I read Trigun

[Finished August 2nd, 2023. Rating: 9/10]

It’s now funny to me that I started my review of Xenoblade 3 talking about how long it’d been since I’d added a story to my favorites list that could be enjoyed by pretty much anyone, because not even two months later, I’ve just finished reading a manga that accomplished the exact same thing. Trigun was immediately a delightful experience that drew me in with its consistently entertaining space western action and great comedy. Then, as it went on, it revealed that was simply all a pretense to some of the most impressively crafted character depth and development I’ve seen in fiction. In particular, its protagonist Vash is the first character I’ve placed in my top 10 since reading Fire Punch (my current favorite story of all time). But enough hyping this manga up. Why is it so good?

The story of Trigun literally begins in the far future, but thematically begins in the distant past — so long ago that it’s impossible to sufficiently cover all that history within the scope of the narrative, which is indeed the point. Beyond its four most prominent characters or even its extensive full cast list, this manga tells the story of humanity as a whole, and how its relationship with its own history has only gotten messier over the centuries. Perhaps more relevant than ever in the modern day, it’s a story about figuring out how to live a fulfilled life with the weight of all humanity’s past and present mistakes hanging over you. Is it worth loving the world you live in when society seems unshakeable in their determination to ruin it? Is it worth caring for the people around you when everyone seems to have the capacity for such disgusting selfishness? As you might expect, the answer Trigun reaches is ‘yes’, but the journey it takes to get there is one I found pretty unexpected, led by an absolutely inspired premise for its protagonist.

Vash the Stampede, known as the “Humanoid Typhoon”, is wanted everywhere on his planet for his rumored incredible feats of destruction. There’s just one thing — he’s also a staunch pacifist who loves the world and everyone in it. Since arriving on the planet Gunsmoke after laying waste to Earth, humans have pretty much continued the same song and dance: unethically burning through resources and starting pointless fights where every party involved refuses to empathize with others or take accountability for themselves. Nonetheless, Vash sees every last one of these flawed, struggling humans as his own family. He refuses to believe it’d be right to punish them when all they’re doing is fighting to survive in the best way they know how, and that getting them to change for the better requires extending compassion, not hatred.

Being honest, the types of stories I’m into usually don’t end up impressing me with characters like these. They can certainly be fun to watch, and Vash is no exception (the excitement and hilarity he constantly gets himself into is a big reason why I think this is a story anyone can enjoy). But it feels like they usually end up lacking the exploration or the character conflict necessary for me to appreciate them — especially the latter, since characters so committed to being unconditionally good often have less room to express flaws. Vash has more to him than that. As noble as his ideals may be, they’re constantly mired in subtle internal contradictions and impossible standards, to which his only solution is ‘try harder’. Even as he does everything he can to show his love for the world, he’s far from immune to the stress of trying to manage its problems. His cheerful persona is often just a coping mechanism for that. And when he’s convinced the universal solution to his own trauma is to mold it into a lesson about how to simply be a better person, his attempts to heal both himself and others end up being warped in tons of subtly toxic ways that the story spends much of its runtime unpacking and expanding on.

Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention the two other main characters who greatly contribute to the exploration of this idea: Vash’s partner in misadventure Nicholas D. Wolfwood, and Vash’s genocidal twin brother Millions Knives. Both of them stand as obstacles on his journey to achieve worldwide love and peace, in distinct yet comparable ways. Knives is basically the kind of villain you’d expect for this story — a man disgusted by humanity, believing that their efforts to survive are fundamentally selfish and worthless, but with a genuine love for his brother and a hypocritical desire to save Vash from suffering at humans’ hands. I’d really like to say more about him, but all of the best parts of his writing are spoilers, so I’ll just mention that his backstory contextualizes his attachment to Vash in a beautifully tragic way. Wolfwood, on the other hand, invites the kind of tense awkwardness unique to two conflicted friends — he does believe in Vash’s quest to do good, but sees his aversion to conflict as a fatal flaw, believing it necessary to fight fire with fire. Adding onto this is his commitment to priesthood, and the Catholic guilt he feels from his actions.

All of these characters are individually amazing. (Especially Vash.) The three of them rightfully earn placements on my personal list of favorite fictional characters. Even after all that, though, I wouldn’t remotely be doing them justice without talking about their relationships with each other, which I came to find equally as important as anything they do on their own.

Describing Trigun as a story about how the looming horrors of an unsustainable world impacts our own lives would only capture half its meaning. It is also a story about how such a world impacts our relationships with other people, and the struggle of reconciling despite that. In this sense, the character dynamics are what I truly love the most about this manga. Vash spends so many miserable years internalizing his society perceiving him as an outcast that it erodes his ability to be emotionally genuine, even with a man he loves. Knives fixates for so long on his isolation from the family he adored that it convinces him compassion doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. Wolfwood lives his entire life believing that anyone who suffers enough abuse is necessarily destined to hurt people, just as he has. These troubled perspectives clashing with themselves, screaming their loudest to be heard over all the others, fighting for the honor of resolving their cognitive dissonance in the most ‘correct’ way within their cruel world… that is the heart of Trigun to me. It’s what motivates practically every one of my favorite emotional conflicts in the story, and it’s these moments that define the themes better than anything else.

I really, really want to talk about the ending right now, but I think it’s best experienced without any knowledge going in. So, how else should I conclude this review? I guess I’ll just say that Trigun is a fantastic story from basically every angle possible, and that all of these angles work in tandem to create an unforgettable experience. Its blend of action and comedy is super entertaining and well-presented, which is seamlessly integrated into the protagonist’s fun-loving attitude as a cover for his sadness. Its somber tonal shift as the story goes on allows the contrast between the cast’s internal selves and their outward personas to flourish, which leads to mind-blowing moments of re-contextualization. Its worldbuilding is effective enough at informing everything about those who live on Planet Gunsmoke that almost no lore drop feels irrelevant to the personal core narrative. Its character writing is so emotionally resonant that watching its main cast struggle and suffer made me feel like I was actually watching people die in real life. So, if you like stories that have any of these qualities — especially if you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic tales of finding happiness in a world that hates it, the same way I am — I think you should read the Trigun manga.

[Anyways, the following paragraph involves my SPOILER thoughts for Trigun’s ending, a.k.a. the final volume of Trigun Maximum, volume #14. If you haven’t finished the manga yet, I think you definitely shouldn’t read this next paragraph. With that being said, here are those ending thoughts.]

The way Trigun ends is so incredibly cool to me. It’s so stubbornly coherent with the rest of the narrative that it almost doesn’t feel like a happy ending, because I’m sure the average reader wants to see Vash live a peaceful life after all the suffering he’s had to endure, and to get the happy ending he deserves. But… real life just doesn’t work like that, and that’s one of the reasons so many people are resigned to seeing the fight for positive change as hopeless. Truly changing the world for the better in a lasting sense requires time and effort, to the point where sometimes those efforts barely feel like they’ll have an impact within our own lifetimes. Vash, superhuman though he may be, can’t make the world a happy place to live overnight. What he can do, though, is reach out to other people and spread his love as far as it can go, fighting united to see life improved even just a little for the next people to set foot on their planet. Those are the efforts of people dedicated to love and peace.