Trigun

mildly annoying and cliche philosophical aspects, has a series identity crisis which makes the show bipolar in thematic focus (eg shifts between silliness and seriousness that are arbitrary and seem to be what you would call "filler"). someone making kawaii gestures is not character development, and i think the silliness is probably a good idea but should have been paced differently. this sounds really stupid but i think if the humor would have been paced more like cowboy bebop then this show would've been a more cohesive experience. great art and interesting universe. personally i think the series would've been much better ... had this been the primary focus initially (not vash's internal conflicts) because it ends up hurting the series early on due to slow character development.

“Imma bout to shit all over this dumpster fire. May my asshole not be singed too badly.” — Krunchyman

Any anime worth its weight in salt, understands that well-written, believable characters are the key to crafting a good/great show. If the characters come off as being cliched, redundant or unrealistic, it prevents the viewer from creating a meaningful connection with said character(s); thus, inhibiting the overall potency of the various themes it may be attempting to push forward. Vash, for the majority of the series, comes off as prepubescent imbecile, who only concerns himself with outlandish flirting and stuffing his face with doughnuts ... (none of which are particularly funny, even though the show would have you think otherwise). Through the repetitive nature of the episodic plot, Vash follows a conventional pattern of acting silly for the sake of “laughter,” followed by saving the day with his impressive gun skills and preaching a philosophy of “love and peace.” Aside from the weird juxtaposition of charismatic dolt and the solemn pacifist — a mixture that does not work well together — Vash’s moral compass is ill-explored and his insistence to remain steadfast in his personal creed (i.e. not to kill), severely obstructs his potential as an objective thinker who questions his own belief structure. The manner in which the subject is broached is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, because it utilizes a plot device to construct a binary situation in which there is no room for rationalization.

Knives, while being dogmatic in his beliefs like Vash, represents the antithesis of “peace and love,” via his goal to exterminate the human race and create a peaceful environment for him and his brother to live in. This black and white dichotomy harkens to the philosophy of Yin and Yang, but it feels too romanticized, as most people seldom adhere to being strictly “good” or “evil.” Amalgamations of both traits exist in every person (sometimes one trait becomes more pronounced) but rarely does one exhibit unconditional wickedness or benevolence for the mere sake of it, without an ulterior motive to benefit from that disposition.

Needless to say, Vash’s antics waned on my nerves from beginning to end, as did Milly (a five year-old trapped in an adult’s body) and Meryl (classic Tsundere). The various villains presented throughout the series were nothing to write home about, because they merely served as cannon fodder to exemplify Vash’s proficiency with a gun. Wolfwood, on the other hand, was the only character that was mildly interesting, as his cryptic past served a useful purpose later in the series, and his overall demeanor seemed the most authentic among a cast of shallow, trite characters.

The lone bright spots were the OST — the OP, in particular, is quite exhilarating — and the above average animation (for its time). The animation, however, is nothing groundbreaking, as numerous scenes feature desert backdrops that are rather plain, barren, and uninteresting. Static shots occur more frequently than the viewer would like to admit, but when the action does commence, it's quite good (albeit brief).

Overall, Trigun is a silly western rife with schlocky characters, stale jokes and simple themes that are never thoroughly fleshed out. Coming from the mid-to-late nineties — a period of considerable experimentation (NGE, Lain, Utena, Berserk, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, etc.) — it seems rather bizarre that Trigun gets lumped in with truly great works as a “classic.” Perhaps because Trigun aired in the midst of these other innovative shows, the positive nostalgic effect has shaved away its rugged edges, giving the appearance of “excellence;” when, in fact, it’s a rather cheap imitation of a great show in an otherwise revolutionary epoch in the history anime.

What a complete shitshow!

Hypocrisy at its finest!

Someone who grew up in a loving family lecturing others—whose parents were awful to them—about how “precious” family is.

Someone who’s never lost anyone dear preaching that “no one has the right to take a life,” yet would probably kill without hesitation if the same tragedy happened to them.

Vash is the ultimate symbol of hypocrisy—someone who’d rather let a spider die a slow, painful death by starvation than grant it a quick, merciful one. He’s the real monster here. He’s destroyed countless towns, and who knows how many actually escaped alive? How many people lost everything in an instant, their ... lives turned into hell because of his so-called “unintentional” actions? How many died indirectly because of him?

At least Knives wouldn’t let the weak suffer pathetically—he’d give them a swift death instead of letting them endure endless misery.

Screw this show!
How does this garbage even end up on so many “must-watch” lists!?

I seriously don’t recommend anyone watch this overrated mess. Instead of enjoyment, all I felt was my blood boiling—especially during the last six episodes.

I'm no expert so i won't meld with technical details you can google the plot and stuff so you won't read them here either so we go straight to my opinion about this anime.
first with the characters

Trigun could have been a great series, the characters especially the lead Vash the stampede is very promising at the beginning. He is a peacemaker that does not resolve to violence despite being a legendary gunman. Not finishing enemies off is not necessarily a bad thing, we have seen this in other series and more often than not, executed properly. That is not the case in Trigun, the main ... characters purpose of "saving other people" is a complete failure having killed more innocent bystanders because he can't at least disable the bad guy before turning his back from fights. Vash's supposed strength is overshadowed by senseless deaths of people around him because of his lack of resolve and sense of purpose.

Another disappointing character is Wolfwood, what happened to him is just plain dumb. The supposed love interest Meryl is not interesting at all. Her relation with Vash is far from what you may really call romantic. then there's Milly, well, she's interesting, that's all there is to say. Lastly, the main antagonist Knives, He just popped out of nowhere just in time to lose.

Not only your respect for the characters but also your interest in the story degrades with each episode. Until halfway they are helping random people from random towns and then suddenly some bad guys wants to kill good ol Vash, but wait, I can't shoot them because it's wrong to kill, better get other people around me get killed instead. Because of these stupid events, I started not to care what will happen to these characters, I just bared with it until the end to see if the ending would be any good. Well no.

The conclusion just got there, here's the bad guy, defeat him BANG! the end. not at all exciting.

It's not at all a bad anime neither it is a master piece some people make it out to be. Watching this is fun at the start and at the end.... MEH.

Looney tunes level protagonist. This is a totally unserious schizophrenic show that disguises itself with a thinly layered cloak of badassery. The art is gritty, edgy, cool which conveys an image of maturity and possibly signals adult oriented storytelling... then you hit play and all that gets washed away the instant you see the protagonist making dork faces and dodging bullets in the style of bugs bunny.

Supporting cast brought nothing to the table. Just endless babbling about nonsense which our protagonist always seems to react to with utter confusing because he has the brain cells of a hamster.

Easy pass, couldn't even finish ... it

"Never look a gift horse in the mouth"

Vash the coolest anime character history... shaved himself to death.
All of the guys he encountered which he tried to make deep physical contact with
shot themselves to death.

The final episode masterpiece
epic showdown
and suddenly recapping the whole story
What for did we watch the episodes before
... when the whole story is in the final episode

At least we got to see the outstanding art of Trigun (1998) and the lovely moe chara Millly Horse

Gunslingers are not meant to be using supernovas
The power of friendships and believing prevails
Not killing people is so cool
"No one is allowed to take a life",
says the artificial humanoid weapon
armed with tears.

Biggest ending twist in the history of anime, all those wet clothes.
How could they shoot all those children,
priest, you love children
drown in children
in the orphanage

The priest being the best girl was trying hard to save this apocalyptic masterpiece.
But everyone knows that best girls don't get their way.

I have very strong mixed feelings about Trigun.

On the one hand - the first several episodes are quite fun. Vash's attempts to stay true to his pacifist principles and goofy attitude (while defending everyone from everyone else in this sci-fi/cowboy/desert world) makes for some amusing interactions - at least at first.

After awhile, the show tries to become more serious and has the characters try to justify their various philosophical views. This is where the show doesn't just crash and burn, but also creates an acrid smoke that makes you want to vomit.

You see, the writers of this anime are so incredibly bad at ... rational thought, that their idea of intelligent philosophical dialogue is to have a character cry out, "Why?!! I don't understand you." This happens several times in the series (by various characters) and, sadly, yes - it IS the best philosophical dialogue you'll find in the entire show. If an eight year old were to watch this, I don't doubt they'd be able to poke holes in the philosophical "arguments" made by protagonists and antagonists alike.

On top of that, in order to make the main characters seem less like the morons that they're written as - everyone else they encounter has to be written even dumber. Many times, people blame Vash for things that he was *obviously* trying to prevent; and most of the people immediately jump to ridiculous conclusions about things being Vash's fault. Toward the last third of the show, even Vash gets in on the act - blaming himself for things that were clearly not his fault. Or if they were his fault, it was because he was stupidly holding to his pacifistic ideals well beyond the point where they made any sense (if a bad guy is telling you he wants you to shoot him or he'll brutally kill your helpless friends a few seconds from now, and clearly is about to do so - then f***ing shoot him!).

Unfortunately, the horrible attempts at philosophical justification and moronic episodic characters are present throughout the majority of the show. That's too bad, as the setting and (at first) the main characters seemed as though they could've made a fun anime.

The art, animation and sound seemed fine to me (it's not my area of expertise), at least by the standards of the late nineties - I didn't ever find them annoying.

Overall, I have to give this anime a 3/10 because of the horribly flawed philosophy present through most of the show. I wish I could've liked it more.

I haven't watched anything as boring, overrated and overall just bad as Trigun in a long time. It was a long, slow and tedious journey that felt like it was longer than 26 episodes. Which was surprising to me, as most of what I've heard about Trigun over the years has been overwhelmingly positive. But the bitter truth had nothing to do with my expectations.

As for the story, Vash the Stampede is a man with a $60,000,000,000 bounty on his head. Vash is constantly in trouble because of the bounty on his head and wherever Vash goes, trouble follows him, hence the nickname Humanoid Typhoon. ... But the weird thing is (!) Vash never wants to hurt anyone, not even actual criminals. Actually, this short summary is enough to understand most things because Trigun is an episodic anime and there isn't much in the name of the story. I don't even feel the need to mention the tsundere and the classic mindless giant duo. Wolfwood is the only character in Trigun worth mentioning, but he is a good character only for the Trigun bar, not in general.

Let's come to the reasons that I mentioned at the beginning of the review, why Trigun is such a hard anime to bear. First, Vash's background and who he really is begins to be told after somewhere around 15th-16th episode. Up to that point, you have to deal with a work that is far from funny, pretty mediocre and often laden with inadequate action sequences. I was already disconnected from the story, characters and the setting itself by that time, I was bored to death and I was just trying to be done with it. That's not all. Vash has no middle ground. He is a complete idiot (sadly, not a funny one either) for the most of it and he sometimes gets "too charismatic" but why? Why was this choice made when it was possible to make the character structure more balanced and make him an average character at worst? Beats me. Not that making him that way would save this anime but at the very least, I could have watched a mediocre MC in a very bad anime.

Visually, I can't say it's bad for its time, but at worst, it can't go beyond average again. I've seen older and better ones. Trigun is also quite inadequate in terms of music, frankly, I would expect them to show the theme and action scenes better than they actually are, at least in this way, but both the opening and ending tracks are as ordinary as the ones played during the episodes.

In summary, Trigun is obsessed with repeating its own boring and unfunny cycle. It's full of badly written characters. The action scenes are below average. Musically inadequate. And on top of all that, its extremely slow and boring pacing makes it unbearable. I don't have a comment about people who were hooked on this anime for some reason at some point in their life or just love it out of nostalgia. But this was one of the most overrated things I've seen lately, one of those works that didn't do justice to its reputation and high ratings.