Plant_Angel

Laputa (when it used to be called that, puta in Spanish is an offensive word 0.o) was the first anime I ever saw. Have you all been watching the new dub with, I heard, Mark Hamill in it? I saw the original dub taped from tv and then the Japanese with subtitles version, has it been Hollywooded up like Mononoke? I really didnt like that, why did the cast Minnie Driver as Lady Eboshi?! And Billy Bob Thornton as the monk guy?!?! Just wrong!! Anyway, I digress, I have a set of Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, films. Some are quite bizarre, some are brilliant, some are actually rather dull. I reccomend to you Grave of the Fireflies, Porco Rosso and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Totoro too! They are the best of the buch.

I agree with Molleta here, it may not be a sexual drive and even if it was Legato doesnt have a ghost of a chance to do anything about it. It does appear to be great admiration, great 'love' in a nonsexual manner, more like the love you would devote to a superior, more than that, to a God. And who does not strive to be loved back by their God?

Hey, Animangademon, please dont be dissapointed but I must decline...Im not desperate to join any clubs and Im not really lonely ^_^ Dont worry though, if I feel the biting loneliness of solitude I will be in touch....sorry bout that. Um, that and I think we have gone a little off topic here....

Heaven's Cloud thats a bit harsh! Or are you trying to make an argument.........? I think Trigun is great entertainment, Vash is a great character (similarities to Kenshin aside) and the rest of the cast are mostly really well realised. The humour is great (more especially when watching with friends), and the characters are great fun, even if you feel they are nothing else. Considering how much they had to chop and change from the manga storyline to fit its 26 episodes, I think it did rather well on the issues it left in and even those it added. The goofyness is fun, but I think it also adds to the later moods the show (tries in some cases) to get across. Just recently though I did see the Samurai X Trust Betrayal and Reflections, Kenshin seems to have the same ideas......now THATS an emotional anime.

Hey Metatron, do you know when Trigun Maximum 9 is due for release? Ive been waiting for it ever since I got book 8 ^_^ Im buying them in Japanese and relying on fan sites and my own (limited) knowledge of Japanese to read through. The anime never goes into the issue of the hair darkening either.....

I have Trigun Maximum, its a continuation of the story rather than a sequel (it follows on from the first three Trigun books), the events at the end of the anime havent happened in the manga and are very unlikely to now. Its following a completely different track with a lot more in in about Vash, Knives and Plants. Oh yeah, and Wolfwood is still alive ^_^ but Im very unsure as to whether Legato is.....

'Shonen ai' literally translates as 'boys love' whereas 'yaoi' will mean 'no point' though is taken as being the same as shonen ai. There are varying degrees of soft and hard yaoi, but they all mean a relationship between two men. I can see your confusion with manga, possibly because of 'Manga Entertainment' which is a distribution company for anime, confusing or what?

Anime is the name for the animated cartoons and the manga is the graphic novels or comic books. ^_^ On the yaoi/shonen ai point, I think that Legato must be horribly frustrated because Im sure Knives wouldnt even consider touching a human being, except maybe to kill it. I think the only being of any interest to Knives in 'that' way or any would be his brother Vash, and even so he might just have the morals not to. Knives seems to have very strong morals himself, he is righteous toward his fellow beings and would to anything to save and protect them......so long as they are Plants and not human beings. He sees humans as lesser than insects, Im sure he doesnt hold much against insects themselves other than to use them as metaphors and of how easily he can crush pitiful humans. Knives cares only for Vash (and his other Plant siblings) which must be torture for Legato who cares only for his 'master' and not his fellow human beings or even himself. The reason Legato was crushed by Knives is that he was so bold as to give the order to kill Vash and Knives dissapproved, to understate it a little, so showed no remorse in crushing his body, but then, his methods towards Vash are rather unsympathetic. To Knives, Vash is a traitor of the worst proportions. I mean, I was watching the Matrix and it made me think of this...If Neo is the hero for wanting to eventually free his fellow humans from their Plant-like captivity, then isnt he a lot like Knives.....?? In that case, Vash is the villian..... Interesting, I thought (actually i hope I havent said that before).

Has anyone else ever been concerned about the Japanese fondness for using school girls in their anime and of the general image of female roles? Not every anime features schoolgirls, I know, but its the ones that do. Female characters will always fall into the category of either submissive or actually insane (or close to), and will talk the most absurd things when in private, for example in Love Hina, the first episode when Keitaro is in the girls hot springs and Naru just talks "oh, Ive been noticing that recently my breasts........" completely randomly!! That and the ridiculously short skirts that are part of the uniform in even the least mature of animes, does it worry anyone about this fascination? Im not one to complain too much about political correctness (I wouldnt watch a lot of anime if I was) but it just made me think when a friend pointed this out.

The manga actually says that Vash has a stronger power than Knives a greater "flow", but, having lived his life as a human, Vash would never have had the need to understand this. ^_^ Maybe Legato just thinks Knives is cute...

I think that Vash is vulnerable to Legatos mind control because Vash really doesnt have a clue about what he is or what he's capable of. He does learn at the end, but I beleive it was Legatos intention that he would... Knives must have sat around all that time just experimenting with his abilities (I mean, he had to go BACK to look for those guns, he must of made them when he was a KID! Meanwhile, Vash would be learning about flowers with Rem). Maybe Legato can control any being with a concious mind, which rules out non-thinking beasts, although perhaps he can but has never seen the need for that. I think Knives is able to resist any power Legato might use with mental blocks, being an explanation for why Legato follows him (either peace of a mind that he cant hear, or absolute awe that there is someone/something that can resist his power). Or at least one possible theory!

Ah! That makes more sense ^_^ Legato is able to trigger the Angel Arm metamorphosis in Vash, but I dont know whether or not this has anything to do with Legato having Vash's left arm. It seems to me (now I get to try out my gun-flashylight-arm theory!) that the secondary fire on both Vash's and Knives's guns are the triggering of the Angel Arm, which seems to be done psychically by the bearer of the weopon-- noting how Knives only had to snap his fingers to make Vash use it back in July. Vash himself only learns to take control of it late in the series, and has full comprehension of this psychic ability by the last episode. Legato, having the power to take control of other people, will have used his ability to make Vash use the mental command to the gun. Note, it is not the gun that transforms, the instructions for the process are inside the gun, and its in reaction to these that Vash's arm begins to change around it (more boring Plant theories I have) There is one thing that confuses me, in episode 24, Legato explains to Vash that his left hand shakes uncontrollably "because it happens to be the very arm that attached your arm to your body" What? Which arm? Legato are you saying you attached Vash's fake left arm to him?? I think Vash had his own right arm from the beginning, he does have a heck of a lot more years to his name than Legato!!

Cowboy Bebop Ed's personailty is based on that, and the mannerisms, of Cowboy Bebops music composer Yoko Kanno (amongst other scores) Who, if anyone, is Ed from EEE based on? Though, I wouldnt have made the connection of similarities myself....

Im not sure, what do you mean by "modify" Vash's left arm??

Hey Animangademon, Knives isnt trying to get rid of Vash, but rather persuade him to join his side. The reason he has assembled the Gun Ho Guns to do his work is because he wants to show Vash how evil and cruel and wasteful human beings are. He could really go to Vash himself, but he wants Vash to discover what he is for himself and decide of his own will to join Knives (Although blowing of his arm was a very unorthodox way of trying to get this point across!! But I reckon that was punishment for Vash shooting him in the leg in the first place) As for how Vash and Knives came about in the first place I beleive they were a complete fluke and the natural "evolution or mutation" (to quote Zazie's manga explanation) of the genetically engineered Plant Angels, my reasons for this, and my supporting references to the anime and the manga, were posted earlier on in this thread ^_^