Trigun Bookclub: makima-s-most-smile: Trigun Maximum Volume 9: Part 2

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Original Tumblr Post: Trigun Maximum 9.2

Trigun Maximum 9.2

And the second part…

04: At the verge of death

Again, complex feelings. Wolfwood spared the bandits, but not Livio? No way. Wolfwood expects Livio to heal with the vials after he killed Chapel.

And here, Chapel goes Speedwagon for us readers and explains what modifications Livio went through.

I… just how Nightow draws the blood splatter on the wall, makes Wolfwood’s wounds feel so much more real. And I have to be honest, that started with the last fight on the ark, it is like NIghtow’s drawing had a level up.

Willpower against Willpower.

Midvalley was right that Wolfwood is a God of War.

This panel… Damn. The dynamic poses, the lighting especially on Wolfwood and the way his face is drawn… Wow.

And this sounds so incredibly desperate. Wolfwood pleads for Livio’s life. Wolfwood’s desperation feels so real. I don’t remember reading Wolfwood begging before. Even on the arc, Wolfwood was somewhat kept together, his doubts and pain expressed internally only when he thought he would die. Here he shows his fear and care for Livio openly to Livio. Wolfwood loves Livio. Livio cannot die. If he dies, I do not trust that Wolfwood could go on.

Wolfwood is an incredibly brilliant fighter, but if Chapel is right then Livio is physically better than him. Wolfwood has only a set amount of chances until Livio would overpower him in the end, so he has to take desperate measures.

05: Demon

Is Wolfwood the demon the chapter title mentions? He went beyond Chapel’s expectations and overpowered Livio. Like Midvalley he stands corrected.

I mean… he was trained by you and then he had to run after Vash for like nearly three years. You learn a trick or two from that.

But that is not the only thing, yes, Livio has physical buffs shoved up his arse til kingdom comes, but Wolfwood has for one much more experience on the field and with Vash, too, and, while he is a massive derp in human interactions, he knows how to read people. He just does not know what to do with it.

Does… Does Wolfwood do the weird killing aura plant stuff now, too?!?!?

First time reading, this confused me. There are only 9 of these important weapons! You get the tenth. Now I know it means that Wolfwood is good enough in his… uh… craft that he deserved to get his own made. But, question, is it only ten Punishers? Or ten of these cross weapons as a whole with each having their own name? Because Chapel has one, I do not count Livio’s two and Razlo’s three, since he got under Chapel after Wolfwood, so after this flashback.

The Eye of Michael was founded around 5-10 years after the Great Fall. This is a flashback to TeenWolf, so he should be 6-10 years younger than the current timeline Wolfwood. Sects and such tend to sprout out of the ground like conspiracy theories when times are hard and what is harder than the Great Fall? I’d like to know more about its foundation time. Knives and Vash were walking around together then, so I would be surprised if Knives helped it along. Did he corrupt them later and they started out as something hopeful?

I love the flashback and what it points to. The name of the Punisher is sacred. Wolfwood does it justice by bringing Punishment not to Livio, not to humanity, but to the abuser Chapel.

This will be important later. I always interpreted this as that there is a finite amount of vials your body can process. Like everyone has a limit. Additionally, the vials heal by fast aging the body to heal it up. So every vial is a few years off, but if you go beyond that limit, you die, because you are beyond your maximum time. But Stampede makes me wonder, is it how many vials you can take at the same time or over your whole life? Because I thought the latter, but at the rate StampedeWolfy seems to throw them back… Another thought to my former idea, if you take more than one, it’s effect does not add to another but gets multiplied for the better AND worse. But those are headcannons, since we do not get much about the vials.

We, the readers, get an additional visual hint by Nightow drawing Razlo’s expression from the masked side. This is Razlo.

Did he hide the third arm in his body? I thought it was somehow weirdly placed on his back, wait no, that is the fabric ripping. Still, the third arm makes me laugh so hard. It… just looks so derpy. And off balance, too! Yeah, give him a full additional iron arm on one side! That will teach him.

The chapter starts out with Wolfwood presented as the demon, but it ends with a picture of Razlo in diablo mode. Razlo is the demon. I know Tri-P stands for Tri-Punisher, but the Trip of Death sounds, well, like a trip in itself.

06. Fortitude

Razlo may be stronger, but he is so much more naive… Why would he even think that the Eye of Michael would be friendlier? I get that they trick kids, but that is really… Dunno.

Razlo IS Livio’s fortitude. But is this chapter truly about Razlo’s or will it circle back to Wolfwood’s fortitude?

Uh… that’s a way to appreciate your servants… Again, Razlo does not care about others. Razlo exists because he is there to protect Livio’s life at all cost. But this introduction makes it difficult to feel empathy for him. The way he treats others and life in general is revolting.

Wonderful fight scene and the way Wolfwood crashes into the surroundings makes it just feel so much more visceral.

Again… Does Chapel want Wolfwood to die? I… Razlo boasts about his fighting prowess and Chapel puts him down, commenting on how Wolfwood did not fight with his true power, that he held back for Razlo. And… It does not read as Chapel being on Razlo’s side, but Chapel wanting Wolfwood to let go of his chosen path and return to his true “assassin” form and that Razlo is the thing that will make Wolfwood do that… Razlo reads as the unaware sacrifice for that specific goal.

And Chapel’s anger comes from Wolfwood staying true to his chosen path. His pride is hurt from Wolfwood rebelling against his order. And now, after he tried the last time to return Wolfwood, he prefers to kill him for his transgressions.

Is he? Wolfwood started his path to change before meeting Vash. He tried to kill Chapel beforehand for the orphanage. Yes, the way Wolfwood comfortably stays against killing if it is not needed, is thanks to Vash. But he was on the path to that decision long before meeting Vash.

Additionally, isn’t cursing Vash kinda against Chapel’s belief system? Vash is an independent plant, he should be at least on the same level of reverence like Knives, even if he has no authority over them.

I do not get this sentence. May be because English is not my mother tongue. Does Wolfwood think this fight, his fight is stupid?

But… Vash can die. He learned that from Luida. Vash does not bleed like humans, he heals easily, right, that adds to his ignorance and arrogance when he judges people who kill to survive or even for others. (But the reason is not Vash’ immortality, the reason is that Vash does not understand community, because he is just that unbound by it.)

And Wolfwood does not follow Vash completely. Wolfwood is still ready to kill Chapel. I… don’t think Wolfwood has truly a No-Kill-Conviction, but he knows his skills. The bandits from before were outmatched, so why should Wolfwood go the easy way and just kill them if he has the ability to not do that? That’s mercy.

“Killing is a sin but also a path to redemption. Do you understand?” No, do you? This is a contradiction in itself. Fitting for Christianity, truly. You build up guilt and guilt and guilt, by all these rules that are partly so complicated and changed through translations and intention that you cannot hold up every last one. If you feel guilty, you will keep your head down and follow the head mocho. This only leads to suffering and easily exploitable followers.

I do not like that it reads a bit like the only way to survive is by killing or you die by trying to find a way out.

The one part where Wolfwood was right in the past is that sooner or later Vash will be forced to decide. And making no decision is also a decision.

So much about Vash is avoiding, avoiding connection, avoiding rejection, even avoiding real responsibility by feeling responsible for everything. But if he acts, he stands by it. And Wolfwood respects him for that, he respects Vash for that with him he was able to live a softer life, a life where he didn’t always have to kill, where he had another option, even if Wolfwood was in the position of the preacher, warning Vash about his fallacies and getting him out of shitty situations.

“An iron bell is tollin’ inside my head… Or at least one should be… I can’t seem to hear it now…”

I was confused about the meaning, but in the first chapter of the volumes they are already mentioned as a sign of warning. Wolfwood is saying that he will do something dangerous, that he will go against his better senses, against his survival instincts. If that isn’t an omen, I do not know what is. 🙂

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