. Anime twitter is going crazy about it (among other things), especially because it's a re-imagining of the manga, which means brand new designs, new characters and timeline shuffling. What a way to revitalize a 16-year-old manga... and it worked because I read the manga. GOD what a ride it was! I feel very normal thank you very much.
If the subtitle didn't clue you in (deep space planet future gun action), it's exactly what it days on the tin. A space western with so many impossibly cool guns, bloody, gory fights and the central question of: is it possible to be a pacifist in a dog-eat-dog world? Nightow answers this question with a world of hurt.
Humanity fucked up as we always do and left Earth in search of better living conditions, bringing our best tech with us to colonize whatever meets our fancy. This includes humanity's new power source the PLANTs, appropriately named after the plants in nature for its ability to provide water and energy and probably other essentials for human survival. PLANTs are sentient beings kept in huge incandescent-light-bulb shaped containers. 150 years ago one of the ships crashed onto a barren desert planet, killing most of the crew. The descendants fight over resources (the PLANTs) before finally settling into seven major cities, most of them named after months (July, May, October, December, to name a few).
Enter our main protagonist -- Vash the Stampede, who also has a plethora of other cool titles, the most prominent being the Human Typhoon. He is wanted for the destruction of July, with a 60 billion $$ (double-dollars) bounty on his head. He sounds terrible... until you actually meet him. Sure, he has a mechanical left arm but he's also a goofball, only shoots to disarm and refuses to kill. Which is how our insurance agent gals Meryl and Milly find him. Meryl refuses to believe Vash is all that dangerous until she literally gets roped into multiple city-wide shootouts between Vash and bounty hunters and/or thugs.
He meets another badass in Nicholas D. Wolfwood, a priest with a mysterious past. Wolfwood aint a big fan of Vash's pacifist ideals, warning him that "(he) will have to make a choice someday". It follows the adventure of the week formula until Vash meets antagonist Legato, and things get really dark really fast from there. The focus shifts to major antagonist Millions Knives (aka Knives) and his Jesus-esque resurrection, forces Vash to transform his good right arm into an angelic abomination gun, then uses it shoot a hole onto the fifth moon, destroying everything around him in the process...
The story continues in Trigun Maximum, where it picks up where the manga left off. Vash is nursed back to health by a young lady and an old grandma and has lived incognito as Eriks for 2 years. Wolfwood finds him and he is forced to return as Vash the Stampede in order to stop Knives and his plan for genocide. Adventure of the week shenanigans ensue again, mixed with villain of the week and long shounen fights.
All comes to a head when Knives starts the 'ascension to godhood' phase of his genocide plan, and characters drop dead like flies real fast. Amidst all the chaos, cities are razed and humans perished along with them, human ships from other colonies come to destroy Knives, and Vash's principles are put to the test. Can you truly be a pacifist in a world like this?
Vash the Stampede kills.
In the end, the world survived, none the worse for wear. Knives is no more and Vash is free to roam as he likes. The insurance gals are now reporters Meryl and Milly, paid to follow him around to get an exclusive interview. Adventure of the week shenanigans ensue.
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| "(...)after all is said and done, I wanted to share my tomorrows with him." |
I haven't watched an actual anime in years. The last time I did it's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners which vaguely qualifies as anime, seeing that it's done by Studio Trigger (also the reason why I decided to check it out). Nothing beats horny anime twitter (oh please), but I also didn't expect a 90s animanga to metaphorically kick me in the shin. I mean what was I expecting anyway it's the decade which produced heavy stuff like Utena and Evangelion... Unlike these two examples, Trigun follows more of a upbeat shounen progression that you don't realize the pain and tears until too late.
I've just recently recovered from FF15 and now this? Can't catch a break around here... The story's all fun and games until the bloody fights leave one or more people dead. As characters living in a post-apocalyptic human society on an alien desert planet, everybody has a relatively shitty life. Humans are assholes to non-humans and each other, it's no wonder Knives fucking lost it and yet! Even after losing Rem, the only parental-figure he and Knives had, Vash holds fast to his beliefs -- Rem's beliefs -- and refuses to kill. No matter no many times humans hurt him, he patches up and smiles. The angel's love for humanity never ceases, even when the feeble beings repay that love with blood.
Which makes Vash's decision to fatally shoot Legato all the more worse. The scenario revolves around Wolfwood (recently deceased); the words he said and the target used to goad Vash into shooting Legato. He makes the painful choice of taking a life to honor Wolfwood's death in a way. That regardless of his principles, he couldn't let Wolfwood's life go to waste. Segue to my next point:
The yaoi in Trigun is unbelievable I'm not joking. I was hesitant to believe all that the bird app has said regarding Stampede but I caved and went into it with knowledge of Wolfwood's sexy sexy ass... and was not disappointed. There isn't much yaoi in there but it's a gateway to the manga and oh boy the manga!!!! Stampede fans keep wondering why the heck is everyone going insane over a couch? Why is Wolfwood? Black-haired Vash? All these things you can find in Maximum! Here I was thinking that the subtext is non-existent but apparently it's there in the form of symbolism. That, and Nightow is the ultimate vashwood cucker. He ships it, it's 'canon', but it'll never work out. They are doomed by the narrative but that doesn't mean we can't make them commit debauchery in writing and art.
Also, for your own sanity, please stop at volume 4 and ignore the rest. If for some reason you did not heed the warning and finished volume 10, do not attempt to power through the rest. You will be happier this way.
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"Love & Peace!"
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