The simple beginning of something gigantic.

Not a single review? Okay, here we go.
Trigun is, without a doubt, one of the best battle-shonen works and of the entire youth demographic.

This title can get lost and be overlooked within the seinen demographic, which was assigned to it due to the magazine where it was distributed after about 22 chapters because of complications with its previous magazine. After that change, the work doesn't become especially different, and this can be appreciated in the parts that were adapted into the anime of the same title. It didn't change its themes, nor its formula for arcs, self-contained episodes, or its dose of comedy.

General Overview:

Inspired by the Western genre, Trigun prioritizes the use of weapons, taking them to all kinds of levels: from simple bandits with shotguns to giant bomb throwers or wielders of enormous machine guns. The author makes the work more creative by including various fictional combinations of weapons that take advantage of disproportionate bodies and strange vehicles.

Trigun, and at times its continuation Maximum, is a relatively basic or repetitive work, structured into mini-arcs and mini-battles in which very few subplots are linked simultaneously. In fact, many times it simply follows the protagonists alongside a temporary group of people. With that and a small group of main and recurring characters, the author managed to create one of the most solidly coherent works, with very good characters, battles, and other highly introspective moments, and a plot centered on a very good villain. In this sense, you could even say it is the most solid work that makes the fewest mistakes within the entire demographic among action stories, even though its arcs are very independent without always being so conclusive in delivering a new message. It also incorporates other characters, like Brad and the people related to Nicholas's past. At first glance, it's a work that can seem repetitive on a first read, when you aren't stopping to appreciate the quality of each arc. The plots can also seem like more of the same in the sense that they always have to help someone, defeat a villain, or rescue an ally. But you just have to realize that this happens a lot in other mangas, and if it's not that, it's another type of repetitive event.

The work is not static, nonetheless; it moves well within similar scenarios in a decadent world where humanity can barely survive. It has a sense of suspense that is well rewarded with revelations about the past, a rivalry, and a very well-crafted evil plan, all of which have everything to do with the type of hero being built.

Another thing to highlight is that a few chapters can be really short, with an occasional chapter that doesn't resolve any plot thread but rather develops a character a bit. Reading it all in one go poses no problem.

Protagonist:

Its protagonist, Vash the Stampede, is the epitome of the hero archetype who doesn't wish to kill anyone, whether good or evil. To do this, he makes superhuman efforts and has an extraordinary ability to use his weapon and fight without mortally wounding whoever is doing evil. Vash not only doesn't want to kill; he truly doesn't want others to kill, neither good nor bad, on either side. This makes him carry an enormous burden, which can be seen in the wounds on his body, caused by the countless fights he prolonged to ensure he didn't take the lives of his opponents.

Vash's internal conflict is about the past and the responsibilities he carries, how he gives up and how he gets back up to fight until he finishes what concerns him most: the plan being orchestrated by the main antagonist.

Story and Other Characters:

The story begins by presenting a decadent world, how people survive, and how criminals try to steal or monopolize anything of value, further reinforcing the misery and decadence to which humans are subjected on this planet where everything is scarce. During the initial events, various bandits and even entire towns try to capture Vash due to the enormous bounty on his head, a multimillion-dollar reward. Through this, he ends up meeting and being accompanied by two girls he befriends: Millie Thompson and Meryl Stryfe, two employees of the Bernardelli Agency. Both are reporters who have to stay close to Vash after entities declared him a "localized disaster," report his incidents to the press, and monitor him to ensure he doesn't cause damages so the insurance company doesn't lose more money. However, that doesn't stop the group from being heroes on multiple occasions, facing dangerous, bizarre, and well-armed enemies in conflicts where Vash's superhuman abilities prove key. This role also places the girls in a position to discover the truth about Vash and face the lack of credibility with their superiors. Something particularly interesting for those close to the press.

We are used to the early appearance of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, but in this part of the manga, he appears towards the end. At that point, he's a mysterious man we barely know, somewhat generous but not your conventional preacher, who gets involved in a dangerous place, along with the villains we saw earlier who are after Vash. His intentions and his past are a mystery for now.

Here it must be said that Trigun decided to always maintain a simple formula of a single plotline and a conflict that the protagonist must live through until it is resolved, but always maintaining the mystery of why, who Vash's target is, who he really is, why he has those superhuman abilities to survive any conflict, and what makes him so optimistic or cheerful with people.

Some enemies are temporary and products of circumstance: small-time bandits and bounty hunters with all kinds of weapons in a depressing, chaotic world who don't have the time to negotiate survival as a team. In fact, despite the situation, the bond between the inhabitants of the towns is not especially close; rather, everyone tries to look out for themselves because they are used to living surrounded by hostility. But even so, Vash throughout his life came to form many groups of friends, remembering the old ones with nostalgia and saying goodbye to the new ones with melancholy and gratitude for having met them, but this comes later in Maximum.

These events initially don't seem marked by a clear direction, but besides providing comedy, they contribute to world-building, the relationship between Vash and his 2 (later 3) friends, resolve conflicts, and at the same time develop secondary characters, thus giving the protagonist and his team a greater heroic sense, because besides saving the day, they also motivate and help good people to improve themselves and not lose hope, something that is essential in that violent desert world. Moreover, this covers the first 12 chapters of the Trigun manga, but I describe the formula because it is used again during part of Maximum's events.

Spoiler alert
What changes when the plot progresses into its main conflict? Villains appear in a city, Vash confronts them, but we are presented with flashbacks, a lot of tension, and new names. The first of them is Legato, a figure with a long cape and a psychic power capable of silently annihilating many people. At that time, he acts as a messenger who warns Vash that if he leaves, he will kill the people in the city they are in, taking advantage of the protagonist's abhorrence of people dying. This establishes a very important principle of the previously unknown antagonists: they want to make him suffer, demoralize him, and frustrate him by trampling on his sense of protection for human lives. Furthermore, they want to confront him and finish him off, but not until the time is right.