I don’t like anime, but I’ve been up a few nights and have stopped on Trigun. How’d Vash come to have such a huge bounty on his head when he makes such an effort to get away from any conflict?
It’s been a cubic hell of a long time since I’ve seen the series, but I was under the impression it was a combination of the large amount of collateral damage that always happened to the places he’s at and fiddling behind the scenes by his enemies. Mostly the first, actually.
He’s “the Humanoid Typhoon” who seems to bring a whirlwind of death and destruction with him that can destroy whole towns. The $$60,000,000,000.00 (sixty billion double dollars) reward is offered by an insurance company which is tired of paying out claims, IIRC.
The destruction is not really his fault – he tries to avoid conflict as much as possible.
He was responsible for the destruction of an entire city. Everybody in the city died in a blast that is credited to him.
Right. When conflict DOES happen, among the smoldering ruins he happens to be the one that is recognized as having consistently been there when the big trouble started. The society he lives in also shows a distressing tendency to believe that anyone who stands up is a troublemaker that is only making things worse for everyone else; and they have made the idea of the Humanoid Typhoon (as opposed to the actual guy, who often goes unrecognized) a convenient escapegoat for anything that goes badly.
The genesis of it all is explained during the second half of the series. How far you along, js_africanus?
Be warned!
Basically, there is are forces at work in that world that understand only the strong and superior and powerful are worthy to live; Vash shares an origin with them, but rejects that. They seek to provoke Vash into either self-destruction or “going over to the dark side” by making it impossible for him to coexist with civilized society, by causing massive violence and genocidal-scale mayhem anywhere he lives and encouraging his persecution; this because they wish for him to either join them or be morally neutralized as an advocate of peace.
I’ve only seen a few episodes, generally far apart. The last two had the women from the insurance company following him. (The first with them that I saw was when they thought the Giant Boomerang Guy was Vash, and the second was when a preacher/gunfighter entered Vash in a quick-draw contest.) I don’t recall what the other couple I’ve seen where about.
While I find that anime has terrible artwork, horrible animation, and intolerable storylines, it seems that our pal Vash may be in a program I could watch. While writing the OP last night, I was thinking that I could almost go out and get a DVD set, if it were available. (Maybe. Don’t buy stock in the company just yet.)
Oh, its availible: for about 25 bucks for all 26 episodes on Ebay. LIke this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=617&item=6300038122&rd=1