The Gist:

An amnesiac gunman wanted for a gargantuan bounty runs for his life, while also trying to non-violently settle the conflicts he's confronted with.

The History:

Trigun got its start as a manga by Yasuhiro Nightow back in 1995, which originally started in the magazine Shonen Captain. When that magazine closed down, Nightow got the chance to continue the story in Young King Ours (where Excel Saga was also serialized).

The anime series was commissioned in 1998 -- produced by JVC, animated by Madhouse and broadcast by TV Tokyo. Geneon licensed the show for the U.S. in 2003, releasing it on DVD and also licensing it for broadcast on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block.

Manga vs. Anime:

They couldn't be more dissimilar. The anime only covers a very small part of the original manga series, which ran until 2007 and covered a great deal more material. Fans of one are recommended to check out the other just to see the differences.

How to Watch:

• FUNimation / DVD (Click to compare prices)
  The entire series has been released in a single DVD set.
• FUNimation / streaming video

Genres:

Action, comedy, sci-fi, drama

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Studios:

Production: Geneon
Animation: Madhouse

Rating:

TV-14

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The Review:

Vash the Stampede, they call him. A gunman with a bounty of sixty billion double dollars on his head, he's earned the nickname "The Humanoid Typhoon" for the devastation he leaves in his wake.

Then you meet the guy in person, and you're astonished this goofball with the donut addiction could even point a gun, let alone shoot it. And yet he can wield a gun with terrifying accuracy. So how'd someone like this end up with a $$60 billion bounty on his pointed little head?

That's the mystery the uptight Meryl and the hapless Milly, employees of the Bernadelli Insurance Company, find themselves trying to unravel after they're given the thankless job of keeping tabs on Vash and his damage bill. It doesn't take them long to find out it's more the bounty hunters who chase after Vash -- such as the Gung-Ho Guns -- who are the real source of the damage, and that Vash's philosophy of "Love And Peace" seems impossibly at odds with his reputation. This is, after all, the man who supposedly blew up the entire city of July once upon a time. And then there's the matter of Vash's missing memory, and his brother Knives -- which turn out to be keys to unlocking something very, very much at odds with Vash's goony, flip outer persona ...

That's how much of Trigun works, come to think of it. You're lured in with a lot of laughs and some thoroughly outlandish action scenes, and then bit by bit you realize a much larger story is unfolding under your nose. That makes it not just fun but truly memorable, and explains why it's endured with fans since it appeared in English editions in 2003.

People have called Trigun a kind of Western, and the label fits -- the guns, the gunslingers, the frontier-town look of the show all support that. What's different is the attitude -- most of what happens is played for broad laughs rather than grimness and grit. That said, the further into the series we get, the more we see things that tilt the balance towards the serious side. Take Nicholas D. Wolfwood, the preacher with the Really Big Gun who outwardly seems as dippy as Vash himself, but the more time we spend with him the more we realize he's hiding some secrets of his own -- and the more time he spends with Vash and the others, the more he's compelled to change. It's satisfying on a level that most comedies -- let alone a hybrid of comedy / Western / SF / action -- don't approach.