Just Setting Yourself Up To Suffer

I've been watching Trigun today, and I've begun thinking that the colonists basically set themselves and their descendants up to get annihilated. You have these two "kids", that are plants who can pass for human, and so you give them names. You name one of them "Vash". Now that's kind of an odd name, although maybe not so much once you consider his mother figure was named "Rem". Still, it's a relatively harmless name. It can sound kind of cool, depending on how you say it.

But you go and name the other kid "Knives"? What the hell was the thinking there?! Why not call him '"Guillotine", or "Atomic Warhead"? Sure, it's also a cool name, but didn't anyone pause and think that maybe you should give him a less violent name, like "Johnny Shoots-Some-People"? Really, is anyone all that surprised when a guy named Knives goes crazy and decides he wants to eliminate the entire human race?

If you're going to name him after an inanimate object, pick something harmless and neutral, like "Forks". Or maybe "Couch". Those are objects that don't have a connotation of violence attached to them. But, "Knives"?

Poor choices in naming aside, I do enjoy this series. It's one of the few animes I've watched that can do both goofy and fast-paced action well. I tend to prefer the more light-hearted episodes, such as the first five when only Milly is really sure Vash is, in fact, Vash, but most of the Gung-Ho Guns fights are pretty engrossing (personal fave: Vash and Wolfwood vs. Kaine and Chapel, even if the ending did bite). That episode where Vash and Legato settle things does get a little tedious. He's freaking asking you to kill him Vash! He wants you to do it! Granted, it's because he wants you to suffer, but come on!

Plus you can do a drinking game where every time someone in the series says "Vash the Stampede?!", you take a shot. Adds a whole extra-dimension to it, even if you're just drinking soda while watching at 3 o'clock in the morning (the circumstances under which Alex and I came up with the game). Can you say "Caffeine high"?

Image courtesy of Anime Project Alliance.