#trigun meta

[museqmeg]

When the animation is accurate to piano proficiency and the score tells a compelling story 🤌

*cracks knuckles*

It's time to put my music degree and 20+ years of performing to fandom use. I'm gonna deep-dive into a music analysis of "Duet" and the care Orange put into animating musicianship.

Let's first look at the animation!

Nai and Vash are both correctly playing the notes heard and in the correct form. Here's an interview with Trigun Stampede's composer, Tatsuya Kato!

Kato:

"For Knives - There are multiple scenes in this anime where Knives is playing the piano. In those piano scenes we had an actual pianist play the piano, and filmed them using multiple cameras to create the motion data. His piece combines his beautiful frailty with his huge ambitions and powers. His touching yet fierce impression is expressed through the duality of the minimal music that uses both orchestral and digital sounds quite boldly. Also, the melody of the plants’ song is based on Knives’ theme motif, which allows it to make the son an epic expression of tragedy and destiny."

-- from the Bernardelli Times Extra of the Trigun Stampede BluRay

Let's look at the score for "Duet."

The piece is composed in a minor, starting with Nai on the treble clef staves. The tone is hopeful in its theme despite the minor key, and we get a prelude to the plant theme.

When Vash joins in on the bass clef staves, the tempo is more than doubled and we hear an "agitation" in Nai's lines. Vash is also a few octaves below Nai, miles away in pitch. Sound like their story?

Looking at Vash's upper staff--while Nai is "on" the beat, Vash is off the beat (see highlighted figure). Their melodic lines are also ascending & descending away from each other in contrary motion. The rhythmic figures &melodic movement is causing the dissonance you hear.

This continues throughout the piece, each of the brother's hands becoming their voices and ideals clashing. That auditory dissonance created in the music showcases their struggle. Nai's part is more frantic and urgent, whereas Vash is holding steady with the bass line chords.

I like to think of Vash's sustained bass line as a motif to the steadfastness of his beliefs and ideals. Being true to himself.

"I'm Vash the Stampede."

As the piece goes on, both right hands of the brothers swap the rhythmic dissonance. Nai now on the off beats and Vash on the beat. Nai's repetitive figure on the subdivided 8th notes holds that tension, while his left hand is having the argument with Vash's right hand.

What's also interesting is that while sitting side-by-side for the duet, the hands closest to each other are the ones having the "conversation." There's a small parallel octave moment where they are as close as can be, physically & musically.

The outside hands are the dissonance.

Something else to note on the swapping of beat placement--the twins are both changing the meter within the meter from common to duple with the figures & subdivision.

It all comes to a head with an accelerando & both brothers playing forte.

(Brahms Symphony No. 1 anyone?)

During the climax of the piece, Nai is reduced down to the triplet moving line. It's frantic and desperate. Like fear and running.

(Check out Shubert's "Erlkönig" to learn more about these types of motifs.)

Meanwhile, Vash is pounding out the bass line and the plant theme.

"Duet" comes to an abrupt end with no tonal resolution; ending on the dominant chord. The sudden ending is also breaking up the phrasing, leaving the listener jarred and expecting more. Unresolved. And that's truly where we're at with Trigun Stampede.

My interpretation of "Duet" is that it's much like a tone poem, telling the story of two brothers. Vash and Nai's story isn't finished, and I'm guessing that "Duet" is an unfinished piece as well.

My personal predictions is that, if Tatsuya Kato is the composer for Trigun Stargaze, we're going to hear "Duet" become a complete musical composition that resolves the story and conflict between two brothers.

If you'd like to learn play "Duet" and analyze the score, here's a pretty good transcription on MuseScore:

[revenantghost]

Man, there are a lot of great (and very true) posts about how Knives doesn’t see his fellow plants as individuals, but this was the moment I really first had that gut-punch realization. I’m sure there are no rituals for laying a plant to rest, but it’s incredibly fucked up to take a corpse, writhing in pain, and string it up for your own motivation. Your own selfish purposes. The afterlife is something fairly present in the Trigun universe, and this soul surely isn’t at peace

[cinsketches]

You ever think about how Vash was the one who gave a voice to the plant song, but the motif is heard all over Knives’s themes?

Knives never heard it before Vash did:

And Vash was the one who added it to their little duet (I couldn’t add another video, but it’s at the start of episode 8 🥲)

Ironic that the man taking on the task of saving his sisters is using the song his brother—who is much more in tune with them than Knives is & can help in ways Knives can’t—came up with to represent them himself.

[h4venpha]

me when baby knives who had just as shiny, sparkly, big ol downturned eyes as vash. so full of wonder and joy and curiosity!!!

poor baby :((( pls look at his gentle eyes and little sheepish smile

[imustbenuts]

Stampede wolfwood has been given the confused young adult characterization beam its actually funny when it pops up in EP 7

When he gets asked what's his plan to stop this gigantic sand ship steamer and his reply in jp is just "I don't fucking know! With guts and determination (ガッツと根性)!" Gattsu to konjyou

ガッツと根性 is one of the most hail mary keep your chin up and press on term I've ever heard, and it's often used by characters in shounen who don't have a plan. Typically bad planners with bullheaded room temp IQ approaches to solving issues.

But it's not very often used together, it's usually only gattsu or konjyou on its own. Combining them is like making the strongest cocktail of "god help me I DONT KNOW but we gotta DO SOMETHING"

It's so hail Mary they turned the term into a tee

I wouldn't be caught outside wearing this bc it's too otaku for me but it's so funny

(random note, I also found the term connected to this song from 1995 with 9.7M views: Gattsu da ze! by Ulfuls. This japanese rock band is from Osaka, so it might be a multi level connection given Wolfwood's Osaka/Kansai dialect lmao)

Edit I've been informed and holy fucking shit. Urufurusu and urufuuddo:

[orcelito]

everyone always talks about That One panel of Trigun: Multiple Bullets, but i havent seen anyone talk about how fucking BATSHIT INSANE the surrounding fight is

like

Vash & Wolfwood fighting back-to-back, both using the punisher as a shield

(the rest under a readmore bc this accidentally got LONG...)

Vash seeing the shots coming from behind & purposefully not moving bc he knows if he does, Wolfwood would get hit

Wolfwood getting injured too, but not moving from Vash's back. the way he's stanced, it looks Protective. he's doing what he can to keep Vash out of the direct line of fire.

even when he's getting shot up for it, he Doesn't Move. (this also seems to be the moment he got hurt, which leads into the panel later)

& throughout this whole scene, we are only seeing Wolfwood's reactions.

until the girls give them an opening, and they burst out with THIS:

Wolfwood injured, so he can't properly aim the punisher... and he gets around this by sticking one of the leather straps in his Mouth

and then we FINALLY get to see Vash's face again as he grabs the punisher (with a "GAN" sound effect, so he fuckin SLAPPED that metal hand on the punisher).

Wolfwood trusts him enough to just do what he says in the thick of battle, so we FINALLY get to the iconic panel:

which brings us to the aboslute insanity of what Vash is actually Doing.

"DON DON" -> two shots fired for two missiles launched. he literally manages to TURN THEM AROUND MID-FLIGHT (interesting to note that they seem to have internal propulsion, rather than simply being fired by Wolfwood. how many of these does Wolfwood have? they seem heavy.)

he manages to avert the third missile from hitting the dude directly, and instead makes it land Behind him. then the other two missiles, he rests his arm on Wolfwood's shoulders to hit them and direct them behind the other two enemies

Boom.

killing no-one, but showing an INSANE level of fine control AND teamwork.

and in the end, Wolfwood's arm is in a cast, Vash seems either unhurt or hurt but unbothered by it (typical Vash). And Life Goes On.

(forgot to mention before, but all panels are from @trigun-manga-overhaul! thank u for the beautiful pages)

[justmaghookit]

I see a lot of Vash outlives the gang and lile eventually reincarnation aus and stuff but my personal headcanon post trimax is Vash has used up like all his power, his hair's fully black. I think he starts aging normally(aging like a human), I think he dies first actually, the years catch up. I think he's surrounded by his loved ones, I think they stroke his hair and hold his hands and he feels so so loved and he's going to miss them so much but its almost a relief to not see them all go first, to know they have years ahead of him. I think he falls asleep peacefully and wakes up to a hand ruffling his hair and asking if he's really going to sleep in "Needlenoggin" I think Wolfwood's there to greet him in the other side. They've got places to go, things and people to see.

I think the phantoms of The Puisher and the Humanoid Typhoon are main stays in the local legends all across gunsmoke.

[firethekitty]

thinking about how knives’ last interaction (not only with a human but literally ANYONE) is with this cute little kid in awe of his apple tree who just treats knives like a totally normal guy, not like a freak or a god to worship

you’d assume for someone who hates humans so much that knives would eventually die in a blaze of glory like shot down by the military or something. but the real beauty of his death is how in willingly creating the tree with the last of his powers, he ensures not only the survival of vash, not only the survival of these two humans, but the survival of ALL humans. and at this point, knives has finally accepted the fact that humans are inherently good and he’s confident in leaving vash with them. he TRUSTS them to save him.

i especially love that the kid asks if knives told vash he was leaving. just like a very basic indication that you care about someone. and knives kinda takes that as his cue to finally let go and leave vash on his own

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

it could be that I’m just missing the subsection of the fandom that likes to play around with this concept, but I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen more people pulling at Vash’s fear and confusion at his own body and its transformations for angst material

it’s really unique to me, in the way that usually body angst and physical changing is accompanied by self-hatred of the body itself - but Vash doesn’t actually hate his body. He doesn’t hate that he’s a Plant. His self-hatred comes from the actions he is forced or stressed into performing when he no longer has any control over himself; when control is wrest away from him, often violently - and this is all signified by physical changes in his body; literally being shaped into a gun to be fired

and here’s the thing. Wolfwood is so special to me because he has to learn who Vash is and remind himself several times of his character in the face of his fear and of being in the presence of a being incomprehensibly more powerful than him. but Vash is scared too.

he didn’t understand what was happening to him in July. his own plantness is just as much a mystery to him as it is to most humans. he had no guide. he has no mother.

vash and wolfwood spend much of their journey in mutual fear - wolfwood for having no control, and vash for having already seen the consequences of losing it. because it really is about control in the end - and the way that Vash constantly has his stripped from him, the way that his scars (which he doesn’t hate either btw!) are the only proof he had for the longest time that his choices were his own, the way Vash cannot confront his brother for as long as his own body is the linchpin of Knives’ control over him.

and that’s why it’s significant that Vash’s triumph over his body was not an overcoming of self-hatred for being a plant (this was never an issue), but actually his ability to take control over his own transformation - to assert himself with a goal much stronger than resisting another’s influence, or preserving the memory of the dead - that Vash and Wolfwood overcome their mutual fear in volume 8 in order to save each other is the pinnacle of their shared development before the end, and there is so much more I could say to elaborate on this godDAMN

But yeah. The way Vash’s body transformations are a mystery to himself and symbolic of his lack of control is absolutely one of my favourite things about this manga

[oikyskau]

seeing kenji muto, the director of trigun stampede, reading an article about the portrayal of women in media made me want to take a little bit of a closer look at the women in trigun and as i was rambling about this earlier to my partner, they told me to write it down LMAO

as most of us know, in a lot of fiction, women are mostly characterised through common tropes, leading to a lack of complexity and a one-dimensional portrayal: as the doting wife, the femme fatale, the mistress, or the virgin. Their role only amounts to an Other, an extension of the male hero. they’re either the whore or the madonna.

for female characters in anime that usually means they’re either the sexy femme fatale, big badonkers and all to be gazed at, the mother, the helpless damsel in distress, or the child (yet, still sexualised despite the fact that it is a literal child); they’re portrayed through the way they are being perceived by men and mostly sexualised beyond belief. 

tristamp doesn’t do any of that.

in fact, the female characters in stampede achieve something that you don’t often see in anime: they are people. and stampede makes that clear in its very first episode by decidedly not going the route that you would usually take with the female characters they introduce:

of course, the biggest example here would be meryl, who i’d argue is the biggest driver of the plot, despite the fact that the plot of stampede is technically determined by vash - vash is an entirely passive character, he doesn’t make things happen, things happen to him and they mostly happen to him because of meryl. she’s the one who unties him, she drags them to the city, she makes them stay with him after ep3, she drives over wolfwood (rip my man), she stops for them to find rollo, she makes them follow the steamer.. you get it. she does all of this, despite being introduced as the newbie, the innocent person who would usually be the damsel in distress, who is helpless and shy and easily manipulated and who will probs be sexualised in her role as the “virgin” (sexually naive young girl who just doesn’t get all this adult sexuality yet hehe) 

but she’s not – she wears a non-sexualised outfit, she only gets called out for being a newbie, or for being small height-wise by wolfwood, but not for being a “girl”, she determines the action despite the fact that she does have a mentor figure and is therefore still in a position of a student – she still isnt an extension of roberto, vash, or anyone

in fact, the other characters – Rosa, Elendira, Luida, Rem – all take up roles that would in other media be portrayed in very specific ways: Rosa could just be a pregnant mother, who is also a divorcee, Elendira could be an innocent child beholden to her caretaker, Luida could be the loving motherlike figure and rem the Madonna figure, symbolising all the virtues a woman should aspire to have. – Rosa is a leader, her pregnancy is mentioned one single time and never made a bigger part of her character, Elendira is young but powerful, making choices by herself that are not inherently based on any kind of innocence, Luida doesn’t coddle Vash or prioritise him over her own work and mission (which also serves to inspire another woman, meryl!!), and rem is also just a non-perfect person, with secrets and questionable morality

none of these women are judged on the basis of their gender, none of them experience gender-based violence, none of them are made into a joke, none of them are sexualised (or desexualised – if you compare them to the male characters, who also do not ever make jokes about sexual promiscuity or similar stuff), they have different body types (rem has a very pronounced chest, and yet stampede doesn’t ever focus on it or give her cleavage) – note also that when presented with the perfect opportunity to call a female character a “bitch”, they chose to go with a “witch” instead, in both original japanese and english dub

their femininity is not used as a weapon against them, nor are stereotypical hypermasculine elements used to define characters’ positive traits (vash not being our traditionally hypermasculine hero for example) - the only time we see a semblance of gender-based violence is, you guessed it, at the very end, when knives forcefully takes control and bodily autonomy away from vash and inseminates the plants against their will (also interesting to note that knives, as the character that does exhibit that kind of violence, is the only character to be shown incredibly buff and all muscle) 

the women in tristamp are written for women, with the goal to be women that we can recognise, that represent the women that we are and know

anyways, i love all women in tristamp and have not once felt uncomfortable or said “oh look, a panty shot” and honestly i just find that pretty neat

[revenantghost]

Man, I think the best and worst part of Knives’s character is just how compelling he is*

I get it. You get it. We all understand exactly how and why he is the way he is. So many people have put this idea into better words than I could. He witnessed an unspeakable horror at an incredibly young age. He knew he was different, that he was other, and a worry set deeply into his bones that humanity would reject him for being born who he is. 

And he was right. It was so much worse than he could have ever realized. He was born to be an object for humanity to use as they see fit. All he wanted was love and peace for himself and his brother. And after seeing that? What they did so mercilessly to Tesla? Who can blame him for not believing in any future with humanity in it. Who can imagine a future without unbelievable strife and prejudice when you’re outnumbered and are seen as an item to dissect and toy with as you see fit

And yet

And yet

In his fear, in his need to control and correct, the cycle continues. The abused becomes the abuser. He assaults his brother multiple times. He takes away Vash’s autonomy and manipulates his body without his consent. Hell he happily experiments with/tests and uses Vash’s body while unconscious. He says he loves Vash while refusing to hear a word coming out of his mouth. Because, if he has a moment of doubt, any hint of weakness, all of that anger slips away and he becomes that boy again--afraid and weak and alone

In his fear, he takes plants. He strips them of their independence and will, denying them their souls. Again, he uses the bodies of his siblings against their will. He displays their corpses to keep him angry instead of putting them to rest. He kills and breaks apart the body of his sister so that he doesn’t have to die, so that he can be reborn. He willfully denies the thoughts, dreams, and pains of his sisters and instead absorbs them, impregnates them, tries to kill them in the “right” way

In his fear, he drove humanity into hurting his kind more. He forced their hand into injuring and killing more plants than they’d ever dreamed of harming. He’s the one that put Vash into a constant position where he’s gaining mountains of scars. (His brother who, on the opposite end of the spectrum, has let the cycle of abuse continue while using himself as a shield instead of breaking free from the pattern.) He uses and discards the humans near him no matter the kindness and devotion they shows him

The same behavior Knives shows everybody and everything else

He’s awful. Absolutely sick and perverted and so stuck in his own mind that all he does is hurt and hurt and hurt

And yet

I get it. I’ve been traumatized to the point where all I want to do is cause pain in return. To feel that justice can exist and will come to pass, no matter the cost. To be so afraid that anger is the only safe emotion you can cling to. It’s what makes him one of the most compelling antagonists I’ve ever seen. Kudos to Nightow for fucking me up about Knives and his pain more by the day, honestly

*Except for ‘98 Knives lmao, that man is fabulously unhinged and overly dramatic about everything and I love him for it

[cinsketches]

You think Knives nearly bursts a blood vessel when he remembers Meryl, a tiny human with only a derringer for a weapon, single-handedly ruined a plan 150 years in the making just by telling Vash to wake up?

If I were working on a project for a long time and one person derails the entire thing, I would be pissed off too.

He also had 2 whole years to mull it over, so he’s gonna be out for blood once he’s finally healed up.

[h4venpha]

vash literally using 1/4 of his power to spend the last moments with wolfwood. like do yk how crazy that shit is ??? how gay it is ???? hes literally in love with him. ONE mortal he’s met in all 150 years of living, qnd he uses ONE FOURTH of his power to stay by his side for a few more minutes. like thats so crazy to me?

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading trigun in japanese 3 - "weirdo" and vash's pronoun switching

disclaimer: my jp reading posts are all for triangulation purposes and nothing else. scanlating mangas is tough work. @-@ i know this.

"Weirdo"

the word 'weirdo' in 2024 english carries connotations of neutral-bad or positive depending on the context of the speaker. depending on how one curates their internet space, weirdo often leans more positively with the same meaning as eccentric, but not always.

however, but in JP, "weird" is more specific and often negative. there's the well known, hentai 変態 (ie. deviant, pervert, freak, extremely negative in tone), and in this case, kimochi warui 気持ち悪い (gross, off-putting, bad vibes). eccentrics are more as 変人 henjin and carries a more neutral tone.

in this panel here papa nebreska uses 気持ち悪い in katakana キモチワルイ in reaction to vash busting his ass saving people and putting out of harms' way. vash's vibes are so off putting to this wanted man he's actually creeped out.

this is particularly interesting to me bc the english translation didn't end up portraying how utterly weird vash's mindset is fully. it wasnt until wolfwood points out how flawed vash's pacifist mindset do i get a proper frame of reference of norms in this world, but i might be having skill issues in english comprehension. ;w;

Pronoun switching

quick. 俺 Ore! 僕 Boku! 私 Watashi! they all mean "I", and there's 2 spectrum of expressions going on here thats commonly believed. 1st being Masculinity to Femininity. what's the 2nd?

the answer is... Rudeness/Assertiveness to Politeness. and gosh does vash switch a lot between Boku and Ore in the first 4 chapters of this manga lmao.

(to be clear, while i am aware of trans hc thats very popular in the fandom, im not at all diminishing or talking about gender expression specifically. im talking about what vash is presenting himself as in context.)

so to perhaps oversimplify this, in JP the idea of politeness and hierarchy is so super duper important, its very built into the language itself. and Japanese is a very high context language. if someone of a higher or equal standing uses "Ore", its totally fine. but if someone of a lower standing uses "Ore", they've committed a social faux pas.

as an obvious example, if a fresh new employee approaches his Boss with "Ore", he's potentially getting dressing down in the company. maybe in front of his coworkers. if this employee forgoes polite speech (keigo) and uses a too Assertive and Casual speech, they've Really Fucked Up and are one foot out the door.

this is also tied up in gender to some extent, hence why girls using Ore is incredibly uncommon, but guys would use Watashi in certain contexts such as talking to their Boss. (woo woo the forces of hierarchy/patriarchy... or something.)

so. vash switches his pronouns for the same effect. when he uses Ore, he's making himself sound more assertive and confident. when he uses Boku, he's often making himself sound less threatening, smaller, open, and trying to avoid conflict.

sound familiar?

bc if you translated all of that into a character design instead of relying on just jp pronouns, we'd get TriStamp Vash.

slight spoilers, but this is even true in one of the tensest moments between vash and wolfwood, where the latter provokes vash and tears into his pacifism ideology. vash sticks with boku in this scene as he says his piece.

if he ever uses watashi, it's bc he wants to be polite straight out of the gate with an air of formality. (this is japanese manners and the proper approach to talking to strangers. mainly to get a feel for each others standing without offense until context changes.)

i also wanna point out maybe something obvious here but.

real life pronoun switching in japanese is a COMMON thing. no one ever really sticks to 1 pronoun bc of Good Manners and the aforementioned hierarchical systems in place. it is only mostly in anime/manga and video games where characters overly prefer 1 due to this being a good shorthand for characterization. this being how rude or polite they are, and in some cases, Gender.

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

i'm not a "vashwood was always canon" truther i think that's a reductive reading of the text (and in fact i think it's much more likely that the centrality of vash and wolfwood's relationship to the text as a whole snuck up on nightow and beaned him in the back of the head with 2x4)

however.

[ID: A page from Trigun Maximum Volume 10, Issue 4, Vision of Death. Wolfwood throws himself forward and shouts "Spikey!!", then trips when a dagger hits him in the thigh. As he falls towards Vash, Vash shouts Wolfwood's name and drops his gun to reach out and catch him. Panels of Vash's outstretched hand and their shouting faces are shown as Vash narrates, "That is why after all was said and done, I wanted to share my tomorrows with him. Don't you agree... Wolfwood?" End ID]

that is why, after all was said and done, i wanted to share my tomorrows with him.

vash doesn't really want anything, over the course of trimax — he wants small, immediate things. for people not to die. for knives to stop. there's no indication of what he'd do after he's pulled the brake on knives' bbeg machinations.

for all his talk of blank tickets, we never really know where it is he wants to go — his blank ticket is a sentencing. there will always be a tomorrow, but there's no point planning for it.

he knows, before this, that what he wants will end up being torn from his hands. it's the first lesson of trimax. i was really happy with my life here.

AND YET! AND YET! he lets himself. for just a moment. want something. want a future. want a real, tangible future. it's the only thing he really wants.

don't you agree, wolfwood?

[duncanor]

'Saw some folks discussing the wedding imagery of Wolfwood death on Twitter today. And one take was about Vash rejecting Wolfwood and pretty much leaving him at the altar because he couldn't give him the smile Wolfwood wanted and even cut him off.

And honestly, I think it's the opposite.

Vash is the one who proposed to him. Asking him to share his tomorrows with him.

The quote both a demand and an implied confirmation that it's two-sided.

However, Wolfwood is the one who ends up leaving Vash at the altar as he dies. The metaphorical wedding ring coming off as he expire. (as pointed out by @Jeneorarock earlier today)

In a way, I get why Vash reaction in this scene comes off as a rejection. But it isn't a rejection of Wolfwood himself,

It's a rejection of a future without him by his side. It's impossible for him to execute Wolfwood last wish as much as it is impossible for God to grant him what he begs for.

In conclusion, they truly do have the worst wedding of all time.