Manga / Trigun

aka: Tri Gun

Deep space planet future gun action!!^note Clockwise from top: Vash the Stampede, Meryl Stryfe, Milly Thompson

"I've never seen anyone kick so much ass in my entire life."

— Random Villager

On the desert world of Gunsmoke, two young women — the tall, ditzy Milly Thompson and the tiny, short-tempered Meryl Stryfe — hunt for wandering outlaw and absolute pacifist "Vash the Stampede". Meryl and Milly work for an insurance company that Vash is bankrupting with the property damage credited to his name, all of it collateral from the ridiculous fights he tends to get into, which have resulted in his nickname of "The Humanoid Typhoon". Why all the fights? Vash has a bounty of $$60,000,000,000^* (sixty billion double-dollars), dead or alive. Every Bounty Hunter on the planet wants his head (rest of him optional) in their hands so they can collect the money; Meryl and Milly just want to stop Vash from wrecking the cities into which he wanders.

Wacky hijinks ensue for a few episodes, then the mood darkens. Lots of people die, in many cases slowly and horribly. Survivors discover new things about themselves. Personal growth takes place. There are hints of romance. Then the mood gets darker still. For the eggheads out there, the series even has a fair amount of analysis of certain aspects of Christian theology, as viewed from a Japanese perspective, that examines the contrast between pacifist ideals and the moral obligation to protect the innocent… even if it means taking a life.

Trigun began in 1995 as a manga by artist Yasuhiro Nightow, published monthly in the magazine Shonen Captain. The series ran for 20 chapters (three tankobon volumes) before abruptly going into a hiatus due to the magazine's cancellation in 1997. After this, Nightow became involved in the production of a 26-episode anime adaptation by Madhouse, which covered what the manga had gotten to at that point, and then added its own finale to wrap things up. In 1998, the manga found a new home at the Seinen magazine Young King OURs under the new title Trigun Maximum, running an additional 97 chapters (14 volumes) and reaching its own conclusion in 2008. The manga is licensed by Dark Horse Comics. It is currently out of print, but will be receiving a new, premium "Deluxe Edition" treatment starting in December of 2023.

In 2010, Nightow started a modest series of new works for the Trigun universe in anticipation of the movie Trigun: Badlands Rumble, which was released that same year. First it was a two-chapter story, going by the same name as the movie, drawn by Nightow himself to serve as a preview for the movie. The second was a one-shot, Trigun: Rising, it is a short tale about Rai-Dei the Blade, one of the original Gung-Ho Guns, drawn by Yuusuke Takeyama. The third, and final, was another one-shot, entitled Trigun: The Lost Plant, a story set 6 years after the original manga ending; it was drawn by Boichi and later published as an extra for the 12th volume of his own series, Sun-Ken Rock. A compilation manga titled Trigun: Multiple Bullets, featuring a number of short stories (including the previously mentioned three), was released in 2011.

There was a game announced for the Playstation 2 in 2002 called Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke, which was being developed by Red Entertainment and published by Sega. After over a decade of no news about the game, it is presumed to have been cancelled, although some people think that it was rehashed into Gungrave.

The English dub was one of the flagship shows of [adult swim] (along with Cowboy Bebop) and helped to set the mood that the sub-channel was simply for mature audiences and not necessarily "adult" audiences.

The show, formerly licensed in the US by Pioneer/Geneon and now licensed by Funimation, is on Hulu.

A new anime retelling produced by Orange entitled Trigun Stampede premiered on January 7, 2023, nearly 25 years after the original anime's premiere.

Should not be confused with the Hindi / Sanskrit word Trey-Gun which means Triangle and forms the basis of the word Trigonometry.

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The 60-Billion Double-Dollar Tropes:

Tropes A-F

• Abnormal Allergy: Amelia claims that she's allergic to idiots. Sure enough, when Vash touches her hand, her arm breaks out in hives and she needs to treat it with medication right away.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • In Episode 14 of the anime (Chapters 10-12 of the manga), the action centers around Meryl and Milly – lampshaded by Vash once he realizes how little screentime he's gotten.
  • Several chapters in Maximum experiment with different points of view, including those of villains and side characters.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The manga really goes to great lengths if not to humanize the villains, then to make the readers understand their motivations and grief.
• The Alcoholic: Frank Marlon, a town drunk who used to be a talented gunsmith. In the anime, he asks a bartender for anything with alcohol in it, "ethyl, methyl, cough syrup, whatever" — ignoring the fact that methyl alcohol is toxic and can cause blindness. He gets better, though.
• All-CGI Cartoon: Trigun Stampede is an all CG anime done by Orange.
• An Aesop: Take your pick: Violence only creates more violence. Non-violence is the key to solving conflicts (maybe). Love thine enemy. He Who Fights Monsters. "Nuclear" power is bad. Closing yourself off from others and refusing to let go of the past are both the wrong ways to deal with trauma (manga only). Bottling up your emotions will only lead to more suffering. Regardless of what you've done in the past, "the ticket to the future is always blank." Respect differences. ...In other words, LOVE AND PEACE! Or maybe Violence Really Is the Answer.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Trigun The Lost Plant introduces Verona Tsubasa, a woman following Vash around on search for the titular lost plant. The setting is placed six years after the original manga ending, Verona is the real focus of the story, Vash is just kind of there, and no other characters make a return, in fact, they are not even mentioned.
• Anti-Villain: At the end of the day, most of the nameless bounty hunters directly targeting Vash are after the bounty itself and aren't intentionally maliciously laying waste to the scenery, most of the time. The trio of bounty hunters in Episode 5 immediately offer a fraction of their reward towards the repairs for a cafe they perferated trying to ambush Vash. At least until they realize their ambush failed. Others in the same episode such as the Nebraska Bros. are much less forgiveable, intentionally using citizens as bargaining chips in pursuit of the bounty.
• Aerith and Bob: The whole world is a mess of Midvalleys and Brads. With names like Vash the Stampede, Legato Bluesummers, and Millions Knives, names like Meryl Strife and Milly Thompson don't exactly seem to fit. And Nicholas D. Wolfwood manages to straddle the line with a perfectly normal, albeit cool name. At least, until you find out what "D" is short for. It's Dokonokuminomonjawaresumakinishiteshizumetarokakora ^note  It has two meanings - roughly, "Chain smoking" or an incredibly specific threat used by Yakuza involving sashimi knives, tatami mats, and a river.
• Alien Sky: Gunsmoke has Binary Suns and five moons which seem to change colour for some reason.
• After the End: Just living on Gunsmoke in the first place. The fact that they wound up there after an attempt to escape a ruined Earth went wrong. And then in the manga Armageddon-via-Knives kinda comes and goes and the story carries on.
• A God Am I: Knives's megalomaniac tendencies and belief that he is a kind of noble crusader or even a kind of Jesus figure. Then it gets worse.
• Almost Lethal Weapons: Vash does everything he can to never take a life. Oddly enough, when there are casualties, it's either because the Monster of the Week stepped in, or the townspeople were hurting each other just to catch the guy.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Knives is an Aryan on steroids who rants about being a "superior breed". Legato has his own particular brand of Nietzschean philosophy: genocides involving high technologies.
• And the Adventure Continues: Manga ending falls somewhere between here and Here We Go Again!. Since the Knives situation has been resolved, Vash is free to enjoy his wandering life more, but the gag of Meryl and Milly becoming TV reporters hired to chase him around is kinda out there, and worse than insurance by a long way.
  • The Full Episode Flashback, "Rem Saverem", looks noticeably better than the episodes surrounding it.
• Apocalypse How: Vash prevents a Class X-4 in The Lost Plant.
• Are We There Yet?: At the beginning of Episode 15, Vash exhaustingly asks if he and the girls have arrived at their destination because he's forced to literally carry the them to the next town.
• The Ark: The ships that brought people to the planet were intended to provide humans another place to live when Earth was no longer an option.
• Art Evolution: Nightow's style changed over the dozen years he drew Trigun. It started out along the lines of "Damn this art is weird, I like the anime better", to "Damn this is detailed." His panel layouts also get much more dynamic. And of course the costumes get even more out there.
• The Atoner: The series has several.
  • Vash is atoning for destroying July City, then later for the Fifth Moon Incident, and then later still (in the anime) for killing Legato, plus all the people he's failed to save over his long life.
  • Wolfwood, meanwhile, is atoning for becoming a mercenary.
  • Livio steps into Wolfwood's shoes after killing him, which is one of many things he sets out to atone for.
  • Manga only: Rem became the primary caretaker for Vash and Knives because she wanted to atone for failing to save Tessla from the SEEDS scientists' constant invasive experiments (which soon killed the poor girl).
• Author Appeal: All the elaborate cowboy-like outfits and uniforms with all sorts of useless straps and buttons, huge collars, etcc, and the guns are simply because the creator likes them. The reason Vash's Trade Mark Favorite Food is donuts is also simply because the creator likes them.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Meryl carries dozens of derringer pistols under her traveling cape. Since they only carry two shots at the most, she has to throw them away after firing them off and grab fresh ones. After one shootout, Milly has to gather them all up.
  • Loose Ruth carries a double-barreled, lever-action rifle, with each barrel fed by its own stick magazine. Every time he works the action, the entire barrel/magazine assembly rotates 180 degrees.
• Badass Adorable:
  • Young Knives looked like a sweet kid even when he secretly plotted everyone's murder on the SEEDS ship.
  • Meryl and Milly are cute and courteous young women, and also know how to kick ass with their gun and physical combat skills when the situation calls for it.
• Badass Longcoat:
  • Vash's coat is basically an elaborate red duster, which was inspired by the dusters worn by gunslingers in Westerns. In the show's opening and at other times, Vash's coat is shown billowing in the wind looking considerably longer than usual. The look suits him as the show's skilled and charismatic gunman protagonist. ^note  Also keep in mind that, in Japan, red is the traditional color of the hero. It's explained that Red Geraniums (Rem's favorite) mean "determination".
  • Legato's has a long coat with a rack of spikes on one shoulder and the human skull on the other, befitting of a devious antagonist.
• Badass Transplant: In the anime, Legato's Mind Control ability is because he has Vash's arm grafted onto him. In the manga, he just sorta has psychic powers because psychic powers.
• Bar Brawl: In Badlands Rumble, there is a bar brawl played for laughs. People start fighting and are about to start firing their guns...only to realize that Vash has taken out all the bullets from their guns.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: The female plants lack nipples in the original manga, more or less. ^Explanation While Nightow's style is not very good for fanservice, the plants DO have nipples, at least, the shape, when seeing one from 3/4 view, also, completely averted in the sequel "The Lost Plant".
• Beard of Sorrow: In the anime, Vash adopts an unshaven look after he Heroic BSoD's after the incident with Legato and he's taken care of by Meryl and Milly.
• Berserk Button: Knives snaps even harder than usual if Vash contradicts him.
• Berserker Tears: Vash, several times. Particularly in the anime, such as when he snaps and almost kills Monev the Gale after Monev slaughters several hundred people, or near the end when Legato forces Vash to shoot him, leading to a Heroic BSoD.
• Better Off with the Bad Guys: Legato Bluesummers didn't even have a name before he met Big Bad Knives, to say nothing of how horrifically badly he was treated in his former life. Knives might not view him as much better than any other human, but there's no doubt Legato is far happier being his Dragon.
• Beware the Superman:
  • What everyone tends to think of first when they start to understand just how special Vash is.
  • Wolfwood even has a disturbing yet awesome moment in Maximum where they're hanging out and brooding together, and he seriously considers shooting Vash (by this time firmly established as his best friend) in the back right then and there, just to get at least one of the twins out of the way. He doesn't, but Vash gives him a sad, knowing look later and Wolfwood sort of smirks and thinks, 'who am I kidding? He knew exactly what I was thinking, and he would have survived.'
• BFG: This series is known for this.
  • The Cross Punishers and Angel Arms are the cream of the crop.
  • Or at least they would be, until anime-only baddie Caine the Longshot's hundred foot long sniper rifle is taken into consideration.
  • Loose Ruth, a bounty hunter in the first episode: has a gun that takes the cake for sheer impracticality: a two-barreled lever-action rifle, each barrel having its own long magazine. Every time he works the lever, the entire barrel/magazine assembly rotates 180 degrees like a spinning propeller.
  • Don't forget the huge starship gun Chronica tries to blast Knives with.
  • And Gasback's sweet machine gun arm.
  • Vash is often described as "carrying a big gun": a long-barreled, top-break revolver. Knives carries a blued steel duplicate of in the anime.
  • Both of Vash's left-arm guns. The first fires single shots that can take out attacking robots and punch through a bulletproof face shield, and the second is a machine gun that can cut through solid steel floors and throw Vash clear across a room with its recoil.
  • Milly carries a non-lethal Gatling-type gun that fires giant X-shaped slugs approximately 4' from one end to the other, and can hit with enough impact to topple an armored car. She can easily hide it under her coat and has no trouble lifting it with one hand. At one point, the strap holding it under her coat breaks and it thuds to the ground, rattling the entire building.
  • Monev the Gale has a minigun attached to each wrist, powered by pressurized gas canisters on his back. When these fail to bring Vash down, he puts together an even bigger one to shoot up the bank where Vash is hiding.
• Big Eater: Vash prefers not to fire his gun if he can help it because one bullet costs as much as a pizza (manga) or a stack of pancakes (anime). In the anime, he gobbles down a jumbo box of donuts and eagerly digs into a platter of salmon sandwiches.
• Big "NO!": Vash screams a lot whenever rendered impotent in a life-or-death situation. Also weeps. Man has no dignity to speak of.
• Bittersweet Ending: Manga only; it barely avoids being a Downer Ending.
  • To clarify, Vash puts an end to Knives's plans once and for all without killing him and the world is safe. But Wolfwood is dead, the planet is still plagued by outlaws and bounty hunters, Vash is still a wanted man, and the story ends with him running off into the desert. What makes it really sweet is that Vash is actually happy about things going back to the way they were and laughs joyfully as he's being chased by Meryl and Milly, who have been hired as news reporters to follow and interview him, and pretty much the whole world. We even get a few panels of all the friends he's made smiling when they see him on television. Before all that, Knives ultimately pulls a Heel–Face Turn, and entrusts two humans, a father and son, with Vash's life before dying in their backyard and becoming a tree. From an alternative standpoint, Vash's happy ending is that the world is safe from the threat of his brother Knives and the Gung-Ho Guns, and he gets to continue having wacky Space Western adventures. It's arguably very upbeat.
  • But then there's the fact that Vash's hair has turned almost completely black, which means he's used up most of his life and it's unknown how long he has left to live...
  • Vash is still alive and his hair is still pitch-black in the one-shot sequel manga, Trigun: The Last Plant, which takes place six years after Trigun Maximum.
• Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: The Plants appear to be this in the anime. However, very late in the manga this is turned on its head when Domina and Chronica turn up from Earth… although a flashback earlier showed documentation on Tessla, a female independent Plant just like Vash & Knives, who died from being subjected to too many experiments.
• Blade on a Rope: One of the first villains that Vash the Stampede faces is a hulking brute whose weapon of choice is a huge boomerang with sharp edges; only the ends of the boomerang can be gripped safely. The weapon is attached by a cable unreeled from a winch on the villain's hip. One smack of the retract button will spool his boomerang back to him.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official Dark Horse translation has some overly literal translations of Japanese idioms, most infamously, "the outer road tastes like the outer road".
  • Oddly, the barkeeper lady from the third episode is credited as "Joshua" in the English credits for the anime. This seems to be a misromanization of how she was credited in Japanese "Joshou" which means female barkeeper. AKA her job, not her actual name, especially not a man's name. This seems to have confused the author of the unofficial fan guide who thought that the villain of the episode was named Joshua.
• Bloodless Carnage: Played with. Since Vash aims for non-fatal shots, none of the damage he causes is really bloody. However, the manga strongly averts this and even goes to the extreme at times, and Legato in the anime does what he can to avert this. Though, on that note of the anime, the blood is usually Tomato juice or wine. …Usually.
• Blush Stickers: Vash and Milly are often seen sporting them in the manga.
• Boarding Party: A motorcycle-to-desert-tanker version is pulled off by the Bad Lad Gang in episode 7.
• Boomerang Bigot: Done seriously with Legato. He was at least born human (prior to getting a ton of modifications), but is an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to kill all humans and anxiously awaits the day when his own boss will kill him. He could very well have been modded in childhood by the people he hated so much at the place where they were keeping him. At any rate they paid him more careful attention than your average boy whore, worked out he was planning to kill them all, and the simplest explanation for how they were able to use the method they did for killing him is that they developed the cancellation technology from the coin-box, and were using it. Given Legato couldn't stop his death-by-rape but after the building got sliced up a bit could brain-hack Knives enough to stay alive.
• Body Horror: Vash's body is interesting. Involves a generous helping of Transformation Trauma. After he finally starts to learn how to use this (traumatically), the first time his Angel Arm instinctively puts up some "feathers" to catch a bullet he gets stoned by the locals. And Meryl "I Wouldn't Run Away" Stryfe breaks down screaming and hiding from him because that first time traumatized her, too.
• Bottomless Magazines: Though Vash is usually shown having to reload after every six bullets, and he openly complains about how expensive ammo gets on one occasion, he almost never runs out of spare ammo, and except for the scene in the opening nobody else ever seems to need to reload either.
• Bounty Hunter: Thousands of these are after Vash.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Legato, regarding Vash: "I will make sure he suffers eternal torment."
  • Also Knives and Vash in the manga backstory. Poor, sweet little Knives.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In "Little Arcadia", Vash breaks the fourth wall and says, "Hey, is that all the time I get?" It is also fairly obvious that he does it again a couple times in the series.
• Bring My Red Jacket: Arguably the reason for the color of Vash's trademark coat.
  • In the anime at least, Vash inner-monologues about Rem and her love of red flowers while the camera pans over his coat.
• But Now I Must Go: Vash, the initial premise being informed by just the type of Western that codified the trope.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Vash, in the manga after he reflexively puts up an Angel wing feather to stop a bullet. The townspeople begin stoning him, which - since Vash is also The Fettered - makes the situation especially difficult for him, so he resorts to being a Stepford Smiler to deal with it. Happens also in anime Episode 25, when the townsfolk in the town he's recovering in find out who he is and proceed to keelhaul him.
  • A strong interpretation of Legato's manga-only backstory is that the inhibitor device from the finale was invented as part of a research project that invented him. Which would mean the people responsible for the collar and the rape and all that he was plotting to kill gave him People Puppets powers and then treated him like that. Ultimately Knives killed them before Legato could, but they were pretty much Too Dumb to Live.
• Cain and Abel: Knives and Vash.
• Can't Stay Normal: After the Fifth Moon Incident, Vash spends two years living under the name Eriks as an ordinary man. He is content with this life but when Lina is kidnapped by a large outlaw gang he chooses to once more become the Stampede.
  Vash: You know, I... really was fond of my life here.
  Wolfwood: Them's the breaks. Someone's gotta get tough or someone else is gonna cry.
• Captain Obvious: Vash to Knives at least once in the manga. Vash tells him that his true fight should be with himself, meaning his priority should be learning to control his destructive urges. Knives misunderstands this and answers "Yes, the pain I feel is horrible. Thanks for enlightening me to the situation."
• Carnival of Killers: The Gung-ho Guns.
• Cast from Lifespan: Vash's Angel-arm is ridiculously powerful, but every shot costs him life energy and shortens his lifespan.
  • Later on in the manga we learn Knives's Angel-scythe is the same way.
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys: In the manga, at least – the only seriously recurring women are Meryl and Milly (who are absent for at least half the story and utterly outclassed during the latter parts of the manga), plus Elendira, Rem (only appears in flashbacks but absolutely vital to the plot), and Luida, and arguably Zazie's second form. The anime balances things out more by having Meryl as a viewpoint character for part or all of several episodes, along with single-story girls like Marianne and Jessica^* (she actually sticks around longer in the manga, yet has less of an impact on the plot). Generally the good looking guys get most of the screentime.
• Cattle Punk: A prime example, although Nightow chose to make his setting so desert there is no space for any actual herdbeasts. They aren't actually compulsory despite the name.
• Central Theme: Basically, the question of whether Actual Pacifism can triumph in a harsh, dog-eat-dog world, and how to break a Cycle of Revenge.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Happened in both versions, for slightly different reasons.
  • The manga at least had "moved from shonen magazine to seinen magazine partway through" to blame for Nightow holding back and then cutting loose.
  • Most of the first half of the anime is relatively lighthearted, drawing from the material in the first 12 chapters of the manga. It isn't until episode 12 that the Gung-Ho Guns start coming after Vash and things get a lot more serious.
  • Everything went to hell when Legato showed up. That's when the plot kicked off in both the manga and anime.
• Character Catchphrase: "Love and peace~!" for Vash.
• Character Exaggeration: In the manga, Vash was only a skirt-chaser in the pilot chapter and very early in the series proper; while he might do just about anything to be silly, he wouldn't harass ladies for kicks. In the anime, Vash becomes a Casanova Wannabe, although like most of his behavior, it's very clearly an act.
• Charge-into-Combat Cut: Happens at least twice in the anime.
  • The opening sequence of the first episode. After an armed gang demolishes a bar that Vash was drinking in, he slowly stands up after finishing his drink, adjusts his glasses and points his gun at the gang… and cut to a completely different bar where we are introduced to the Insurance Girls. A flashback later in the episode reveals that Vash had forgotten to load his gun and had to run for cover.
  • Episode 18 (TriMax Ch.1) has Wolfwood and Vash approach a disused building filled with dozens of heavily-armed bandits, pull out their guns and… cut to Lina giving Vash a haircut. This time we don't get to see what happened, just the aftermath (the building was literally cracked in half)
• Chaste Hero: Vash. Although given what he is, is it even possible for him to be otherwise?
  • In the manga, Wolfwood is a chaste anti-hero. He's definitely NOT chaste in the anime, even having something of a romance with Millie.
• The Chessmaster: Knives. In the manga, he steps up his game after the Last Run disaster revealed to him that he's actually mortal and can't just play around forever.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Vash can't help aiding those in great need, especially the downtrodden. Deconstrcuted as Vash may be a Chronic Hero but not everyone he saves is going to be grateful for his efforts. After the Monev incident and recovering from his injuries, the Sheriff of the town pretty much tells Vash to Get Out! without a word of thanks. Meryl starts to protest but Vash does so with no ill-will showcasing he's pretty much used to it by this point.
  • Later on, particularly in the anime, Wolfwood gets pulled into it as well, much to his chagrin.
• Church Militant: Nicholas in general. Chapel the Evergreen in the anime. Nicholas, Chapel, and Livio as part of the Eye of Michael in the Manga.
• Chekhov's Gun: Anime only. Wolfwood's Cross Punisher after Vash takes it. It saves his life in his fight with Knives.
• Clip Show: The majority of anime Episode 13 showcases some of Vash's silliest (and most awesome) moments, up to the fight with the Nebraskas and Monev.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Livio is only half competent without his beautiful hat and cape. Also, Vash's coat is bullet-proof and contains airco and bullets.
• Clothing-Concealed Injury: Vash the Stampede's long, red coat, which he wears almost all the time, is used to conceal the massive amount of scars and injuries he's taken from fights over the years due to his staunch pacifism.
• Cold Sniper: Some of the Gung-Ho Guns, but Caine the Longshot in the anime is the absolute embodiment of the trope. He doesn't speak at all, uses a massive sniper rifle, and wears a steel mask that covers his entire face except for one eye. When Vash shoots his rifle to pieces and confonts him, he silently draws a revolver and kills himself.
• Compensating for Something:
  • In manga Volume 7, Knives attempts to... fuse with Vash and let him survive as part of Knives when he accepts that his brother is never going to come around. Only, as Legato has already noticed, Vash has more raw power at his disposal, and almost overwhelms him. Knives does not like this. He then fuses with every other plant on the planet and becomes the controlling consciousness of a vast collective entity that sprawls across the sky with a thousand wings.
  • And in the anime, Father Nebraska likely has a case of this, due to the size of his "son" and the length of the barrel on the gun he pulls after his son falls to Vash.
• Conducting the Carnage: Midvalley the Hornfreak joyfully plays his saxophone to conduct his band as ambiance to the biker gang being forced to shoot each other to death while being controlled by Legato Bluesummers.
• Confessional: Wolfwood even sells confessions shaped like head-sized churches.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: With gunfighters in place of ninjas.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Knives. Legato. Livio to a large extent. Most of the Gung-Ho Guns. Vash mostly escapes this trend through frantic goofball action, though he has understandable moments of this too.
• Contrived Coincidence: Rowan happened to murder Marry and threat Rem at gunpoint right in front of an airlock, just so Joe could use it to neutralize him.
• Cool Bike: Wolfwood's Angelina II.
• Cool Shades: Vash, Wolfwood, and Knives in a few manga artworks.
  • Yasuhiro Nightow is fond of giving his gunslingers glasses, especially in his designs for Gungrave characters (Brandon Heat, Bear Walken, Blood War).
• Cool Starship: The Arks, mostly.
• Couldn't Find a Lighter: At a shooting competition (anime Ep.10), one contestant can be seen lighting his cigar with a submachine gun. Wolfwood shooting the gun out of the guy's hands and then shooting the cigar to re-light it is one of the funnier gags in the episode.
• Counting Bullets: Vash does this in Episode 5 (Chapter 1) when he subdues the bounty hunters.
• Covered with Scars: Vash, as the girls (and readers/viewers) discover when they walk in on him after a shower. ^note  The audience already knew about the prosthetic arm thanks to the fight with Monev, but Meryl & Milly were a block away and couldn't see it. The scars are his price for trying to save everybody all the time. Of course, what some of those metal bits are doing on him is a mystery. What, does he have some pressing medical need to tack his skin to his spleen? Might be subverted due to him being a Plant, but apparently it would use up his energy and turn his hair dark if he bothered to heal wounds like that automatically.
• Crapsack World: Gunsmoke is explicitly this, and several characters comment on it. The world is full of gunslingers; shootouts and property damage seem to be the norm; the planet itself is a desert and the competition for scarce natural resources is definitely bringing out the worst in people; the fear of the Humanoid Typhoon hangs over every town; Death is never far away… and then there's genocidal maniacs like Knives and Legato lurking in the background.
  • The irony of this is that the Project SEEDS crew considered Earth to be one, which is a big reason why they left. Gunsmoke was meant to be terraformed, but Knives slaughtered almost all of the project's leaders.
• Creepy Crosses: Given Wolfwood's cross is the weapon given to him in his role as a member of the Eye of Michael, crosses are basically a villain calling card in the manga.
• Cross Attack:
  • Wolfwood's main weapon looks like a giant cross with a gun handle in its middle. The elongated bottom spoke conceals a machine gun, the top spoke above it holds a rocket launcher, and the two side spokes slide outwards to reveal racks for about a dozen pistols.
  • The anime also has Chapel the Evergreen of the Gung-Ho Guns, who also carries a giant cross, though his separates into two heavy machine guns.
• Cross-Popping Veins: Meryl gets these a couple of times early on – when she learns a town's mayor called in the Nebraska Family to take out Vash, and then again when she encounters Vash on the sand-steamer (she didn't have enough money for a ticket and had to get a job in the galley to keep following him).
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Vash is the definitive example. He seems like a simple gangly fellow with a penchant for donuts and beer… until you piss him off. There's a very good reason why he has a $$60 billion bounty… although the majority of damages attributed to him are actually the fault of all the people chasing him, and the very worst atrocities (Lost July, Fifth Moon) were completely out of his control.
• Crucified Hero Shot: In manga chapter 16, the recently defeated Monev the Gale is crucified on a giant unexplained cross of unclear material composition.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: So many, it'll be faster to check the Shout-Out section.
• Cute Monster Girl: (Arguably) Zazie the Beast's girl terminal in the manga.
• Darker and Edgier: Again, once Legato shows up, everything goes to hell. To highlight it, we go from a rather cheery manga about a gunslinger wanted by the world, to having a cobbler's head in a paper bag.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Just about every major character except Milly. This includes the majority of the Gung-ho Guns.
• Deadly Dodging: One of Vash's preferred tactics - near the start of Badlands Rumble, he pulls this off using smoked meat as a shield.
• Desert Punk: The series' aesthetic is this combined with a classic Western.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • As it is set in a Crapsack World heavy on Rule of Drama and one of its major questions is whether idealism has any real meaning, so many characters, all the time. Especially in backstories, but the 'eternal suffering to Vash the Stampede' gives us a couple heroic ones in the main timeline. Meryl and Milly are actually notable for never falling to this point in either version (in fact, the odds of things not going completely to shit increase significantly in their presence; too bad the guys never notice).
  • Especially notable is the one Vash and Knives had when they were a year old. Their reactions were actually relatively similar, but because Vash didn't pass out from the starvation, he was able to work things through and come to terms with it; while Knives, who went into an angst-coma, pretended to have forgotten and then… killed everyone. At least he felt kinda bad about how many plants were included in 'everyone' later.
• Despair Gambit: Knives's main plan with regard to Vash. In the anime, this ultimately pushes him into a Heroic BSoD.
• Destructive Saviour: Vash is called the "Humanoid Typhoon" for a reason, and while he doesn't like people's homes being wrecked, the only Collateral Damage that's really important to him is human life. He's willing to die for you, but not for your car. The dark side of this, as it were, comes up in the anime: apparently his wish to not kill anyone affected the Angel Arm enough when Knives set it off in July that he managed to wreck an entire city without directly killing anybody… but he left behind a city full of refugees in the middle of a desert…
• Determined Expression: Vash looks like this whenever he drops his façade of idiocy and decides to get serious. Only to be expected from a man whose byword is determination.
  • Wolfwood has this look the majority of the time. So does Meryl sometimes.
• Deus Exit Machina: In the chapters where Meryl and Milly are protecting the oasis owned by the old couple, Vash is almost entirely absent. The plot instead focuses on giving us a better idea of who the insurance girls are. Vash even lampshades it at one point when he pops out to make a single assist.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Legato out to lunch in a bar or having a sandwich on a village plaza. In the manga, Knives is seen hanging around in bars within flashbacks.
• Diabolus ex Machina: The Gung-Ho-Guns try to pull this off.
• "Die Hard" on an X: The anime episode "B.D.N". The corresponding manga chapter is even called "Die Hards".
• Died Standing Up: In the anime Wolfwood dies kneeling before an alter.
• Dirty Cop: You could say the town Marshal in ''Badlands Rumble' except that he's with Gasback for a while now.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Amelia's mother in The Movie.
• The Ditz:
  • Vash, or so it seems...
  • Milly is Too Dumb to Fool.
• Does Not Like Men: Amelia in the Badlands Rumble movie, to the point of actually developing hives when touched by "idiot men". Also Meryl, at least at first.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Legato mind controls a kid to eat a hot dog, before holding her head to crush it, except this was apparently an illusion. Yeah. See the scene here and judge for yourself.
  • Knives is swimming in this, especially when interacting with his siblings, who provoke genuine-but-psychotic emotional reactions from him. And the forced absorptions that are too rapey for words, especially the attempt on Vash. And when Vash first catches up to him after the Fifth Moon Incident, he's asleep after multiple fusions, with enough pieces of his sisters lying around not yet fully dissolved into his body that it looks distinctly like the aftermath of an incestuous orgy...
  • Also, his Full-Frontal Assault on Vash in the manga looks very much like a rape scene, complete with helpless crying and an involuntary erection (which can happen to men who are raped anally).
• Dramatic Wind: Occasionally when Vash steps up.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Early in the anime, Vash goes to a town and comes across a famous gunsmith who had become nothing more than an alcoholic. He had lost all desire to make/fix guns after his wife and daughter were shot during a bank robbery… by a gun that he had made, due to their town having no sheriff. By the end of the episode, everyone in town bands together again to drive out the bandit gang, and the gunsmith has decided to stop drinking.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
  • In the English dub of Episode 5, Vash makes Monica back off by saying "Until I find that man you're after, I have to keep moving!" While this line is technically correct if you look at it in light of the entire series, it makes no sense in its immediate context, considering he really is the bountyhead they're after. The original line, "Until I see him again…", drives the point home much better.
  • In the original version, Vash rejects Rai-Dei's challenge on the saying he cannot read the kanji on his letter. For some reason, the European Spanish dub arbitrarily changes it to Vash saying that he cannot read, period, contradicting all the other instances in which he is shown reading. Of course, Vash being Vash, this might be interpreted as him simply making a goofy joke or saying in a funny way that he cannot read kanji.
• The Dying Walk: In the anime, Wolfwood is mortally wounded and after delivering a friendly last piece of advice to Vash, walks away, finds his way to the local church, pours his heart out, and then dies.
• Dysfunction Junction: Oh boy...
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few episodes emphasize Vashs' Obfuscating Stupidity such that there was still an ongoing question if it is an act or he is really just a Lethal Klutz. He doesn't even fire his gun until the 5th episode, by which proves he could be exceptionally lethal if he desired.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Both versions, particularly the manga.
• Earth That Was: In the anime it is implied Earth is no longer habitable after its resources were consumed, the SEEDS fleet being a last-ditch measure to preserve humanity. In the manga it appears the introduction of Plants prevented a global collapse.
• Enfant Terrible: Young Knives.
  • Zazie in the anime.
• Environmental Symbolism: It was once stated that everyone in a town had become as emotionally dried up as the environment.
• Entitled Bastard: There are bad guys Vash insists on saving who then live to continue being bad guys. This is what drives most of the plot in Badlands Rumble, where saving the bank robber Gasback means Vash has to deal with the continued fallout 20 years later.
• Mr. Fanservice: A few characters fit this trope, but Wolfwood is practically the archetype. Too bad his only mate is an inflatable doll, as the gag covers suggest. In the anime, Wolfwood hooked up with Milly right before he died.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Neon sticks to what he says and really likes it when someone "sparkles" brightly. He outright refuses to kill Vash despite pretty much winning a duel they had. He even helps stop the massacre he started because he agreed to do whatever Vash said if Vash won their duel.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Legato could make it happen. Then again, he seems to have a crush on Knives.
• Everyone Is Armed: Hint — the planet is named "Gunsmoke".
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Knives to Vash, but Livio to Wolfwood might be a case if you believe Wolfwood can have an "evil counterpart".
  • For one rather confusing fight, there was Midvalley in his white suit and Wolfwood in his black, both kind of ambivalent but fighting like hell, with the whole 'wolf fangs' theme going. Manga only.
• Evil Gloating: The very minute Vash is trapped, assume this from the villain that's trapped him.
• Evil Virtues: Several of the bad guys, but Legato is especially noteworthy in that he is in many respects a genuinely brave, loyal, self-sacrificing man… who just so happens to be completely devoted to a genocidal maniac who wants to destroy humanity!
• Evolving Credits: Each episode's opening (except for episode 2) shows a couple of scenes from that episode.^* The 2000 North American release by Pioneer uses Ep.1's opening throughout, because it was the only one that had a "clean" version they could put translated credits on. Starting in episode 18, the wanted poster also changes to one warning people that Vash is coming.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Vash never hits a fatal spot, instead opting to hit areas like the shoulders and legs. Lampshaded in a fight in the manga: Vash is seen practicing his aim on a target board shaped like a person, but it seems he's unable to actually hit the vital spots. The villain of the chapter assumes that, because of this, he must be wounded. Turns out he was not only aiming for the non-vital spots, but he was actually able to hit those spots precisely multiple times in a row.
• Explosive Overclocking: Wolfwood after taking two vials of serum. He regenerates almost instantly from almost any wound, but burns out his life and dies shortly afterwards.
• Expy:
  • Knives has been accused of being a Vegeta Expy.
  • Monev the Gale is very intentionally a Venom expy.
  • The Tomas/Thomases look nearly identical to similar birds used for transport in the obscure OVA Dragon's Heaven. See for yourself.
  • Nightow has stated he is quite the fan of Leiji Matsumoto, and it shows with Elendira resembling Maetel, complete with briefcase. To make it more blatant, Elendira even cosplays Maetel on one of the gag covers. The kid who gives Livio his hat and cloak also resembles Tetsuro.
• Eye Scream: In the manga, when Vash snaps at Monev, he shoves his gun in Monev's right eye socket so hard the guy's eye apparently ruptures. Also, Zazie's flies crawl in and out of his eyes. Midvalley's horn playing also seems to make eyes bleed/explode, and he even (temporarily) blinds Wolfwood.
• The Faceless: Knives during most of the first Trigun manga and almost all the anime. Even when he does show up at the end of the first manga, much of his face is hidden by a mass of improbable curly hair — presumably because Nightow still wanted to conceal his resemblance to Vash.
• Face–Heel Turn: Many characters, out of sheer desperation, will suddenly pull a gun on the guy they were once chatting with just for the $$60 billion bounty.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Everything about Legato. Especially in the manga. *shiver*
  • Arguably, Vash, given that under that jacket he's covered head-to-toe in scars and is missing an arm.
  • Knives' Full-Frontal Assault.
• Fanservice: Lots of eye candy if you love big muscles. Or long legs. Or glowering.
• Fantastic Measurement System: Distances are measured in "iles" and "yarz", although it's never made clear whether those are actually miles and yards with letters removed and different spellings, or something different.^note  The manga is inconsistent on this, as Nightow sometimes used metric early on – the English translation adapts the fantastical units to standard Imperial ones, but keeps the metric ones as-is. Money is called "double dollars" ($$).
• Fantastic Firearms: Vash, and his brother, Knives, can fuse with the Phlebotinum power cells in their revolvers and transform their whole arm into a Wave-Motion Gun. When Vash manages to get ahold of Knive's revolver, he does this with both arms, The weapon is powerful enough that a beam from the planet's surface managed to punch a hole in the moon overhead.
• Fearful Symmetry:
  • Evil Counterpart Vash and Knives in the anime. Very strange and gratuitous because it's extremely unlikely Knives would have the same gunfighting training and practise as Vash, having just left Sealed Evil in a Can state and being secluded from the real world.
  • Averted in the manga: Vash wins by a split second… Then gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
• The Fettered: Vash. Source of his philosophical dispute with Wolfwood. Arguably the same with Knives; Knives is just much further on the other end of the scale.
• Fill It with Flowers: Being a desert planet, the setting touches on this a lot, but especially in the episode "Little Arcadia".
  • Rem explicitly wanted to see this happen.
• Freakiness Shame: Averted. Knives has people around him who think his freakiness is pretty damn awesome, but so does he. Meanwhile, Vash could do with someone thinking his wings are beautiful, but no one can actually bring themselves to say it; his wings freak them out way too much. In fairness, they are pretty terrifying wings. (Manga) Meryl is so badly traumatized by the situation in which she first sees them that she burrows into Milly's arms and screams the next time he reflexively puts up a feather to catch a bullet. 'Colorless Emotions' is a depressing chapter all round.
• Freudian Excuse: Most of the villains and even some of the 'good guys'.
• Friend or Foe?: The main conflict with Wolfwood in the manga.
• Friend to All Children:
  • Vash. Playing with children is one of his many activities whenever he stays in one place more than a few hours, and if he stays more than a few days the local kids will all consider him their personal minion.
  • Wolfwood doesn't play with them quite so much, but they're an even bigger part of his world.
• From Bad to Worse: Frequently. Also, the apocalypse kinda comes and goes during the manga. Story proceeds.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Knives, in manga Chapter 20 (the last of the original series).
• Funny Background Event: In The Movie there is a garbage can with shapely legs and fishnet stockings as a background character.

Tropes G-P

• Gallows Humour: The humour tied to Legato and Knives's insanity and to Vash goofing around in the most desperate circumstances gets particularly disturbing — so much that Nightow edited out some of the "offending" passages of the last three or four volumes, presumably under fandom pressure.
• Gecko Ending: The anime has this… sort of. It's an odd example, as Nightow was directly involved in the planning and many events play out as a dry-run of key thematic points the manga would get to years later.
• A Glass of Chianti: Knives in the anime.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Vash in "Diablo", the story where things get Darker and Edgier, as a sign of his Unstoppable Rage. In hindsight, also an early indication of how damn freaky his body is.
• The Gloves Come Off: Happens to Vash when he's forced to kill Legato in order to save Milly and Meryl. Unusually for the trope, the act itself is rather understated.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In the manga, Big Bad Knives Used to Be a Sweet Kid before discovering that The SEEDS Crew killed and dissected another member of his species. This makes him snap, hard, and begins his genocidal outlook.
• Gonk:
  • The vast majority of antagonist characters are this, if they're not Mr. Fanservice.
  • Also a lot of the background characters.
• Good Costume Switch: Livio.
• Good Feels Good:
  • Vash, obviously.
  • The series also underlines that, even though it may seem so, evil does NOT feel good – Legato is suicidal, Knives seems to be quickly going insane (even by his standards), Villainous Breakdowns abound, Wolfwood is terribly conflicted over his questionable actions, etc.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Wolfwood, Livio (in the manga), and Knives. Vash has the power but refuses.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Knives in the anime. Unlike in the manga, he remains crippled from Vash's attack at July until the very end of the series, forcing him to work indirectly through Legato and the Gung-ho Guns.
• Gratuitous English: Gunsmoke is an explicitly English-speaking world, so this abounds. Unfortunately, Nightow's English skills are less than perfect (and the anime had Engrish abound).
  • The second episode shows us a flier for a "BODYGARD" who is a "CREAT SHOOTER LIKE VASH THE STANPEAT".
  • There's also a sign that says "COFFE & RESTLANT!!" in Episode 5.
  • When Vash uses the computer in Episode 26, it says "Searth Target, All People Relate to Lem Sayblam".
  • In the manga, there's one instance where there's a container of salt labeled "solt".
  • The Quickdraw application in the eponymous episode is pretty legible, though. Maybe Wolfwood is just a better-than-average speller?
  • The whiskey labels are very faithful reproductions of actual brands… except for "Dim Deam", though that may be an intentional Brand X-ing of Jim Beam.
  • And of course, "LOVE AND PEASU!"
• Gratuitous Foreign Language:
  • Vash occasionally utters a few words in French, crying for his "maman" and greeting his food with "Bonjour! Je t'aime!". The first time, he then questions why the hell he's speaking French.^note  Hilarious in Hindsight as Masaya Onosaka was later cast as France in Hetalia: Axis Powers.
    • "Danke, danke!"
  • In the anime, Rai-Dei presents him with a formal Japanese challenge… whereupon Vash says he can't understand a word of it.^note  The challenge, written on a card, is "Shi-Ai", which Rai-Dei translates (incorrectly) as "fight to the death". The phrase literally means "testing by meeting" and is used to refer to a contest.
• Groin Attack: Episode 19 had Meryl delivering a swift groin kick to a random Mook who got close to her after hearing something about a typhoon (which was possibly a reference to Vash).
  • Amelia delivers a few savage groin kicks of her own in Badlands Rumble.
• Gun Fu: Vash vs. Knives in the anime and Wolfwood vs. Midvalley in the manga seem lifted directly from a John Woo flick.
• Gut Punch: Legato's introduction. Everything's fine and dandy, then Legato fakes snapping the neck of a child, threatens to Vash that he will slaughter the entire town he's in, and leaves laughing.
• The Gunslinger: Vash most notably. But several characters could qualify.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Vash's gold hair matches his heart. Oh-so-averted with Knives.
• Handy Feet: A kidnapped and hand tied Meryl frees herself by firing Milly's stungun with her feet.
• Harmful Healing: Similar to the Naruto example, members of the Eye of Michael in the manga are able to use special vials to regenerate injuries, but these also cause rapid aging. This is the reason why Wolfwood appears to be in his thirties despite only being in his late-teens, and ultimately he ends up overdosing to defeat Livio and Razlo and dying.
• The Heartless: The manga heavily implies that Knives and to a lesser extent Legato function symbolically as this.
• Heel–Face Turn: After the death of Wolfwood, Livio joins the heroes.
• Here We Go Again!: The manga ends with everyone once again chasing after Vash. And he couldn't be happier.
• Heroes Gone Fishing: Often involves donuts and/or noodles.
• Heroic BSoD: Once or twice with Vash in the anime. Repeatedly in the manga, and not just with him.
• Hidden Eyes: The manga contains quite a few variations on this, including Scary Shiny Glasses. The latter is standard in the anime when Vash finally gets serious.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: In the last volume of the manga, right before he can be killed, Vash hesitates, Legato starts to piss off and demands Vash to kill him otherwise Livio will be killed by Elendira. Livio survives.
• Hive Mind: Apparently kinda-sorta the case with the bulb plants, even before Knives starts subsuming them into himself. In the manga also to some degree the case of the sand worms, whose psychic network extends over most of the planet's native life and learns how to invest itself in a human vessel, giving Knives the Gung-Ho Gun 'Zazie the Beast'. They have some kind of alliance with him against the human invaders, although this is never properly explored.
• Hope Spot: In episode 21 of the anime, Vash looks like he's about to revive a wounded plant and save Sky City… when Hoppered regains consciousness and destroys the plant with a suicidal Last Breath Bullet.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Being nearly two feet taller than Meryl, Vash really has to bow down when he wants to hug her. That or he hoists her up.
• Human Popsicle: The entire original generation of humans on Gunsmoke. The "Old Men" in Sky City are still held in suspended animation for reasons unexplained.
• Humans Are Bastards: The root of the problem.
• Humans Are Flawed: The evolution of the former problem. Best exemplified by the other SEEDS colonies in the manga, which in the 150 year-or-so period Gunsmoke has existed has successfully colonized planets before going to war with each other; made peace after the fact so they could become the Earth Federation which blurs the line between Galactic Superpower and Galactic Conqueror; recognized the rights of independent Plants and integrated them into proper society, so much so that now they're subject to this exact trope, and while they aren't psychopaths like Knives, they are not as saintly as Vash either, and will shoot someone in the back for the greater good. Finally, while they end the series with coming to the aid of the lost ships and their descendants on Gunsmoke, it becomes abundantly clear that they are not working alongside the planet's local governments, and some of their soldiers even show prejudice towards the "natives" who don't trust them very much either.
• Hunk: Livio, and the anime version of Wolfwood.
• I Have Many Names:
  • Vash only ever gives "Vash" if actually pressed into introducing himself^* (except that one time when he met Wolfwood and introduced himself as "Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidaboheretz Gumbigobella Blue Stradivari Talentrento Pierre André Charton-Haymoss Ivanovichi Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser the Third") but he's also "The Stampede", "The Humanoid Typhoon", "The Demon of July", "The Walking Disaster", "God's Armed Arm", "The First Human Act of God", and Spikey/Needle-Noggin/Broom-head.
  • Oh, and "Eriks" that one time when he finally gave up.
  • Nicholas D. Wolfwood is also Nicholas the Punisher. And Chapel.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight:
  • Vash does this pretty much every time he meets Knives in the manga.
    • From Knives's perspective, he must be the one doing it to Vash, which brings once again the question of whether the twins are by "nature" peace-loving or mindlessly violent.
  • Given their silent sisters appear to all be sweethearts, albeit easily influenced, Vash appears to have a leg up in this argument. Chronica, meanwhile, has a bit of a temper and apparently a rather military mindset, vaguely like a sane Knives, while Domina is sweet and spunky.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Descartes suffers this fate in the manga, courtesy of Grey the Nine-Lives. Also, Elendira and Vash in his final confrontation with Knives in the manga.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Rai-Dei the Blade can block bullets.
• Important Haircut: The first haircuts that the young Vash and Knives receive in episode 17. Even more of an example of this trope than in most other anime, as it's a major defining character moment for both of them (and also serving to pinpoint the moment of Knives's Start of Darkness).
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Also note that in the Trigun verse, nothing is cooler than a coat with the bottom part torn apart by dozens and dozens of bullets. With Scary Shiny Glasses!
• Impossible Insurance: By the final part of the series, the Bernardelli Insurance Company kills the Running Gag (and the reason Millie and Meryl follow him) of people coming out of the woodwork doing their damnedest to get Vash for his sixty-billion double-dollar bounty and disregarding the destruction they leave behind by using its massive political capital to remove said bounty and legally declare him a "walking Act Of God", meaning that from that point onward damages that involve him in any way, shape or form will not be paid by their insurance policies.
• Improbable Aiming Skills:
  • A must for any Martial Pacifist operating as a gunslinger. Vash almost invariably hits what he aims at, no matter how absurd the shot, though a combination of rigorous training and superhuman potential count for a lot. On one occasion a terrible hangover made him reflexively hit all the targets in a quickdraw tournament he'd been forced into, when he'd meant to miss some.
  • In the same episode, he throws pebbles from the sidelines to knock bullets askew and make sure all wounds are nonfatal during other people's duels. And moves so fast no one notices. Kind of disappointing after that that he was never reduced to 'throwing stones' as a combat technique.
  • In another, he concusses an opponent by flinging the bullets out the back of his gun, and blocks the hammer of another guy's gun with the bubblegum he had been chewing, apparently at range.
  • On the other hand, on one occasion his response to an ambush netted one accidental potentially-fatal blow somewhere on the abdomen, so he interrupts his role as John McClane in a "Die Hard" on an X episode to staunch the enemy's bleeding in alarm, to the consternation of his young ally. So he's not infallible or anything.
• Improbable Weapon User: Played straight with Midvalley, whose saxophone is actually pretty sinister in the manga. Also, the deadliness of crosses is directly proportional to their size.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Legato is this way towards Knives. Especially in the manga.
• Innocently Insensitive: In Love and Peace, Stefany brags to her kidnappers that if it's "pocket money" they want, then her father will have no trouble paying them. Knowing the kidnappers actually want revenge for how her father killed their parents, one of them is so incensed by the statement that they threaten to kill her right then and there.
• Instant Dogend: Wolfwood's cigarettes. Actually, this series doesn't have a "normal" cigarette to be seen.
• Instrument of Murder: Midvalley's saxophone.
• Insult Backfire: "Knives, you're inhuman!" and "Knives, you calamity!" Also, go ahead and try to insult Legato, we'll wait for you.
• It's Personal: Vash's conflict with Knives got personal about two seconds after it began.
  • His feud with Legato soon becomes this too, with Vash announcing loudly "From now on, I'm hunting YOU!"
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Nicholas D. Wolfwood. The manga never quite explains why his True Companions inflict it upon themselves to put up with him in the first place, knowing that he expresses his affection by distributing humiliating nicknames ("Tongari/Spikey", "big girl", "small girl", "crybaby Livio"), "playful" insults, and various blows. Plus, his manga version is particularly macho and even tries to protect Milly from Midvalley... by pretending he'll shoot her if she doesn't leave immediately, then punching her in the stomach to knock her out (he gets booed by onlookers). Borders on Values Dissonance when his mistreatment of Vash is played for fun.
  • From the anime: Dying Wolfwood goes for a cigarette and remembers a scene from Ep.11:
    Milly (flashback): "It's bad for the baby, dear!" (It Makes Sense in Context).
    Wolfwood (present): "I'm sorry, honey."
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Vash, surprisingly, does this to Monev the Gale after shooting him in the face while in an Unstoppable Rage. Vash walks slowly up to Monev, lamenting over how many people have died and when Monev expresses his lack of caring, gets a boot to the face, showing us just how pissed off Vash is.
• Klingon Promotion: How Wolfwood got into the Gung-Ho Guns in the manga back story. Shot his teacher, Chapel, in the back and used the contractual auto-replace feature to step in as the new Chapel.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Knives is a big brother complex gone horribly wrong. He's pretty much of a Yandere over Vash, with huge emphasis on the "Yan". Also, Knives basically decided he was the older twin (there's no proof he is or if Plants even work that way) and it's up for debate which of them is the more childish.
• Lactose over Liquor: Parodied when Meryl orders a banana sundae and Millie orders a fancy pastry with tea, causing the bartender to complain about them doing the gag wrong.
• Large Ham: This is to be expected in a series that revolves around absurdly huge guns.
  • Several of the series villains, especially filler baddies in the anime, are hams.
    • This series seems, for the most part, to have an inverse relationship between how over-the-top a villain acts and how powerful they are. Monev and E.G. Mine, the weakest of the Gung-Ho Guns, are also the hammiest. Knives is usually very subdued, but can get like this if Vash sets him off.
  • Of the good(-ish) guys, Razlo and Wolfwood get pretty hammy.
    • Vash too, albeit in quite a different style. Kaite calls him on it during the sandsteamer ordeal.
• Leg Cannon: Grey the Ninelives has a rocket launcher in its thigh that it uses to destroy its target after its upper half is destroyed.
• Legendary Impostor: It's common for minor thieves and criminals to attempt to claim to be Vash so they can reap the benefits of his fearsome reputation, such as the locals being too terrified to resist their robbery attempts. It's amazing how often Vash is around the metaphorical corner when they try this.
• Like Brother and Sister: Vash and Meryl are like this in the manga (less so in the anime), though there's still enough material for shippers to use.
• Living Battery: All Plants are this.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: Vash doesn't age and has a lot of angst, but he's also a goof who spends his time helping the people of Gunsmoke. He doesn't like outliving people and the alienating effect it has, but there are definitely a lot of things that bother him more, and on the whole it's an advantage.
• Love Triangle:
  • One official. Sorta. Legato and Elendira both like Knives. He hates them both, of course. Very uncompromising racist.
  • Also there's Brad likes Jessica and Jessica likes Vash and Vash's opinion on the matter is, "Can't we just pretend you're still five like you were last time I saw you?"
• The Magnificent: Most major characters have one of these. Whether the name was earned by exploits or assigned as part of Theme Naming by employers etc. seems to vary. At least one was inherited via Klingon Promotion.
  • Meryl and Milly shake up the trend by having nommes de guerre that come before their proper names and do not involve prepositions.^note  Stun-Gun Milly and Derringer Meryl, in case you're interested. They share with Nicholas the Punisher the convention of being named after your weapon.
  • Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon. Destroyer of July. God's Right Hand of Destruction.
  • ALL the Gun-ho Guns have these. Unclear whether this is Knives's taste or Legato's, considering the level of delegation and that neither of them has one.
    • Monev the Gale.
    • Nicholas the Punisher. (Not that one.)
    • Midvalley the Hornfreak.
    • Chapel the Evergreen has great rhythm but doesn't do the scary thing that well, either.
    • Livio the Double Fang and Razlo the Tri-Punisher of Death help make up the Eye of Michael's scary name quotient.
    • Elendria the Crimson Nail.
• Manly Tears: Vash, Wolfwood; (manga only) Knives, Legato, Livio.
• Martial Pacifist: Deconstructed; Being a peace loving fighter, Vash's method makes him prone to a wide array of injuries due to many opponents willing to take advantage of his unwillingness to kill. Sure at the start of the series he managed with minimal injuries, but against the Gung-Ho-Guns, people who were tailor made to fight him and make him suffer, it ends up causing no end of problems. Culminating in his "fight" with Legato who uses his mind control powers to take hostages (Meryl and Milly in the anime, Livio in the manga) and put Vash in a no-win position where someone had to die. Ultimately Vash is forced to take Legato's life to save his friends.
• Maybe Ever After:
  • In the manga, after gradually becoming closer to each other and reuniting, Meryl eventually cries and hugs Vash before he goes off to battle Knives. He does something akin to blowing kisses by kissing his knuckles, prompting her to kiss hers and pressing theirs together. Later, after coming back to the ship and before going to finally finish Knives off once and for all, Vash uncharacteristically makes a promise he has never made before: a promise to come back to Meryl and asks her to please wait for him. After this, the relationship is completely left hanging as the Here We Go Again! ending six months afterward comes in to play, and no further hints of a relationship are given.
  • In the anime, while things are more one-sided, Milly tells a crying Meryl to tell Vash about her feelings when he comes back from his confrontation with Knives. At the end of the anime, we see Meryl saying that Vash wouldn't keep a good woman like her waiting, and Vash does come back to Meryl and Milly at the very end, leaving us to guess what happens next for the two.
• Mayfly–December Romance:
  • Anyone Vash could hypothetically hook up with would be about 150 years younger than him, and he'd still probably outlive them.^note  Except his twin brother, and potentially that plant woman Chronica in the manga. A major factor in his status as Chaste Hero, since he's the emotional type.
  • Applies to Knives too, except he really doesn't care.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Rem's name is written in katakana, but if put into kanji it can be translated to English as "the world", depending on the context. Knives somehow acquired, as an adorable child, a name much more suited to his future as a homicidal maniac.
  • Legato named himself. Presumably he meant something by it. It will forever be a mystery what. (Legato is a musical term meaning something like "played smoothly and connected"; the mystery lies in exactly why he felt it was appropriate, or if he just liked the sound of it).
  • The planet's names themselves. While it's generally referred to as "Gunsmoke" in promotional materials (never named in the anime), a name given in the manga is "No Man's Land". For a pure desert planet that's essentially the Wild West in Space, they fit.
• Mexican Standoff: Happens a few times throughout the anime and manga, but by far the most over-the-top one occurs in Volume 5 of Maximum. Those involved include Wolfwood, Zazie, Hopperd, Legato, and Vash… sort of. Here's what happens — Wolfwood has guns trained on Legato and Zazie. Zazie has guns on Legato and Wolfwood. Hopperd is crippled and is trying to fire on Legato. Legato is holding back Hopperd with his powers while also trying to contain Vash. Vash's involvement is debatable, as he's simply losing control of his Angel powers and trying not to destroy everyone. The standoff is broken by (of all people) Meryl leaping up from beneath Vash and taking a shot at Legato. Guns go off all over the place, but the only one who dies is Hopperd.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • A bit of a running gag early in the anime. Due to there being no proper pictures of Vash, just a vague description, people with a red coat, blond hair, and a big weapon become mistaken for Vash. It gets to the point that two bounty hunters mistake each other for Vash.
  • Averted in the manga, where there is explicitly a photo on his wanted poster.
• The Mob Boss Is Scarier: A non crime case. In the anime, when Vash defeats Caine and offers him a chance to surrender, Caine promptly shoots himself rather than suffer Knives' wrath for failing. This also seems to be affecting Midvalley, who outright says that he has no choice but to kill or be killed in his fight with Vash.
• The "Mom" Voice: Rem Saverem takes it upon herself to serve as a mother figure to Vash and Knives when they emerge from the Plant about the Project Seed ship. She tended to dote on Vash more, seeing him as the more naive and innocent of the pair, and thus more in need of looking after, sometimes gently teasing him for being a "baby". Vash frequently reflects on the things she used to tell him, with her Last Words to him, right before she leaves to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, to tell him, "Take care of Knives."
• Moral Event Horizon: Discussed in-universe by multiple characters.
  • Vash doesn't believe in it, claiming that no one is beyond redemption. He got this from Rem, who often talked about how anyone can reinvent themselves, because the future is open.
  • Wolfwood does believe in it, and thinks he crossed it long ago.
  • Legato discusses it in his typical manipulative nihilist way.
    "So many people have died. I've caused so much suffering. A being like myself shouldn't be allowed to live."
• More Dakka: Another hallmark of this series.
  • Within the first three minutes of the first episode of the anime, an entire building is blown to pieces by Descartes and his mooks' gunfire. This sets the tone for the entire show.
  • Every member of the Eye Of Michael lives and breathes this.
  • So does Monev, although it doesn't end well for him.
  • In the first story after the Fifth Moon Incident, Vash and Wolfwood go to rescue Lina from some bandits who have holed up in a disused building. Literally hundreds of guns are trained on them. The bandit leader gives the order to fire and… cut to the building reduced to rubble and Lina safe.
• Mordor: Pretty much everywhere! Except geo-plant areas.
• The Most Wanted: Vash is the Most Wanted Man in his planet Gunsmoke, known as "The Humanoid Typhoon" for making great havok and destruction everytime he goes to a city, at the point of getting a Price on Their Head with the ridiculous price of $$60,000,000,000.
• The Movie: Got one a dozen years after the anime ended (three years after the manga ended).
• Mook Horror Show:
  • Vash sometimes plays up the horror factor that his reputation gives him, since it gets him out of fights and he actually has a strict moral code against killing. He's done the sneak-around-and-pick-your-dudes-off thing and the Implacable Man advance-while-singing-a-terrifying-ditty-about-genocide thing.
  • A note: Singing in Ep.19/TriMax Vol.1 didn't work.
    • Further note: Kicking the RPG fired by a terrified mook into the ceiling after singing that did work.
  • Monev the Gale found out the hard way how scary a genuinely angry Vash can be when Monev gunned down a bunch of innocent civilians. He compared Vash's Glowing Eyes of Doom to the eyes of the devil himself. Note that he had never actually met his boss.
• Mugged for Disguise: One of Leonof's puppets does this to poor Jessica in the anime, leaving her Bound and Gagged on the floor after stealing her clothes.
• Murder by Inaction: In the anime, Legato accuses Vash of doing this every time he's refused to kill someone who went on to murder innocents. "You think you didn't kill them just because you personally didn't pull the trigger?"
• Murder, Inc.: The Eye of Michael. Bonus points for the Ancient Conspiracy undertones.
• Must Make Amends: In the manga, Young Vash and Knives discover that before they were born, the SEEDS crew encountered another sentient plant like them, who they named Tessla… and the crew in their curiosity performed endless experiments on her, and the stress of it killed her. They also learned that their surrogate mother was one of the researchers. After learning the truth, Knives fell into a coma and Vash simply refused to eat. In an attempt to make him eat, Rem started to peel an apple… and Vash leapt for the knife in what was probably a suicide attempt, but ended up stabbing Rem in the side when she put up a struggle. At first he seemed relieved but quickly started panicking and put her to bed in a med-birth and patched her up.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Legato uses his own death to psychologically torture Vash. It worked.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • Millions Knives.
  • Legato Bluesummers, on the other hand, just carries an air of faint menace.
  • Most of Vash's nicknames count: the Humanoid Typhoon, the Demon of July, the First Human Act of God, etc. etc.
• Neck Lift: Monev the Gale bursts into the jail Vash is imprisoned in and pins him to the wall by grabbing his neck and lifting him, ready to follow-up with a close and highly personal Gatling barrage, but luckily his killing move is interrupted.
• Nemesis Weapon: As shown in a flashback in the anime, after wrecking a fleet of Colony Ships, Knives uses some of the ships' remains to make a pair of pistols which, if used by one of his race, can transform into weapons of mass destruction called "Angel Arms". He gives one of the guns to Vash, still thinking he can bring his good twin around. It becomes Vash's weapon of choice, with its twin only appearing in the finale.
• Never Found the Body: After the Fifth Moon Incident, Wolfwood and Meryl separately use this as justification in their belief that Vash survived. They're right.
  • In the movie after Vash gets shot by one of Gasback's henchman. However, nobody in the audience would believe it, given how the manga ends.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Several characters, but Legato practically defines the trope.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Nightow's official genre classification (see the caption to the page image). Also, some of the character designs. Rai-Dei is a Cowboy Samurai Assassin on Steampunk Rocket Skates! In space!
• Nonchalant Dodge: Vash does this a lot.
• No Romantic Resolution: In the anime, the relationship between Meryl and Vash is left hanging.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Knives and Legato both try to invoke this on Vash without much success… until Vash kills Legato; at that point, he (temporarily) feels he no longer has any right to face Knives.
  • In Badlands Rumble, Amelia has a minor Heroic BSoD when she realizes that her indifference to possibly shooting the plant while chasing revenge against Gasback meant that she was just like him.
• Nun Too Holy: Wolfwood is the male version, obviously.
  Vash: What the hell kind of churchman are you, anyway?!
  • The most extreme interpretation of his position in the anime is, as described on the main Nun Too Holy page, Knives priest. The least extreme is assassin with a church front.
• Oedipus Complex:
  • Both in the manga and in the anime, Nicholas D. Wolfwood has a bad complex towards his tyrannical mentor/father figure. No mothers need apply.
  • On the other hand, Vash had only a foster mother, and has been accused of spending way too much time thinking about her.
• Omake: The gag covers, and they're doozies. Also, the end-of-volume pages involving Super-Deformed Nightow prancing around in near-insanity.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Legato wants to witness and be part of The End of the World as We Know It because he feels his existence is meaningless. Actually creepier than Knives, who (at least in the manga) has actual motivations and intends to save his species… sort of. The world would be way scarier if Legato was the Big Bad instead of a young creep psychologically dependent on someone stronger than him.
• Once an Episode: Appearances from Kuroneko-sama in the anime.
• One-Winged Angel: Manga only, but it was pretty awesome.
• Only a Lighter: The third episode sees an outlaw boss Dual Wielding long-barrel revolvers that are actually matching cigarette lighters. This Harmless Villain with a Slasher Smile plots a bank heist posing as Vash.
• Only Six Faces:
  • All the non-Gonk characters must have only four faces or something. This happens so much in Nightow's work that most Blood Blockade Battlefront characters look like Trigun expies. Vash's face must be the most overused one — Livio even looks like Vash/Knives with a fancy tattoo. Even Chronica sort of looks like them.
  • Anime Vash and Knives have moderately different coloring. Some of the manga scenes are almost incomprehensible at first or second look, especially if both of them are in it and there are a lot of sound effects. This looks intentional in the flashback to the twins as kids — wow, can't even tell which one said what, they're joined at the hip! — but problematic later.
• Overly Long Name:
  • Vash's long-winded introduction to Wolfwood includes his fake name "Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III".
  • Wolfwood's middle name (according to the creator at least) is "Dokonokuminomonjawaresumakinishiteshizumetarokakora", which translates as a dig at his constant smoking.
• Pacifism Backfire: A pretty hefty amount of In-Universe angst and (in and out-of-universe) arguing is how much personal sacrifice and Crazy Enough to Work plans Vash has to go through for his pacifist calling (which is noble, but definitely clashing with the Crapsack World, "anybody with a gun and a desperate need for money (which is everybody on the planet) is out to get Vash's bounty" setting), especially when the Gung-Ho Guns and Knives come calling and the fact Vash can't bring himself to even give them something slightly greater than flesh wounds allows them to throw their contempt for Vash's beliefs to his face via massive slaughters.
• Pacifism Breaking Point: Vash is known for both his tremendous gun skills and for being a Badass Pacifist who never tries to kill the people who are out for his head. However, his pacifism doesn't always work out in his favor, due to all of the collateral damage caused by others' pursuit of him and attracting more attention and potential enemies. He still insists on sticking by his pacifist ways, but despite it all, Legato Bluesummers forces a scenario where Vash has to shoot and kill Legato in order to save Meryl and Milly, with Legato using his string powers to invoke Suicide by Cop, which leads to Vash suffering a big Heroic BSoD as Legato intended. However, he eventually recovers and even manages to successfully defeat the Big Bad, Millions Knives, without killing him.
• Pacifism Is Cowardice: A recurring argument throughout the series is how much of Vash's pacifism^note he's willing to shoot his gun, but extremely reluctant to shoot to kill, deciding instead to use crazy skill shots and mind games to make threats back off is just plain cowardice, especially when it comes to fighting Knives and the Gung-Ho Guns, who have made it perfectly clear that they absolutely will not stop until they are either dead or have killed all of the humans on Planet Gunsmoke (in actuality, their true goal is to break Vash). This is an argument that occasionally brings Vash and Nicholas D. Wolfwood (The Lancer of the protagonists) to blows.
• Pals with Jesus: Though Vash and (especially) Knives are often referred to as "HIM" by various characters in the manga.
  • In the anime, Meryl busts out a much less flattering "that guy" in reference to Vash.
• Papa Wolf: Wolfwood, for any child he happens to encounter at all. Made his anime killing of Zazie all the more shocking (and even more of a gesture of attachment to Vash, but Vash wasn't really in a state to appreciate that).
• Parental Abandonment: Most of the cast are either abandoned or orphaned; some even killed a father figure or mother figure as a result of abuse or insanity...
• Pastel-Chalked Freeze Frame: Wolfwood in "Quick Draw" right after he turns around screaming with Guns Akimbo. It's the only one in the entire anime. He even provides the page image.
• Person of Mass Destruction:
  • Vash is classified as a Human Act of God for insurance purposes. For some reason this also causes the bounty to be taken off his head. Gunsmoke must have some weird tort law.
  • And Knives, of course. Shooter of satellites and spaceships. Bringer of the Apocalypse. Though he would probably object to being called a "person".
• Pillow Pregnancy: In anime Ep.11, Milly tries to hide a slave-girl who is being chased by having her cling to her belly under her coat, then pretending she is pregnant and Wolfwood is the dad.
• Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: When Rem makes her Heroic Sacrifice to save Vash, she yells something at him that is cut off by the blast doors closing. Vash still takes this "something" as gospel some twenty years later. ^note  The English dub of the anime translates this as "Take care of Knives!", but in Japanese the verb is missing – all we hear is "Knives wo…" and then silence. The manga doesn't even give that much; everything Rem says after "Vash…" is muffled.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: In the anime, the final battle with Knives is this. In contrast to Vash's battle with Legato, which is extremely tense and deeply interrogates the series' Central Themes, Vash's fight with Knives takes on a more meditative tone, with little to no music and frequent interruptions by flashbacks to Vash and Knives' history together.
• Power Gives You Wings: Creepy ones. And only the twins.
• Price on Their Head: Vash has $$60,000,000,000 on his head for the destruction of a city. Up until the Bernadelli Insurance Corporation declares him a "human act of God".
• Professional Killer: The Eye of Michael are a ring of the planet's scariest assassins with a front as a respectable church.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Meryl and Vash are Like Brother and Sister in the original manga. In the anime, by contrast, there's a distinct romantic subtext (at least from Meryl's end). A concise example of the difference is in the scene where Meryl and Milly see Vash shirtless and he says the sight of him would make girls run away – in the anime, she blushes and grows flustered, insisting that women (read: she) wouldn't run; in the manga, she basically rolls her eyes and continues with the matter at hand.
• Psycho for Hire:
  • Legato and the Gung-Ho Guns.
  • There are also the Eye of Michael, who have slots in the Guns as an organization instead of individuals. Of course, even they as high-end assassins are less than qualified as simple professionals, since there was a plant-worshipping cult involved in their evolution as an organization.
• Psycho Supporter: Legato, especially in the manga.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Legato, Knives and Wolfwood, occasionally. Lazlo, ALL. THE. TIME!!

Tropes Q-Z

• Razor Wings: One of Knives' powers is part of his body turning into feathers which are monomolecular blades.
• Really 700 Years Old: Interestingly, some other characters are Younger Than They Look in the manga.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Knives, Legato, and (manga) Wolfwood to Vash. Vash to Knives in the manga.
• Reckless Pacifist: Vash. He'll save everyone's lives if at all possible (and sometimes even if it's not), but don't expect there to not be massive collateral damage as a result.
• Recurring Extra: Kuroneko-sama.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Vash is the blue to Wolfwood's red. Legato is the blue to Vash's red.
  • Vash vs. Knives is more complex, as Knives is the more cerebral of the two but also the more impulsive and violent.
  • Meryl and Milly play both roles depending on the situation. Meryl is (usually) more hotheaded but less impulsive, yet Milly often has to talk her down.
• The Reveal: Vash is an Artificial Human! Knives is his Evil Twin! The Gung-ho Guns' coins are meant to activate a device that de-powers Legato!
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: When La Résistance is made out of trauma-fueled genocidal psychos and a massively oppressed species.
• Revolver Cylinder Spin: When Vash goes to finally take down Gosef Nebaska in "Hard Puncher". He puts his last bullet in the cylinder and spins it before clicking it back into his gun and, of course, manages to fire it from the chamber on the first go.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Most characters actually use machine guns or semiautomatics. Vash, however, uses an ancient custom six-shooter as his primary weapon… and is able to beat nearly everyone with it.
• Rule of Cool: As you can probably guess from every other trope on this page, the series runs on this.
  • Deep Space Planet Future Western Gun Action!! Also see Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot.
  • In the third episode of the anime, Vash somehow manages to deflect machine-gun fire using only a garbage-can lid. Which he'd previously been wearing as a hat.
• Rule of Funny: Right now, someone is talking to his donut. In Gratuitous French.
• Schizo Tech: Justified by the After the End setting. Most tech used by ordinary people is early-1900's at best – there's electric lights, automobiles, and trains but not planes – however, there are examples here and there of the more advanced "Lost Technology" known to the original generation who survived the Great Fall (though the ability to create that stuff died when Knives slaughtered the Project SEEDS crew). Then of course there are the Plants, which are even more advanced than that, and are the literal lifeblood of the human race; almost everything people need to survive comes from them.
  • The economic system of Gunsmoke is also pretty schizo. The Plants seem to be, with rare exceptions, municipally owned, but everything else is libertarian in the extreme. This can be explained by this world running on Western movie tropes rather than anything logical for the situation. ^{Fan Wank -} There are presumably a variety of quasi-socialist arrangements to allow the plant-manufactured foodstuffs and things to be disseminated to the public and from there bought and sold, although probably some places are outright capital-feudalist about it and the public essentially belongs to whoever controls the plant in exchange for their lives, and therefore it all comes down to rationing. Computers and miniaturized tech seem to have been mostly and most visibly lost. On a world of quartz this may seem odd, but many of the elements required, in Real Life, to get silicon pure enough for chips would be available only via plant manufacture. On the other hand, all that red sand? Iron is to be had far more conventionally.
• Sdrawkcab Name:
  • Monev the Gale's name backwards is Venom, a Shout-Out along with his costume to the Marvel character.
  • And an odd musical example, as the outro to commercial and intro from commercial are mirrored versions of the same guitar riff.
• Shirtless Scene: Vash; occasionally Livio, Wolfwood and nekkid!Knives.
• Shout-Out: Several.
  • The sandworms, among others, are an obvious allusion to Dune.
  • The name "Wolfwood" (Urufuudo) is an allusion to a Japanese band called "The Ulfuls" (Urufuuruzu) and the character in question is designed after their singer.
  • Many to American popular culture. Includes such gems as "double dollars", country-style music, and countless loans from western movies and American comics, noticeable both in plot elements and graphic references.
  • Often in chapter titles, such as the one to Quentin Tarantino in the chapter "Reservoir Dogs."
  • Tessla probably alludes to a certain Serbian-American inventor and engineer, himself a glorious Steampunk hero (click if you dare).
  • The Gun Fu battles may be shoutouts to John Woo.
  • Monev's name. See above.
  • Vash seems to be riding a wheeled Vanship during the trailer for Badlands Rumble.
  • An internal shout-out to the mangaka appears in Badlands Rumble when Vash uses a pole bearing several street signs to deflect bullets - one sign is for "Nightow Street".
  • One crowd shot in Badlands Rumble features what appears to be a gonk droid, or at least someone cosplaying as one.
  • At the end of Trigun Maximum, Vash says he wants to wear fake teeth and end his sentences with "Zansu".
  • In one of the omake for the manga, Nightow is shown dressed as Link and holding a triforce.
  • One of the omake depicts Nightow playing a Harvest Moon game.
  • The Thomases seem to be a nod to the OVA Dragon's Heaven, see above.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Vash to Knives in the manga, several times but especially when he confronts him at the end of Trigun Maximum. A fan translation had him say "You're a wimp with a bulldozer" while the official translation rang, "You, by your own efforts, have become a mindless bulldier who chases weaklings."
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Knives to Vash in the manga, multiple times, with some "The Reason You Suck" Speech thrown into the mix.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The entire point of Vash vs. Knives. They are twins who are exact opposites in worldview.
• Single-Biome Planet: Although, with the twin-suns, is it any surprise it's a desert world?
• Slap Yourself Awake: In a variant, Vash concentrates on the pain from his previously injured finger to counteract a villain who uses hypnosis to paralyze people.
• Slasher Smile:
  • Knives; Legato; manga Wolfwood; Livio; Lazlo; Elendira.
  • Little Vash between when he tries to kill himself and when he decides to save Rem.
• Sleeper Starship: Project SEEDS consisted of millions of humans on ice in thousands of ships, while a small awake crew looked for a planet to settle. Most of them were killed when Knives crashed the fleet into Gunsmoke.
• Slouch of Villainy: Manga Knives, generally with a hand over his eyes of forehead to show he's Full of Upset.
• Smoking Barrel Blowout: Wolfwood likes to do this. Vash does it occasionally too.
• Space Western: And the soundtrack reflects this extremely well.
• Spell My Name With An S: The anime and manga were translated years apart by completely different teams. It's honestly surprising there aren't more discrepancies, and the ones that do exist mostly come down to how to transliterate kana.
  • The most notable & controversial one crops up in the manga: Razlo (official) vs Lazlo (fan-scans).
  • Count Revenant^*(manga)/Lebnant^*(anime) Vasquez^*(all official English translations)/Buskus^*(according to on-screen text in the anime)
  • Tessla (official manga) vs. Tesla (fan-scans).
  • Kaite (anime subs) vs. Kite (English dub & manga) vs. Kaito (what the kana says)
  • Milly (anime) vs. Millie (manga). By that same token, Meryl Stryfe (anime) vs. Strife (manga).
  • Leonof (manga) vs. Leonoff vs. Leonov
  • There's also the transport birds, sometimes called Tomas, sometimes called Thomases.
  • Even Rem isn't immune. Her last name is "Saverem" in the anime but "Seibrem" in the manga. And the Spanish dub calls her "Lem" for some reason.
  • Some cities are ambiguous too: Ainpril/Einpril (kana) vs. Inepril (subs) vs. April (manga). The anime can't decide whether May City is called that or "Mei", as the spelling on the signs changes every other shot.
• Spiteful Suicide: The Gung Ho Guns were created with the express purpose of making Vash suffer as he was taught that all life was precious, even those that are utterly immoral to boot. A good chunk of them are Not Afraid to Die and more than willing to kill themselves when defeated. Probably the most notable being The Dragon of the bunch, Legato Bluesummers, who goes out via Suicide by Cop explicitly to prove Vash's ideals are wrong after putting him in an unwinnable situation where someone had to die.
• Spontaneous Skeet Shooting: Vash the Stampede runs a corrupt sheriff out of town and makes a spectacle in front of the townsfolk by taking his badge, throwing it into the air, and shooting a bullet through it with out even looking to aim his gun at it.
• Staged Shooting: Twice. Once, Vash shoots two kids he was hired to kill with rubber bullets, then demands the contract price on them, playing the part of "insane killer." The second time, Vash and Wolfwood shoot each other in a quickdraw contest, only to reveal to the crooked men running the contest that it was actually fake blood in empty booze bottles.
• Stealth Escort Mission: Meryl and Milly meet an old couple who won't move from their family home, despite a crooked developer trying to take their land. Since Vash isn't around, Meryl decides to help them herself and seems to successfully hold off members of the Nebraska family alone! Then Vash reveals himself to the audience (but not the other characters) and shows that he'd been there the whole time using his Improbable Aiming Skills to assist Meryl.
• Steampunk: Even though it takes place in the future.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Wolfwood seems to do this, to provide a visual example on how someone's chosen action will lead to the death of hundreds. It is quickly revealed however, that he never intended to put himself in any danger, and was using an empty clip. However, there's a chilling scene in the manga, on the other hand, where to prove how serious he is, Wolfwood holds Vash's (loaded) gun to his own forehead while it's still in Vash's hand and demands, shoot. Saying if he could trigger a willingness to do what's necessary and keep moving in Vash, that would be completely worth his life.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The reason why everyone runs Vash out of town.
• Suicide by Cop: In the anime, where Legato seeks to inflict maximum emotional trauma on Vash by forcing him to shoot him in order to save Meryl and Millie. It's a pretty messed up variant in that Legato uses mind control on Vash to keep his gun trained on Legato's head, but forces Vash to use his own free will when it comes to the actual pulling of the trigger.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Vash and Knives are technically not alien life-forms, but there are strong suggestions of this trope, especially in the anime since there are no "There Is Another" plants from Earth. And, let's face it, manga Vash and (even more) Knives are very god-like, which ties in with the religious subtext.
• Super-Deformed: Happens sometimes in the more comedic moments of both anime and manga. It feels very out of place when it occurs.
• Superhero Packing Heat: Vash with his three guns in addition to his superhuman abilities.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Livio/Lazlo. Vash might fit too.
• Super-Speed:
  • Vash shoots about six times faster than a human gunman, which is impossibly awesome. Also played with with Dominique the Cyclops. He makes gunpowder explode faster than normal. He breaks physics through physical contact! And we thought he didn't have the girly family superpowers.
  • Elendria rams nails through peoples bodies faster than the eye can see.
• Suspect Is Hatless: Everyone looking for Vash in the first episode of the anime is using a different description, which is technically accurate on at least two points (tall + wearing red) but is vague enough that it also matches one of the other parties looking for Vash.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Livio, for Wolfwood.
• Take a Third Option: Vash constantly adheres to this. That's the reason why Episode 24 of the anime is such a Wham Episode; there is no easy way out this time, so Vash must kill Legato and later have a mental breakdown over it.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: One of the most exaggerated examples in fiction: the Gung-Ho Guns' unrelenting campaign to exterminate all life on Gunsmoke or die trying is orchestrated by Knives wishing to make his brother Vash suffer, hopefully turn him to his side. Even the deaths of the Gung-Ho Guns will hurt Vash (not to mention they are afraid of what Knives will do to them if they fail), so they really go out of their way to force Vash to try to kill them.
• Teach Him Anger:
  • Likely the intent of the Break the Cutie campaign that forms the backbone of the plot… well, the part that isn't just Knives's inner child throwing a tantrum about his brother not doing what he wants. Vash is already perfectly badass, with a sizable temper if pushed far enough, but as a Martial Pacifist and Friend to All Living Things he lacks the genocidal anger his twin brother wants to see.
  • Also one of the many contradictory goals of poor Wolfwood, especially in the manga. He is perfectly willing to die for the sake of convincing Vash to actually kill the bad guys (specifically Knives) and really solve problems, because he's pretty sure Vash would fill his chosen role of righteous executioner much better and longer than he can.
• There Is Another: Manga only. Turns out there are other Independent Plants… and they come from Earth with a message of salvation. Unfortunately for them, Knives finds out first and intercepts it.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Vash believes in not killing, ever. The ramifications of this are explored as Vash is shown to have been torn to shreds under his jacket from numerous wounds he acquired while winning fights without hurting people. He got the idea from Rem, who preached this as gospel.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: In Rem Saverem, after being decieved by Knives, Rowan goes nuts, murders Marry and threatens Rem at gunpoint. Rem insists on calming him down, but the captain Joe doesn't want to take any more risks and opens the airlock, which Rowan just happens to be standing before. To avoid Rem getting sucked out as well, Joe swiftly engages the safety bars.
• Time Skip:
  • After the Fifth Moon Incident (which also marked the point where the manga changed from Trigun [shonen] to Trigun Maximum [seinen]), two years pass before Wolfwood manages to track Vash down. The anime version, however, doesn't give a timespan; it's certainly shorter than in the manga, but still several months.
  • Six years pass between the end of the main series and Trigun: The Lost Plant.
• Trickster Archetype: Vash, in particular, is an incredibly impish, baffling, and tricky character.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: The only identified daughter of the Nebraska Family is an attractive teenage girl, while her dad is an ancient-looking ugly guy with three teeth and a giant derringer grafted onto his crotch… and her mom is basically an Opposite-Sex Clone of Gofsef, the deformed cybernetically-augmented giant, only without the cyber-mods.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • To appease a bunch of bandits whose leader was posing as him, Vash strips naked and barks like a dog. Later Wolfwood calls the towns people out for mocking him, reminding them of the fact that they wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Vash.
  • In the anime, Brad calls out his fellow Ship-dwellers for getting mad at Vash for the ship crashing when they did absolutely nothing to help him stop it from happening (Brad at least tried).
• Unflinching Walk: Vash and Wolfwood in "Goodbye for Now".
• The Unreveal: There are many things in this series that the reader/viewer simply never learns.
  • What exactly were Rem's final words to Vash? Added lines in the dubs aside, we'll never know.
  • Why and how do Autonomous Plants (Vash, Knives, Tessla, Chronica, etc.) exist? It's never explained. Indeed, their existence is a borderline Hand Wave. Anything goes…
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid:
  • Knives was much more amicable and (relatively) innocuous as a child, before developing his villainous ways.
  • Wolfwood, Livio, and Legato, for a given value of 'sweet'; they were respectively already bitter, already carrying an Enemy Within, and already vengeance-driven at the earliest points in their lives we see them, but by comparison they come across as heart-twistingly innocent.
  • Downplayed with Vash. At a glance, he's forcibly changed as little as possible over the years which leaves him ridiculously childish at times. However, unlike his adulthood, his childish and sweet side was much more genuine in his childhood and he lacked some of the bitterness and angst he does in the present.
• Villain Episode:
  • The manga has a few chapters dedicated to the bad guys such as Legato, Knives and Livio, having them as focal characters or even narrators.
  • Midvalley's narration of his fight with Wolfwood (during much of which Wolfwood is blind) does a lot to bring depth to his character.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • Played for gruesome fun with Legato's junk food addiction, which is often shown when he's not (actively) partaking in his villainous activities. Never has eating ice cream looked creepier.
  • The Big Bad Knives is shown casually drinking A Glass of Chianti in an oasis while waiting for Vash in the anime, playing the organ in bondage gear in his base and hanging around with a depressed/psychotic expression in the manga. Knives might be the laziest, most idle Big Bad around, which is bound to make us think he'd be less messed-up if he had a hobby or something.
  • As for Elendira, she likes reading cards while fawning over Knives, apparently.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: Discussed when Wolfwood and Knives both argue with the pacifist Vash that sometimes you need to get violent, each in very different ways: Wolfwood has verbal discussions about their respective philosophies, whilst Knives tries to brutally force Vash to accept Knives' viewpoint by sending fanatic killers after Vash with the instruction to kill Vash and anyone around him or die trying. Whether or not the series actually agrees with this philosophy is more ambiguous.
• Weapon Title: The series is named after Vash's three guns — his silver revolver, his left Arm Cannon, and his organic Wave-Motion Gun.
• Weapon Tombstone: Vash uses Wolfwood's cross punisher as his gravestone. Considering its shape, it's very fitting.
• Wham Episode: The anime has several of these.
  • The biggest one is probably Episode 12, "Diablo". Up to this point, the majority of the series was basically 'The Wacky Adventures of Vash & Friends'. This episode introduces the villainous Legato, and things only get darker from there.^note  With the notable exception of Episode 14, "Little Arcadia", which in the original manga takes place before Legato appears.
  • In Episode 24, Vash is made to break his personal philosophy to not take lives when he kills Legato to save Meryl and Milly, something that mentally breaks him.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Episode 17 of the anime, "Rem Saverem", focuses entirely on Vash's backstory with his mother figure and brother as a child.
• Window Watcher: In an early episode, Vash has been hired to guard a young woman named Marianne. He hears the water running in her bathroom, and ties a rope around his waist so that he can lower himself from the roof to peek through the window. She wasn't there, though, and when Millie walks in a second later, he claims that he had been checking the roof for spooks.
• Word Salad Title: The manga's subtitle is, "Deep Space Planet Future Gun Action!!!"
• X Days Since: In an interesting variation of this trope, the first chapter of the manga shows a sign in one city counting the number of murders and serious injuries that had occurred that day.
• Yandere: Manga Wolfwood can be seen as Cute and Psycho — you start suspecting something's wrong, when he turns Grey the Ninelives into minced meat, with a Slasher Smile. Also, Knives might be a Yandere for Vash, because nothing is too creepy or dysfunctional for him. Depending on interpretation, Vash might also be Cute and Psycho.
• You Don't Look Like You: Downplayed for the character designs in the Trigun Stampede reboot. Vash still has blond hair, yellow sunglasses, and red outerwear, but those are pretty much the only things his design has in common with all other depictions of him. Meryl keeps her general hairstyle and color scheme but has a completely different outfit, and Livio has a ponytail and is much scrawnier.
• Younger Than They Look: Vash and Knives already looked like young boys after being born just one year, something that astonished everyone.

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