Lo Bastido

Hmm...I always thought AS was off Fridays and Saturdays because the kiddies were possibly up and around with no school the next morning? :) I only started watching CN in July, so I dunno. :p

To me, TRIGUN is the conflict between pragmatism and idealism, with Vash being a bastion of idealism in what he sees as an ocean of bitter pragmatism. Nothing more complicated than that, in my opinion. To my mind, Vash's struggle was resolved when he realized that Rem's message of "never kill" was much more complicated then he always thought; at the end of the series, Vash (and the audience too) remembered Rem's words to the effect that our future is always blank, that sometimes we have to sin but all we have to do is turn around and start over again. [spoiler]So instead of being eternally tormented by being forced to kill Legato, Vash just -- started over. Just as Rem would have done. [/spoiler] Over the series' run, Vash is continually trying to teach others that there is always a Perfect Solution to every supposedly "impossible" problem, that there is always an alternative to killing; and even if it DOES come down to being forced to kill someone, that Solution goes by the name of Redemption. No heinous act, even murder, is unforgivable if one seeks to start over anew. [spoiler]Otherwise, how could Frank Marlon hope to live with himself after unwittingly crafting the instruments of his family's destruction? How could that engineer chickie go on living after she lost her reason for revenge? In [i]Love and Peace[/i], the man formerly known as the Grim Reaper stepped up to risk his life for his daughter. Badwick, the wayward son in [i]Little Arcadia[/i] -- he eventually found his own solution too. Even Brilliant Dynamite Neon showed his more noble side in saving the Sand Steamer.[/spoiler] All these examples -- which can be topped by Vash's own mini-redemption after his fight with Monev the Gale in [i]Diablo[/i] -- point to one common theme, and foreshadow Vash's own solution to his conflict with Knives: that the future is always blank.

I just KNEW some dingbats would raise a ruckus over the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network. Gah! You won't go broke betting on the stupidity of the lowest common denominator of human being. PS Is that article implying the ACLLU (don't forget the second L, folks) is working with them in this frivolity? If so, that's typically hypocritical of the ACLLU. More than typical, actually. Just hope that if it goes to court some judge somewhere with a bit of sense (yes, judges of that rare type are seen now and again, like Sasquatch) throws their case out before too long.

[spoiler]Apparently Vash did destroy July, effectively sentencing the inhabitants to misery and barbarism even though they survived the initial blast. In I think Episode 6, Vash saves a town's plant from being destroyed; it's said that if he hadn't done so the town would have been reduced to a crater. So even if the townspeople could get far enough away in time to escape the explosion (it seemed to me like they were acting like they were toast because they couldn't), the town would have been wrecked.[/spoiler]

Throughout the entire series [spoiler], and in the final showdown between Vash and Knives, [/spoiler] there's the theme that one must do as little damage as possible; this sits alongside of the more absolutist theme of "never kill anyone." Re-watching Episode 17, "Rem Saverem," really crystallized this for me. [spoiler]Rem says something to the effect that if you hurt someone you have to do all you can to undo the damage. This idea goes along with her similar ideal (I forget the wording) that doing the smallest injury you have to do is okay, you just have to turn around and see the future. Sure, this contradicts both her and Vash's shock at Knives's crushing of the spider, but for her I think it was just that, shock. I think Rem's lost words to Vash as the escape pod hatch was closing was something like, "Do what you have to, Vash. Make up for it later."[/spoiler] And that is the central conflict of the series, whether Vash should obey Rem's absolutist "never kill" policy or give in to pragmatism. [spoiler] In the (I think) second-to-final episode Vash realizes that Rem was a moralist, sure, but also a realist. In the end he realized that Rem was far more complicated then he always thought -- and that's a great legacy for her to have. Vash's gunfight with Knives was therefore a celebration of Rem's beliefs, not a violation. [/spoiler]

Ditto request for me. :)

Oops, I meant to ask "Is Maximum a rehash of the original manga," not of the anime series. But you got your point across nevertheless; thanks for the input everyone! See you all at the series finale, tonight at midnight (Central time) on Cartoon Network.

Hmm...I haven't read either of the manga series, so I'll take your word for it. :) Is Maximum a rehash of the first series, or is it something more than that? But truth be known, the Trigun anime isn't exactly kid-friendly itself.

The story's creator says he doesn't want the TRIGUN MAXIMUM manga to be animated, grrr.:mad: After I see Ep 26, I know I'm going to be jonesing for more Trigun. Oh well, I missed the first few episodes (my first ep was the one where Vash was hired to protect that water tycoon's babe-alicious daughter), so they're new to me! :D

****WARNING, SHOW SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN UP TO EPISODE 25**** (sorry for the unannounced spoilers, folks :( my whole post is one big spoil-a-thon, ouch) Hello, I hope I'm posting this in the right area. After reading Otaku's suggested explanation for what Vash really is, I'm kinda puzzled as to what "plant" really is supposed to mean. Early on in the anime series, Vash saves a town's "plant" from destruction by hooking up to it somehow. To make it short, I have to wonder if maybe "plant" is a misinterpretation of the Japanese (not that I know any Japanese, haha)? Perhaps it should be something like "power plant" or "industrial plant." In the episode where Vash and Wolfwood try unsuccessfully to save the Project Seeds ship from the Gung-Ho Gang, we briefly see one of the entities who "live outside of time" but inhabit each "plant." Vash tries to communicate with the damaged plant being, but a Gung Ho Gang member ends up destroying it anyway. My theory is that the "plant" part of Vash is not literally a plant-life form, but a super-sophisticated bit of the "lost" technology the residents of Vash's planet speak of so often. We see in the episode "Rem Saverem" that Vash and Knives are known to be at least partially plants, of course. They're definitely something more or something less than human. I suggest that really they are highly advanced, cybernetics-advanced humans, built for what purpose I have no idea (I've seen episodes five through 25 so far -- the finale Sunday night will be new to me). I'm still baffled as to how the two twin brothers got on the Project Seeds ship in the first place -- I heard a rumor that they were stow-aways? In any case, Vash and Knives's origin is baffling to me. But from the way I'm processing the information I have, it seems to me that the "plant" element in the show is really an attempt to introduce an arcane technology, a technology mysterious even to the folks of Project Seeds -- notice how that one original crewmember (forgot his name, he was one of Rem's fellow crewmen) who was so baffled by Knives's superior engineering abilities. Just my random thoughts on this dilemma of mine. Again, I hope I put this in the right area, and I welcome any input into it.