The 60 Billion Double Dollar Man

Trigun Preview / Plot (No Spoilers)

Trigun follows the trails of the 60 billion double dollar man, Vash the Stampede as he tries to live a life of peace and love. Unfortunately, trouble follows Vash like Vash chases after donuts.

We get to know Vash the Stampede through the eyes and reports of Meryl and Milly of the Bernardelli Insurance Society. Milly and Meryl were sent to talk to Vash and persuade him to stop destroying towns. When they finally meet Vash, Meryl refuses to believe the annoying nuisance in front of her is the man worth 60 billion double dollars. He is too clumsy to actually cause any of the damage and destruction that is credited to this Humanoid Typhoon.

We soon learn how wrong Meryl Stryfe is when it comes to this stalled man, as he puts himself in the way of danger more than once to protect the innocent and save lives… and destroy towns, but that is a small detail.

What is Trigun Like? This Anime is for people like what?

Trigun shares many similarities of old westerns. The main character, Vash, is a top rank gunslinger, who seldom misses. Vash’s personality isn’t like Clint Eastwood though. He is a lovable goofball that brings laugh after laugh to Trigun. Trigun is for those who want to watch a western with a good story and a little bit of science fiction mixed into it.

What’s so appealing about this piece of work.

Trigun is an anime that has, so far, stood the test of time. Where new anime fans can pick it up and start watching it. The quality of Trigun’s animation fits into the setting, so nothing is lost on its age. When looking at it now, the style is rough and gritty, which brings Trigun to life and unlike newer anime, like Comet Lucifer, the gritty animation style fits the setting.

Another thing that is really appealing about Trigun is the development of the characters. How Vash, Milly, Wolfwood and Meryl change and interact with each other.

TRIGUN - The Complete Series on DVD 11.16.10 - Anime Trailer

Trigun Main Characters List

Vash the Stampede

Voice Actor :Masaya Onosaka

Vash is a laidback guy who almost always acts like an airheaded coward most of the time. Going so far to put himself in the middle of dangerous situations on purpose. Vash’s dimwitted act is a front for those around him. When you are wanted for the destruction of a town, the best thing you could do is act like someone who is unable to do such an act.

When Vash has to act seriously, he is a force to be reckoned with. An ace shot with his pistol, he hates to point it at another person and always condemn others for their actions when they shoot to kill. .

Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Voice Actor :Show Hayami

Almost the complete opposite of Vash, Wolfwood is a lone gunner who has a heart. He always says that he is a “Man of God” but doesn’t hesitate to send the people to meet their maker. He goes so far as to carry a heavy cross on his back that is filled with “God’s Mercy” that Wolfwood uses from time to time to bring peace. Even if that peace means the end of the other person. Because as Wolfwood himself said, “Man is born a mortal being and we all make mistakes. It’s part of the game. Just be careful next time.”

Meryl Stryfe

Voice Actor :Hiromi Tsuru

Meryl is the shortest among the Trigun crew, but she is anything but helpless. Meryl’s job brings her into dangerous situations that she has to use one of the many guns stored under her white trench coat. When she first met Vash, Meryl couldn’t believe that this dimwitted oaf was the man responsible for the destruction of an entire town.

After several more encounters with the Humanoid Typhoon, Meryl is able to see the true side of Vash and realize why the town could have been destroyed by this man. Since then, she tries to keep up with paperwork and the insane manic, Vash, and stop him from causing any more damage.

Trigun Review

Trigun takes place on Gunsmoke, a desolate world with in a binary sun system. Gunsmoke’s location in space brings it close to one, if not both, of its suns, which leaves the planet a dried up husk of a world. This setting puts the viewers in a familiar setting on an unfamiliar world. Taking the viewer back to the wild west, where Billy the Kid ran ramped and the sheriff was the law in the town. Keeping with the grainy texture was a wise choice when producing this anime. It set the mood for a shooter-up series that has aged well.

Even though Trigun is set on a desolate planet, we still see some things from the past and eventually find out that Trigun is a possible future that we might see. The way they introduced us to the Seed ships and the secret behind Vash, they did it in a way that is believable.

When the main character, Vash, tried to live his life without killing, it showed us that a gunman doesn’t have to only use his gun to solve all of his problems. It should be the last option only when he has left all other options behind. Vash tries to teach Wolfwood this very lesson time and time again. Teaching us that while someone does something you don’t agree with, try to show them the right way, without forcing it down their throats.

The comical relief that is infused into Trigun is not hidden, it is right in your face from the first episode. When Meryl meets Vash for the first time, she is completely fooled by the idiot persona that Vash carries around with him. This idiot persona makes us see him chasing after donuts and flirting with several different women. The best idiotic moment is when Vash dances into a bank robbery, acting completely oblivious to it. We don’t know that he has a plan when he goes in and just think he is an idiot, but we laugh at his reaction at having several guns pointed in his face.

We can see the progression of the characters throughout the series. During the first Episode, we meet two women, Meryl and Milly. Meryl is all work and no play. She wants to get to this dangerous man and stop him from causing any more trouble. When she meets Vash and refuses to believe that this is a man capable of destroying a town, we see that her work is the most important thing in her world. Slowly, she changes to have fun and value her friends more than she does her work.

Milly on the other hand, starts off in the anime as a childish figure, always following what Meryl says and keeps her head down. However, at the end Trigun, she advises Meryl to chase after the one she loves, because if she lets him go now, she may never find him again.

Another character that shows major changes throughout Trigun is Wolfwood. When we first meet him, we can tell that he is a ruthless killer that is trying to do good. Getting under Vash’s nerves and constantly arguing with him. During his death, we can tell that Vash was the one that got under his skin and really changed the man.

Let’s get away from the characters and look at the world a little more. We find out early in the show that mankind has been knocked back into the wild west times, but we still get hints of technology that could help or harm those living on Gunsmoke. The creators of Trigun bring those technologies into the story in a way that it doesn’t break the reality of Trigun. They make Trigun into a steampunk anime that doesn’t need to revolve around Victorian England or even on earth for that matter.

To bring this part of the review to a close, let’s look back at the good things Trigun has done in anime. First, they picked out the perfect setting for this story to take place. One that we are not familiar with and yet we recognize it. The story of Vash the Stampede wouldn’t have worked anywhere else. They did well on this one.

Second, the character development. The only character who didn’t change too much was Vash. That being said, he did change some and eventually learned to kill when it was necessary. Some would say it would have been best if he stuck to this newly found part of him, but I am with the others who are glad that he didn’t end up killing his final foe.

Third, the technology in Trigun is introduced in a way that keeps those watching it in the fantasy world that they have created. This is one of the most important aspects of any show. If you lose the audience with bad storytelling, it’s worse than losing them to a bad story. Those at Madhouse did a damn good job keeping stuff that seemed strange from making the anime strange.

Finally, one of the most important parts of any anime, is to know when it is over. The people at the madhouse did the right choice to end this anime after the battle of the brothers. If it would have gone on after that, the show would have been tarnished and couldn’t have been fixed.

1. Plants

One very interesting thing in Trigun is their power source. In real life, we refer to the facilities that give us power as power plants. In Trigun, the power plants are actual plants that provide power through photosensitive, gathering its power from the sun and converting it into usable electricity for the humans. Vash and Knives is believed to be some weird offspring of these plants.

2. Weapons

While weapons are not unique to Trigun, those in Trigun are in a class of their own. Each designed for a purpose. First we have Milly’s weapon that when shot, shoots out a claw that typically knocks out the foes. Then we have Wolfwood’s Cross, the one filled with God’s Mercy. When he opens it up for the first time, we see that it is filled with 8 fully loaded pistols, a machinegun and a rocket launcher. Truly a gun for Wolfwood.

Finally, we have the guns that Knives made for Vash and himself. They look like normal guns, until activated where they lose their casing and turn the arm of Vash or Knives into a weapon like a plasma canon called the Angel Arm. Powerful enough to drill a hole through a moon.

3. Lost Technology

Civilization will survive, even without all of the technology that we think we need. In Trigun, that lost technology is strange and mysterious when the normal humans discover it once again. Vash carries with him some lost technology, including his artificial arm. Unlike today’s prosthetics, it acts like an arm would act like, and as an added bonus, it is a fully automatic weapon.

While some lost technology is used to harm people, the normal people in Trigun, use the power provided by the Plants and the Plants are a form of lost technology that they are holding onto dearly. If a plant fails, there is no way that anyone on the planet can fix it.

Closing

For those of you who haven’t seen Trigun yet, I hope that what you’ve read convinces you to put it on your list and hopefully bump it up near the top. As Trigun is a must watch anime for everyone. It is one of the few that I suggest quickly to people, because if they don’t like Trigun, they most likely won’t like anime. If you’ve already seen Trigun, I hope that reading this makes you go back and watch it again, to see if you’ve missed anything.

Writer

Author: Zack Ringler

My name is Zack Ringler, just like it is written on all of my articles. I come from America, Indiana to be precise. I work for the Board of Education in Utsunomiya Japan. Heard of it? Didn’t think so. I am a teacher, writer and game designer with my first game “Moonshine Run” going on Kickstarter later this year. You can learn more about me on my facebook by looking up my name or just adding /zringler to the end of the facebook URL. Hope you like what you read, later.

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