Review of Trigun

Trigun Review (MINOR SPOILERS) There's a certain anime reviewer on YouTube who I VERY much enjoy their work. Their reviews are always super informative, entertaining, and he's helped me find some of my absolute favorite shows of all time. This reviewer is known for making a certain list known as "The 5 Anime Series Everyone Should Watch Before You Die". Those 5 would be Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Akira. I just finished watching Trigun, and now Akira is the last thing on that list that I've yet to see. This list has definitely been interesting. As Bebop and FMA have easily become someof my favorite anime series of all time. While on the other hand, Evangelion is one of my least favorite anime of all time. Though, I'm sure I'm not the first person you've heard say that. But we're not here to talk about those shows We're here to talk about Trigun and where it falls on that list of the holy quintet of anime necessities.

Trigun looked very similar to Bebop, when I was previewing images and quick glimpses of footage, before watching. Both were made in the same year, both involve bounty hunting, and both have very similar settings. So since I was such a huge fan of Bebop and the awesome Chuck Norris-ness that was its main cast of characters, I was expecting the same from Trigun. Did I end up getting that? Well...... kinda, but not really. The first thing that became VERY apparent to me in the first episode is that our main protagonist, Vash, is a GIANT WEENY. Vash, AKA THE HUMANOID TYPHOON WITH A SIXTY MILLION DOUBLE DOLLAR BOUNTY, VASH THE STAMPEDE (ya, you're gonna hear that A LOT in this show) is known all over the land as being this monstrous human weapon of mass destruction, but in reality, he's both a complete pacifist and the most hyper active crybaby in the entire show. Now don't get me wrong. I can totally respect a person who refuses to kill or fight, and stands up against violence. I'm one of those people, myself. But I feel they could've at least made him cool about being a pacifist who manages to always come out on top. Most of the time, it seems like a complete accident that he even survived, and he just sorta ends up being the one given credit for saving everyone. Now this becomes a lot less apparent, later on in the show. Ash does end up growing a backbone during certain situations, as well as having a cool and cocky confident side that's fun to watch, when it shows up. But a LOT of the times, he's stuck in wiener mode, and it's just not fun to watch.

The other main characters include Meryl and Milly, who "accompany" Vash on his adventures. They're fun characters in their own way. I'm glad that Meryl wasn't a typical ball of anger character. Though, she can still be a bit stubborn and ignorant at times, which can get a bit old. Milly acts as her anchor and is the carefree one of the group. And finally there's Mr. Wolfwood, who is basically Vash without the wiener attributes. The two end up conflicting with one another due to their different views on the battlefield, but also end up being a pretty awesome team. The rest of the characters range from mysterious bad guys who slowly get revealed as the show goes on, to simple minor characters who are only important for the one episode that they appear in. Something I liked a lot about Bebop is that it made each individual episode's story feel REALLY important. Each episode seemed long and you grew attached to the minor characters and their stories, even though you'd never see them after that one episode. Trigun is very similar in its set up, but doesn't nearly succeed as much as Bebop did. The first 5 episodes of Trigun are more or less the same exact thing. Vash getting roped into some sort of trouble, some bad guys doing bad things, good guys turning out to be bad, bad guys turning out to be good, Vash stopping all of them from fighting, and keeps everyone from dying, and Meryl refusing to believe that Vash is actually Vash.

It isn't until Episode 6 where things start becoming somewhat interesting. You begin to receive pieces of a mystery. You see that there's more to Vash's character then meets the eye. You get more and more pieces to the puzzle as time goes on, but there are still instances where they bring back those boring filler episodes that are exactly like episodes 1-5. Not only that, but there's a flashback episode thrown into the halfway point, too! If the mystery weren't so interesting, I might've given up on the show, for making me trek through so many slow parts. In the end, am I happy with all that was revealed? Yes, actually. This show actually gets pretty incredible, during the second half. It's just annoying to wait so long to get there. But once you're there, you'll never wanna stop moving. Probably the most interesting thing about Trigun is that it isn't afraid to rip its main protagonist to shreds. And whenever those moments arise, where Vash's world is quickly falling apart, seeing his reactions to it all is just really interesting to watch. Not in a mean way, but in, it keeps you wondering how he'll recover from this, or if he'll even want to. The other characters go through the same kind of trauma, after facing all the garbage that's thrown at them, and I'm glad that all of them were really involved, in the end of it all.

Now let's move onto animation. Let's be real, here. This show is from 1998. It ain't gonna look good, compared to today's stuff. For it's time, I guess it's ok looking. But like many other shows from back then, Trigun's visuals do not age well. However, I don't really feel like a show like this needs to look good. They're in the wild west (sorta). Stuff is dirty and gritty there. The dry and plain wasteland, along with the dirty looking people, all just fit into that environment. It reminds you of a real old western tv series or movie. Now I'm sure this wasn't intentional on the animators part, as I'm sure this was the best kind of quality they could come up with, during that era. But it simply doesn't hurt the show, looking like this. Ya, it's old. But it's not bad enough to the point where you can't bare to even look at it. Honestly, there have only been two anime series that had visuals so unappealing to me, that it was painful to watch. One of them I finished, only because it was a 3 episode series, while the other one... I'm not gonna name, because I'm sure I'll receive a lot of hate from people, once they know what it is.

As for the music, while the western setting is very heavily apparent, it mixes that with a futuristic vibe, as well. As such, the music is not some little ukulele diddy played by old man Jenkins, but rather a bunch of awesome electric guitar tracks. it suits the show's fight scenes VERY well, and the opening does a good job at getting you pumped up for the show... even if the episode might end up not being as awesome as the opening was. As far as the voice cast goes, both the Japanese and English versions sound very identical to me. My main gripe with the show is with Vash's voice actor. It takes some getting used to. While he does portray the weeny side of Vash very well, I wish that when the moments of epic awesomeness arise, where Vash is actually brave and somewhat terrifying, that he actually had a voice to match. But instead, he sounds like a poor man's version of a generic superhero from a children's Saturday morning cartoon show. The other voice actors do their jobs alright, though there are several instances where the line delivery, mouth flaps, and overall script just seems off. I get that it's old, but other shows from this era had no problem with just overall sentence structuring, so why this one?

Now there is a movie to go along with this series, made 12 years after the original series began. Now I don't think I'll bother making a full blown review of the movie Badlands Rumble, so I'll just briefly state my thoughts on it, here. It's basically a movie length episode, that takes place sometime in the middle of the series. The events in the movie are never mentioned in the series, so just watch this if you really wanna watch some more Trigun. Though, be forewarned. In the English dub of the Trigun movie, Vash is the ONLY character to retain his original voice actor. Meryl, Milly, and Wolfwood all have different voice actors for this movie, due to various reasons on their voice actors' side of things. Now while their replacements didn't do a bad job, it's just VERY noticeable that the voices are different. So maybe watch this movie after some time has passed from watching the series. The movie isn't necessary to the series, like I said, but it's still a lot more enjoyable than most of the filler episodes were. Plus, the 12 years that have passed since the original series give this movie a MAJOR upgrade in visuals. The movie is gorgeous, and is worth watching, simply to see familiar faces in a MUCH nicer light!

Overall, Trigun was not nearly as amazing as I thought it was going to be. I highly recommend Cowboy Bebop over this show, any day. But I certainly didn't hate this show, by any means. It has its serious moments and a story that really draws you in. The only problem is that there are several times where it's just not progressing. I was a bit torn on what I wanted to rate this show. Part of me really don't think it's deserving of that high of a score, but another part of me knows that other people will enjoy this show much more than I did. Plus, compared to many other shows I've seen that have no redeeming qualities int he end, Trigun definitely is not one of those shows. When all is said and done, I'm glad I took this adventure. Though I might not take it again, I'm glad that I did, at all. As well as what I've learned from it.

Trigun gets a 7/10