Review of Trigun

Mixed feelings are an excellent way to describe this roller coaster of a series. On the one hand, there is a profoundly philosophical nature to Trigun, especially regarding the wonderfully written characters of Vash the Stampede and Nicholas D. Wolfwood. But on the other hand, there are a bunch of filler, inconsistent logic and unnecessary situations that don't benefit the plot. Let's first observe the positives of this series. The biggest positive is that this series will put you in uncomfortable situations, thus forcing you to think about how you'd handle the problems that arise. It does this by placing Vash, his friends and even outsidersinto questionably morally grey positions, which all lead to the same question.
Is it okay to kill someone? And is it justifiable to take away lives regardless of the situation?
Now, take that question and build an anime around it, and you get Trigun.
Even the world they inhabit reflects this question as it's harsh, ugly and filled with fearful and disgusting people who'd happily sell out their families/friends for more food, security or wealth.
Speaking of the world they inhabit, that's another strong positive of this series, as the world plays perfectly into the aforementioned philosophical questions. Despite being a harsh place filled primarily with immoral people, charitable people remain and are willing to sacrifice themselves for others.
Humanity, after all, is a contradictive state of being, destruction and creation, love and hate. These ideas are also investigated in this series.
Philosophy and introspection aside, this series excels in its action and comedy scenes.
Lastly, the action set pieces are ridiculously fabulous. I can't help but compare some of them to JoJo's Bizzare Adventure mixed with Fist of the North Star, especially when Vash wants to look menacing for the fun of it.
Additionally, the gunplay and fighting scenes attached to the action set pieces are also well done, especially when comedy is attached to them. Because of that, quite a few scenes are downright hilarious, as Vash is a silly guy who gets into pretty dumb situations despite being extremely intelligent.

As for the negatives, the series has a terrible habit of sidetracking off the main path into weird filler episodes that don't add to the story, minus some character development often forgotten by the next episode.
While this may not be a problem for most viewers, it was very distracting from the central message of the anime for me.
This issue became most apparent towards the middle of the anime, where it transitioned into a villain of the week type of show. Where "bad" people would do "bad" things for the sake of it, and Vash, our hero, would try to stop them and save them.
The philosophical message the series presented started to get drowned out by the obvious attempt to break Vash and his ideals with disposable cliche characters rather than meaningful ones.
Luckily, towards the end of the series, the disposable villains and their actions did make an impact and forced character growth upon the cast, especially Vash, who goes through an absurd amount of mental torture.
Lastly, my final complaint is that the ending was filled with logical inconsistencies, both physically and philosophically.
There's no way to explain it without spoiling it; watching it is the only way to understand.

As for neutral points:
The anime has a decent soundtrack; it consists of a mixture of rock, jazz, lo-fi and DnB (Drum & Bass). The vibe is nice, but it won't work for everyone.
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The visuals are a mixed bag of beans. On the one hand, you have some of the most stylized shots and poses seen in any anime. But, on the flip side, the animation aged like milk despite being made by the legendary studio Madhouse.
You can tell it's an old anime just by looking at it. Although, if you're into older-looking anime, you'll dig it; if not, you'll cringe at the style.
One thing is certain: Madhouse put a lot of hard work and love into this series and its animation; however, no matter how much hard work you put into something as time passes, that work won't look as good as newer animes, which is why this is a neutral point.

Overall,
Trigun is a good anime with faults, especially regarding the reasoning behind everything at the end.
However, this anime can teach people watching more about themselves and their philosophical views on morality, and that alone makes it a MUST-WATCH.
Not only are you being entertained, but you are also learning about perspectives. 7.5/10.