#I have no excuse for Wolfwood though other than all the other figures of him were too pricey

[chloemew]

My desk, before and after! As much as I loved my new desk, there was still too much visual clutter that I think was contributing to me never wanting to do anything art-related. So, I got a custom mousemat and swapped out my old LIDL keyboard for something that a.) is much smaller and b.) I like looking at :] greeeeen

Turns out my graphics tablet can also be used wirelessly (somehow I never knew this despite having owned it for like 6 years at this point), so to further de-clutter, I made a little charging station under the desk using 2x £1 IKEA hook racks :0 So now I can easily grab it when I wanna use it and keep it tucked away when I don't.

[fedoranonymous]

Infinite List of Beginner-Friendly Anime Recs: Trigun

"I am known as Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III. Don't hesitate to call."

tl;dr I questioned someone’s recommendation for someone else’s first anime on the basis that people who are unused to anime might like something that’s less than 20 hours long and tells one complete story within the first hour or so, and 20,000 words later I decided to make my own post(s) because I clearly had Feelings

26 x 30 minute episodes + 1 x 90 minute movie | watch it: netflix (?) | hulu | amazon prime | funimation 

insurance agents go looking for a legendary outlaw in the Wild West But IN SPACE (tm) so that they can accurately estimate how much damage is caused by this humanoid natural disaster. damage still accrues.

Follow the Read More for more convincing and trigger warnings (to my best recollection)

Features:

less “space western” and more “western in the space”. Other than some pieces of Lost Technology (TM) this is a pretty standard rooty tooty mcshooty until you get into the Worldbuilding

the fact that the primary cast consists of one lovable doofus who just Doesn’t Know Why Everyone Keeps Shooting At Me and two insurance adjusters who are following him around to try and keep track of how much damage he causes still cracks me the fuck up

the best excused recap episode of all time re: they’re insurance adjusters. they have to SEND the rePORT ahahahahaha brb dying

one of the official summaries called Vash “more doofus than desperado” and like. yeah. yeah. you get it.

you thought Aang’s Technical Pacifism was good but Vash manages to not kill people while creating a torrential rain of bullets. For real. If you like the idea of action movies but hate seeing blood, most of this show is gonna be excellent for you and the rest is gonna be okay to good.

Wolfwood. Just. Give me this midwestern hick priest with his drive by confessional and his money grubbing ways and his heart of gold (ThInK oF tHe ChIlDrEn) and his literal cross to bear (do not google because spoilers but yeah) and his somehow keeping up with Vash when Vash has been an impossibly skilled fighter for like 8 episodes so far. Yeah he’s only in like two episodes. He’s still a great character!

pretty much every recurring character is Wholesome As Fuck and I’m here for it. Tons of quotable moments about how you can never give up and you have to keep moving forward and the inherent coolness of people and yeah. Just a good uplifting show with a whole lot of wasted bullets.

that time Vash has to pretend to actually be every rumor that has ever been spread about him and immediately starts singing “ladee dadee died~ genocide~ ladee dadee dud~ an ocean of blood~ let’s begin the killing times” because he is actually a five year old sometimes and i love him so much

impeccable animation, character design, sound work, etc would I recommend you something that would be painful to enjoy? I mean I guess you wouldn’t know, I could have outstandingly bad tastes, but no you cannot go wrong.

“Repeat after me: This world is made of! Love! And! Peace!”

I might say “x anime did better in the US in Japan” with more or less accuracy, but Trigun abso fucking lutely did so well in the US it got a movie over a decade later because that’s how long it took for dubs to come out back in the late nineties and early aughts. Surprise surprise, Westerns do better in the West. It’s also got the violence porn balanced with a specific precious moralizing that vibes well with a predominantly Christian audience balanced with genuinely awesome humor. Trigun truly is the anime for people who don’t like anime.

Watch Out For:

General warning for violence, guns being the answer to every problem, mostly implied body horror, at least one serial killer, this might be the show with the (implied?) cannibalism someone fact check me, child endangerment (to be fair it’s the child doing the endangering by sneaking in where he isn’t wanted), alcoholism, and general rough times. There’s something really poignant that’s escaping about how God abandoned the world but us humans don’t have that luxury, it’s that kind of setup.

Honestly special shout out for the specifically very accurately Christian proselytizing considering that it’s a Japanese production and as a rule Xtian imagery in anime tends to be used like, say, grecoroman imagery in Hollywood. Occasionally accurate but usually just kind of generalized meh. It was a plus for the overall production but if you’re on my blog it might be a minus for you.

Episode 4 to the point that it’s regarded as borderline ooc. A woman is tied up in such a way that she’s dangling from the ceiling and Vash makes a beeline to try and see up her skirt. It’s an obvious gag and nothing is shown iirc (to be fair I only watched the broadcast version), but I know some folks would like the warning especially after the previous point. It’s a shame because the rest of the episode is really good, it’s an adaptation of the pilot chapter that got Trigun greenlit, but the scene is fairly standalone so should be skippable. Just look for Vash’s eager puppy look and go forward about two minutes.

Millie Tommygun, being the cheerful, optimistic one of the two main girls, can be treated kind of shittily by the narrative, which is hilarious considering Vash’s Whole Everything. I think Millie has internalized the idea that she’s the stupid one to Meryl’s Sarcastic Genius, but also Millie’s the one who figured out who Vash is first and just generally the one who calls people out on their bullshit, with a smile, which is literally their jobs. She’s never unlikable, though, unlike Meryl who needs to defrost to Vash’s Whole Everything despite having Millie for a friend. Perhaps they only just met on this assignment? Otherwise idk why Meryl ain’t used to it yet, probably some heterosexual bullshit.

Any time Knives is in the summary. Remember that “at least one serial killer” yeah that’s Knives et al. Shit has to get darker before you can see the light shining through.

Overall Trigun is such a good anime. It’s just. Have you ever wondered what Avatar the Last Airbender would be like if it was an East Asian author writing about Western tropes? Now you know.

[theironweasel]

My Problem with the ending to the Trigun Anime compared to Avatar’s Endings

SPOILERS! Obviously!

Ok, so I spent most of the day yesterday watching all of Trigun and before I get into this I want to make something clear, I like Trigun, hell through most of the last third I was ready to love it. The episodes Paradise and Sin were especially good, getting me to cry quite a bit. However, I found the ending to the series to be unsatisfying and I felt the best way to explain why would be to compare it to the endings of both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra which have similar endings.

So at the end of Trigun, Vash confronts his genocidal brother Knives but decides in the end not to kill him. And then he declares that while he will always love his mother figure Rem, he is going to live by his own words instead of following hers, even though he seems to still be doing that by not killing Knives (Yeah that confused me a lot.) And presumably, he takes Knives back to try and rehabilitate him. Look, I understand and appreciate the idea of killing being wrong because it robs a person of a chance to change. However, this ties into the other big problem I have with the show, Knives isn’t a very interesting villain. So let’s compare this to both Avatar series.

So let’s start with ATLA. While Ozai is also a one-note villain, I do feel that Ozai is a stronger character because of his slightly more restrained and logical motivations (slightly being the key word) as well as the acting skills of Mark Hamill. However, either way in each case we are not supposed to feel a ton of sympathy for either of these characters, however, the difference lies in the reasons why the protagonists choose to spare the villain. With Vash, it comes from the fact that he believes that everyone deserves the chance to change. Aang outright admits that Ozai is horrible and probably will never change, instead, his primary reason for not killing Ozai is that it would be betraying his own belief in the sacredness of life which made him feel like he was not being himself, the very thing that led Zuko down his dark path, and even more important it would be betraying the most core principal of Airbender philosophy, and if he did this it would mean that in effect the Fire Nation would have succeeded in wiping out the Air Nation by forcing their last survivor to betray their culture. However, it is important to note that when he believes that he has exhausted all possibilities he states he is willing to kill. We will never know whether he actually would have been able to do it but at least he is willing to accept the possibility.

In LOK Kuvira is decidedly more human than either Ozai or Knives, while some of her actions put her close to the edge of redeemability she never quite crosses the line because her actions always come from a desire to do what is right for her country due to the emotional trauma of being abandoned by her parents and seeing Suyin, someone she trusted as family do the same thing to her country. With Knives, it never comes off as though he is traumatized by the abuse he suffers, instead, it comes across as Knives uses this as an excuse to deem all of Humanity as “garbage” even though the others treat him with love and kindness. In both of these cases, the Hero seeks to redeem the villain, but with Knives, we never get the indication that he has any humanity to save and in Kuvira’s case there is also a clearly pragmatic reason to do this. If Kuvira were killed it’s likely that her army would have rampaged out of control, therefore the safest and most efficient way to end the conflict is to get Kuvira to recognize the harm she has caused and surrender.

Finally, there are several aspects in both cases that are not true with Knives. First, while both of these Avatar villains are physically powerful, their primary power is political, so if they survive there isn’t an immediate threat to human life the same way that there is with Knives, who has the ability and desire to wipe out all of Humanity. This makes Vash's decision to take Knives alive all the more confounding, there is no way the law could keep him contained and it's hard to see Vash being more successful at this given the insane powers and intelligence Knives has. Simply put this guy is too dangerous to be kept alive with out somehow depowering him. While a ton of time is spent talking about how Vash won't kill because he believes it is wrong to kill because it is robbing a person of a future where they could change. However, there isn't really much attention given to the fact that Knives is destroying hundreds of peoples' futures and wants to scale this up to the complete extinction of humanity. Divorced from "Punishment" "Justice" "Revenge" or any other concepts, when does the risk simply become too great. Additionally, the show never seems to consider the reality that maybe some people can't change. This is something that LoK addresses in its first season when Tarrlok kills himself and Noatak because he believes that neither of them can actually change and will stay stuck in the cycle of violence.

So how would I change things? Well, I know that some people take issue with the penultimate episode as it can come off as naive and even a bit self-righteous, but I'll defend most of it as Vash has been living with his code for over 100 years and he never really blames others for acting differently. However, I think there could have been a more realistic and mature revelation on Vash's part, by coming to a Euthyphro conclusion. Look up that Socratic dialogue for more info. Essentially what I mean is that I think the understanding Vash should have come to is that what separates himself from Knives or even Wolfwood is that he tries everything in his power to not kill and when he does he recognizes it as an imperfect solution and not something good or even excusable. But I do think he should come to terms with the idea that it may sometimes be a necessary evil. To be honest I feel the place where Wolfwood ends up makes more sense, as he only decides to stand by a pacifist ideal when the only person at risk is himself. I think this is an issue that is never really addressed: when does a choice to stick with a strict pacifist ideal conflict with the risk to other people. As much as someone doesn't have the right to end someone's future, does someone have the right to risk others futures through inaction?

I just wish there was at least a bit more self-reflection on the philosophy that is going on and maybe some more buildup to the ultimate conclusion. However, I still feel this was a pretty damn good show all things considered and I’ll probably regard Vash, Wolfwood, and even Milly as some of my favorite characters I’ve ever seen and there are many aspects I regard highly from the emotional intensity of the last third of the show down to that frightening noise that plays whenever the villains do something messed up. So, I will always have fond memories of this show, even if I felt the ending was a bit of a letdown.