To start off, the story is great. The series starts off with enjoyable one-shot stories that, though not giving much away plot wise, tell more about the characters than some entire series do. And once we get more into the plot itself and the silliness of those early epsiodes starts to die down to be replaced by darker themes, it just gets better.
Unlike the original manga, Trigun the anime doesn't give everything away to early, choosing instead to give you hints and clues until fairly late in the series. In fact, there are certain elements that aren't even explained in the anime that remain buried in the manga.
While it's quite well known that Trigun takes some dark turns towards the end, it defienetly doesn't become as dark as it could have, always throwing in the ocasional joke to lighten the mood without seeming forced. I don't really think this is a bad thing though. Without the jokes, the series very well could have turned way too depressing for many of the fans who started watching Trigun expecting, or at least hoping, for the series to stick with those goofy little episodes at the beginning. While this is true though, potential watchers should be warned that there is a chance they will cry at least once in this series, I know I did.
Now, I think before I get into the sound or art I should talk about the characters since they're pretty much the heart and soul of Trigun.
Our protagonist, Vash the Stampede, is a wanted fellon with $$60 000 000 000 on his head. But (aside from rip-offs) this is pretty much the only series you'll find where that wanted fellow can be hurt shounting "Love and peace!" Vash's character is great! One of the most memorable in all of anime, from his red jacket to his odd looking sunglasses.
Next up we have the insurance girls, Milly and Meryl. Good luck remembering which is which. Stupid silimar names... These girls, while seeming similar at first, have very different personalities, but like with most characters in Trigun, there's much more to them than meets the eye.
Last for main characters is Wolfwood, a character who is arguably more popular amounst fans than even Vash. He's a clergy man who loves kids (not like that, you pervert!) and guns. Great combination, huh? His character is probably one of the hardest to talk about without spoilers since he only appears over a third of the way through the series and even then doesn't have as much screen time as you'd expect, so let's just say he's very much like Vash, but at the same time a total opposite and leave it at that.
For fear of spoilers, I won't talk about antagonists other than this: Only maybe three of all the ones who appear are shown in more than one episode. Those three, my friend, are badass.
The art in Trigun is an interesting thing to talk about considering it was based more of the style of western comics than it was manga or anime since the author was a fan of such. (If you keep an eye out you can notice some references to comics such as Spiderman.) This causes the characters to have a very distinct look which works most of the time, but when the animation budget is down, these character designs can looks kinda odd... It's not that noticable though, and therefore not too much of an issue. The character designs themselves are all quite nice, a lot of them, like everything else it seems, very memorable.
And finally we come to sound. Language wise both the English and Japanese are very good and perfectly listenable. If I had to choose one, I'd say the Japanese is a touch better, but Vash himself is better in English in terms of serious scenes and I don't want to disperage all the things the dub got right, so just go with your preferance.
Musically, there isn't much that stands out. That's not to say it's bad at all, but most of it seems to just sort of fad into the background. However, the music that you notice, you NOTICE. Opening theme included, there were only three pieces that really stood out to me, and when I heard those, I sat up and paid attention because I knew that things were about to get interesting if they weren't already.
Overall, this is a wonderful series, bot with an awesome plot and gloriously complex characters. Like any series, it has it's problems, but those are easily overlooked in the grand scheme of things. I personally had a great time watching Trigun and I hope you will too if you haven't already.
And so, I give this pascifistic gun show a 9 out of 10.
