Trigun: Difference between revisions

Trigun
	File:Trigun manga.jpg Trigun manga, volume 1 (English version)
Genre	Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Science Fiction, Shōnen
Created by	Yasuhiro Nightow
Manga
Written by	Yasuhiro Nightow
Published by	Tokuma Shoten; Glénat ; Carlsen Comics
Manga
Trigun Maximum
Written by	Yasuhiro Nightow
Published by	Shōnen Gahōsha; Glénat ; Carlsen Comics
Anime
Directed by	Satoshi Nishimura
Studio	Madhouse/Geneon
Video Game(s)
	Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke;
Soundtracks
	Trigun: The First Donuts; Trigun: The 2nd Donut Happy Pack; Trigun Spicy Stewed Donut;

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Trigun (トライガン, Toraigan) is a sci-fi manga series with a steampunk Wild West theme created by Yasuhiro Nightow in 1995, and adapted into a 26 episode anime series in 1998 by Madhouse. It is the story of Vash the Stampede, a.k.a. The Humanoid Typhoon, a person with a $$60,000,000,000 (the $$ is pronounced "double dollar") bounty on his head, and the two Bernardelli Insurance Society employees, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, who were ordered to follow him and minimize the damage that seems to follow Vash everywhere he goes. Like Himura Kenshin from the manga/anime series Rurouni Kenshin, Vash can almost appear to have two personalities — that of a harmless idiot and that of an unstoppable warrior -- but is always staunchly pacifist.

UK anime, manga, and J-Culture magazine, NEO revealed in November 2005 that during an interview with Masao Maruyama, the founder of Madhouse said that he was currently working on a new Trigun movie. Apparently the project will be released "in a couple of years".

Story

Template:Spoiler Vash is a tall, blonde-haired man who habitually wears a red overcoat and carries a large-caliber revolver. He is an exceptional marksman, and has extremely rapid and precise senses.

Vash is believed to be responsible for the destruction of an entire city, which was named "July". The government has placed an enormous bounty on him - $$60,000,000,000 (60 billion double dollars), dead or alive. Much of the damage attributed to Vash is actually caused by the activities of bounty hunters trying to claim this reward. Vash does not clearly remember the destruction of July, he only wants "love and peace", as he puts it. Though he is a gunfighter of incredible skill, he uses his weapons only to save lives wherever he can.

As the series progresses, more is gradually learned about Vash's mysterious history and the history of human civilization on Gunsmoke, the alien desert planet the series is set on. The series is often humorous in tone, but at the same time it involves very serious character development and especially in later episodes it becomes quite emotionally intense. Vash is occasionally joined by the preacher Nicholas D. Wolfwood, who is almost as good a gunfighter as Vash himself. Vash is later targeted by a band of assassins known as the Gung-Ho Guns for reasons which are mysterious at first. Vash lives by the code that his idol and caretaker Rem Saverem taught him: "No one has the right to take the life of another." Vash and his brother Knives begin to think very differently about this saying, and in the end, Vash makes a final attempt to steer his corrupted brother on the right path.

Trigun evolves into a very serious discussion of the nature of morality, posing questions such as: What is the nature of morality? Can we judge different moral codes? If a person is forced to betray his moral code, does that betrayal invalidate that moral code, and can the person still try to live up to that moral code? Can the person find redemption from his wrongs, and if so, how? Is a policy of both not killing and preventing killing realistic or even desirable?

Setting

The story of Trigun takes place on a planet named "Gunsmoke". This planet is, from all appearances, entirely devoid of water - the planet's surface is just one enormous rocky desert. However, events have revealed the presence of deeply buried aquifers, some under high pressure. The planet has a few types of native life, but no civilized, intelligent creatures.

This planet became inhabited by humans only recently, when a fleet of colony ships (travelling from Earth) experienced a guidance system malfunction. The entire fleet crashed onto the planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Fortunately, these ships were equipped with a type of machine called a "plant". Each plant has a bulb-like component which houses a bio-engineered organism - also called a "plant" (the organism and machine are often referred to interchangeably). Plants serve as generators, and can also defy the laws of physics in a wide variety of ways - for example, they can create food and water, fertilize the earth, and even negate gravity. These plants are the only means of survival for humans - nothing can grow here, so the only food is that which the plants produce unless massive effort is exerted to convert the soil.

Plants are large structures - too large to move. Thus, human civilization on Gunsmoke is restricted to cities built around the crashed ships, whose wreckage contains functional plants, and smaller towns built in sheltered regions with water sources. Fortunately, forms of transportation - both biological and mechanical - are more readily available, and have allowed some kind of a civilization to form among the survivors and their descendants. Because of the harsh circumstances, this society strongly resembles the western parts of the United States during the mid-1800s - the so-called "wild west". Most people try to live peaceful lives, but violence and crime are regular facts of life.

The plot of Trigun takes place approximately 130 years after the "great fall".

History

Vash and his twin brother, Millions Knives, were offspring from Plants, born on a colony ship while the fleet was still in flight. The single crew member on duty at the time - Rem Saverem - took care of the children, and watched them mature from newborns to an apparent age of about 12 in less than a year. The children eventually learn that one other 'plantchild' had been born previously, known as Tessla. As Plants do not usually bear offspring, Tessla had been the subject of experiments which eventually killed her. Rem assures the two that she intends to protect them; Vash believes her, but Knives becomes disillusioned with all humanity. Knives caused the Great Fall, by sabotaging the fleet's guidance system. Rem sacrificed herself to counteract Knives' tampering; this is the only reason that anyone survived the crash.

Vash and Knives reach the surface safely in an escape pod, and Vash quickly learns that Knives caused the crash. Knives believes that humans are filth, worthy of eradication; Vash refuses to believe this, and refuses to allow Knives to just kill people. They separated, with Vash wandering round the planet. Knives's whereabouts at this time are unknown. Amidst his wandering, Vash was seriously injured and saved by survivors of a SEEDS ship that is suspended within the atmosphere. He eventually learns about Doctor Conrad, a crew member aboard the SEED ship who survived the Great Fall and who also cared for Vash and Knives for a while when they were aboard the ship as children. Vash sought Doctor Conrad out, who is now living under the guise as Count Vasquez of July City.

Unfortunately, Knives has also sought Conrad out. Upon various tests on Knives' left arm carried out by Conrad, it is found that as a Plant, Knives has access to an enormous amount of power, namely, the ability to reshape his left arm into arrays of monomolecular blades. As Vash goes to meet Conrad, he meets Knives again at Conrad's residence. Knives provokes Vash, and knowing that Vash too may have certain powers as a Plant, attempts to bring out Vash's ability by 'synchronising' with Vash through his left arm. Vash's power manifests itself as an incredibly potent Angel Arm cannon on his right arm; as the two struggle, eventually Vash puts this gun to Knives' chest and fires. The blast consumes the city around them - this was how July was destroyed. Vash however has no memory of what happened.

This blast also destroys the lower half of Knives' body, but Conrad regenerates his body. In the meantime, Vash continues to wander the planet, searching for his brother. He doesn't know exactly what he'll do when he finds Knives, but he knows that if he does nothing, Knives will kill every human on the planet. This is the point at which the actual dialogue in Trigun begins.

Trigun

In the beginning, Vash deals with the normal kind of violence which this civilization is prone to. He meets Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, who work for the Bernardelli insurance company and are often referred to as "the insurance girls". They carry news that the bounty on his head has been lifted; he is now classified as a localized disaster, and therefore a bounty isn't valid. However, the two have been assigned to accompany him and limit the damage he causes as best they can.

The story's real antagonists reveal themselves shortly, in the form of Legato Bluesummers. Legato is Knives' right hand man, and is protecting his interests while he regenerates. He has gathered a group of 12 powerful superhuman assassins - the Gung-Ho Guns - and intends to make a game of killing Vash by forcing him to fight them one at a time.

Vash defeats the first 3 Gung-ho Guns, and in each case he spares the assassin's life. (Although two of them are later killed by another Gung-Ho Gun, and a different one commits suicide after losing.) Along the way, Vash encounters a travelling priest named Wolfwood, and the two become friends. In truth, Wolfwood is on his way to Legato - he has been hired as a Gung-Ho gun, but has not yet met his employer or been given instructions, so he knows nothing about the game to kill Vash.

When Knives is reborn, the game ends. Knives wants Vash to suffer and has Legato force Vash into a situation were he either has to kill him or let Meryl and Milly die. Knives once again forces Vash to use his "weapon", but this time Vash manages to aim at the sky before firing. His shot takes off the top half of a large rock outcroppping and carves an enormous crater - visible to the naked eye - into one of Gunsmoke's moons. In the chaos surrounding that destruction, Vash disappears.

Trigun Maximum

The second series of manga picks up when Wolfwood finally locates Vash, who has been trying to live an anonymous and peaceful life as a man named "Eriks". Eriks has been adopted into a small family that resides within a small town. Wolfwood passes himself off as a mere friend, but in fact he has been assigned by Knives to escort Vash back to Knives' presence. Legato, under Knives' orders and "care", continues to send the remaining Gung-Ho guns after Vash and his allies, in an attempt to convince Vash of the futility of both his pacifism and his hope in humanity.

As the two travel, Vash and Wolfwood become tight allies and good friends, although Wolfwood does not understand or approve of Vash's determination to avoid killing above all else. The two are continually attacked by groups of Gung-Ho Guns. Each time they find a way to triumph over their enemies and most of the Guns lose their lives. After saving his former home from the Gung-Ho Guns, Vash is briefly reunited with Meryl and Milly. Eventually, Vash and Knives confront each other after Knives learns the limits of their power, and Legato imprisons Vash while Knives travels planet Gunsmoke, absorbing other plants into his being in order to kill all humans without wasting his own power. Vash escapes, and later returns to stop Knives with what little power his body has left. The ending remains to be seen.

Template:Endspoiler

Manga

After leaving college, Yasuhiro Nightow had gone to work selling apartments for the housing corporation Sekisui House, but struggled to keep up with his manga drawing hobby. Reassured by some successes, including a one-shot Samurai Spirits manga based on the popular video game franchise, he quit his job to draw full time. With the help of a publisher friend, he submitted a Trigun story for the February 1995 issue of the Tokuma Shoten magazine Shōnen Captain, and began regular serialisation two months later in April.

However, Shōnen Captain was cancelled early in 1997, and when Nightow was approached by the magazine Young King Ours, published by Shōnen Gahōsha, they were interested in him beginning a new work. He was however troubled^[1] by the idea of leaving Trigun incomplete, and requested to be allowed to finish the series. The publishers were sympathetic, and the manga resumed in 1998, under the new name Trigun Maximum (トライガンマキシマム). The story jumps forward two years with the start of Maximum, and takes on a slightly more serious tone, perhaps due to the switch from a shōnen to a seinen magazine. Despite this, Nightow has stated^[2] that the new title was purely down to the change of publishers, and rather than being a sequel it should be seen as a continuation of the same series. The 12th tankōbon was published at July 26th, 2006.

The T.V. series TRIGUN closely follows the first two enlarged manga, but at the start of the Trigun Maximum books the two go in different directions. For example, there is actually another Gung-ho Gun and Nicholas Wolfwood's instructor or mentor from the anime never appears in Trigun Maximum. Also in the manga Vash and Knives aren't immortal as depicted in the anime. There are several sections talking about the color of their hair and how it is relevant to their powers and life dwindling away.

Shōnen Gahōsha later bought the rights to the original three volume manga series and reissued it as two enlarged volumes. In October 2003 the US publisher Dark Horse Comics released the expanded first volume translated into English, keeping the original right-to-left format rather than mirroring the pages. With the anime version already well known in the US, the first print run of 30,000 sold out^[3] shortly after release. The second volume concluded the original series early the next year, and went on to be the top earning^[4] graphic novel of 2004. On the heels of this success, Trigun Maximum followed quickly, and as of February 2006 eight volumes have been released. Translations into German, French, Italian and Spanish have also been released.

As with other popular series, a wide variety of dōjinshi has been created by fans, and partially because of the high profile anime and wealth of bishōnen characters, this includes some yaoi work. Nightow has said^[5] he's not been daunted by this idea, and even implies he might have read a few of them! However he did at one point take the unusual step of requesting^[6] that a publisher cease distribution of a dōjinshi manga based on Trigun - not because of any risqué content, but rather that it was being sold alongside his own manga in bookshops, rather than being restricted to the condoned, specialist, comic fairs.

Anime

Trigun was created by the animation studio Madhouse in 1998 and directed by Satoshi Nishimura. It is licensed in the United States by Pioneer USA (now Geneon). In 2003, Trigun began broadcast as part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. Despite the hopes of many fans, Nightow has stated^[7] that due to the finality of the anime ending, it is unlikely any continuation will be made.

Movie

The October 2005 issue of Neo magazine (A UK Anime magazine) includes an interview with Studio Madhouse's founder, Masao Maruyama. In it he says the studio is working on a Trigun Movie that should be released in a "couple of years". The November issue of Anime Insider also confirms this news.

Episodes

Characters

Differences Between the Manga and the Anime

Template:Spoiler

Story, Events, and Details

The opening of the anime and the opening of the manga, where Meryl and Milly enter a bar to look for Vash, are very similar. However, the manga jumps forward to the events of anime episode 5, "Hard Puncher".
In the anime the bounty on Vash the Stampede is called off after the Fifth Moon incident, because he is designated the first human Act of God (changed to a "disaster" in the dubbed version of the anime) which places damage caused by him in the same uninsured category as damage from hurricanes, earthquakes, and the like. The bounty is actually called off before the start of the manga, which the townsfolk in Trigun #1 don't know until Millie and Meryl announce it.
The events of anime episode 4 are adapted from the manga's pilot issue, occurring before Vash meets up with Meryl and Milly.
In the pilot issue, Grimreaper Bostalk is killed in his duel with the leader of the bandits. Afterward, the sheriff is going to kill Vash and the others, but is stopped when Vash reveals his hidden gun and shoots up the police officers in what sounds like one shot. After dodging the sheriff's shot at point blank range he then shoots the sheriff on his badge, which blocked the bullet and fell off.
In the anime, Vash tackles the bearded man and Meryl shoots the guns out of the police's hands, then the sheriff surrenders.
The events of episode 14: Little Arcadia happened at the end of Trigun #1, before Vash's first confrontation with Legato; during the anime, that would have been between episodes 11 and 12.
Unlike the anime, in the manga Legato makes it clear that he works for Knives during his first confrontation with Vash, and Vash reveals that Knives killed Rem. Legato also gives Vash a case holding twelve half coins and tells him that twelve assassins are coming for him, each with the other half of those coins.
In the manga, Legato tries to kill Vash against Knive's orders and is put in a coffin-like chamber with only his head visible. There is nothing in the anime that shows this incident.
In the manga, the Gung-Ho Guns are often shown collaborating and/or talking amongst themselves, showing "slices of life" which are almost completely absent in the anime.
Vash loses his mechanical arm during the fight with Monev the Gale and doesn't get it back until after the Fifth Moon incident.
Vash's fight with E.G. Mine occurs shortly after he defeats Monev. Mine has killed Monev, and is himself killed by Legato after he fails to stop Vash.
In the manga, Dominique the Cyclops battles Vash after he beats E.G. Mine. She committed suicide after losing, falling to her death from atop the site of their battle.
Vash defeats Rai-Dei the Blade in the Manga.
In the manga, during his fight with Leonoff, Vash shoots a girl, thinking that she was a puppet.
In the manga, Hoppered the Gauntlet wasn't present during the battles in Vash's "home".
In the manga, Vash and Knives had an older sister named Tessla. She was found by scientists, who experimented on and tortured her until she finally contracted cancer and died. The boys saw her ghost on the ship often. The sight of Tessla's dissected, preserved corpse cause Knives to fall into a comatose state and Vash close to insanity. When Vash discovered the humans had killed her he tries to commit suicide with a knife, but Rem stops him, wounding herself in the process. Seeing Rem nearly die by his hand returns Vash to his senses.
In the manga during the Lost July incident, Vash's angel arm blast killed everyone in the city, whereas nobody died from the blast in the anime; they were killed from exposure when the plant blew, and they were left alone to wander the wastes. Not all of them died, but many did.
The result of using the Angel Arm for a second time used so much of Vash's energy that part of his hair turned black. We later find out that if a plant's hair turns 100% black he/she will most likely die.
Millie and Meryl have a few more active parts in the manga, even joining Vash and Wolfwood in a few battles.
In the anime, Zazie the beast is killed by Wolfwood, unlike in the manga where he is killed by Hoppered the Gauntlet.
In the Manga Zazie is infact not human but a collection of the creatures who live natively on the planet, making it almost impossible to truly kill them. Killing the host body means the entity will find a new host, ie. Zazie becomes a young teenage girl, having obtained a new host body.
In the anime, Midvalley seems to "pal" around with Legato as if they are buddies. In the manga he hates Legato, and even tries to kill him.

Character differences

In the manga, Millie's hair is blonde; in the anime, it's brunette.
In the manga Legato is shown exhibiting emotions like anger, frustration, confusion; it's after being confined in his chamber for so long that turns him into the Legato we know from the anime, as implied by Hoppered when Midvalley tries to kill him.
Unlike the anime, in the manga Midvalley strongly dislikes Legato, and in fact tries to kill him. He also expresses his confliction with what it is that he has to do as a Gung-Ho Gun (in the manga).
In the manga, Meryl is quick to agree that Vash the Stampede is who he says he is. However, on the anime she does not believe that Vash is really Vash until episode 5, "Hard Puncher."

The Fifth moon incident

The Fifth moon incident occurs shortly after Vash's fight with Dominique in the manga; in the anime it occurs during his fight with Rai-Dei.
Knives emerges from the plant in which he was healing his body and he, not Legato, personally causes Vash to activate his Angel Arm.
Knives crushes Legato's spine for attempting to kill Vash without Knives' permission. Legato is confined to a topless coffin for the rest of the manga.

The Gung-ho Guns

Composition of the Gung-ho Guns differs slightly between the manga and the anime (see table).
It's made clear fairly early on in the manga that Wolfwood is a Gung-ho Gun when he goes up to a chapel and joins the remaining group. His title is "Wolfwood the Chapel." Later chapters reveal that Wolfwood tried to kill the real Chapel and took his name.
In the English translation of the manga, the Gung ho Guns introduce themselves as, "Gung ho Guns, number n"; in the English translation of the anime, they introduce themselves as "the nth Gung ho Gun." The literal translation from Japanese is most accurate as "Number n of the Gung ho Guns" as they introduce themselves as "Gun ho guns no n"
In the anime Grey the Ninelives is a robot; in the manga, Grey is a being made of flesh but contains 9 little people inside of it, which control "him."
There is a Gung-ho Gun exclusively in the Anime called "Caine the Longshot."
There is a Gung-ho Gun exclusively in the Anime called "Chapel the Evergreen" who is Wolfwood's mentor; in the manga, Wolfwood is called Chapel, though his name as a Gung-ho Gun is disputed, with the most common assumption that Chapel is his title ("Wolfwood the Chapel"). It's later revealed that the leader of the "Eye of Michael" is the real Chapel. He was the one that trained both Wolfwood and Livio and is confined to a wheelchair due to Wolfwood's betrayal in the past.
There is a Gung-ho Gun exclusively in the Manga called "Elendira the Crimsonnail," who is a transvestite.
There is a backstory of Leonoff in the manga, which explains that Vash once knew him as a child named "Emilio" who was in love with a girl named Isabell, who later became one of Leonoff's puppets.
There is another Gung-Ho Gun exclusively in the Manga called Livio the Double Fang, who has a second personality Razlo the Tri-p of Death. The personalities count as separate Gung-Ho Guns. Wolfwood is killed as a result of taking a double dose of his Super-Soldier Formula that all members of the "Eye of Michael" carry, while in battle with Razlo and the real Chapel. Livio overcomes his evil half (Razlo) and is then Vash's new partner. Vash completely trusts him with his life and they have a similar relationship to that of Wolfwood and Vash in the past. Brad is amazed that Vash can trust him even though he essentially killed Wolfwood.
In the manga, Zazie the Beast is a hive mind of sandworms that can insert small worms to control bodies as "terminals." The small boy first seen is one terminal, though Zazie gains other terminals as they are destroyed one by one.
There is a 16th Gung-Ho Gun, named Gazelle the Peacemaker, who never appeared in the manga or the anime. He was created by Yasuhiro Nightow, and produced by the toy company Kaiyodo. Gazelle carried a man-sized revolver on his back and can wield it as a lagre cannon. First released in Japan, the U.S. release had an orange cap on the end of the revolver due to toy safety laws (however, it is possible to remove the cap).

"Mixed" Differences

Vash's Colt 45 long in the anime isn't the same as the one in the manga. In the manga, Vash uses the one seen in the anime while his normal pistol is being fixed.
In the anime, the Angel arm is built into Vash's pistol. In the manga, however, it is actually embedded into his arm.
The "boss" in the first episode of the anime makes his first (and only) appearance in the beginning of Trigun Maximum 2 when the police took him from prison to kill Midvalley and Gray the Ninelives; he nails Gray with a boomerang, but Gray ends up impaling him with it while it's still through his own chest.
In the manga there is a part where Midvalley pulls out a pistol and tries to kill Legato, to which Legato responds by forcing Midvalley's body to bend backwards into a painful position -- this closely resembles the scene in episode 24 of the Anime when Chapel the Evergreen tried to kill Legato, though, Midvalley never tried to kill Legato in the anime.
When Monev first attacks Vash in the anime, Millie shoots at him, which results in him running off; in the manga, Vash reveals his hidden gun and shoots Monevs arm, rendering it useless, then it's Monev who runs off.
Vash's "Home" (the ship in the sky in the anime) is not in the sky in the manga. It's in a "sea of sand" (probably quicksand) that is only able to stay afloat because of the 'gravity plant' that is inside the ship. Also, "Doc" and Brad visit Vash in town and deliver his new coat (which looks quite different from the anime version) and new gun arm.
In the manga, after being defeated by Vash the Stampede, Rai-Dei the Blade aims his gunblade at Vash's back, but is shot to death by Wolfwood. Vash punches Wolfwood, and the two argue briefly about whether Rai-Dei would have shot (the safety was still on his weapon) and whether Wolfwood should have killed him or not. This account is somewhat synonymous to the scene in the anime when Wolfwood kills Zazie the Beast.
In the anime there is a scene in episode 16 where Vash shouts, "My name is... Vash the Stampeeeeeede!" to scare away the townspeople, which took place shortly before his fight with Rai-Dei the Blade. In the manga, Vash does the same thing, but in what would have taken place on episode 19 of the anime when Vash is going into the sandsteamer that was hijacked. Unlike the anime, this takes place after 5th moon incident.
In chapter 80 of the manga we find out that 80 years after the "Big fall" Knives chopped Vash's arm off after Vash shot him in the back of the arm. Knives had just slaughtered an entire town because the townsfolk had left Vash chained in the sun to die. In the anime, Knives shot Vash's arm off in July before activating Vash's Angel Arm and destroying the city.
in chapter 84 we learn that Legato serves Knives because Knives saved him. Legato had just obtained his "Powers" but was captured by the townspeople who then disabled him. While Legato is being tortured, Knives was at the situation and slices the bad guys to pieces. Knives had intended to kill everyone but once the chains that held Legato were cut he could use his "Technique" to stop the blades and save himself. Knives realizes that Legato is controlling his body and goes to cut his head off but Legato stops him. Legato then freely offers his life to Knives and begs Knives to kill him, if he deems him unworthy. Legato explained the story to Vash when he was being held prisoner in the Arc and he flashes back to it during the final confrontation between Vash and Knives. Legato's origins in the anime are never revealed further back than shortly after the destruction of July, when Legato is joined with Vash's arm and given his long-term mission of causing Vash eternal suffering.
In the Manga, after using his power to block an attack from the Arc; Vash's hair turns almost completely black with just a small stripe of white left. Vash then turns his remaining power into bullets that he can use in his pistol to negate Knives' attacks. His hair is even closer to being all black in the final confrontation with Knives. This is never seen in the anime.