Saturday, November 21, 2009

Top 25 Anime Characters: #3 – Vash the Stampede

#3. Vash the Stampede
Created by: Yasuhiro Nightow
First Appearance: Trigun Episode 1 – The $$60 Billion Man
Voiced by: Japanese - Masaya Onosaka ; English - Johnny Yong Bosch

When you talk about cool anime looks it is hard to get better than Vash the Stampede. With the blond broom head type hair, the long red trench coat, some nice shades, a killer gun, and even better robotic arm that transforms into an even bigger gun that can destroy whole cities what else is there not to like about Vash. And when you add to it that Vash has a $$60 billion dollar bounty on his head it doesn't get much better.

Trigun is similar to Cowboy Bebop in that it combined the western, comedy, action/adventure, and sci-fi genre, with more of a heavy reliance on the western genre, into this one show and made it work. So like Cowboy Bebop the anime and manga work on a lot of levels. This is probably my favorite series that had a western/post-apocalyptic look to it as Yashiro Nightow made everything look great as well as creating a great story.

To make things more interesting was as the anime progressed we started to learn more about Vash's past and why he had a bounty of $$60 billion on his head. I think what really sets it home of how much of a tortured life Vash has lived is seeing all the scars on his body. Though on the surface Vash is a goofy acting character underneath there laid a complex character who had everything taken away from him by his "brother." You add in the western look of his world Vash is great character who you do not want to mess with especially when he uses his gun.

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1 Comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, Vash's design is awesome. I remember first seeing a model of the character in an Hobby Japan when the series was on in Japan. It was years before I would see the anime and I was expecting coolness on par with the design...

What a huge disappointment. Trigun was an awful, cliche anime in it's own right (not original and stylish like Cowboy Bebop), and a lame criticism of the Western genre (not a tribute) on top of that. What a waste of a great character design.