Trigun Maximum Volume 3: His Life as A...

This third installment of Trigun Maximum is a bit bloodier than the rest of the series so far, but it's very good. The first five chapters are pretty much non-stop action in which Vash is faced off against Emilio, the puppetmaster, and Wolfwood is facing the horrific Grey the ninelives. Wolfwood's challenge is that he's facing a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut (who can somehow manage to move his arm even after it's no longer connected to his body). Vash is forced to half heartedly fight against the puppetmaster while trying to avoid taking human life in the process. A difficult prospect considering Knives' henchmen know all about Vash's love of humanity. The philosophical tension between Wolfwood and Vash continues to grow. In the last chapter Wolfwood learns more about Vash's past. We are also introduced to some of Vash's old aquaintences. The art work is fantastic. The charachters, addicting. Nightow has managed to create an interesting mix of philosophy, action, and plain fun into his series. It's hard to read Trigun without forming a sort of attachment to Vash and his friends. At the same time it's even easy to sympathise with Knives, knowing all of our human failings (and knowing a little more of the brothers history). I can't wait for volume 4.

Well, I just got volume three yesterday and finished it in a little over an hour. It's that addicting!! I love the new Trigun Manga from Dark Horse, and I perfer it over the Anime now that I'm hooked. The characters are more fleshed out, others appear at different times, and some are completely different. Let us take this volume for example. In the Anime, Grey the Ninelives was an android. Not so in the Manga, for he is flesh and blood with a name that makes far more sense this time (after one version of him dies, another sprouts out of his body). Also, there is more to the mysterious Leonoff the Puppetmaster, a character that Vash seems to have met in the past. I won't give away too much more, but it was very interesting to read this, IMO, better take on the series. I've heard people talk about how Nightow's art can be somewhat sketchy, and while I see where they are coming from, I still don't understand the complaints. In the heat of action, Nightow is all about detail; it's only when he switches to a more light-hearted/comical scene that details vanish. But seriously, if you look at the art from other Mangaka like Kubotite, they do the exact same thing. It's a style in Japan, deal with it. As I said earlier, the story for Maximum is far better to me than that of the Anime. While I do like the Anime, there are so many filler episodes that it can become boring after a while. I've even fallen asleep during a couple. Plus, with Cartoon Network almost always playing Trigun, there really isn't a huge reason to me to buy the DVD boxset, considering it's $150. I believe Maximum ends at volume 6, so in all I'll have spentabout $80 on that, so for my money, the Manga is the cheaper and more accessible way to relive a favored franchise. That, and you can read them first in the stores.