Trigun Bookclub: alena-reblobs: Trigun Maximum Volume 3: Part 1

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Original Tumblr Post: TRIGUN BOOKCLUB TRIMAX VOL3 PART 1

TRIGUN BOOKCLUB TRIMAX VOL3 PART 1

My thoughts on this week’s volume! Might include some more or less comprehensible word vomits that I might try to bring into a more analyzed fashion some day!

Get stickbugged Wolfwood

(I put those two pages next to each other though I don’t know if they are on a spread) People have probably written more deep thoughts to Wolfwood’s whole arc in this fight and stuff, but I just wanted to add my own thoughts: I like how it is shown on the right how he struggles with all that he has seen till now. He thinks of Vash and his ideal to not kill, their argument, but when we look on the left…it’s like the monster in him takes over. I don’t think he sees a way to apply those ideals to himself, to NOT kill. Cornered and no way out, killing to stay alive is the only way for him to protect what he loves, and so he grits his teeth and gets this super feral look. It’s the wolf inside him!

And these pages here! We have already seen lots of proof just how good of a gunsman Vash is, but in this moment, he’s not fooling around, he’s just straight up using all his skill to beat his opponent in the most effective way. And, when on the left this piece of metal or blade is coming down right in front of his face, he’s not flinching in the slightest! Shows us howmuch Vash is in control right now!

Wolfwood is having half-conversations with Vash in his head.Here it reads like “Look Vash I was right all along”. This conflict between them is kinda the overall theme of Trigun in a way, since to me the manga is a lot about the idea of “what will you do for your loved ones, to protect them? How far will you go? How can you remain human/when do you lose your humanity?” (very roughly worded). And also, how you can be changed by other people! At the moment…Vash’s ideals have clashed with Wolfwood’s way of living. Will woowoo get changed by Vash’s words? It’s not so easy to just stop what you thought was the only way to go.

Hmhm Chapel is a traitor! At least acting against what Legato had ordered him to do. My who might this fellow be? (joke we all know he’s referring to Wolfwood here)

Put those two pages together to show/ask myself..did Wolfwood just shoot his bullet into the gun arm of Ninelives?? He has an insane aim, too, that’s surely not to forget. (Also I love the panel of him upside down holding the gun)

Yucky. Also, typical Wolfwood doing the splits™ .

Ok this is just a cool page and Wolfwood’s expression, pose and everything is splendid. Also really like the paneling! And in the left panel where Ninelives is in gray tone…I’m wondering if doing that, instead of painting him black, makes the panel seem a bit softer and quieter. It feels so.

Look at that contrast between these two!! In this whole fight, Wolfwood is covered in blood, guts, wounds and more blood. And then we have the fight of Vash, where it seems calm, all is whiter, no blood (because of puppets)…it just shows perfectly the role that Wolfwood has: he is the one who has to do the dirty work, in a way. He doesn’t want to, and it’s no voluntary decision of Vash to put the dirty stuff onto his shoulders, but well, he just ends up to be the one who needs to do the killing.

Oh yeah in my first reads I was so confused because I didn’t understand that the Doc was already dead and a puppet! I thought he had betrayed Vash, which, of course, didn’t really make any sense…

Sad, soggy babygirl : (
Also!! Continuing with the comparison of Vash=clean and Wolfwood=covered in blood, this only further strengthens this observation, because the water/rain is something clean by itself, washing away the dirt and all…now let’s get to the next panel:

Aaaand it’s all gruesome, covered in blood and dirt and…man I really love this comparison. It’s like the visual representation of the conflict and the argument between Vash and Wolfwood. And this page looks soo good.

I think he might be talking about himself here? He could be referring to Ninelives, but it feels to me like he’s really done here, at a weak point, and then the image of the orphanage and the kids, his mission to protect is the one thing that manages to bring a spark of life back to him.

And the orphanage is ultimately also the things that drives him to kill. Kill to protect. The morbid thing here is that the enemies that hid in the big carcass are so little, that when you don’t see their faces, they look like kids. What a cruel way to show Wolfwood’s family and kids that he wants to save, only to show him 2 panels later strangling a child-like creature.

Back to Vash: These pages are overall very confusing to read to me, but I think Leonof wants Vash to drop him (to stop the pain or to die) and so he makes a little puppet attack Vash which then makes him loose control of his hold onto Leonof.

Wow. That panel on the right, Wolfwood’s shadowed body and the tiny hand pointing upwards…and his stare afterwards. There’s a lot in this stare. Surely he’s not happy to kill. But he looks damned determined. And a bit like on autopilot, too.

And then shortly after we get the girls back, yay! You know I really love how in this series the female characters are not weak and not dependant on the male protagonists! Sure, they might not have that much firepower. But throughout the series they are shown to save the males just as much as the other one around.

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