It's not every day you get to celebrate two decades of an Japanese Anime series that influenced a generation of viewers - let alone one that was based off a popular manga and didn't quite follow the plot of that as it was still ongoing yet turned into its own spin and became a classic nevertheless. Of course, we're talking about the anime adaptation of Yasuhiro Nightow's "Trigun" - an action packed space western show that ran for 26 episodes and was animated by Madhouse. Like its source material, the series told the story of a mysterious gunslinger known as "Vash the Stampede" - who wanders around the colonized and desert like planet of Gunsmoke with a $$60 Billion Double Dollar bounty on his head. Why would some guy like that be the target of every scum and mercenary out there? That's what the series chronicles - including revealing bits and pieces of who Vash really is as well as meeting his companions in insurance girls Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, as well as the priest gunfighter Nicholas D. Wolfwood.
Now what makes this anime so badass? Why let's see and listen to the opening first before anything else:
That was the intro using the song "H.T", and it presents Vash as a badass. However, the anime shows more than just guns blazing. The first few episodes in fact show a "different side" to our main character than one would expect.
There's tons of life lessons and things to appreciate about Trigun - from Vash's naive and seemingly impossible mission as a pacifist to save everyone without killing, to the hopeless circumstances and grim choices those around him have to make to survive. The planet they live in is also devoid of most natural resources - with humanity relying on alien "Plants" to provide them with all the necessary water and energy they need to survive. It gets better over time - and it's turned into one of the anime classics of its time (alongside fellow 20 year celebrant Cowboy Bebop) that you can watch at your leisure and name your favorite moments from each episode. While the English dub is pretty good (with Johnny Yong Bosch of Power Rangers fame providing the voice of Vash), stick to the original Japanese dub for quality viewing and the jokes - Masaya Onasaka being THE definite voice of Vash.
With that, I celebrate 20 years of the Trigun anime with this picture of my small collection. LOVE AND PEACE BABY!!!
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