Trigun

A Review

by MattBoySlim

Directed by: Satoshi Nishimura

Released by: Pioneer Entertainment

Genre: Action adventure, 8 volumes

First off, I wanna thank Xero for suggesting this anime to me. He was the one that introduced me to the greatest anime series known to man (of course I mean Cowboy Bebop), so I trusted his judgment on this. With Bebop, I was unsure (thrown off by the name I guess), so he lent the 2nd disc to me. I was so damn impressed I threw caution (and my bills) to the wind and bought the rest. Bebop was the most satisfying experience I've ever gotten from my TV. However, that's a topic for another review and I digress. Having just finished watching the final episode, I've decided that Trigun is a pretty close second to Bebop.

Keep in mind, I had no real idea what Trigun was about when I bought it. I watched it with an open mind. I find it's a damn rewarding experience when you sit to watch something like this without any preconceived notions. I had been warned that the series starts out kinda kooky and bland but then gets really good and serious. That's what Xero said, and many internet reviewers said the same thing. I was slightly disappointed at first by the writing and plots and such, but it was funny and strange enough to keep my attention. However, I must say this: anyone who is not insanely and infinitely intrigued by the end of episode 13 should be punched in the teeth. Not by me, really…… just by someone kinda big who probably enjoys that kinda thing. Maybe a football player who had a real promising career that was cut short by an injury or something and hates how his life has ended up and needs to displace his aggression onto your face……ahh geez. There I go digressing again. Anyway, if you don't like it by the halfway mark (Ep. 13) you'll probably never like it. Maybe it's just not your cup of tea. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, I guess.

However, I am of the opinion that Trigun rocks. This type of storytelling is right up my alley. I really have to give major props to whoever wrote this. I know it's based on a manga and I hope the story is the same. The first half is pretty goofy and wandering, but at the middle point, they basically say "Yeah, we meant for it to be goofy so we could throw you off track. Now this is what everything really means…."

This sudden change means one of two things:
1. The writer(s) realized halfway through that the story and characters were going nowhere and they covered it up by saying "we meant to do that".
2. The first half was actually a cleverly and meticulously planned façade so that you could say "Wow! I can't believe that it was really this the whole time!!!"

It's obvious that I'm trying not to give too much away in case you've never seen it, but whether it's #1 or #2, they're both a credit to extremely skillful story-crafting. I don't think I've ever had my emotions jerked around so violently by an anime. Some parts had me laughing hysterically. Some had me really pissed off (which, believe me, is really hard). Some parts even had me sobbing like…umm…something really pathetic.

Geez, I must be running out of steam….let's just say I was sobbing like a little girl who'd had her ice cream taken away by some mean boy, went home, cut her hair real short, found a plaid flannel shirt and, between sobs, vowed to hate anything with a Y chromosome and let's just leave it at that. Hmm…maybe I just get to engrossed in stories like this.

Moving away from absolutely horrible analogies, let's talk about the music. At first the music didn't really impress me. Maybe I was too spoiled by the insanely good and eclectic stylings of Yokko Kanno in Bebop. The music did grow on me, though and got better later on. The English voice acting was very good, though I haven't tried listening to the Japanese voices yet. The translation seemed pretty good, although it felt like some ideas kinda got lost in translation. Moments like that were few and far between, though. The animation was pretty good, and only got better as the series went on.

Uhhhh….I really can't think of anything else I wanna cover in this review. I think I've said everything I wanted to. I would definitely suggest this series to any anime fan. I might even suggest it to some who don't really watch anime. Only being half-otaku myself, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. It wasn't as accessible to everyone as Bebop was, but it still told a damn good story.

This being my first review (and an anime to boot), I'm gonna rate this somewhat differently than I'll rate games, though still on a scale from 1-5. This will be my anime scale….

1 = Guaranteed to NOT make you soil your pants for any reason
2 = Guaranteed to make you slightly soil your pants in mild interest
3 = Guaranteed to make you soil your pants in curiosity
4 = Guaranteed to make you soil your pants with satisfaction
5 = Guaranteed to make you soil your pants due to a surge from every area along the gamut of human emotions, leaving your soul (and your pants)…changed.

On this scale from 1-5, I give Trigun……. a 4.7. Only the most-revered series gets a full-on 5. The only one worthy of that in my mind is Cowboy Bebop.