Yes. YEEEES. these are the exquisite depths of suffering I remember. It's so much easier to parse the action in this larger format than it was in paperback. And what beautiful action IT is! Trigun RULES
oh my god. i’ve been saying that this manga is much better when nightow focuses on storytelling rather than action scenes, but this collection had the perfect balance of both and i feel like my heart was in my throat the entire time that i was reading this. incredible character moments here… i’m so glad we’re getting more knives and more wolfwood!!!!! the entire last volume of this edition was practically wolfwood central and it was so good to see, especially because i feel like he’s been an enigma for a good while now. his dedication to the orphanage and to vash is obvious but like omg who is this guy… but wow just great moments here. i think i can finally stop dragging the unintelligible action scenes lol i think nightow has finally gotten a good grip on what he’s trying to do here
The characterisation of Vash is totally lost by this point in the series. None of what makes him unique and endearing is present here, and the story hardly focuses on him at all. Instead we switch to wolfwood, who was once the only stoic fighter in the team, yet now that vash has been reduced to a similar role he just lacks the uniqueness that made him cool. His story was interesting, but I can’t help but feel you ruin the mystique of his character by digging so desperately into his past.
The manga feels seriously inferior to the anime in almost every way. The characters are all bland and boring, the villains are forgettable, it lacks the villain of the week narrative style that I loved about the anime and instead just puts vash and wolfwood up against generic villains who I know almost nothing about and expects me to care. All and all this manga is not superior to the anime at all, and I doubt I will be hungry for the next one.
I absolutely loved the chapters about Vash & Knives’ backstory with Rem. It added so much depth, sympathy and insight into why Knives is so fatalistic towards humanity. The dynamic he and Vash had was interesting as well. Vash being the more aggressive child while Knives was more timid. Oh how the roles have changed! We get a lot of great character development for Wolfwood as well. Seeing his backstory and his interactions with the other orphans, not to mention everything with Livio & Razlo. And as always, Nightow’s art is so gorgeous and detailed and his fight sequences convey such speed and movement through his wonderful line work.
They’re also some grade A body horror. Between the experiments & declining health of Tesla & Knives’ body morphing into a cluster of blades (no pun intended), good stuff. Great 3 volumes!
Epic space cowboy adventure fun? Well...I mean, it is a good read, but it's also getting pretty serious now. If you've read the first 3 volumes (trigun, and trigun max 1 and 2), then you're not going to be disappointed here. The fight scenes are still hard to follow, but this volume was a nice break in the action. It shows character back-stories, for the most part. You learn a lot about Wolfwood, some of Vash and Nai's history on the Project SEEDs ship, and even a little bit about Livio.
There’s stuff here I like, I’m a huge fan of Trigun overall, but DAMN is this incomprehensible at times. It’s all I can do to keep up with half of what’s going on. I’m committed now, so I’ll finish it out, but I don’t know that I’ll be rereading it much.