#beginning 2023 with trigun

[exiled-on-mainline]

idk what to say my mind wanders

[codemonki]

I'm reading the manga! The final form!!

[trigun-manga-overhaul]

TRIGUN ULTIMATE OVERHAUL MASTERPOST

Here’s all the links you’re going to need to begin reading the Trigun Ultimate Overhaul. There’s a link to the first post of every volume, as well as a link to downloading the entire volume at once. There is a link to downloading the entire series at once too.

Stay tuned for future updates, because we aren’t done just yet!

~~

To open the provided ZIP files, you need an archive program, like 7ZIP, which is a free program used by many.

You can download 7ZIP here for free.

~~

Donate to the Overhaul Project here!

~~

Support the original creator by buying the official copies from Dark Horse Comics!

~~

TRIGUN ULTIMATE OVERHAUL 1.0

Trigun:

Trigun Vol 1: Chapters / Volume. Trigun Vol 2: Chapters / Volume.

~~

Trigun Maximum:

TriMax Vol 1: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 2: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 3: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 4: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 5: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 6: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 7: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 8: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 9: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 10: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 11: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 12: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 13: Chapters / Volume. TriMax Vol 14: Chapters / Volume.

~~

DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE MANGA IN PDF! (PDF’s made by @sapphicweeb)

DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE MANGA IN ZIP FILES HERE!

~~

Trigun April Fools:

April 2021: Post April 2022: Post April 2023: Post April 2024: Post

~~

TRIGUN ULTIMATE OVERHAUL 2.0

Trigun Multiple Bullets:

Post / Download / PDF Download

~~

Trigun Red

Post / Download

~~

[revenantghost]

Otakon 2023 Trigun Stampede Panel (Attempted) Masterpost!

A new con with a new Orange panel, which means new information and pictures and videos to devour! As per with the other masterposts, I want to collect and archive as much info as possible for reference, and will be updating links under the cut as more info comes out. I’m gathering stuff from Twitter and Tumblr, but I’m only one person, so if I miss anything please link and I’ll include it!

Here goes:

This is gonna be a little less detailed than normal since there's SO MUCH info!

A great thread by kiweewiener and more: x x

Vids of the whole panel!

bigbaras2's posts: x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

maskofbun's posts: x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

vashethestamped's posts: x x x x x x

Tumblr post on new plant lore!

A few lore posts + new angles for some images

Zazie!

Plant lore video!!!

Plant lore transcript

Pics!

Higher res pics with some lore!

Animation info!

Woowoo art and some Legato

Zazie!

More pics!

Watanabe's post that the beginning pic's from!

Cosplay pics from Orange!

More cosplay pics from Orange!

x x x x x

[lost-technology]

Explaining Vash Outside the Fandom!

So, today on another forum I mentioned Vash the Stampede. I mentioned him by way of "I don't ask myself WWJD? so much anymore as WWVtSD?" and explained "Vash the Stampede." I said "If anyone is unfamiliar with this name, go ahead and ask and I can fangirl all over you, but be warned, you will be reading all day." I got a taker. And then another taker who is a person on the forum who is straight up not having a good time right now and needs some distraction I feel - to read someone's dumb fangirling over a fandom they aren't in yet. So... I wrote up an essay explaining Vash the Stampede in Word and pasted it in shifts on the blog: (uck, looks like I'm gonna have to post this in shifts, too. Dumb tumblr!

*Flashes my fangirl license*  You asked about Vash the Stampede?  *Raises eyebrows.*  Big mistake.  You shall be here all day!  Vash is the protagonist of Trigun, an anime / manga by Yashiro Nightow.  Well, the manga is by him and there are two different animes to date, one originally airing in 1998 before the completion of the manga (and it gained the idea enough popularity that Nightow was able to continue the manga and purposefully took a different track to keep the story fresh.  Because he had to switch publishers the continuing story was titled Trigun Maximum).  As of 2023 there has been a reboot of the anime, Trigun Stampede, done in a cell-shaded CGI style that takes more cues from the manga.  It has done its own story elements, too, most notably having the City of July as a part of the story, making it almost a prequel, since the City of July is past tense in the other media.  A second set / continuation / completion of it is set for a future release date and as of yesterday, the “final phase” of the new anime will be titled Trigun Stargaze. Additionally, there was a feature-movie made in 2011 based solely upon the first anime titled Badlands Rumble, which is kind of the black sheep of the fandom (personally I enjoy it, find it very funny).  So, anyway, Vash is a tall blonde man with a Bart Simpson hairdo and a long red coat who lives on a desert planet with 10X the guns of ‘Murica.  There are two suns and five moons.  It’s a scavenger world where people barely eek out a living using a form of lost technology known as “Plants” – which are these energy and materials production entities housed in giant lightbulbs (or something more like tanks in Stampede).  No one knows how to create Plants anymore and few know how to maintain them, so everything is slowly dying (except, of course, the native sandworms.  Yep, there’s something Dune-like going on).  People live a half sci-fi half Old West existence and things are, again, very violent.  It’s a world where you have higher chances of making it out better as a bandit than a farmer.    Vash is a pacifist.  He is also an outlaw with Sixty-Billion-Double Dollars ($$) on his head because he has been shown to be capable of incredible destructive power.  Now, most of this comes accidentally from trying to weasel out of tough situations and people after him getting themselves hurt, but somehow towns fall apart.  Except for the City of July (or Jul-Ai in Stampede), which he did wipe out.  Under circumstances not of his own making or will, but the normal citizens of the planet don’t know that.  That was around 24 years ago in the first anime and in the manga.  July exists as of the beginning of Stampede.    Early on in the manga’s story, an insurance company that gets a lot of damage claims regarding damage he supposedly caused declares him a “Human Act of God” so as to avoid payouts.  He is assigned a pair of insurance agents, Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe, to follow him around to attempt to mitigate the damage he might cause.  In the anime, it is the same, except that his bounty is not removed for some reason.  (In the manga, the government removes his bounty per his “Act of God” status).  He is also known as the Humanoid Typhon, putting him in the same category as a destructive storm.  Vash-damage is thereafter treated in the same like as hurricane damage!  Honestly, this is one of the most creative things I have seen of any media – having the local superhero / super-cryptid followed by INSURANCE AGENTS. (I am fond of characterizing Trigun as “If Mayhem from the Allstate commercials was followed around by Flo from the Progressive commercials”).  (To Be Continued in Reblog-posts)

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

box- youve got me interested in trigun but alas i have no idea what it is, pls help me understand

Oh god, my sincerest apologies ^^;;;

Trigun is a space Western and a thinly veiled allegory. It’s about a pair of twins, Knives Georg and Belts Georg, who are ideological opposites (except when they aren’t; they’re both extremists). This would be fine, except they are also insanely powerful interdimensional biological generators/space angels, making their conflict one between essentially minor gods. So they make their trauma Everybody’s Problem. One of them (Knives Georg) has set himself up as a cult leader with the intent of obliterating the human race because humans keep other, less independent, interdimensional biological generators/space angels captive as tools somewhere between Star Trek replicators and batteries. He gives this several goes, first by sabotaging humanity’s fleet of spaceships and crashing everyone onto a barren planet without resources in a painfully obvious reference to the expulsion from Eden/fall from Heaven, then by making his brother blow up a city, and lastly by stealing as many of the dependent generator angels as he can and trying to kill humanity via depravation and war crimes. His brother (Belts Georg) is a pacifist gunman who has internalized his trauma differently and does not want to obliterate humanity. In fact, he wants to stop his brother doing that, so he makes multiple badly-planned attempts to end the conflict until one of them sticks. He also lives on the run as a reviled, hated outlaw and a legend after Knives Georg made him blow up a city. The story is one long, intense interrogation of pacifism as an ideal, the consequences of taking or sparing lives, and answers the age-old questions: if nuclear bombs were sentient and afraid of exploding, could/would they love us? And: what would a traumatized angel do with a gun?

Come for the aesthetic, stay for the blatant biblical references and the gut-wrenching tragedy.

And yes, there are, in fact, three guns. One’s a species of Colt (.45 Long Colt?? I do not remember off the top of my head) or the bastard offspring of a Colt and a cinder block, the other is a prosthetic arm, and the last one is a flesh arm that’s actually a biblically inaccurate angelic energy-missile launcher. (OR they are two matching Colts and a spiritual bazooka with a bonus prosthetic arm gun. Depends on the version. As of now, Stampede (2023) only has two guns. The third is much anticipated.)

There are three versions of the story, too. The manga (personally my canon of choice, explains nothing and yeets events at you, incomprehensible fight scenes, emotionally devastating in ways the other two cannot even begin to touch), the 1998 anime (very good, made while the manga was still being written, has its own thing going on, suffers terribly from 1990s anime-itis aka bizarre sexism), and the 2023 anime (very good, mix-and-match canon that turns the timeline into pretzels, suffers from 12-episodes-long-itis with too much happening and not enough time to explore things).

[brucebocchi]

Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 3: #10-6

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs. the tumblr version of part 1 can be found here and part 2 here.

I didn't mean to drag this out quite so much, but I ended up writing a TON for the top 10, so for the sake of everyone's attention spans (and so I can buy some time to finish my top two) I broke it up into two more posts.

​ALSO! I've embedded a link to each show's OP in the title of each entry. I wanted to give more of a visual element to each show outside of the header images, plus there have been some incredible OPs this year. I've gone back and edited them into the prior posts as well.

10. Trigun Stampede

It’s funny, I had fond memories of watching Trigun on Adult Swim in my adolescence, to the point where I used to count it among my all-time favorite anime for a while, but I didn't realize until this year that I hadn't actually sat down and watched it from beginning to end. It’s honestly a very uneven watch, and it’s clearly split into two parts: The first, a dieselpunk western revolving around a mysterious goofball with a big-ass gun and a bounty on his head, and the second a slightly more somber revenge quest as he is forced to survive his way past a rogues gallery while vowing not to take any lives. Still, it was a hit among western anime fans for a reason, and it was formative to me even back when I thought anime was kinda cringe.

Trigun Stampede is far from a faithful reinterpretation of Yasuhiro Nightow’s manga nor of the original Madhouse production. Meryl Stryfe is no longer a jaded veteran insurance adjuster but a much younger muckraking journalist. She’s no longer tailed by the gentle giantess Milly Thompson, but rather following her senpai, the gruff, bleary-eyed Roberto De Niro (the names in Trigun have always rocked). Nicholas D. Wolfwood isn’t an affable priest with a dark past; he’s all dark past now. And Vash the Stampede, now rocking a fuckboy undercut, is less of a mercurial wisecracker with a soft side and more of a reluctant gunman freaking it in a sensitive style. 

Stampede wastes no time differentiating itself from any previous version of Trigun. Vash’s history is no longer a mystery waiting to be uncovered; it’s a driving factor of the plot as his brother Knives seeks revenge on humankind for their use and exploitation of “plants,” an alien race to which the two seem to be connected, as an energy source. This was always an element of the original anime that I felt went unexplored, so it was fascinating to see Stampede dive right in. It’s a great introduction to the story for people who haven’t seen the original, and full of unexpected turns for existing fans. It’s still built on the bones of Trigun as we know it, but it is very much its own thing. 

People made a lot of hay about Vash’s new appearance, but I think it works. The huge pleather trench coat, spiky flat-top, and tiny glasses remain an iconic 90s design, but I believe the 90s is where it belongs. This take on Vash is just as capable but much more self-effacing, tortured, and averse to violence. This is a younger Vash, and it’s clear that his history with Knives is a much fresher wound, rather than the dull, nagging ache in the original. This is a gentler (but no less talented) Vash, so I think the softboy look suits him this time around.

I also spent most of the season quietly insisting to myself that the original version of Meryl is much better (and cuter) than the Stampede variant, and I still stand by that, but the updated version definitely grew on me. I mean, just look at that hat. But it’s clear from the jump that Stampede’s first season is very early in this version of the Trigun story (you may notice that the bounty on Vash’s head is much, much less than the famous 60 billion double-dollars), and Meryl has some growing to do (and presumably a whole lot of professional frustration) before she becomes something like the one we knew and loved around the turn of the 21st Century.

I’m still yet to watch Beastars, but it’s immediately apparent why Studio Orange was entrusted with the Trigun IP. This show looks incredible. This is some of the best CG animation I’ve ever seen outside of a Pixar or Spider-Verse movie. Characters are amazingly expressive and oscillate between naturalistic, weighty movement and cartoony flailing. Action scenes are inventive and dynamic and stand up to even the wildest sakuga. And yet, it still looks like an anime. It still retains the classic 24fps look and even occasionally trades in the CGI for hand-drawn animation for effect. We are long past the botched Berserk revival: This is what CGI anime should look like.

It’s plainly obvious that Trigun has always carried influences from landmark western media like Mad Max and Dune (not to mention Fist of the North Star, but that one always wore its Mad Max influence on its sleeve), so it’s been an unexpected delight to see those influences take a new shape now that both franchises have seen major updates since the last iteration of Trigun went off the air. For all of the alien technology and technicolor glowing lights, Trigun takes place entirely in a desert setting, and it’s impossible to see these chase scenes and not immediately think of Fury Road, or halfway expect to see Villanueve’s take on the Fremen popping out of the dust clouds. 

Stampede is a very welcome entry to a franchise long believed to be well and truly over, and the more eyeballs on Trigun, the better. It’s evident by the end of this season that this take on the story is only just beginning, and it has already taken unexpected departures from the story as we already knew it. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here, but that’s mostly because we have confirmation that Milly will be in the next season. It can’t get here quickly enough.

9. Insomniacs After School

I watched and read a frankly absurd amount of romance-centric anime and manga this year, especially of the slice-of-life variety, to the point where even by the early summer I thought I'd had my fill. I'm overjoyed to say that Insomniacs After School proved me dead wrong.

What a treat this was. It's a simple enough premise: A boy with insomnia is sent on an errand to his high school’s abandoned observatory, where he finds a classmate sleeping because she suffers from insomnia as well. They quickly find out that the observatory is a perfectly quiet environment for the both of them, and that they actually get restful sleep around one another. In order to get away with making use of the area, they resurrect the school’s astronomy club and find a genuine love for astrophotography and, you guessed it, one another.

You couldn’t have picked a more apt studio to adapt this work than Liden Films. Call of the Night made a splash last year for its saturated, vibey nightscapes, and Insomniacs’ gorgeous astral visuals carry that mantle. The nighttime backdrops of the quiet suburbs, wide-open beaches, and lush countryside are nothing short of stunning, and Isaki’s adolescent wonder at the world’s hidden beauties reminded me, and I do not say this lightly, of something Miyazaki would’ve animated.

On a couple of occasions this year, I’ve been able to step back from an anime, take a breath, and simply say “That was beautiful.” Insomniacs gave me one such occasion. Even putting the visuals aside, the story itself is lovely and would have made this the feel-good anime of the year, if not for the next entry on this ranking. I would have more to say, but Insomniacs After School speaks for itself. Give it a shot.

8. Skip and Loafer

There are so many standalone adjectives I could use to describe this one, and most of them are ones that would normally make me want to impulsively run the other way like “comfy,” “feel-good,” “wholesome,” what have you, but I think the most comprehensively I can boil it down to a single word is “lovely.” Everything about it just gives you the warm fuzzies, and almost makes me think that the “I want more stories with no conflict” dorks might actually be onto something.

It’s a simple one: Mitsumi, a dorky teenage go-getter with her entire life planned out, moves to Tokyo from her no-horse beach town to attend one of the country’s best prep schools, but much like everyone who played the first two hours of Persona 5, she quickly gets lost in Shibuya’s subway station on the first day of school. She runs into Sousuke Shima, a laid-back boy from the same school who’s also running late, because that’s, like, what he does, and manages to wrangle him into running to school with her.

Mitsumi quickly draws attention from her classmates, not only from delivering a speech as the incoming class representative (and subsequently barfing all over her teacher), but because she inadvertently made fast friends with the hottest, most popular first-year in the school. This attracts the attention of social climbers and jealous hangers-on, but Mitsumi hardly notices. She’s used to knowing everyone in her school back home, so she wastes no time reaching out and seeing what’s up with anyone who’ll give her the time of day.

A lot of Skip and Loafer revolves around the roles for which we think we’re destined in a controlled social environment like high school, and how easily the preconceptions you have of other people can be shattered if you just get to, like, talk to them for 20 seconds. Mitsumi’s friend group quickly fills itself out with people who wouldn’t give each other so much as a passing glance at first, but come together so naturally that you almost can’t believe they weren’t friends already.

Shima, for his part, also struggles with those preconceptions; for as laid-back as he seems on the surface, he’s a habitual people pleaser and is constantly playing a role. He’s so caught up in the performance that he doesn’t quite know what’s going on half the time or how he really feels about most things. Mitsumi is so naturally magnetic, though, that he does seem to genuinely enjoy his time with her, and vice versa. You can see where this is headed, if the gorgeously-animated dances they do together in the OP weren’t enough of a tell.

Everything about Skip and Loafer is just downright pleasant. Character models are simple and sketchy, the color palette is awash in pastels and neutral tones, and the soundtrack is peppy and whimsical. It’s a warm hug of a series, and at no point does it feel cloying or manipulative. High school slice-of-life is pretty bloated as a genre, and I watched a ton of those this year, but there’s just something so charming and magnetic about Skip and Loafer that instills in me a sort of false nostalgia for the ideal high school experience I never had.

Also: Nao-chan. Exceptional trans representation. We do not get enough of that in anime and she is a breath of fresh fucking air. I would die for her.

7. The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You

And now for something much less wholesome.

I really don’t seek out harem anime. Tenchi Muyo was formative to me as a tween, and a rewatch last year ended up being a major catalyst in getting me back into anime, but despite it being widely considered the second-ever harem anime, it hasn’t left much of a legacy in the ones that followed. Harem anime from the 00s onward has largely been formulaic wish-fulfillment slop that runs itself in circles as a perpetual money-making machine rather than developing any sort of plot (see: Hina, Love and Girlfriend, Rent-a-). I know I covered Girlfriend Girlfriend earlier, and while that’s nothing like Tenchi either, it does scratch an ever-present itch for stupid, madcap, relentless anime bullshit.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, [...] Really Love You, meanwhile, sees that itch and takes a fucking chainsaw to it. To say everything about it is over-the-top would be an understatement: The top is Hyakkano’s floor. This show gives you everything you could ever want in a harem comedy, but to the extreme: It is your dad making you smoke the whole carton. It is Hell’s donut machine, and you are Homer Simpson. Satire is often at its best when it pushes the boundaries of absurdity, and 100 Girlfriends revels in that push like a horny bulldozer. This is not genre subversion, it’s genre explosion.

The headcount isn’t the only wildly outsized element of this series; every single member of the titular harem, each a tick on the checklist of every -dere archetype you can imagine, pushes the slider of each of their character tropes so far to the right it’s breaking the track. The deredere is a ball of deranged horniness, the tsundere betrays her intentions so compulsively that she’s functionally incapable of lying, and the kuudere is so robotically devoted to pure efficiency that it’s salient to mention that her name is literally pronounced “Nano A.I.” If you can think of an anime girl archetype, she is in this (or will be in future seasons), and she is the apotheosis.

And yet, this show still bothers to make each one of them an actual character. Harem anime has such a low bar to clear on that front, yet most entries in the genre still bang their dicks against it. Hyakkano's titular girlfriends, at least the ones introduced in the first season, are actual characters with actual backgrounds, actual motivations, actual growth, and actual reasons to like the protagonist beside the premise. They’re all founded on stock anime tropes, to be sure, but the original manga’s author actually put in the work to give them, you know, personalities. And above almost all else, they actually like each other too! This isn’t exactly a full-on polycule (though two of the girls are prone to making out with each other on occasion), but for as deeply weird as this family unit is on paper, they actually come across as a group of people who love and care for each other rather than everyone cattily jockeying for the same position. 

And not for nothing, but Rentaro is easily one of the best harem protagonists I’ve ever seen, and again, this is coming from a Tenchi Muyo fan. I do enjoy Naoya’s over-the-top earnestness in Girlfriend Girlfriend, but Rentaro is the gigachad version. He is exceedingly patient, kind, and understanding of each of these girls’ unique quirks and qualities and quickly grows to learn to manage them in conflict and help them work through their insecurities, and he loves them back in kind and puts in the work to make equal time for each of them. He doesn’t want to “fix” these girls; he sees them for who they are and proactively does everything in his power to accommodate them. He's like if Tadano from Komi Can’t Communicate actually got the harem he deserved. Putting aside the fact that he’s, y’know, 100-timing his girlfriends, he comes across as just a really good partner.

I also want to be clear: For its rampant, fanservice-laden anime bullshit, this show is genuinely hilarious. It’s not some kind of “how did this shit even get made” trainwreck; it is a comedy first and foremost, and the comedy hits exactly as intended. The comic pacing is buckwild, the visual gags are so rampant that they’re almost difficult to keep up with, and the translators, at least in the version I watched, did an outstanding job of localizing the constant wordplay. It’s also so unapologetic in its horniness that you can’t help but admire it a bit; 100 Girlfriends knows exactly what it’s about, and it dares you to say something.

There’s a very good chance this won’t be for you. 100 Girlfriends is constantly pushing the boundaries of good taste, but never in an offensive way and never truly at its characters’ expense. Geoff Thew calls it the “most 'harem' harem anime,” but I'd argue that it’s the most "anime" anime: It is every trope you’ve ever seen in romcom anime cranked up to a thousand and smushed up against your nose. This shit hits like Panera lemonade. It is peak trash. If you have a tolerance for anime bullshit, this show may very well test that, but I still cannot recommend it enough.

6. Heavenly Delusion

Didn’t think I’d be getting into more than one post-apocalyptic anime this year, but I’d seen this one recommended so many times that I felt this list would be incomplete if I didn’t watch it. Don’t ask me about Pluto.

Heavenly Delusion (Hulu lists it under its Japanese title, Tengoku Daimakyo, for some reason) splits its runtime between two different stories: The first, a pair of young travelers making their way across a ruined Japan in search of nebulous goals neither is sure even exist; the second surrounding a group of adolescents in an unnervingly idyllic walled garden in some sort of school setting. The narrative flips between these two sporadically, rarely ever showing its hand in how they are even remotely connected.

On the post-apocalypse side, we follow Maru and his bodyguard-for-hire, Kiruko, as they trek across the country to deliver Maru to someplace called “Heaven,” while at the same time, Kiruko is in search of a pair of men from their youth. They are often beset by bandits, cults, and most crucially, horrifying monsters called “Man-Eaters,” which Maru has the unique ability to kill. On the school side, we see a group of gender-ambiguous kids in an enclosed space, constantly monitored and kept in a very controlled environment. Everything feels… wrong. Nobody seems entirely human. There is a lingering and seemingly taboo curiosity about what lies outside the walls. I hesitate to say any more.

There is phenomenal human drama in here, and sparks so many conversations about transhumanism and human nature, gender, trauma, community, all things I’m not smart enough to really dive into. But to even address these topics here is to give the game away, and Heavenly Delusion is a story better left unspoiled, even if, a full season in, I’m still not 100% sure what’s going on.

This show is gorgeous in ways I’m still struggling to articulate. The character designs, animation, lighting, and cinematography are so immaculate that I repeatedly had to remind myself that I wasn't watching a movie. Heavenly Delusion looks like a grungy Shinkai film: Character models are immaculately realized and fluidly animated, the light and shadow effects are some of the best I’ve ever seen in TV animation, and action sequences are visceral and unpredictable. Maybe all I needed to say is that it was made by much of the same Production IG staff in charge of Psycho-Pass.

I want to say as little about what happens as possible, because the mystery is the main draw of Heavenly Delusion, but I feel the need to warn that there is a very dark and sour turn near the end of the season in the form of some strongly implied sexual violence. It was thematically unnecessary, and once that side of things is resolved, everyone just kinda… moves past it. It doesn’t ruin the show, I still recommend it heartily, but be forewarned. I found it upsetting, but more in the “did this REALLY need to be in there?” sense. The mounting tension and slowly-unfolding existential horror in this series are otherwise expertly woven into the narrative, and this part landed with a wet thud.

This is a much longer story than most of the season would have you believe, and it ends with far more questions than answers. One side of the story leaves off with an open end, and the other with a massive cliffhanger, which left me a little cold but with interest piqued for the next season. For what it is right now, though, Heavenly Delusion is a nearly perfect, endlessly thought-provoking mystery and one of the most gorgeously ugly things I’ve seen this year.

[oddlyunaware]

Art for chapter 2 of my fic "Frequencies". It's a VashMeryl college AU, but with a twist! Check out the link below to read it from the beginning!

[ultrainfinitepit]

Hello Tumblr followers, it's October and a lot is happening! First and foremost, the Eldritch Saints leftovers are finally listed. New pins, prints, stickers, and keychains are available now in my Etsy shop. Many of these items have been sent to my stockists as well.

Speaking of Kickstarter campaigns, if you missed the Angelology III campaign, the pre-order store is open until October 14 2023. Lots of pins, stickers, and keychains - including some awesome guest artist designs - are available for pre-order. If you miss the pre-order, you will have to wait until any leftovers are available after the campaign.

Back to new shop items: in addition to the Eldritch Saints pins, I have even more new pins available! Charity pins for the Maui Strong Fund and Assistance Dogs of the West are now available. My Film Noir Monsters are also available: there are a limited number of full sets, individual pins, and blind bags. 

This month's seconds pins are Penemue, Percy de Rolo, Archangel Samiel, and Mistress of Darkness. 

To make room for all the new pins, older ones have retired from my Etsy shop. You can still find them with my stockists. If you're curious about what pins I've made, I've updated my pin catalog. If you have restock requests, you can make those in this Google form. I generally don't reprint any pins once sold out, but if a design is popular enough I'll consider making a new variant. So if you have a variant idea, you can include that in your request.

Anyway, returning once again to new shop items: new stickers are also available! Rat Kings, Biblically Accurate Barbie, and a glitter version of Original Character Brainworms are now listed in my shop. New keychains are available too, including Be Not Afraid Jon, Biblically Accurate Barbie, Throne Angel, Little Guy Seraph, and Angelic Messengers keychains.

On to more general news for October. This month I am working on drawing original angel designs for Angeltober 2023. You can follow along on social media. Some of these designs might turn into pins next year! So you can let me know if you like any in particular.

Since we're in the last stretch of 2023, I thought I'd do a recap of my upcoming plans.

First, let's look ahead to November, where I anticipate a lot will also be happening. November 24-25 2023 I'll be at the SJMade holiday fair, so I'll be working on items for that. The Cowboy Monsters, Trigun Cowboys, and a few other pins weren't quite ready in time for this update, so I'll be saving them for November. I also have some recolors of pins, including Wolf Knight and Deadwale, that might be ready by then. My plan for these November items is to a list a small quantity as usual at the beginning of the month, and save the rest for the fair. Any leftovers will be listed right after the fair, so you can expect two shop updates that month.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, I will be working on crossing off some more pins from my self-funded to-do list: including original designs, and more fanart pins for Spiderverse, Better Call Saul, and Trigun.

I'm planning to close my Etsy shop December 8 2023, and reopen it sometime in 2024. That will be your last chance to grab any last minute gifts. My stockists will remain open so you can purchase from them while my Etsy shop is closed. 

Next year I'm running my last two planned Kickstarter campaigns: Angelology IV: Angels of Extinction, which will feature designs inspired by endangered and extinct creatures; and Pride Angels, featuring angel pins in the colors of different Pride flags. This won't be my last Kickstarter campaigns ever, but probably my last for a while.

I will also have a much shorter list of pins I'm planning to self-fund in 2024: it includes some more fanart pins, the rest of the Zodiac and Astrological Putti, and a series inspired by the angelic hierarchy. I'm considering making a pin club on Ko-fi so I can share those plans and help fund those pins, without relying on Kickstarter. I would also post manufacturer reviews and merch previews. Let me know if that would be something you'd be interested in!

In 2024, outside of the Kickstarters I'm planning to scale down my pin making to focus on making other merch, I have a long backlog of stickers, keychains, and other items I've set aside this year to focus on pins. Pin making will always be my greatest passion so I don't think I'll ever stop completely, but it does take a lot of time, effort, and money and I think it's time to ease up on it so I can work on other things. I'm also looking to diversify my inventory of items, so if you have any suggestions you can send them my way. That's my early New Year's resolution anyway, we'll see if I follow through!

That's all for this update, which ended up being a long one. I'll leave you all with a link to my About Page/FAQ if you haven't already given it a read; and if you have any questions you'd like to ask anonymously, you can send them to my Tumblr ask box. Have a wonderful week.

[crimson-amarone]

Chapter 30: Homesick

Previously, Luida and Brad warmly welcomed Vash home (in their own ways) despite Vash’s worries and guilt. Vash mentally prepares for what comes next, starting with getting his new arm.

Now, while Vash prepares for surgery, everyone else officially meets and joins Luida on a tour of the SEEDS ship. While Ship 3 may be home to Vash, the others feel the ache of homesickness.

Start reading chapter 30

Start reading from the beginning

Chapters: 30/44+

Fandom: Trigun Stampede (Anime 2023), Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), Superman - All Media Types 

Rating: Mature (Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Language, Adult Themes)

Pairings: Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Meryl Stryfe/Vash the Stampede, Meryl Stryfe/Vash the Stampede/Nicholas D. Wolfwood 

Characters: Clark Kent, Vash the Stampede, Meryl Stryfe,  Lois Lane & Jimmy Olsen, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Milly Thompson, League of Lois Lanes

Story Summary:

Two years after Lost July, an interdimensional rift becomes dangerously unstable, opening a portal between universes—the worlds of No Man’s Land and Earth-12.

Outlaw Vash the Stampede is still MIA, although rumors abound. Despite not knowing if Vash is truly alive, both Meryl Stryfe and Wolfwood catch a lead pointing them to a remote town iles away.

Elsewhere, young Clark Kent’s life is turned upside down when he’s dragged to an unfamiliar planet to help as Superman. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen follow his trail with some unlikely assistance.

Two heroes must make new allies to fight ruthless villains in a three-way conflict. All while trying to find where they both belong, face their inner demons, and make a better future for their worlds.

Start reading from the beginning

Start reading chapter 30

[kinbari14]

Trigun STAMPEDE x Chugai Grace Café SALOON Collaboration begins March 24th, 2023 to April 16th, 2023

[mayfly-stampede]

Vash’s decision

warnings: long post, spoiler Trigun Stampede episodes 3-12, Trigun Maximum chapter 10.

One of the most important differences in Trigun Stampede about Vash is his lack of…something although we still can see his characteristic sensitivity and empathy as in the manga.

Thanks to Sakura-Con 2023, we know that this series set before the city of July was lost, so Stampede Vash is more like a imperfect Vash and it was made more naive on purpose.

Naive? Vash has been always naive, in the manga and ´98 anime. He always thinks the best of humans…

Can he be more naive than that? How?

And that’s when it hit me: He is like an immature Vash. All of him, his emotions, his thoughts…even his hair.

We can see him nostalgic and there is sadness in his eyes.

It’s like he always goes back to the moment when he released Nai’s true intentions and thinks about that loop where he doesn’t want to do anything again his brother and the other plants being a plant himself…but he can’t go against human life either, which is Rem(his mother)’s teachings.

He is stuck in this for 150 years. Confused, alone, looking for answers while he is escaping from his brother, escaping from that past, escaping from that future that comes full speed to him and he begs it never arrives…

Because he is afraid too.

Afraid of loosing another dear one, afraid of his brother’s plans…and afraid of making a decision.

Even Roberto, Nebraska Father and also Nai asked which side is he on.

And his doubt is obvious through all the series, even more on episode 3, because he really doesn’t know yet…and it’s clear he doesn’t want to make a decision yet.

But when his hesitation involves Meryl and Roberto, he knows that he can’t delay the confrontation anymore.

BUT instead of choose a side, he tries to convence Nai. Expecting him to change his mind…

This reminds me Rollo’s death, when Vash is denying Wolfwood’s reasons to kill Rollo, letting us know that he is struggling with something inside him that he can’t explain himself either. In his anger he doesn’t try to understand Wolfwood’s point of view.

Even more, it is like he hasn’t consider the idea of others having a different way of thinking.

As a teenager who still wants everybody to fit in his beliefs.

In a moment, it’s almost like Vash is trying to force Wolfwood to change his beliefs. Instead of explain his ideas calmly as in Trigun Maximum chapter 10 where he at first is mad at Wolfwood killing the samurai but after a few moments he is not angry anymore. He is sad about his decision, but not angry.

This is similar to Knives, acting with no respect for Vash’s will, like in the manga.

And Stampede Vash doesn’t understand Knives’ reasons either. He doesn’t even try. He just know that they’re different from his own.

It is until Knives brings Vash back to his childhood, to a place where he doesn’t have to choose a side, that even in that situation a part of him still wonders about humans…

And that’s when he sees the answer deep inside himself, the answer that has been always there since the beginning and he didn’t want to see.

Because it doesn’t just mean he’s running towards his own path…but also running away from Knives too, who begs him to stay by his side.

At first, I thought he was is crying because he listens to Rem’s voice again thanking him to fight for her ideas and I felt this as a farewell

“Thanks for fighting for my beliefs…now, fight for YOURS”

but with that words, without doubts, he finally chooses a path for his own…away from Knives, his dear brother.

And when he is back, it is new birth to him indeed.

The change is clearly in ALL OF HIM: his hair, his color palette, his lack of hesitation at shooting his brother.

Because, as he explains himself: HE HAS MADE A DECISION.

And he is attacking with all he’s got: all his plant powers to stop Knives and all his Love and Peace towards humanity to protect them and being by their side even knowing that they could hunt him after all.

And yes, it can be a contradiction.

But now he accepts that.

He accepts that maybe they’re people who don’t want to be saved.

It really is an awakening.

He accepts that the world isn’t ideal and it’s not what he thought…and now he knows he can’t force Knives to change his mind. Because Knives chose his path more than 150 years ago just as he has done now and he can’t change that.

He realized Knives is just too different from himself…

Something that Knives still doesn’t want to accept.

And yes, maybe plants and humans can’t live together as Vash wants to.

But even knowing that, he is going to do his best to fight for it.

Because he is Vash The Stampede.

[trigun-manga-overhaul]

TRIGUN ULTIMATE OVERHAUL OCTOBER UPDATE

OVERHAUL UPDATE 10/07/23 - More future content and the Japanese scan upload schedule.

Hey there and welcome to yet another monthly update!

We hope you've been enjoying the new Japanese scans, and having that look at al the new formats for credit pages, chapter indexes, and upload banners. There are still a few things up for potential change, but these are the styles we will primarily use from now on.

Of course, as always, if anyone runs into anything they find strange, gives them trouble, or just general questions about the new upload, feel free to contact us and we'll answer as soon as possibly.

~

While uploading the Japanese scans, we're also planning on releasing some extra content on the side. While the cleaning work for the scans is the priority, we might clean a few other stuff on the side for release as well.

Few of these uploads in particular are the Trigun RED and BLACK booklets, which a very rare and a lot of their contents haven't been posted online yet. While we have the RED book on hand, we're still looking for the BLACK book.

We also have other things, like magazines, booklets, etc., to share in the future as well.

~

Anyway, we don't have any pictures to share today, but we will share the future posting schedule. If we update it, we'll make a new post with the new schedule. Will post it below for those who want to read further!

Thank you all for supporting and following our project!

~

The upcoming posting schedule will look something like this:

2023

October 27th: Trigun RED booklet.

November 6th: JPN Trigun Vol 2.

December 4th: JPN TriMax Vol 1.

2024

January 1st: JPN TriMax Vol 2.

February 5th: JPN TriMax Vol 3.

March 4th: JPN TriMax Vol 4.

April 8th: JPN TriMax Vol 5.

May 6th: JPN TriMax Vol 6.

June 3rd: JPN TriMax Vol 7.

July 1st: JPN TriMax Vol 8.

August 5th: JPN TriMax Vol 9.

September 2nd: JPN TriMax Vol 10.

October 7th: JPN TriMax Vol 11.

November 4th: JPN TriMax Vol 12.

December 2nd: JPN TriMax Vol 13.

2025

January 6th: JPN TriMax Vol 14.

February 3rd: Trigun - Multiple Bullets.

Remember that the posting schedule is up for potential changes, all depending on the speed of the cleaning process. This process also determines when it's possible to start putting the English release on the schedule as well, so stay tuned for any future news of further releases!

~~

That's all for this update, next time will be after we begin the new uploads. Hope you enjoy it then!

SEE YOU GUYS NEXT MONTH!

[silly4sillypoll]

HERE IS THE OFFICIAL SILLY BRACKET 2023!!

(I’m aware this is kinda a mess but I promise it’ll get neater as time goes on)

please let me know if anyone is either misspelled or goes by a different name than what I put down

And please send any pictures you may have of your sillies here! It not only makes my job much easier but it also spreads propaganda >:)

Polls will begin Afternoon 4/19

vvv Lineup in text form underneath here vvv

SIDE 1

Sweet Cap’n Cakes (DELTARUNE) VS Sans x Toriel (UNDERTALE)

Jevil x Spamton (DELTARUNE) VS papyrus x Mettaton (UNDERTALE)

Sonic x Espio VS Sonic x Knuckles (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Doctor Robotnik x Agent Stone (Sonic the Hedgehog) VS Vanessa Carlyle x Wade Wilson (Deadpool)

Roger x Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) VS Daffy Duck x Bugs Bunny (Looney Tunes)

The Joker x Batman (LEGO Batman Movie) VS The Joker x Pinkie Pie x Rainbow Dash (mlp)

Spider-Ham x Spider Noir (Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse) VS Pinkie Pie x Cheese Sandwich (My Little Pony)

Troy Bolton x Sharpay Evans (Highschool Musical) VS Junkrat x Roadhog (Overwatch)

King Bowser x Luigi VS Princess Daisy x Princess Peach (Mario)

Lord Zuko x Sokka (Avatar: The Last Airbender) VS Bolin x Korra (Legend of Korra)

Kamishiro Rui x Tenma Tsukasa (Project Sekai) VS Normal Oak x Harmie Unworthy (Dungeons and Daddies) 

Questionette x Borbra Luddington (Smile For Me) VS You x Your Blorbo(s) (Your Shows)

Diamond x Pearl (Pokemon Adventures) VS Ethan/Hibiki x Lyra/Kotone (Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver)

Luz Noceda x Amity Blight VS Edalyn Clawthorne x Raine Whispers (The Owl House)

Dave x Jack (Dayshift at Freddy’s) VS Dr Bubby x Dr Harold Coomer (Half-Life: but the AI is Self-aware) 

4 x X (Battle for BFDI) VS Light bulb x Test tube (Inanimate Insanity)

SIDE 2 

Sportacus x Robbie Rotten (Lazytown) VS Bill and Ted (‘s Excellent Adventure)

Monkey D. Luffy x Zoro (One Piece) VS Seahawk x Mermista (She-ra)

Harry Du Bois x Kim Kitsuragi (Disco Elysium) VS Link x Prince Sidon (LOZ: Breath of the Wild)

Puss x Kitty Softpaws (Puss in Boots) VS Scar x Grian (3rd Life SMP) 

Jessie x James (Pokemon) VS Puyo Puyo x Tetris (Real life???) 

Fubuki Tenjoin x Jun Manjoume (Yugioh GX) VS Kakashi Hatake x Maito Gai (Naruto)

Josuke x Okuyasu VS Jolyne x Foo Fighters (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)

Soldier x Zhanna (Team Fortress 2) VS Vash the Stampede x Nicholas D. Wolfwood (Trigun)

Koichi Zenigata x Lupin III VS Daisuke Jigen x Lupin III (Lupin III)

Redson x Mei Dragon x MK (LEGO Monkie Kid) VS Spongebob x Patrick (Spongebob)

Zagreus x Hypnos (Hades) VS Aziraphale x Crowley (Good Omens)

Shiver x Frye x Bigman (Splatoon) VS Apollo Justice x Klavier Gavin (Ace Attorney)

Kim Wexler x Jimmy Mcgill (Better Call Saul) VS Dr. Gregory House x James Wilson (House)

Tom Wambsgans x Greg Hirsch (Succession) VS Troy Barnes x Abed Nadir (Community)

Terezi Pyrope x Vriska Serket VS Dave Strider x Karkat Vantas (Homestuck) 

Equius Zahhak x Nepeta Leijon VS Gamzee Makara x Tavros Nitram (Homestuck) 

Last edited 4/19

[eomma-jpeg]

Meryl felt sticky, and humidity didn't exactly exist in No Man's Land. Well, as of the last hundred years it had increased a bit, but not in the area she was attending college; there weren't any large reservoirs nearby.

No, it was sticky because of the vast number of collegiate boys who were building comradery by lifting ridiculous weights and doing endurance runs on the indoor track. Their combination of sweat and general overwhelming egos make Meryl's arms glue to her sides.

She hated feeling out of place.

__________

two in one day ? more likely than you think.

im worried this is the beginning of another monster of a fic.....

anyways, university au for vashmeryl week !

[pidgydraws]

hi pidgy, how are you doing? i don't know anything about trigun but i'm just happy to see you on my dash living your best life. what is one (or more if you like, don't let me restrain your joy in any way!) important trigun fact i should know? :3

(T w T) i had to break out my sketchbook immediately and start sketching this as soon as i read your lovely ask <3 thank you, wonderful friend! <3 <3 <3

i don't know if this is... quite what you would have expected when you asked this~ or if this is what anyone else would say - since, we all have very different relationships with art we consume (or that consumes us! lol) - but the singular, driving fact of Trigun that immediately came to my mind (and filled my eyes with tears) was: kindness.

is that one word something that can really even be sighted as a "fact" about a written and animated piece of narrative art? maybe not~ but the very nebulous, transformative, and even mundane NECCESSITY of kindness is what Trigun is to ME.

it doesn't even matter if you know anything about the story at all for me to state my case though~ because we are all alive. we have to keep going on day-to-day to exist; and that's incredibly difficult. we don't need to live in a fantastical, desolate, violent, sci-fi western to experience - even just second hand - the struggles inherent to living. but as you move through Trigun's narrative (which you can absorb in a lot of different forms now) all of it's horrors and triumphs come back to one thing for me: the undeniable force of - and need for - kindness in the world.

Trigun's main character, Vash, is incredibly foundational to me because his stories came into my life at a time when standing strong and remaining kind - in the face of unrelenting, banal, unkindness - was beginning to feel impossible. he is a mess of scars, both physical and intangible, and yet he carries on trying to do good in the world. Like an unhinged magical girl he yells, "PEACE AND LOVE!" in a way which reminds me of how insecure teenagers - and us disillusioned adults - laugh unironically at our own grim, gallows humour. Sure he's good with a gun, but he's even better with his heart; yet it's a heart that's been broken over and over and over again.

still~ he carries on.

we might awe at the spectacles of violence and heroics; despair at the cruelties and killing. We might weep over deaths and losses, laugh at the humour, and shed tears over the beauty; but it's the KINDNESS that moves and shapes things in the most meaningful ways, for the most people, for the better. And that's not just a Trigun fact, that's a LIFE fact~ and that's why i love Trigun so much, and am so, so happy that people are rediscovering it and returning to it because of the 2023 adaptation.

i love Trigun. and i love it's kindness most of all <3