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Review

by Christopher Macdonald

Trigun

DVD 5 - Angel Arms

Synopsis:
Trigun DVD 5 - Angel Arms
In the last installment of Trigun things just started to get interesting as viewers got to see Vash in a whole new light. This time around, things get even more intense, but only after a little filler.

In Episode 14, "Little Arcadia", Milli and Merryl are hired to protect a small time land owner from a criminal who wants to steal his land valuable land. Will Milli and Merryl be up to the task without Vash's help? Episode 15, "Demon Eye", brings the return of the mysterious Legato and pit's Vash against another of Legato's "Gung Ho Guns", this time Vash has to face Dominique the Cyclops. Vash's fight against Legato and his "Gung Ho Guns" continues into episode 16, "The fifth moon". Just how high will the body count get as Vash struggles to preserve life against those that have no regard for it? And what of Milli and Merryl, will Vash really leave them behind?
Review:
Trigun is without a doubt one of the best Anime TV series to be releases in America in 2000, and it continues strong into 2001. While episode 14 is nothing more than light hearted fluff, episodes 15 and 16 up then ante, showing us that Trigun, as a series, really is going somewhere.

For those who haven't been following Trigun from the beginning, it is the story of Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon. Vash is a silly looking, silly acting gunman who is credited with the destruction of the city of July 23 years ago. No one knows how, or why Vash destroyed July, but the remarkeable thing is that not a single person died that day at July. Milli and Merryl are "damage control experts" for the Bernadelli insurance society, and their job is to find Vash the Stampede, and then follow him, keeping him from causing more damage that their company would have to pay for.

The first dozen episodes of Trigun we're all very light hearted adventures, pitting Vash against various criminals, and beautiful women, all of which he managed to defeat without killing anyone. However in later episodes things start to get a bit more serious, finally boiling over in episode 13 with Vash's first confrontation with one of the "Gung Ho Guns". While the aforementionned episode 13 is just filler, episodes 14 and 15 continue in the serious tone set in episode 12. This is honestly a breath of fresh air for a series, that as amusing as it is, was starting to feel like it was going no-where.

Animation wise, Trigun has been top notch since the very first episode and continues in this vein with the latest episodes. The animation is very fluid, and rarely suffers from any sort of "lazy animation". Colors are brilliant, a mixture of bright colours and not so bright colors that really makes focussing on the important parts of the image a pleasure. Once again, Madhouse has proven itself to be one of the best animation studios in Japan today.

Interestingly enough, Trigun is one of the few Anime's which, IMHO sounds better in English than in Japanese. The English script, voice acting and directing are absolutely top notch. I really do enjoy the english voices, particularly that of Vash. My only complaint about the English track is that the sound effects and music seem to be slightly muffled, but this only becomes apparent when actually comparing the English track to the Japanese track.

My biggest complaint about this DVD are the DVD features, or lack thereof. No 5.1 soundtrack, not even in English. No extras worth mentionning, sure the textless opening and ending are nice, but couldn't Pioneer have scrapped something together? The menus on the other hand are nicely done, even if the chapter menus are a tiny bit hard to navigate. Other than this, the DVD seemed to be totally defect free, the sound was crisp and the image didn't seem to suffer from any of the shortcomings that the previous Trigun DVDs suffered from, "rainbows" on the screen and such.
Grade:
Overall : B+

+ Looks like a great story is brewing, Great animation.
Weak DVD features.

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Production Info:
Director: Satoshi Nishimura
Series Composition: Yōsuke Kuroda
Script: Yōsuke Kuroda
Storyboard:
Noriyuki Abe
Hideo Hayashi
Fuminori Kizaki
Katsuyuki Kodera
Yoshihide Kuriyama
Kou Matsuo
Kazunori Mizuno
Yūji Moriyama
Satoshi Nishimura
Yoshimitsu Ohashi
Kazuhiro Ozawa
Masayuki Ōzeki
Takuya Satō
Nanako Shimazaki
Shigehito Takayanagi
Shinichi Tōkairin
Shoji Yabushita
Tomio Yamauchi
Episode Director:
Shigeki Awai
Hideo Hayashi
Yoshihide Kuriyama
Kou Matsuo
Yūji Moriyama
Norihiko Nagahama
Satoshi Nishimura
Yoshimitsu Ohashi
Kazuhiro Ozawa
Nanako Shimazaki
Shigehito Takayanagi
Toshikatsu Tokoro
Shoji Yabushita
Mihiro Yamaguchi
Tomio Yamauchi
Unit Director: Shigehito Takayanagi
Music:
Tsuneo Akima
Tsuneo Imahori
Kiyoshi Kamata
Naruyoshi Kikuchi
Masafumi Minato
Hiroaki Mizutani
Gen Ogimi
Yūji Okiyama
Atsushi Sano
Udai Shika
Akira Sotoyama
Michiaki Suzuki
Hideyo Takakuwa
Masaki Tsurugi
Original Manga: Yasuhiro Nightow
Character Design: Takahiro Yoshimatsu
Art Director: Hidetoshi Kaneko
Animation Director:
Yūki Iwai
Akira Kano
Yūki Kinoshita
Makoto Koga
Naoyuki Konno
Shiro Kudaka
Yūji Moriyama
Masao Nakata
Masakazu Okada
Fujio Suzuki
Satoshi Tasaki
Yōichi Ueda
Takahiro Yoshimatsu
Mechanical design: Noriyuki Jinguji
Sound Director:
Yasunori Honda
Tomohiro Yoshida
Director of Photography: Hisao Shirai
Executive producer:
Shigeaki Komatsu
Masao Maruyama
Producer:
Shigeru Kitayama
Masao Morosawa
Licensed by: Geneon Entertainment Inc.

Full encyclopedia details about
Trigun (TV)

Release information about
Trigun - Angel Arms (DVD 5)

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