Trigun vs. Cowboy Bebop. Hmm.
Comparing the shows is deceptively difficult. They appear similar enough to make choosing a favorite a simple matter, but in practice, it's their similarity that makes it difficult to pick. They're both bursting to the brim with badassery and they both suffer from the same manner of pitfalls. My ruling, in my humble opinion, is that they're equal and inverse sides of the anime space western coin. I like them more or less the same.
As far as the movies go, I drastically prefer Badlands Rumble to Knockin' on Heaven's Door.
The phenomena (and bigger anime fans than I can correct me if I'm wrong here) among these movies-from-26-episode-animes seems to be a good one; doing one-shot romps, unrelated to the main plot meant mainly to showcase the characters and the setting, rather than advance some great story or punch out tons of plot the series couldn't handle.
While both Heaven's Door and Rumble do this, I'd say Rumble is vastly more successful than Heaven's Door. Set entirely on Mars, revolving mainly around the villain and only featuring a handful of the main characters, Heaven's Door feels like the Mario Brothers 2 or Ocean's 12 of the Cowboy Bebop universe. Rumble, on the other hand, felt right at home on Gunsmoke (save a few wonky continuity questions surrounding Wolfwood).
While I won't expand on this now, I have a similar theory about Serenity. Remind me to talk Serenity at some point.
Anyway. Off to potato wedges (yeah, yeah, I know)
Showing posts with label trigun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trigun. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
You Should Be Watching
Mind you, I'm only 7 episodes in, but Trigun is the most confusing admixture of great and terrible.
This is not my first attempt to tackle the series. Not an avid fan of anime (barring crowd-pleasers like Bebop and Champloo) it's initial silliness was far too much for me to handle. That, coupled with his tendency to spout Buddy Christ-esque maxims in a badass whisper and how infuriatingly stupid the two insurance girls are, proved too much to swallow.
At the behest of the missus, herself working her way through the series, I gave it another shot, mainly out of morbid curiosity. On the surface, it's such a Timothy J. Meyer premise. Space western about a dangerous outlaw with a colorful nickname and a bounty higher than heaven on his head, it's side cast populated by grungy bandits and unscrupulous rogues, and the added twist that the protagonist, rather than being a hardcore badass, is actually a doltish buffoon. I mean, come on.
Yet, time and time again, whatever choice I would have made with the show, Trigun makes the opposite. It continues to baffle me. They aren't necessarily poor choices – they're just do damnably different.
I can't honestly say I'm enjoying the show. As a writer, I'm just obsessed with it.
This is not my first attempt to tackle the series. Not an avid fan of anime (barring crowd-pleasers like Bebop and Champloo) it's initial silliness was far too much for me to handle. That, coupled with his tendency to spout Buddy Christ-esque maxims in a badass whisper and how infuriatingly stupid the two insurance girls are, proved too much to swallow.
At the behest of the missus, herself working her way through the series, I gave it another shot, mainly out of morbid curiosity. On the surface, it's such a Timothy J. Meyer premise. Space western about a dangerous outlaw with a colorful nickname and a bounty higher than heaven on his head, it's side cast populated by grungy bandits and unscrupulous rogues, and the added twist that the protagonist, rather than being a hardcore badass, is actually a doltish buffoon. I mean, come on.
Yet, time and time again, whatever choice I would have made with the show, Trigun makes the opposite. It continues to baffle me. They aren't necessarily poor choices – they're just do damnably different.
I can't honestly say I'm enjoying the show. As a writer, I'm just obsessed with it.
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