#they're just raw drafts to get the meaning across lol

[cerealandchoccymilk]

Trigun Bookclub: Trigun Vol.1-2, Chapter #08

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CW: Some of my analysis in this post touches the topic of suicidal ideation (there will be a warning around that portion).

I’m doing a deep-read of the Japanese original print (reread) and Overhaul 1.0 (first read) side-by-side, and writing down everything I notice from small details, version differences, translation differences, etc.

The volume numbers will be mismatched for most of the remainder of Trigun, since the Japanese first edition is 3 volumes while all later versions are 2 volumes.

As always, here are the non-analysis panels aka just my homosexual mumbling:

And the rest is under the cut.

[link for if the images aren’t in horizontal rows]

This chapter is the beginning of the Japanese Volume 2, which is from #08 to #13 (plus the pilot as a bonus).

Starting off with the cool as balls shot of Vash being shot a billion bullets at! I did write "rule of cool" here since I thought he was just magically evading the firing squad. However, on second thought, I think Neon specifically ordered the gang to not actually shoot him, judging by how he says "not bad" immediately afterwards. It's his way to test Vash, to see if he flinches.

[cw sui] The "You ain't afraid of dyin', are ya?!" line stuck out to me a lot... Many rereaders (and I assume first-timers too, at this point in the bookclub) know that Vash is... casually suicidal? I'm not sure if that's the right way to put it, but he doesn't have much of a sense of self-preservation. He's not seeking death, of course, but he's not exactly avoiding it either.... This becomes much more apparent and relevant at the end of Trigun and in Maximum, so I'll leave it until I get to those parts. [/cw]

Dear god the crotch shot. okay (squeezing this into a row because I don't really want this guy's balls to take up the whole screen lmao)

I've always loved how Nightow draws these circles to show spinning motion in his artwork!! It's simple but it really pops... it's just so so (chef's kiss)

I wonder just what Vash's next move was going to be here? He's pretty much cornered... but I guess he can always get out of any situation, as he usually does.

Vash's expression of sheer confusion is golden. I love him lmao

Meryl!!!!!!!!! Milly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We missed you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love how immediately after he calls Meryl a little girl he gets spooked by the Big Girl instead.

This is not directly translatable, but I find Milly's line here very cute. In Japanese, she says「…私は――　ミリィ…トンプソンとゆいます　えとえとイチ��ー スタンガンミリィとは私のコトをゆいます」 The correct word for "I'm called [smth]" here would be 言います(iimasu), but the pronunciation ゆいます(yuimasu) is a bit childish in this context. If I recall correctly, isn't Milly the youngest of many siblings? Maybe it's a little quirk showing that youngest-sibling aspect of hers.

Meryl asking Vash to be a "responsible adult" for once.... lol

This is the first time his name has been called since his encounter with Kaito and the beginning of the BL gang' hijack. I completely forgot that Kaito has no idea who he is!! Vash didn't give him a name; he's just been calling him あんた("you") the whole time!!

Excuse the messier handwriting from here on… I was working on this during a car ride.

A detail in the Japanese version - this line was originally written「おまえが消したって話んなってるJULY(あのまち)だが…」with "JULY" having a ruby pronunciation note of あのまち("that city").

This part was initially written to be a translation suggestion but I decided to just keep it a JP phrasing note:

「あのガレキが俺の見た最初の風景だ」 "That mountain of debris was the first thing I saw."

Translation suggestion - Here, Neon says「サシの勝負だ」, where サシ means "face-to-face" or "one-on-one." I would say it's more like "This fight is between just the two of us," to show more of the respect Neon has for Vash.

More of this respect is shown in the next page, where they make a promise that Neon will step back if Vash wins the duel. Neon recognizes Vash's skill and ideology, and treats him as an equal.

And here's the action!

I found interesting that Neon's war-cry/exclamation "ha" was actually written in kanji as 派. The kanji by itself means group or faction, but considering Neon's character, maybe it's supposed to be a reference to the word 派手(hade), meaning "gaudy?"

This duel definitely isn't following regular duel rules... but no one said it was unfair or anything. Maybe this is just how they are in No Man's Land.

Neon shoots with his dynamo-gun (?) instead of his cool engraved pistol.... Anyways, his first strike is at Vash, and they all hit the rocks that are falling between them. Vash then shields himself with one of those rocks by jumping in the same direction as it.

And he's doing another frontflip!! In sync with the falling rock!! With a wound in his gut!! In midair and upside down, he precisely shoots five rounds into Neon. It hits his dynamo, but looking closely I can see that maybe he got his arm shot too.

damn....

A bit of a tangent - many of Neon's actions are reminiscent of old Japanese culture, which is very interesting. His pose during his first appearance in Chapter #05 (how did i remember that. i checked just in case and i was right), where he sort of squats and extends his open palm to the front, is a very stereotypical kabuki pose. Again, I don't know about the specifics of kabuki, but his pose on the the panel where Vash jumps also looks kabuki-esque to me. Neon's respect towards Vash as a fellow gunslinger and his beliefs on dignity reminds me of bushidō. It's not representative of all aspects, of course, but there are definitely elements incorporated in his character.

This line (including the speech bubble after it) is a bit weird when translated so it will have to be tweaked, but a direct translation would be:

「このままではブレーキングはおろか…　船体ごと爆発する可能性があります！！」 "If it continues like this, the ship itself may blow up, let alone brake!!"

I'm pretty sure "brake" (miswrote in the image, will fix later) here means that they won't be able to put on the brakes due to the boiler malfunction. But I don't know shit about machinery or how to phrase this. (shrug)

That’s it for Chapter #08! As always, the Japanese annotations are in the reblogs.

#btw take all my translation phrasings here with a grain of salt theyre all done in like 3 minutes #they're just raw drafts to get the meaning across lol #if i had more time and resources i could think more about details and making them sound natural but nah we doin this snap snap #anyways godddddd i love neon #trigunbookclub #trigun annotation #trigun #trigun manga