Trigun Bookclub: alena-reblobs: Trigun Maximum Volume 14: Part 4

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Original Tumblr Post: TRIGUN BOOKCLUB TRIMAX VOL14 PART 4

TRIGUN BOOKCLUB TRIMAX VOL14 PART 4

That’s it! The final chapters and thoughts beneath that! AAaaah.

Chapter 8: (I’m having more image space now with one chapter so..uh…just me nearly posting every image in this one)

The biggest mystery in Trigun: HOW did they get a photo of Vash with all black hair and HOW??? did they get a photo of Knives?? I just have to assume they either have really good painters or maybe just painted black hair on Vash’s old photo…and…someone made a photo of Knives moments before his death. Poor sucker.

Black hair Vash with his hair down looks so…so…so agh! So young! And vulnerable! And actually pretty good but also so cuddlesome and wow that hair looks soft. Every hair-era of Vash gives me different vibes, and this one especially has something super soft/melancholic…it’s after his widower era (which is half-black hair) so it’s a settled and accepted sadness but it’s also post-trimax so it’s also a hopeful atmosphere? Hope that explains it??

Also he’s just super cute like this.

Also, hello there interesting bit of information that totally slipped past me on my other reads.

Egg Plant Dome…what exactly is this? I think that happened in ch6 when the feathers and plants fell down. Is this something the plants created, like a shell for the whole city? (don’t wanna live underneath, it must be like a big oven during the day)

What a moment

(Oh they are talking about the wound Knives inflicted on Vash! When they fought and while Knives stabbed him, Vash protected them both from Chronica) There’s something so meaningful about Knives, who thought himself above all humans, pleading them to save Vash’s life.

What a way for the antagonist of the story to go. It doesn’t end with violence, it ends with a silent thank you, with him protecting one last time what is dear to him and choosing his own (inevitable? Vash lives on. So could he have lived on if he wouldn’t have created the tree?) end.

Just saving these because we’re getting more cute Vash faces here.

Of course Vash finds an exit directly at the spot of his pursuers.
And cute salamander thing!

Salamander and Vash do not approve.

IT’S HIIIIIM

The image of Vash with a wig, fake teeth and a fake beard is really entertaining. But really, was that ever an option for him? An option at least he’d be satisfied with?

Meryl & Milly! (Don’t wanna forget Milly!) Aaaw and directly back to bantering!

Hehe love that face

awww and he would have loved to be fighting his way out of messes with these two together!

Vash was utterly betrayed in this moment.

Can we get a character song where Vash sings this in Stampede, please?

24h live emergency broadcast? Phew boy Vash is not getting ANY rest.

Many familiar faces! That one older boy, I wondered if that could be Kaite from the sandsteamer? And nice to see that the guy Vash and Wolfwood beat the shit out of at Lina’s is still holding up to his promise and protecting the place now (and serving drinks as it seems). Then of course Livio!!! Being at the orphanage, next to Wolfwood’s grave…I’m sure he’s protectig them like nobody else could, being the best big brother to them all they could wish for. (I have to say I loved his short hair look but long hair works too) And we can spot Chronica…the Nebraskas and Brad and Luida!
And, I love the way Vash starts from being exasperated to running to laughing. Has he missed this? Maybe!

Running into the far horizon….

And we’re here, throwback at one of the very first pages of Trigun with the same line “And the same song of humanity still sang”.

What an ending, huh? I really liked the ending..it’s kinda started like it has begun, with Vash running away again. A bit like a circle, but in a way, that’s the theme. Because at it says “the same song of humanity still sang” – some things don’t change, humans will always be humans and will always hunt Vash down for the bounty (with the extra now that there are a lot that do LIKE him and want to know what he’s at, knowledge which Meryl and Milly can provide). It’s such a dark and serous manga, and to end on such a light note, with a really humour-filled last chapter, to me it transports the feeling of hope. The first time I read this it moved me so much. And it made me tear up not because of sadness, but because the ending is so hopeful, so good despite everything that happened! And the fact that Vash manages to get back up again, running and smiling, while he suffered so so much throughout the whole series…isn’t that a wonderful thing? To not lose your smile after all that? Isn’t that the most difficult thing maybe, and he still manages?

I wanted to add some final thoughts about the manga, but I don’t really know where to start? I don’t have any specific thoughts, and if I get, I might make an extra post…but I just want to say how much I love this series. I read it around february the first time and was instantly flashed. It turned out to be a completely different story than I had expected. It turned out to be very confusing at times (esp. because I read the Dark Horse translation which sometimes lacks in context in the dialogues) but I STILL loved it to bits. And it’s maybe now one of my favourite series if not the. It’s hard to compare different mangas and series, but when I’d had to decide for one where the theme moved me the most, is interesting, where the characters feel alive and tangible, where everything feels so round and like a story that was exactly written down as the author intended and not a bit shorted or altered, where you can feel the passion in the art…man it’s just this one. That doesn’t lessen the impression other series have on me, but it just means that this one stands out SO much that I can always go back to it and will always love it.
And, when I said it turned out completely different than expected, I especially refer to the ending. And I also want to point out what I pointed out in a post earlier, about Vash having to kill somebody, about the fact that I don’t think this story is supposed to preach us any moral, any higher ideal…it just tells us that nothing is easy, people are complex, decisions are complex and fucked up stuff happens. And despite all that, you can STILL choose kindness. It’s a story that sounds like it’s being told exactly like it happened. Nothing is put in a better light, and the bad guys are not put in an extra bad light.

What we take from that is up to us.

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