Trigun Bookclub: deludedfantasy: Trigun Maximum Volume 4: Chapter 4-7

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Original Tumblr Post: Trimax Vol 4 Ch 5-7

Trimax Vol 4 Ch 4-7

My thoughts for the last half of this volume! I read part of this at like 1 am because I just couldn’t stop so if some of this is incoherent…that’s why.

Ch4

Poor Milly! Poor Meryl! Nothing’s even happened yet and I’m scared.
Out of all the Gung Ho Guns, Hoppred’s design freaks me out the most. I have a hard time parsing how he moves and what he’s doing. And something about that mask, that you can’t see any expression on his face at all is so, so eerie. Especially when he jumps at Meryl. There’s so much anger to it, but you can’t actually see it.
Vash doesn’t even think! He just jumps out the window to get at Zazie the minute he realizes they have Meryl. Vash cares so, so much about his friends, it makes me wanna cry.
The Gung Ho Guns have this habit of comparing Vash to Knives (for obvious reasons) every time he does anything that shows his humanity or his emotions.
Vash and Wolfwood are such a mess honestly. They do not know how to fight together yet. (Meanwhile, me flashing forward a couple of volumes to when they do and immediately wanting to burst into tears, iykyk).
This is a bad place to get into a fight. It’s cramped and there are going to be way too many casualties considering how destructive Gung Ho Guns fights are. And you know that’s why the Gung Ho Guns picked this place. Make Vash suffer indeed.
Okay, this page of Wolfwood? Hardcore, love it so much. The pose, the determination in his eyes, the dialogue. This is not a guy you want to mess with.

“We’re bein’ dragged along this road and I’ll cover it all in blood. That’s what I do.” — Oh Wolfwood…He’s accepted his role as the one who has to do the bloody, dirty things in this group, even though he was so angry before at Vash for not being able to do it. He’s decided that at least one of them has to be able to make the hard choices.
The boys are trying so hard to stop Milly from coming along, and I know they just want to protect her, but Meryl is her friend. They’ve been through so much together and Milly is not the kind of person to leave a friend behind.
Seeing Milly, this sweet, wonderful girl, level her gun on Vash and Wolfwood is, well, it’s something. I’m struggling to find the words to describe it. Milly is really brave and she means business. She is just as determined as the boys to get her friend back or die trying. I love her so much.

Ch5

Wolfwood announcing the remaining Gung Ho Guns as if this is common information and something anyone should know if they weren’t part of the group…where’s that post about him being a bad liar.
The problem with having a character that fights using music or a musical instrument is there’s no cool way to do it. I’m sorry, Midvalley is just over here playing careless whisper and the windows explode. It’s a look, but is it cool? Questionable.

Wait, I take it back? What the hell did he just do to Wolfwood??? Did he just make his brain bleed? Knock him out? Liquify his organs? What???
Oh no, Milly 🙁
Is she just scared or is someone using their powers to hold her back?
Vash said, “Fuck off with your coins. I’m not playing your games.”
Hoppred, I think you’re projecting a bit, because that is not the face of a man who is enjoying this fight, at all.
The problem with having watched Tristamp first is I can’t remember who knows what at this point in the manga, and I forgot Meryl doesn’t know about Knives or that he’s Vash’s brother. Also, goddamn, Vash, you really need to tell your friends things because it is not fair for them to follow you blindly into your quest without even knowing who you’re going after. And then have the villains reveal your backstory to them! It’s a bad look, dude.

Ch6

Oooh, more Vash backstory, maybe? Always up for more Vash backstory.
The fights with the Gung Ho Guns are getting more and more personal. First Leonof, and now Hoppred, who’s talking about revenge and July. This is going to be deliciously painful, I can tell.
Hoppred is crying from all of his eye holes??? Oh my god.
Oh, it takes much longer for Meryl (and the reader, to a certain extent) to learn Vash is an independent Plant here than in Tristamp. And it’s worse here in a way because Meryl finds out from an enemy, not from Vash directly. Not only is she in an already upsetting situation, but now someone is giving her information that explains so much about Vash and she can’t even say they’re lying to hurt her because it makes too much sense.
It’s also interesting that, unlike in Tristamp, after the Big Fall, Vash stayed with Knives for years before striking out on his own and deciding to help humans. He must feel so complicit in humanity’s suffering because of that.
Ah yeah, Meryl looks really scared and fucked up by this revelation.
Milly hears “black-suited moron” and immediately comes running. She’s like, “There’s only one person who that could be!”
Really not liking what Wolfwood’s saying here. It sounds like he’s about to go on a rampage.
Uh-oh, is that Knives coming to join the party?

Ch7

Vash starting to remember July is so, so painful.
These panels where everything looks like eyes: the moon in the sky, the explosion of power in July, with Vash’s eye focused in the middle. It works really well as a transition for him remembering.

Seeing Vash calling himself a murderer, feeling like there’s no atonement or way for him to move forward, it feels so wrong. It hurts so badly whenever he starts to doubt his own beliefs and ideals. They make up so much of his life that it really underscores how much he hates himself and what he did.
Flippant comments about knowing the angel of death and how they’re coming for him—this man has a death wish unlike any other I’ve seen in fiction.
But I do love when Vash lets the rage take over. Because despite his pacifism, he’s actually full of it! I’d actually argue his anger is what’s behind those ideals. His anger at Knives, at what he’s done, at the world, at himself, it feeds his want to do better. It makes it all the more poignant that he refuses to kill when he very much so wants to.
He’s willing to tear Hoppred apart if he gets in his way. Anything that keeps him from getting his revenge on Knives, not only for the Big Fall and Rem, but for July and every terrible deed he’s done, there is enough anger in him that he would kill for that.
Whether Wolfwood was trying to provoke Milly so he could knock her out or he’s actually serious about leaving Meryl behind, that’s a dick move. And I know he knows it, which makes it worse. The chorus of random bystanders is right, “Booooooo.”
They’re purposefully being drawn into some kind of trap and a new, not-before-seen Gung Ho Gun is on the scene. I’m scared.
Oh, cliffhanger ending, wonderful. Even though I’ve already read this, I might start the next volume this weekend and read ahead a little because I cannot be left in suspense after all of this.

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