So, here's the first in what will hopefully become a series of posts- My opinions on the things I watch as I watch them, titled "Watching". Very creative, I know. Anyway; Trigun! Take a drink every time I say the word "fun" in this one.
I'm a big fan of Western aesthetics, and Trigun was always something I wanted to watch both because it has one of those, and because I know a lot of people who love it. Watching the fun, funny and even heart-pouding Blood Blockade Battlefront last year and learning that it had the same creator as Trigun only made me want to get into it even more.
So let's get into this.
Trigun starts off with a very fun first episode, which introduces the main characters Vash, Merryl and Milly very well. They all have fun interactions thanks to their fun personalities. Vash's introduction as a dreaded "Humanoid Typhoon" whose head is worth 60 billion Double Dollars contrasts in a very interesting way with how goofy and stupid he appears to be. This kind of characters, who don't seem all that dangerous but have horrifying reputations, is one I like a lot, especially when the characters never asked for that reputation; which, for now, seems to be the case for Vash.
Merryl and Milly aren't the kind of characters I expected to see in an anime about a guy in a red coat who shoots good and walks around the desert to avoid bounty hunters. Insurance agents packing heat aren't exactly the most common kind of characters you'd see in a western, seemingly post-apocalyptic world, but then again, a burly man with fangs and a cross-shaped brass knuckle who punches vampires into crosses isn't what I expected when BBB was described to me as "New York: The Anime". Merryl and Milly are, however, very fun to watch interact with and unintentionally stalk Vash, though, so I'm waiting to see how that works out.
The standalone characters I've seen in those first 5 episodes were also pretty fun. The competing bounty hunters of episode 1, the water merchant and undercover investigator of episode 2, the retired alcoholic gunsmith of episode 3, the entire town featured in episode 4, as well as the Nebraska father & son of episode 5 were all fun to watch interact with Vash and his ideals of "Peace & Love" that seem to wholly contradict his reputation as a remorseless mass murderer. All of them also contribute to another thing I like about the show; that being its very granular world-building. There's been no explanation yet as to why the planet has two suns, if it's even Earth as we knew it, how some people got their ridiculous guns or their extensive cybernetic augmentations, but there's a lot of things that are implied there that I can't wait to see be explored more- And even if they aren't, they were still fun in that little vacuum.
So far, Trigun seems like a very fun show that has the potential to deliver some really good character-based drama... Much like Blood Blockade Battlefront did. Which is good! That's the kind of show I can't get enough of.