It is not easy to depict action in the form of manga. Trigun is one of those works that fell victim to flashy art style that becomes overly convoluted and confusing for readers to follow.
Trigun started out as a light-hearted comedy where we follow Vash the Stampede and how having a mega bounty on his head attracts nothing but trouble. Beyond his happy go lucky exterior, we soon find out his dark past and his conviction of never to take one's life away.
Gradually, the mood shifts especially during Maximum where it becomes darker and bloodier. Maximum also introduces to use a myriad of new characters that are, undoubtedly cool, yet most of them lack much substance.
It's not to say that there isn't any characterization among the cast of Trigun, Vash himself is very well characterized, his background and personality are clearly detailed over the course of the story. Then, we have the insurance girls Meryl and Milly, most badass priest Wolfwood, as well as Livio etc., are all great characters.
Personally, I am not a fan of what they did to Knives in the manga as compared to the anime. Knives is nothing more than a power hungry and one track minded bad guy here, which makes him a pretty generic villain.
As I mentioned earlier, the artwork can often become very messy and confusing during the action scenes, it felt like Yasuhiro opted for style over substance as the story goes on, as many of the characters having freaky-badass-multiple forms just to showcase their badassery. This reminds me of another mangaka Oh Great! which also favors style over substance in his works, but sadly Yasuhiro's art isn't as good as Oh Great!'s.
Enjoyment wise, I kinda liked the non-action parts (ironically), but for most part, I have no idea what's going on during the fights.
Trigun is truly decent as an anime, but as a manga, I must say it is a disappointment, due to how messy the art is, and the story was mostly ignored for the sake of stylish action.
Overall: 4/10 Hopefully we can somehow get the latter half of Maximum to be adapted into anime, as there are indeed some badass action going on.
