#trigun thoughts

[ars-de-elysium]

AND WHEN I TELL YOU I CHEERED SO LOUDLY-

[mega-ringsandthings-world]

Ooh, does no one ever talk about the fact that Wolfwood is Knives’ proxy? Look, Vash and Wolfwood only met because of Knives? Everything they find in each other and are to each and become because of each other? It’s all because of Knives? And Knives doesn’t know and probably could not even fathom how he could be responsible? Knives fucked them both up and sent them both into the great wide world, Vash ran from Knives and Knives sent Wolfwood running after Vash. Vash, Knives’ little brother, the one who needs to be protected, the one who walks astray from Knives, Wolfwood, the big brother, the protector, the babysitter, the one who is supposed to lead Vash back on the path to his brother. And Knives truly had no idea what he was doing? He has this man handcrafted and sent to Vash and of course Vash regards Wolfwood as a gift rather than a curse. Vash and Knives are two parts of one whole and Knives sends Vash a cheap copy of one of those parts and it does everything Knives has been aiming to do better than Knives himself? It is lover, brother, friend, protector, betrayer, priest, partner to Vash. It is everything Knives wants to be to Vash and should have been. And it’s human. Vash kills because of Wolfwood, he overrides the things Rem taught him because of Wolfwood. He does what Knives has well-nigh been begging Vash to do for over a century because of Wolfwood. Fellas, is your unintentional simulacrum something you should be so jealous of you should be bleeding from the eyes and mouth but you don’t even know you should be jealous because you’ve never spared a thought to just what the fuck you did? And Vash? Vash loves this punisher, this monster, this assassin, this Judas Knives sent him. This man is Knives’ thing, but yet he’s not, this man is just like Knives but yet he is very much not, this man is here because of Knives but yet he is not? This man is not human but yes he is? He’s human and Vash can love in him all the things he hates in his brother because he is human? Wolfwood is a big brother, he’s a protector, he’s a pessimist to Vash’s doomed optimism, he’s by Vash’s side and will never leave, he’s back to back with Vash and Vash is whole again, he’s Knives in a funhouse glass darkly and of course Vash clings to him. Wolfwood is Knives’ quintessential token of his love and devotion and neither he or Vash or Wolfwood knows. Knives gave Vash his paradise after all, he gave Vash his world for just the two of them, he gave Vash the thing that made Vash want a paradise, and a world apart. He gave him Nicholas D. Wolfwood. If Knives ever understood that he’d fucking chew glass.  

[vitamimesea]

2023 is such an insane year for trigun bc we have:

-Trigun stampede bringing many new fans and reviving the show’s popularity

-bigolas dickolas incident

-trimax getting reprint after 15 years

-barbie and oppenheimer releasing on vash and knives’ birthday

[fifthpilot]

Can't believe we were given the most standard formula for almost every childhood friends to lovers backstory with Wolfwood and Livio..

Loner x loner, indirect kiss, running away from an authority figure hand in hand, sleeping together UNDER A FUCKING CHURCH BELL.. then meeting again under the most heartbreaking circumstances after one made an enormous sacrifice for the other.

Like its not even just their backstory its their whole fucking story. A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF ROMANCE!

And here when Vash asks Wolfwood if there's something Livio can never forget and Wolfwood knows its him, knows how precious he is to Livio, knows how Livio can recognize him by his scent alone, and purposefully blowing smoke to his face- if this isn't romance i don't know what is.

[setsuntamew]

No wonder Legato was so upset when Wolfwood commented on his hair- that's a low blow even if he hadn't gone through that kind of thing, but knowing what Legato has gone through....

Also, this means only Master Knives can compliment his hair because Legato knows that Knives has none of the fucked up prejudices humans have: he hates everyone equally

[biancalattei]

i wanna imagine Vash having a very soft spot for plants and likes gardening v much, he could be a flower shop owner too and he'd enjoy his day just tending to his flowers and talks about flowers to a customer......

the duality is no one would suspect a flower shop owner would be such a good gunslinger too

[rainbow-pop-arts]

Trigun MB Thoughts Part 5

Now we’re finally on the extras! This part have a bunch of mangakas but I only mentioned the ones who worked on mangas I know and might be familiar to you guys.

Thoughts on Trigun Badlands Rumble Cheerleaders under the cut!

Mangaka: Hiromi Arakawa

Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist

(I don’t read or watch the anime but I’ve seen fanarts of Edward together with Vash. That makes sense, cuz he wears a red coat, have blonde hair and have a prosthetic arm like Vash! Heck, he even has a brother too.)

Mangaka: Masakazu Ishiguro

Manga: Heavenly Delusion

Mangaka: Kumiko Saiki

Manga: Kageki Shoujo!!

(My friend said this is like Blue Period (Tsubasa Yamaguchi) but instead of art it’s acting. I know there’s an anime of it and I know that episode 3 is gut-punching messed up)

Mangaka: Boichi

Manga: Dr. Stone

Mangaka: Nobuhiro Watsuki

Manga: Rurouni Kenshin 

(Wait, didn’t this author got arrested? (o_O))

Final thoughts: Sorry that I didn’t show all of the mangakas, most of them worked on manga I’m not familiar with and others worked on anime and games. There should be more stuff in Trigun Badlands Rumble Cheerleaders, but they haven’t been translated yet and there are other mangakas that are currently missing. So when they come out I’ll post a part 6. 

Anyways, thank you so much for the translated scans of Trigun: Multiple Bullets, @trigun-manga-overhaul!

[shantalangel]

I have long wondered if Legato is human, and why he slightly does not fit into the universe logically (in terms of strength, superior to Plants). Analyzed manga again, and here are some interesting things I found:

Legato can use his power only if he has a device with wires, which later looks like this pretentious skull, but before that… he had the same device in slavery! The translation in that chapter is incorrect in some versions, so it's hard to figure it out, but the small bracelet with a metal box on his arm is not for to prevent him from escape (as I initially thought, something like explosive collars from films).

Legato says how he used it on the inhabitants of the fortress where he was kept. In the next scene, his slave owner, before “punishing” Legato, removes the device - that is, he is well aware of what it is and what it can (and is not afraid that he will be killed with this device at another time, which is strange). As Nai's slaughter begins, Legato can be seen rushing and grabbing the device. Why give a slave such a powerful thing? The only answer that seemed logical to me was that they were going to resell Legato to someone else and arrange a “small” sabotage there according to the principle of the Trojan horse. Would hardly occur to anyone that a pretty teenager is dangerous, and the device itself cannot do anything, therefore it is impossible to found out what is it. I still don’t understand how it works, because the device itself is not an implant - in the version from slavery it was simply worn on the arm.

Shortly before Vash is taken prisoner for six months, Nai attempts to merge with him like with sisters, at which point Legato, who was far enough away, has a panicked expression on his face, and while Wolfwood and Elendira do not understand why, rushes there to stop Nai saying "I felt the level of his power. If you try to do that, you will die (from energy overload, because Vash is so much stronger than Nai that it surprised even Conrad)." It's easy to see from the manga that humans don't feel Plants' angel weapons in any way, otherwise all those tragedies due to the power of the twins would have been easily avoided. Wolfwood and Hornfrick literally stood next to transformed and littered by debris Vash, and did not feel anything.

The most curious thing is that Nai himself was not at all embarrassed by the statement described above, just like the manifestation of strength on the first day of his meeting with Legato, which occurred because, judging by Nai’s words, Legato controlled him at that moment and either forced him to attack the place of his imprisonment, or from all inhabitants to leave only him alive; not exactly clear from the context (and, however, raises several questions: Why didn’t Legato kill everyone himself? How did he connected Nai if the device had already been removed?). In itself, the fact of the possibility of this is very curious in the story, where we are convinced that humans have absolutely nothing to oppose Nai - if we consider Legato a human. But it's not only that.

Firstly, since when did Nai learn to sense human's abilities?

Secondly, how could he even feel it, if it was solely the merit of a device or some kind of cybernetic modification like a microchip?

Thirdly, I will never believe that if Nai had stumbled upon someone who is stronger than him among many completely helpless humans, he would not have been, to put it mildly, very surprised.

Fourthly, the ability of an ordinary person to become stronger than a creature with the characteristics of Plants (which will need a separate post to list) due to just some kind of modification, is something, to put it mildly, absolutely fantastic in sense "impossible".

Fifthly, if such technology against Independents from the time before the Great Fall was still preserved, why was it in a single copy which turned out to be in the hands of some pervert slave owner who apparently decided to do something evil to someone? And Luida's team didn't new anything like that; seriously? And, finally, how did Legato, sitting in a cage, understand that Nai was somewhere nearby, if he did not fall into his field of vision?

An interesting picture is already emerging, don't you think?

Even against the backdrop of all the strange mutants and cyborgs, including very infernal creatures without a normal human face, with sharp needle-like fangs and tusks, like Gray 9 Lives, Legato's minion golem and another minor character from later volumes, Legato stands out with his abilities. In principle, mutants on Gunsmoke are clearly a common occurrence - they do not surprise or frighten anyone, even when they are multi-meter guys with piano-sized fists. But among them there is no one even with approximately similar abilities. If this is a random mutation, why does only one person on the entire planet have it? Also I doubt that at least one of all these cyborgs would have survived the connection to their brain and body of hundreds more people. Not to mention controlling an extraterrestrial organism for half a year. No wonder then, that Legato eats so much and in this way; he must be on a terrible number of drugs in order not to die after such overloads. I'm actually surprised he lived that long. The scene with food, by the way, comes just after the hellish-gore scene with the massacre of law enforcement officers.

This system with wires of connection is very similar to the artificial analogue of Plants' merging, which also has a leading individual, merging other creatures around itself into a single organism with a common system of internal processes and organs. The only difference that Plants also merge their psyche. In general, to have some kind of device or ability to interrupt the signals of someone else's brain with your own in order to prevent it from accessing the body of the brain owner, is already a very impressive scientific development on a planet whose inhabitants always moan about how they have no technology and they are in one step away from the apocalypse. :) Though I have a big question why this ability does not work without a device.

When Legato meets Vash for the first time, they communicate mentally and neither of them surprised. This I don't know how to explain. Apparently, telepathy itself, without controlling bodies, also exists then?

Of course, Legato is not the most creepy mutant of all that is found on Gunsmoke, but he has an eerily impressive completely inhuman tongue and, in one color illustration, long black claws; and the rest of the time they are not shown, which means that they also grow at will.

Also just a note: Vash has black "flesh" of angelic form in the new anime, which uses manga as main canon.

That Legato had transplanted Vash's hand - that is, the very fact that Plant cells can grow together with humans and transfer the abilities of alien superbeings to them, - was canon even in the old anime. Just like we now have a hybrid Elendira, who is part human, but at the same time materializes nails from the matter of her body, and she may have had Tessla's eye transplanted.

[toast-of-eden]

I've got beef: I wanted more nuance in Trigun Stampede.

Obligatory: I loved this first season of Trigun Stampede. This is constructive criticism around the storytelling, not the incredible work that was done and published. Frankly, I think it was a work of art, and my beef could be resolved next season.

Remember this line from the finale?

I don't know about you, but scene bothered me. So. Much.

It seemed like there was something that was supposed to click for us right here, but nothing new really happened — it was a battle where Nai and Vash realize they can never see eye to eye.

What that supposed to be the aha moment?

I couldn't put my finger on why it felt so shallow. It was like there was a missing piece.

But I think I figured it out.

Do you remember this scene with the spider and the butterfly from the first run of Trigun?

[if the video widget breaks click here]

In Summary:

Vash, Knives, and Rem are in Ship 5's greenhouse thing.

Vash sees a butterfly caught in a spider's web, and the spider is closing in on it. He's incredibly anxious at the prospect and holds out his hands, seemingly unsure of which one to rescue.

Knives, observing this, grabs the spider and crushes it.

Vash: What the fuck? Knives: Either the butterfly goes free or the spider starves, dipshit. You wanted the butterfly to live, right? Rem: Yeah but you can't just make that choice for them. Knives: So like... we sit back and just let the spider kill all the butterflies while you fuck around and think about it? Vash: [punch punch punch] I wanted them both to live!

It's the brother vs. brother, life vs. death thing we just watched happen in the finale of the first season of Trigun Stampede, right?

Kind of.

This scene, along with the original run, is a little campy by our standards today. I don't know if I'd want the same scene beat for beat in the new run of the show.

But what it manages to do in a minute and a half does what the first season didn't manage to do.

This scene gave us nuance.

The butterfly/spider conundrum is a direct, clear metaphor for "the human problem."

There's a villain and a victim, right?

Knives sees that the butterfly is about to be eaten and that the spider needs to eat. Indecision will only mean that the spiders will eat all of the butterflies — so if there's one to save, it should be the one that you want to save.

Vash sees that the spider needs to eat, but the butterfly needs to survive, and is unsure of who to take out — the whole situation is horrible. He raises both of his hands but can't decide what to do.

Rem raises the question of what holds the nuance: what gives you the right to decide which lives and which one dies?

Neither Knives nor Vash understand this concept at the time. Knives just wants to save one, and Vash wants to save both.

As of this scene, the twins are 1 year old, and actually likely even younger. So in theory, this is the simplest form of their points of view.

By the time they meet again, they're 100-150 or whatever the thus-far mushy timeline in Stampede is telling us. (If y'all know, please tell me.)

So it's been 100 years and Knives has been working with mad scientists that literally use plants as slaves, working them to death while Vash has been playing plant doctor and getting pats on the head.

Knives has seen first hand that humans are working the plants to death in spite of their sentience. They mutilated the twins' sister, who, reminder, was also an independent and was kept (possibly still alive) in a bunch of jars right under their feet.

Vash may have been ignorant at first, but humans had locked in a tiny room for months, perhaps even years, and then let him out and acted all "oh we're home" with him after he proved that he was "safe," (aka "useful") by keeping the plants alive and happy. And then, he saw where Nai was living, and how his species was being enslaved and slaughtered. So Vash also knew humans had enslaved his species.

Put this in the context of the spider and the butterfly again, mirrored in the season finale.

Both twins are watching a spider close in on a butterfly, but have reached different conclusions. Knives sees good and evil, and Vash thinks everyone can live.

When you look at how humans have enslaved the plants, Knives' premise that the plants should be liberated is right, and Vash is being incredibly naive.

Knives tries to explain this to Vash to the point that he'd even destroy his own identity and his own brother to save his species.

But in response to this, Vash says: I'M VASH THE STAMPEDE.

...Yeah, Toast. We know that Knives is right, but evil, and Vash is naive, but good.

DO YOU? From the way this prequel season has gone, I don't.

There's an implication that Vash is going to "wise up" in the next season and be less naive. Cool.

But for "good vs. evil" vs. "shades of grey" to be the main moral problem is just... not doing it for me. After all the representation of trauma, class struggle, and the terror of living on a lawless frontier, that feels cheap.

The nuance was left out.

What I think this season was missing was the third response to the spider/butterfly moral problem from Rem: why do you get to decide who lives and who dies?

In the finale, Knives made a choice, and Vash also made a choice. But it wasn't about who's good vs. who's evil — it's about whether they get to choose who lives and who dies.

Knives says yes, and Vash says no.

Doesn't that mean Vash took on Rem's point of view?

Wouldn't it have been cool if we got that foreshadowing in the prequel, to imply that when Vash moves forward, it's not with Rem as a concept that represents humanity, but a concept that represents the strength it takes to let things be?

Vash and Knives wouldn't just be the God and Satan of this new world, which is the premise that this season of Stampede is currently working with.

Instead, Vash might be a Jesus Christ figure, who believes that everyone deserves a chance — even at the cost of his own suffering.

[Also, so fascinating that they had Knives reading the bible before he explained to Vash that humans are a blight. But I digress.]

Again — this could be solved in the next season or the season after that. But as it stands, like I said before, "I'M VASH THE STAMPEDE" just... felt shallow.

Rem has been reduced from a fleshed out character to a concept that lives in Vash's mind from when he was a relative baby plant, and right now she's a foil. Humans = bad, but Rem = good, and if Rem = Human, then Human = good.

So we might not get the nuance she gave us from her character or from somewhere else (unless we're rewarded with more flashbacks).

But it's something I'd love to see, and if it's going to be woven into the writing later, I wish we'd gotten the foreshadowing earlier.

ANYWAY, that's my rant of the day.

[volaenii]

| Trigun Stampede Episode 6 Ramble

Before writing this whole thing I’m about to go on, I just want to say that i will be talking about major trimax spoilers, specifically for volume 10 as well as spoilers for tristamp (obviously)! so if you haven’t read trimax, maybe skip this post! Anyways, onto the ramble!

I’ve had this thought for a while now — since I’ve first watch stampede — but I’m dumb and don’t know how to out my thoughts into words. Along with this, I’m sure there are others who have made posts talking about this exact thing but I don’t care, I just want to brainrot and cry over this.

So, episode 6 of tristamp — “Once Upon a Time in Hopeland” — is the episode in which we as the audience are finally given a glimpse into Wolfwood and Livio’s childhood at the orphanage. And immediately, something stands out about this entire scene — the artstyle changes.

Instead of the typical CG/3D models that we the audience are used to, we are given this sketchy, simplistic, 2D animation style instead — almost similar to that of which you’d find in a children’s book. This of course, is completely different in comparison to what Tristamp had shown us previously. All the other flashbacks we had been shown thus far had still been rendered in CG. But this. This scene in particular is the only one with this art style. With that being said, it’s safe to assume that Studio Orange did this with the specific purpose of making this scene feel special and distinct. To make it stand out and to signal it’s importance.

Now, with that being said, why would studio orange go out of there way to make a distinct artistic style just for this moment? Not to mention, why make it only geared towards Wolfwood and Livio? Well… I think studio orange is going to use it in relation to Wolfwoods death.

Like, okay hear me out, I’ve seen some people say that there worried wolfwood won’t die next season (for whatever reason) but like THE DEATH FLAGS ARE ALREADY THERE!

LIKE!! THE FUCKING BELL?? HELLO?? JUST THROW IN SOME CONFETTI WHILE YOUR AT IT! (IM SOBBING SO LOUDLY)

But anyways, back on topic. I think they’ll use this 2D artstyle in a way to make wolfwoods death hit like a fucking train. Like… after rewatching tristamp for the second time, I couldn’t help but feeling like this whole artstyle choice is going to bite us in the ass later.

Like…y’all… I can see the fucking confetti falling in this artstyle…

Now, this last segment of this ramble is just gonna be me speaking in “what if’s” and just spewing out made up scenes based on this idea since obviously we have no clue what studio orange plans on doing. But anyways, here it goes.

So like…imagine studio orange finally adapting the couch scene, with Vash and Wolfwood having their last drink. Now obviously, the scene would prolly go similarly to the manga, with Wolfwood saying that he’s sorry for saying his smiles were empty and vash telling him to not say stupid things. Cue in the confetti beginning to fall, and in Wolfwoods perspective it shifts art style. And to make it even more fucked up, they could do the thing were it flashes between this and then back to the normal CG models; between Wolfwoods contentment of his death and being at peace with it — depicted like a children book — versus the CG — the true reality of it… the one vash is experiencing as he begs god for just one thing.

On a side note, I’m so so so fucking scared and excited for what Orange has in store, considering the fact that they’ve already paralleled the one fucking confetti frame from the manga (which I will not show cuz I cant look at those panels but if you know, you know) and like, I don’t know, I think I’m just gonna be a mess when that arc gets adapted.

Anyways, UH, I KNOW THERES PROLLY A POST THAT HAS SAID THE SAME SHIT BEFORE BUT BETTER BUT I JUST HAVE HAD IT IN MY BRAIN FOREVER SO UH YEAH!

Take these screenshots as a gift! 💕

Thanks for reading my dumb thoughts!

[pentragonart]

You know all these soulmark-AU fanfictions? Imagine a Trigun-FF were Vash doesn’t know what his soulmark is because it´s been under all this scartissue and he can’t see it and so he kinda forgets that it even exists?

[ars-de-elysium]

Modern Trigun AU where Rem’s a florist and her adopted son’s help grow the flowers. Little Vash becomes friends with Meryl and Wolfwood and Nai becomes friends with Legato and Livio. I have to flesh this out some more- but oh my god I love it already.

[mega-ringsandthings-world]

OOOh, Vash knows the ion cannon was used on SEEDS ships for blasting space debris out of the way of the ships, so it can be assumed at some point Rem called bby Vash and Knives up to the bridge of ship 5 while she was on nav duty to let them watch her blast the shit out of an encroaching meteor. 

[honey-doc]

I noticed there’s a lot of discussion about Christianity in Trigun, but I don’t really see anyone talking about Taoism (I don’t know if I just haven’t seen it but I’m gonna say something anyways lol)

I noticed that in the final fight between Vash and Knives in the og anime, their energy blasts made a yin yang symbol twice so I had to go look up the beliefs of Taoism to be sure if it was on purpose

Taoism philosophy is based on three pillars: simplicity, patience, and compassion. I’d say these traits suit Vash extremely well. And even Knives if you switch the compassion part to plants instead of humans.

Along with these pillars, the teachings of Taoism are: Going with the flow, Letting go, and Harmony. Throughout the series Vash’s very being reflects these teachings.

-He usually tries not to stay in one place for too long and is really good at accepting whatever situation he finds himself in as long as no one is killed

-His whole thing is wanting humans to live in harmony with each other (LOVE & PEACE ✌️)

-And he even manages to let go of Rem at the end of the series to a certain degree so that he can deal with Knives in their final confrontation

Then there’s the yin yang symbol.

I’m just going to paste what I got from a site I researched from:

-The yin yang is a symbolic representation of the world's polarities, dualisms, and fundamental dichotomies: light and dark, male and female, life and death. Although the light and dark sides of the yin yang represent duality, the two halves are not entirely opposed.

-Taoism recognizes that distinction and dichotomy exist, but emphasizes the ultimate relativity of everything. What seems good at a particular time, from a particular perspective, can seem evil from a different perspective.

I think this part plays into how sometimes Vash saving a life can cause trouble later on if it’s a violent person he’s saving like in Badlands Rumble even though, ultimately, his desire to save every life comes from a good place.

Vash is the Yin and Knives is the Yang. They both play into their respective parts of the symbol so straightforwardly. Vash’s energy is feminine, softhearted, and intuitive. Knives is clearly played as his direct opposite as the masculine, hard hearted, and logical side (especially in tristamp, I feel).

Knives’ body suit is even white while Vash’s body suit is black, and their energy blasts here also correlate with what each side is supposed to mean for each of them.

(Best picture I could use of the two of them in their body suits together sorry) It’s really amazing how much symbolism went into the making of Trigun, man. Masterpiece.

[fifthpilot]

Thought a lot about why they showed Vash playing the piano in his final scene. And I've realized just how much we've been given by the anime that tells us that this is how we know he's definitely thinking about Knives.

Vash looks out of it, he's not responding to Lina either, but there are other ways to show him unresponsive or nonreactive, he could have been literally doing anything else, he could have been shown listening to the radio broadcast about lost July; and that would have implied he was thinking about the people he killed. He could have been shown not eating, or staring off at a distance, and that would have implied that he's broken and depressed. But the piano's implications are so important here.

Because the only other person we've seen play a piano was Nai. it's an object so heavily associated with him, but that's not all. We see Nai play the piano in his first appearance, we see him play the piano in ep9 when he's missing Vash, and he plays the piano before his first confrontation with Vash in Jenora rock in ep3, and before his final confrontation with Vash in ep10 (videos linked here since tumblr only let's you add 1 video per post)

The piano is one of Nai's defining symbols, similar to how geraniums are Rem's. But it's more than that, it connects the twins, Because everytime Nai is playing the piano Vash is brought up too, either in the same physical space as the piano and Nai, or in Nai's mind.

Nai, pianos and Vash are always brought up in union. Which makes the implications of the final scene so loud and obvious, the story has been training us (like pavlov's dog) to associate the piano with the twins, not just Nai.

Everything we see has been carefully measured and decided. Which is why all that has led up to Vash's final scene reinforces the implication that Vash is thinking about Nai. Weakly reaching out to him, to their shared connection.

And it speaks volumes about how Vash is feeling, what he's thinking, who he's missing. Especially when it could have gone a hundred other ways and still worked, but only this way tells us that Vash is thinking about Knives.

[setsuntamew]

but I think about Knives and how he does terrible things because he's hurt and he's scared and he doesn't know how else to handle those emotions except to lash out and destroy and break everything everyone else loves - especially what Vash loves - until all that's left is the safety of him and Vash and nothing else

and it doesn't work so he's so so so scared to live in that world that hurts them both but Vash has chosen to love more than him so he burns up in desperation for a world that never could have been

and he leaves Vash with an inescapable guilt and the memory of the brother he couldn't save and even with that immortal weight burned into him, it's still not enough to make Vash give up and just choose

him

just Knives, just for fucking once, he wants to be the only one in Vash's heart and he's terrified he'll never be