TriMax 6 Chapter 2

[tiggymalvern]

Chapter Two - Double Team


Sumire's full translation here.

Page 35. Just because. Hey, you lot would all have scanned it too, right?


Page 36. Wolfwood remembers shooting a particular someone. Two books later we find out who.


Page 37. Wolfwood's nightmare. Knives, Legato and Elendira at the orphanage.


Page 39. Wolfwood's plan, as ever, is to drink. The plan is interrupted at the bottom by the arrival of Zazie, who goes on to tell him Knives wants things to carry on unchanged.


Page 44. Wolfwood remembers meeting the still-healing Knives, when Knives assigned him to Vash. We discover that Wolfwood is with a group called the 'Eye of Michael'.


Page 48. Wolfwood finds Vash sitting on a rooftop and considers shooting him in the back of the head. This scan has done the rounds, but that's no reason not to see it again XD


Page 49. But Wolfwood can't do it. He wants Vash to stop getting shot up in minor fights and concentrate on getting Knives.


Page 53. As Vash predicted, the friends of the guy he took down last chapter are attempting a rescue. Not even Vash can argue with a speeding truck too successfully.


Pages 56-7. And when Vash is attacked from the rear, Wolfwood leaps right in to shield him.


Page 58. Vash's bullets don't do much against armour, and Wolfwood's having trouble nailing the running guys. Click!!


Page 59. Switching targets, still back to back the whole time. I love this little sequence :-)


Page 60. Rockets are rather more effective on armoured trucks XD


Page 63. Wolfwood's having something of a moment dealing with his conflicting impulses regarding Vash. Poor Vash is just left wondering why he's acting weird.


Page 64. The town, as usual, is somewhat the worse for wear. Milly slept through it all, while Meryl looks utterly wrecked! So cute XD


Quite the tangle of conflicts of interest Wolfwood's got going on here. He's been avoiding them meeting up pretty well so far, but it's reaching decision time, and the answers are basically being forced on him. Take away the time to think, and he automatically protects Vash. Hard to fight that one, whatever his brain has to say about the practicalities of it all. Can't help feeling sorry for him - that's got to be one hell of a nasty realisation under the circumstances.

Comments

[yma2.livejournal.com]

That was a great issue. Some wonderful little moments there. The entire Wolfwood dillema is wonderful, he's such a complex character, that Priest. Some of those pictures are wonderful too. Great stuff.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I adore this book. I adore 5 too, and 7 and 8, and yeah, basically everything from 5 onwards is just relentlessly good, and keeps on hitting you with thing after thing. I still go 'Wow' at some of this stuff, no matter how often I look at it.

he's such a complex character, that Priest.

Guess I must be in that kind of mood, 'cos I'm going to rant now. It's my LJ, so I can and nobody can stop me XD. Wolfwood is not a Priest. He never was a Priest, not even in the anime where ep 23 strongly suggested he actually was a genuine clergyman. He's certainly not in the manga; I somehow doubt the Eye of Michael was in the business of ordaining Christian ministers of any denomination. It is a ruse, a guise - even Vash can't keep a straight face at the end of volume 5 when Wolfwood describes himself as a clergyman.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle here. The mistranslation of the word 'bokushi' by the anime translators has permeated the entire western fandom, and it's existence in the anime has leached straight through into the mangaverse. The fandom will never be free of Wolfwood the Priest. But he's not, dammit!

I will stop ranting now - it's safe! Mostly I've learned to sigh and ignore it, but sometimes I have to vent. It's not you personally, you just happened to catch me in pedantic mode XD

[yma2.livejournal.com]

OK, ok, ok! I give! I give! :D Sheesh, it was just a way of reffering to him! I know he's not a priest in the manga... (:
Anyway, I'm sorry. It's a shame he's no a priest in the Manga though... I kind of like that aspect of him. But hey, that's just me. :shrug:

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was odd that the anime made him a genuine minister - I mean, when among his years of training as an assassin did he make time to attend a seminary and get himself ordained? Clearly the higher Church authorities on the planet aren't too picky about their intake, just glad to find anyone willing to do the job! It makes so much more sense to me that it's just a front. In the animeverse, I'm stuck with it, but in the mangaverse I reserve the right to protest every now and then XD

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

Protest away! And with good cause, too. I just like having a fandom that permits dirty dirty Bible porn...

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The great thing is, it still permits your brand of *beautifully* blasphemous religious porn - if he's fronting as clergy, he has to know something about it. You can have all of that without vows of celibacy and angsting over religious edicts and the rest of that rot that it makes very little sense for an assassin to be doing.

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

Hell, even if he was clergy, even if he went through whatever bastardized version of Seminary they have there, he still wouldn't care about things like edicts and whether the "salmon" sandwiches are ok to eat on Friday much less have angst over whether screwing Vash into next week'll send him to hell.

I think he has some religious tendancies (pointing out that Vash is praying wrong is the one that comes to mind), but whether these are institutional (priestly), personal, something he picked up from the freaky-ass childhood he led, or just another reason to yell at Vash, I couldn't say.
Ok, yes I could. It's the latter. But I can pretend!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The orphanage is clearly religious - it has a bloody great cross on top of it - so I assume he was raised in some variant of Christian tradition there. He may have some sort of hangover from that childhood, and he'll certainly know the traditions. Pointing out that Vash is doing it wrong is just an excuse to take a dig at him, oh yeah XD.

Wolfwood already considers himself pretty thoroughly damned, so I don't think he's going to fret too much over sodomy. He sees himself as too tainted with blood to face Aunt Melanie and to touch the kids at the orphanage, and I think that means a lot more to him than anything any god might have to say about him.

With all the stuff written in fic about Wolfwood's religion, it's interesting in the manga that Vash is the one making obvious gestures that way. He's the one we see walking into a church and wondering who could possibly forgive his level of sin, Vash is the one we see praying in desperation.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

It's been tried before. She's as unshakeable in her views as I am in mine. Only mine are right ;-)

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

The orphanage comes with a big fucking cross and a bottle of Bride, true... do we ever get more on the orphanage itself? Whether it is actually a religious organization, or if it's just a feeder pond for The Nasty? (Damn you, translation gaps!)

There are some neat parallels between the non-religious (but not atheistic) priest and the praying, not-quite-optimistic plant... now I'm contemplating a pretentious fandom essay on forgiveness and hope. Stop me? Please?


Angsty: I'm not doing it, but I'm not stopping you.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Whether it is actually a religious organization, or if it's just a feeder pond for The Nasty?

Nothing for certain, but I think it has to be genuine. If it just existed for the Eye of Michael to raid, I doubt they could manage to keep Aunt Melanie fooled for so long. She'd get suspicious if the same people kept coming back but never a sign of the kids they'd taken last time.

Hon, I would never try to stop you being pretentious ;-)

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

She'd get suspicious if the same people kept coming back but never a sign of the kids they'd taken last time.

Assuming, of course, that she isn't just turning a blind eye in order to keep the orphanage going for the kids who get to stay. (O Great Person With A Dictionary, is this addressed, or strongly implied one way or the other?)


And hell. Y'all're supposed to discourage me when I get silly ideas like that!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Aw, no, no, I'm not buying that. That woman is so protective of her kids she'll stand up to guys with automatic weapons for them. There's nothing specifically written to stop you twisting it that way if you want to, nothing except just looking at the woman and what she does and how she reacts when she recognises Wolfwood.

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

No, the feeling I got was definately maternal and protective and all that... but two things kept poking at me.
One, Nightow is a sick sadistic bastard who likes to kick his characters and impose dubious moral behaviours on them (and I love him for it!)... and two, Aunt Melanie's reaction to seeing Wolfwood in TriMax 10 might have been horror and sorrow, or it might have been horror and sorrow and guilt. With only Sumire's translations and the few scans you've posted (thanks you again, btw!), it's hard to tell.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Nightow does do that, yeah, but not all his characters are twisted. There's Milly and Rem, and I'm betting Melanie falls into that category. If Nightow were going to fuck with things, he'd have revealed Melanie as someone who sold him out while Wolfwood was still alive to pile on the torture. I'm taking her at face value.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

If I let Wolfwood go, with all good intentions, thinking he'd be being trained to be a priest or whatever, and he came back as...well, Wolfwood, I'd feel pretty guilty regardless.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Seriously.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I always figured anime!Wolfwood was trained eye-of-Michael-like like Chapel, but then took the good stuff to the orphanage. Does that make sense?

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I see what you're getting at through the 'I'm sleepy and rushed' wording, I think. 'trained by Chapel', I assume you mean XD. And yeah, that's my assumption too.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Yes. By Chapel. Mexico ate my braiiiin.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

But in a good way :-)

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

I adore that top image.

So much happens in this chapter! It's harder to get a feel of what all's going on from Sumire's translations, because the images are so much of the story (Vash and Wolfwood switching targets without losing contact with each other is so fucking smooth!)

And that shot of Knives, with the seaweed hair...

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I adore that top image.

The pose and the attitude, it's just so Wolfwood!

The images really make this. It's all in Wolfwood's looks; the brooding, the pissed-off-ness, the determination, and I've skipped so much of it. And as for that penultimate page - the words don't say a thing about that sequence of expressions, that 'What the fuck am I doing?' that comes over so clearly in the art. I love Nightow's ability with emotion that way, he's got so good at it by this stage.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

One of the things I love about Wolfwood is that he does so little angsting. All the reasons in the world to brood, and mostly he just sucks it down and gets on with life. Like with the Vash thing here - he has an understandably dodgy few days after Vash *nearly kills them all*, and then once he figures out which way things are going, he completely stops stressing over it and just runs with it instead. The fact that he is angsting here is so much more effective because it's not his usual style.

I thought the Eye of Michael was actually some sort of Plant-worship cult formed by Knives.

That's basically it, yeah (as Legato will thoughtfully explain next chapter XD). Whether it was formed by Knives, or whether he took advantage of a pre-existing group of nutters who decided to worship Plants isn't specified.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Not sure if it's a good one, but it's certainly a common one! Most of us have done it XD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

It's the way that when he actually gets chance to think, he looks so *surprised* at himself for running around protecting Vash. And then it's 'Oh, hell, I'm so screwed.'

I love their little bouts of telepathy, the brain-click moments. The way they just look at one another and ba-ding!! So cute.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I go back and forth on that. Vash is damn perceptive on occasion, and when he's in fight mode, he can shoot directly behind him and hit the target. But when he's not in fight mode, people can creep up on him - Livio does it in Max 11 when he's not even trying. Vash at the end of this chapter seems genuinely puzzled as to why Wolfwood's weirding out on him. Either he's playing the innocent role really well (which is far from impossible, I'll grant you), or he doesn't know.

I've had Wolfwood wonder in fic whether Vash knew about that and decide he did, but I've never covered it from Vash's perspective, and that's partly because I'm not sure myself.

The hearing thing is a definite maybe XD. He has *something*. When Wolfwood comes for him in TriMax 8, Vash knows he's coming, and that's either bloody good hearing or he feels Wolfwood telepathically.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

They certainly have their moments, more than one, but I know from experience you don't have to be telepathic to do that XD. There are times when it would have been really useful to them, and they show no sign of it! I'm far from writing it off as a possibility, but if there's anything there at all, given that Wolfwood's telepathically dumb, it would require immense concentration or only come in unpredictable flashes, I think.

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

Bad guy: Fucking I kill you!
Vash: Shit! I shoot back!
Wolfwood: Shit! I kill you!
Vash: (thinking) Damn he's hot when he's pissed!
Wolfwood: What?!
Bad guy: I missed something.


Yeah. It'd be very distracting.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Indeed, the random flamey-ness mid-fight scene would definately be a hindrance.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Bitch impersonated me! In my own LJ no less, goddammit!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Vash: (thinking) Damn he's hot when he's pissed!

Well, yeah. Who among us wouldn't be thinking that? And yay, for 'tis verily me this time!

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

OMG liek Angsty's just your sock puppet because you're a mean BNF what wants to make fun of meeeeeeeeee!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, course she's my sock. The fact that her LJ's been around way longer than mine has absolutely no bearing on this.

[sara-tsuzuki.livejournal.com]

Great chapter!!! they're more and more conected,more near to each other...even if wolfwood try to kill Vash in order to finish the deal with Knives. I feel sad when think that Vash call Wolfwood to the roof, with one of his precious smiles...and Wolfwood do that...;_;
The sequence of the fight is greeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaatt....*____*
and the first image is................*drools*
Im a lousy fangirl

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

even if wolfwood try to kill Vash in order to finish the deal with Knives.

I don't believe that's why he was doing it. When he's standing there aiming at Vash's head, all he's thinking about is how potentially dangerous Vash is, nothing about Knives. Wolfwood kills killers, and when Vash flips out he is one hell of a killer.

I feel sad when think that Vash call Wolfwood to the roof, with one of his precious smiles...and Wolfwood do that...

Yeah, that's harsh. Vash looks so miserable sitting there when Wolfwood's behind him, and he's hoping to talk to the one person who'll accept him and be okay with him, and Wolfwood's thinking of shooting him in the back. It's nasty stuff.

Re: Two More Entries for the Scary Trigun Yaoi Doujinshi Collection

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

That sort of stuff is just horrid. Not only is it horrid on principle, but it's about the nastiest character violation of Wolfwood going, because the man is all about *protecting* kids. The genderfuck stuff - I can see how some people would find that funny, but the entertainment value in this escapes me utterly.