Review of Trigun

On the technical side of things, Trigun is as dichotomous as Vash himself when it comes to animation. The rough and tumble design is the result of an attempt to imitate American superhero comics within the framework of standard anime style. Interesting, but maybe not so great in execution. Trigun has moments of visceral brilliance in its unique style but can also look like dust-covered Tomas vomit when the budget drops out and those exaggerated character models can stand up no better than Barbie in heels, making it a visual hit-and-miss. The soundtrack is one of the more underappreciated out there, consisting of a lotof guitar mixed with arbitrary banging and scraping on neither drums or washboards, but mysterious junk. This noise-music really brings the bleak world of Trigun to life, accenting every heartbeat and gunshot with a balance of intensity and silence.

As for the voicing, veteran Satsuki Yukino does play a really awesome Milly, and for the most part the rest of the acting is good in Japanese, but oh gosh, Trigun is so rewarding in English! Where Vash’s seiyuu unfortunately overacts anytime things get too serious, Johnny Yong Bosch seems to understand the part better and can play up both the cartoony moments and the tragic ones while sounding very natural. Actually, natural’s a pretty good word for the entire dub. The cast may rant into goofsville frequently, but they always sound warmly human, and the western archetype snarls and slurs are entirely too much fun. I especially liked the voicing of Wolfwood, who has a thick Kansai accent in Japanese, traditionally dubbed as a thick Southern accent, but played by Jeff Nimoy as more like what it actually sounds like: gently lilting but with a lot of bark in the back of the throat. I’ll admit there are some awful extras floating around here and there, but overall the English Trigun seems to breathe much easier than the Japanese.

I might as well state the obvious up front. Trigun has awesome gunfights. It is also enormously funny and wildly original. But the characters of Trigun are the heart and root of the series. Vash is hands-down one of the most memorable heroes ever created from his bizarre appearance to his enigmatic personality, equal parts deadly grizzly and teddy bear. But even he can’t carry the story alone. Wolfwood is arguably more popular even than Vash, and just as fascinating in both his reflection of Vash’s nature and his fervent opposition of his way of life. Not to mention the insurance girls whose profound effect on the boys is far too spoileriffic to go into here.

These four, along with the many striking side characters and bookoodles of fearsome villains, carry the bulk of the insanity around them with incredible ease. What do I mean by insanity? I mean that this series is a deceptive little bugger, that’s what.

It starts off with a deafening slingshot into wild comedy and over-the-top violence in a series of formulaic standalones that are so good, they probably could have carried 26 episodes all by themselves. There is a lot of heart in these comedy vignettes, but it’s still all brains-off popcorn viewing…or so we think. Viewers can’t rely on Trigun as a pick-me-up for very long, because halfway through the ride we find out that the peaceful outlaw’s past hasn’t made peace with him, and the systematic vengeance Legato and his hired guns exacts on Vash begins a long plunge into wickedly effective pathos, twisting into darker and crueler places until it climaxes in a scene so nerve-shattering you’ll find it difficult not to yell at your screen a little. And surprise, surprise, THAT’S not even the end.

So, is this bolt from the blue rollercoaster a bad thing? It could have been. The spiral from comedy to drama has killed many series before and after it, but to come full circle here, Trigun is saved through the depth and humanity of its cast. Vash’s philosophy of nonviolence is charming at first and easy to rally behind, but once put in a harsher context, Vash has to wonder if it’s killing more people than it saves and struggles far more against himself than Legato, making this not only an emotional surprise, but a profoundly deep one as well, all thanks to the believability of the not-so-cartoony characters.

That’s not to say the plot isn’t a force to be reckoned with, but tied to Vash as it is, it’s bound to be a juggernaut that’s just a little hard to follow. You will not hear a single line of blatant exposition in the whole story. In fact, while it’s widely known that Trigun is a space western, it’s never even made clear that we’re on a distant planet until episode 6, or how the earthlings ever got there until episode 17.

This slow cultivation of the plot makes for greater realism, but it’s what I like to call manga-contingent. You don’t have to read the manga to understand the main story or all the important things. But Trigun is extremely subdued and tight-lip when it comes to the all the little unanswered questions like why Legato hates slave-traders most of all, what Gunsmoke’s Plants really are, and why Wolfwood is vaguely hinted to be…how old?! (See if you catch that little detail...) There are answers, but they’re buried in the manga.

On top of that, Trigun is a PG anime adaptation of an R-rated manga, so while the manga makes it explicitly clear how Legato kills some individuals and how a mysterious figure named Knives can make entire populations disappear overnight, the anime will leave all the darkest details to your imagination. Some people love this, some people don’t, but you’ll be hard pressed not to find something to love about Trigun. It’s one of the great classics, it’s a lot of fun, it’s thought-provoking, and it’s the only gunsling-fest you’ll ever see where the man on the wanted poster shouts “LOVE AND PEACE!”

All in all, Trigun has its fair share of scarring in scraggly animation and overly secretive storytelling, but few other series have such brazen hearts of gold. The story is powerful, the characters are incredibly complex, and when the darkness lifts, it’s always a rip-snortin’ good time.

*THIS IS A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF MY VIDEO REVIEW WHICH CAN BE SEEN HERE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C16kNsDCjG8

Thanks for reading!