Let's Talk About Trigun!

When I wrote my article talking about anime nearly two years ago, I was anticipating that I'd be writing reviews for some shows a few months later.  Obviously that didn't happen, as my current anime watching habits seem to be at a crawl.  However, I got it in my head to give a certain classic another shot (with some rather fortuitous timing, as it turn out), and so here we are: an entire article about Trigun!

I remember first seeing ads for it in anime magazines back in the early 2000s, as it had become something of a big hit for Pioneer, the licensor who had brought it to the US.  Somewhere along the way, I discovered the original manga by Yasuhiro Nightow in my local library, and before long, I had fallen in love with its unique western/sci-fi world, and more importantly, with its lead character: Vash the Stampede.

As humanity began exploring the stars for new worlds to colonize, sabotage on one of the ships causes many of them to crash land on a desert planet.  However, many of the hibernating humans survive the disaster, and begin eking out a barebones existence, largely thanks to a strange technology simply known as Plants, large light-bulb looking things that provide the basics for humanity, like water and food.  After about a century, the planet has become a weird wild west, with all kinds of outlaws wielding submachine guns and automatic rifles.  Between all the violence is Vash the Stampede, a strange gunman with a moral code that won't allow any killing.  And yet, he has a massive $$60 billion bounty on his head.  (Yes, that $$ is not a typo: money here is called double-dollars for some reason).  Despite Vash's pacifism, destruction seems to happen wherever he goes, so two girls from the Bernardelli Insurance Society, Meryl Strife and Milly Thompson, go after him in an effort to prevent him from causing their customers' premiums to go up.

The series essentially starts where the two girls finally catch up with Vash, only to be very confused, as the man in question seems to be something of a fool, and hardly worth the trouble that the massive bounty would seem to indicate.  However, as the girls start to learn about Vash's long and troubled past, they find out that he's a man who has sacrificed much to try and help as many people as he can, only to become haunted by a group of lethal bounty hunters called the Gung-Ho Guns, lead by a sociopathic killer named Knives, who is Vash's only brother.  And both them seem to be more than human.

After having read some of the manga, I was able to rent the anime on the individual DVD volumes from a local Blockbuster (remember those?).  The anime adapts a good chunk of the manga, but the manga hadn't finished by then, so the anime had to clearly come up with some stuff on its own.  As an adaptation, it's a little clunky.  At first, it seems to settle into an episodic flow, with the stakes being placed in the background quite often, and it even has a few anime-exclusive stories.  However, this allows the show to really focus on its themes, which mostly revolve around exploring and testing Vash's moral code.  It takes a while for everything to come together, but when it does, the ending few episodes really do have quite an emotional punch, resulting in a pretty satisfying finale.

The series also benefits from being made by one of the top studios in Japan: Madhouse.  While there are a few scenes where the animation looks a little weak (which is standard from most TV anime), most of it has held up pretty well, despite being over 20 years old.  The soundtrack by Tsuneo Imahori is also amazing, creating a peculiar mix of country blues and ambient electronic music.  Sometimes it's quirky and fun, sometimes it's alien and menacing, and sometimes it's nostalgic and comforting, and they're all used quite well throughout the episodes.  One of my favorite anime soundtracks for sure.

When I first watched the series, I was pretty down on it, as it wasn't quite a faithful adaptation of the manga.  However, when I watched it a second time, I wasn't quite so harsh and found plenty to like.  The characters are decently well-realized and the English dub mostly holds together.  My recent third watch (which inspired this article) confirmed what I already knew, but it's still a fun series and very recommendable.  I do think the pacing is a little all-over-the-place, especially since they make a big deal about the Gung-Ho Guns, and then they disappear for most of the middle stretch of the series, only for many of them to kind of crash in all at once towards the end.

After I had seen the anime the first time, I waiting eagerly for the rest of the manga to come out, and it eventually did.  There were some delays in its production, but it finally came to an end after 17 volumes, with an ending that surpasses the anime's ending in a few ways.  However, both the anime and the manga do a solid job of examining its themes and the focus on Vash's morality.  In all honestly, Vash the Stampede is one of my favorite characters of all time, as his dedication to helping others and using non-lethal methods in a world that shoots-first-and-asks-questions-never really shows the value of his virtue.  I do enjoy some good, unironic heroism, and Vash has that in spades.

The manga ended in 2007, with the US getting the final volume in 2008.  The creator Nightow had moved on to other projects, so it was with some surprise that a full-length movie came out in 2010.  Despite being such a big fan, even buying the movie on Blu-Ray, I hadn't watched it until after this recent re-watch of the anime series.  It's a shame I waited so long as I had blast watching it.

Unsurprisingly, it plays out like a lost episode of the TV series, but with a much bigger budget and more room to flesh out the new characters.  When a criminal named Gasback that Vash had saved 20 years ago suddenly comes back to threaten the town of Macca on a quest of robbery revenge, Vash and his regular companions find themselves in the usual amount of trouble, with Vash doing his best to make sure no one dies.  In the middle of this is a young, beautiful woman named Amelia who has her own history with Gasback getting caught up in the mix as well.  While the story isn't necessarily anything new, and there are a few sections that drag a little, it's told well enough to old the action together.

Right off, Madhouse is back with some incredible animation.  While there are a few bits of 3D work to help handle some of the more inorganic things, even the small characters and details are given plenty of fluid animation work, bringing the setting and stakes to life.  Tsuneo Imahori is back with another great soundtrack that easily drifts through its expected genres, with a great callback to the iconic opening theme of the TV show.  The voice cast of the TV show's English dub returns as well, and with the benefit of nearly 10 years of experience, they make the characters more vibrant than ever.  Overall, it was quite a fun ride full of great moments, all while still retaining the themes of pacifism and redemption that has made the series so unique over the years.

Funnily enough, right in the middle of my rewatch the anime series, a new Trigun anime was announced with the title of Trigun Stampede.  At first, I wasn't sure what to make of it.  The studio, known as Orange, is best known for their unique 3-D anime style.  I admit I've only seen a few trailers, but even based on that, this anime is going to look and feel quite different, and has even tweaked some of the characters and created new ones.  However, the creator Nightow is on board, so this remake will at least have his stamp of approval, despite the changes.  What the story will be isn't really known quite yet, but I know I'm going to be keeping an eye on this.  Trigun Stampede is set to start broadcasting in January 2023, which is just around the corner!

Overall, Trigun is a pretty unique franchise.  Despite being the anime made by a big name studio in Japan, it didn't get much traction until it made its way to American televisions in the 2000s, making it one of the few anime series that's more popular in the US than in its home country.  However, the manga seems to retain something of a cult following over there.  In 2011, in celebration of the anime movie, a compilation manga volume was made that featured fan art and even short manga stories from many big names across the manga industry.  In the US, I believe Trigun is fondly remembered by those of my generation as a solid and entertaining series, even if it did get largely overshadowed by Cowboy Bebop.

Trigun remains one of my favorite franchises, as it does more than what its setting would seem capable of.  What seems like a strange opportunity to blend Western-style storytelling with a science fiction background turns into a kind of morality play that checks to see if doing the right thing is still worth it, despite all the destruction and despair a desert planet would dump on its newfound colonizers.  Of course, these days, the anime community seems to be mainly focused on the latest shows, so a franchise from the 90s tends to be left by the wayside (though this new anime might change that).  However, I still think there are plenty of older fans like me who still have a soft spot for our donut-eating hero and his never-ending quest for love and peace.