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Original Tumblr Post: Trigun Ultimate 2 (Part 4)
Trigun Ultimate 2 (Part 4)
Will this volume ever end? Why do I have so much to say?
OOOOooOOooooh, it is woowootime. Nyehehehehehehe *continues to say even more about its favourite character!*
Chapter 6: A gathering of demons
Oh, I love how nightow portrays the vastness of the desert. How much is an ile? How big is this planet? Is it earthlike? With no oceans and all… are the cities splayed out? I am European and live in a big city conglomerate. In two hours, I can switch countries and visit like 20 different cities. This picture reminds me of the “Wild West”. I remember American friends being shocked at how connected everything is and how we Europeans see distance. For them a 4-12 hour drive is totally normal and you are still in the same state. I can only imagine that No-Man’s-Land is even worse than that.
But what does that entail? Is travel between cities something regular or something you only do if you try and get work or flee from something? There is the big trade between the cities, but those have to be the outliers. Sandstreamers being something like trains. I imagine that they are mostly used for commerce, then. Transporting people has to be a lesser side hustle.
But how long does the journey with a bus between the cities take? I’d say days with the thoughts I just had.
I leave the Wolfwood introduction panel out, because of the limitations for pictures, but damn, it is good. It also took me too long to realise that this was not fabricated, but that Wolfwood literally had a bike mishap. His whole interaction with Vash reads differently for me when I take this into consideration.
Three things. 1. what I like about Wolfwood’s design is that if you don’t take the tit window and the facial scruff into consideration, he is dressed like a typical Japanese salary man! A nobody, one of many. Black short hair with suit, he could be a 0815 background character/random casualty in nearly any anime/manga. But here, he falls out of the line. All in black in the desert heat, that is suicide! He is not dressed like the others in typical western clothes. He’s an outlier from the start but at the same time a very usual sight for us readers!
2. I love how silly and welcoming he is. He is just a very charming random dude. We next to never see him interact with random people after this, so we miss this side of him in the later volumes. But he easily fits in and connects, even as a weird outlier. He is an idiot, but an idiot with street smarts.
3. Maybe because I am not a native English speaker, but I stumbled more than once over the word “tradesman” as a colloquial term for assassin. Kinda a roundabout way to say, hey, if you’re interested in me, I may provide you with more information and maybe I have the kind of skill you’re looking for. Tradesman basically means person with a specific skill, so not elaborating on that, but letting people mock him always reads for me as Wolfwood playing with being caught/putting his “profession” down/offering work. That he has a good eye is shown on the next page with him immediately realising who Vash is (at least he know the bounty pics and knows how to look. Wolfwood is not faceblind!)
Without the context of Milly being especially perceptive, this always read for me as Vash being absolutely annoyed by Wolfwood and being distrusting, when in reality he seems to be already warming up to him. Like with us readers, Wolfwood has wormed himself into his heart already. Who could deny Wolfy?
“‘Bout time I left, anyway.” Rings differently when you know him more. Wolfwood is a person that has his foot already out of the door to be not a burden to anyone nice. And we learn that in his introduction.
Wolfwood looks so damn fucking young there. I always have big problems in discerning ages in Manga. But even with his scruff, Wolfwood looks barely out of his teens.
When I think about the different WooWoo-versions, I always deck ’98 as the oldest in his mid to end thirties, Ultimate barely 20, Trimax 30 max and Stampede… Sorry, StampWolfwood, you are still in your teens for me. You are baby.
I always remembered Wolfwood as a liar by omission, but damn, he is doing everything but spelling stuff out. “Not exactly just that…” Damn, and he looks so pained. Vash surely zoomed in on it. I now believe, the only reason why we know stuff so late about Wolfwood is because Vash never asked or tried to pin Wolfwood down.
The following pages is Wolfwood sharing his money with the orphans and I love it. We get to know Wolfwood as a very perceptive, benevolent and honest guy, who seems to be desperately begging for people to see him, to ask more about him. As much as he is funny, we also see someone who sees himself as a burden and who is burdened by a big responsibility and who still shares and gives as much as he can. No wonder Vash smiled with such earnesty. Wolfwood is the personification of what makes him still have hope in humanity.
Chapter 7: The demon’s eye
You know him just for this little bus drive and you already trust him with that info, Vash. Wolfwood is part of the team now, wether they realised it or not. Like I said in the chapter before, the journey must take longer, so they may have had a few days to bond.
He knows what happened. We learn in the next chapter why Wolfwood is there. It is easy to put two and two together for him.
Or regrets that they have to part ways and Wolfwood has to go back to being the Punisher. He had a short dance with Lady Death and then a little vacation where he could be human.
As much as we learn that Wolfwood hates his predicament, it is his duty. There is a reason why he does what he does.
It is kinda sad that Wolfwood left immediately. Nightow, most likely, had other stuff planned, but the cancellation of the magazine kinda threw a wrench into it. I kinda like how ’98 did it with Vash and Wolfwood having their own little adventure on the journey.
Funny observation. People are there, because there is gunshots. Not children’s laughs or anything, it is gunshots that show that people are there. What a shitty world they live in.
08: The fifth moon
Did Legato control the corpses? Or did he “take in” the survivors and used experiments on them? Nicholas knows his bounties. Without him, I wouldn’t peg them as the Slavers.
First of all, the hint/info that Vash and Knifes are both not human. A man between a rock and a hard place. A well-prepared dead man, but a dead man either way.
Since we as a reader already have a bond with Wolfwood, he is our point of reference for a “normal” human reaction to the shit that goes down. Nightow regularly flashes back to Wolfwood’s reaction to it all. Either so we don’t forget that he is part of the EVUL or to bring down that point how fucked up Knives is (especially with the SA-symbolism). People with uteri will agree either way that the scene with the sister being that pregnant and Knives bursting out is… massive body horror.
At least both legs and one arm are smashed, pelvis most likely, too, his head is squished into his torso, neck broken? and I have no idea how else he is crumbled up. Paper doll Legato
Vash didn’t only shoot himself to regain control. He shot Knives, too! He shot Knives to get free, but it was already too late.
While someone else (I am sorry, I am bad with names D; If I find you again, I will link your post) has put it brilliantly how Knives taking control over Vash can be read as assault, there is something else I’d like to point out.
Knives is the only person in the whole story who has been able to take control from Vash. We have seen him fight so many people, like Neon, Monev and others, but Vash never was not in control. He put rules upon himself that constricted him, e.g. the pacifism, but those constrictions were by his own decision. Vash takes into consideration that he may die, but it is by his own free will and as we have seen, he is a bit suicidal. Likewike, Vash gives people all the agency, all his agency. He mostly reacts to their decisions towards him. Knives is the only person in the whole world who is able to take away Vash’s agency and he uses that power over him. Not going into powerscaling or such a thing, but it shows what a powerful player Knives is.
Again, Wolfwood is our focus point for human reaction. Dude is scared out of his mind and mixing both brothers. Messengers of God coming to cast down judgement on us? That would be Knives, not Vash. But he demands an answer from Vash, with whom he already formed a connection. Wolfwood may feel even somewhat betrayed, as hypocritical as that is.