Vash the Stampede

Vash the Stampede is a male anime and manga character who features in Trigun.

Biography

Vash the Stampede (Japanese: ヴァッシュ・ザ・スタンピード, Hepburn: Vasshu za Sutanpīdo) was a human-like Plant who were inter-dimensional beings that were tapped as a source of power and energy. As a Plant, his body does not physically age past his mid-twenties, though in reality he was around 131 at the time. As 'independent' plants, he and his twin brother Knives are capable of consciously using their immense energy to perform incredible destructive feats. Vash and his twin brother Millions Knives were discovered aboard a SEEDs ship by Rem Saverem, seemingly born from one of the Plants powering the ship. Rem raised them over the course of one year, where they quickly grow from infants to young children. While experimenting with the ship's databases, Knives disrupts the navigation system, triggering an alarm and waking the dormant passengers aboard. Rem quickly corrects the system and sends the passengers back to sleep, but one awakened crew member, Dr. William Conrad, discovered Vash and Knives. He agreed to keep their existence a secret after talking with Rem. Knives and Vash later accidentally stumble across a restricted area aboard the ship, and there discover that they were not the first independent Plants to be born. Another plant, Tesla, had been studied by the crew aboard the ship, and subjected to continuous scans and vivisections that eventually led to her slow and painful death. Knives falls into a shock-induced coma. Horrified, Vash locks himself away and declares his hatred of humanity. Afraid and feeling alone as one of only two independent plants amidst millions of humans, Vash attempts suicide. Rem intervenes, and Vash accidentally wounds her in the process. At first calmed by the sudden catharsis of hurting a human, Vash then becomes horrified by what he has done and saves her. Rem shares her own troubled past and convinces Vash to have faith in the limitless potential for the future, and Vash gains a newfound respect for life.

Now unable to believe that humans and Plants can ever coexist, he used what he learned from his accidental tampering with the ship to crash the Fleet on the nearby planet Gunsmoke. Knives tries to wipe out all the humans while saving only those ships necessary for him, Vash, and the other Plants that survive to live on the planet. Rem sends Vash and Knives aboard an escape pod, but stays behind to try to correct the navigation and save as many people as she can, sacrificing herself as a result. Aboard the escape pod, Knives reveals his involvement in the fall. With nowhere else to go Vash follows Knives as they wander Gunsmoke, watching what few humans survived to build cities around the crashed ships. As Vash later notes, the Great Fall that was intended to save Plants from humans ironically only made humans more exploitative of Plants than ever, forcing them to slowly drain Plants as energy sources to survive amidst the harsh conditions. Vash and Knives eventually separated after Vash was captured in a small town and Knives killed all the people to save him. Horrified, Vash shot Knives in the shoulder, causing Knives to retaliate by slicing off Vash's left arm. Following their separation, Vash wandered Gunsmoke until he was found by a group of humans that lived aboard a still mostly functional ship. Vash adopted the city as his new home, and there received his cybernetic arm.

The infamous July Incident occurred when Vash traveled to the city of July in search of Count Revenant Vaszues. Vash correctly believed him to be the pseudonym of Dr. William Conrad, who had used his knowledge of plants to build a wealthy life in July. However, he is confronted by Knives, who has already forced Conrad into his service. Knives captures Vash and has Conrad study Vash's arm to better understand their abilities. Knives decides to attempt to activate Vash's dormant powers forcibly, but the plan backfires and the blast obliterates July, directly killing 200,000 people and severely wounding Knives. Conrad and Legato find Knives amidst the rubble, and save his life, with Legato swearing revenge on Vash for what happened to Knives.

Two years later, the priest Nicholas D. Wolfwood arrives in a city in search of Vash the Stampede. Once he discovers Vash, he finally convinces him to come out of his pseudo-retirement, telling of Knives' exploits and progress in wiping out humanity. Learning of Vash's locations, the broken but alive Legato declares that the killing game has begun anew, and sends Rai-Dei the Blade. In his confrontation with Blade, Vash learns that Legato and the Gung-Ho-Guns have discovered the location of his home. After Wolfwood executes Blade, the two have a near falling out over the morality of killing, but they agree to continue traveling together, going to Vash's home. There, Vash battles Leonoff the Puppetmaster and Wolfwood fights Grey the Ninelives. After their victory, Vash learns from the inhabitants that the ship has successfully made contact with Earth, and ships will be arriving to save them from No Man's Land. Knives uses his powers to cut down the satellites used to communicate with Earth, and Vash resumes his travels when he learns of the severed connection and correctly guesses the reason. They reunite with the insurance girls but the two girls get caught up in a battle when Midvalley the Hornfreak, Hoppered the Gauntlet, and Zazie the Beast arrive. As a survivor of the July Incident, Hoppered seeks revenge on Vash, while Wolfwood's true goals are questioned by Midvalley as the two battle. In the battle, Vash's abilities and repressed memories are awakened again, and only Elendira the Crimsonnail's intervention defuses the situation. The Insurance Girls thus learn the truth about Vash's powers as a Plant. After burying Hoppered and Midvalley, Vash and Wolfwood continue their travels to Knives' base, where Vash and Knives battle once again. Vash is defeated and restrained by Legato, while Knives sets out aboard his Ark with a new plan for wiping out humanity: traveling from city to city to absorb the Plants to increase his power and cut off humanity from their one lifeline. Wolfwood betrays the Guns and rescues Vash, revealing his true identity as Nicholas the Punisher of the Eye of Michael and the Gung-Ho-Guns. He also reveals that he betrayed the real Chapel to try to infiltrate the Guns and kill Knives. Wolfwood leaves shortly thereafter when he learns the last of the Guns and the real Chapel are heading toward the orphanage where he grew up.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, Vash was a tall blond man, about 180 centimetres tall, with blue-green eyes. Vash's hair looks like needles, which sometimes betrays him, or gives his friends a chance to come up with nicknames for him. Underneath his clothes, Vash's entire body is a horrific patchwork of large scars and huge chunks of lost flesh replaced with metal plates and metal stitching. The only part of him that has avoided such damage is his head and neck, which are in otherwise pristine condition. He was commonly known as the Humanoid Typhoon due to the destruction and chaos that often surrounded him.

Initially, Vash usually exaggerates foolish characteristics to make people feel un-threatened and to hide his identity, as well as using these outrageous actions and chronic kindness as a way to mask his own pain.

A point of conflict in the series is the inner differences between Vash and Knives, his twin brother, and their regard for humanity. Despite his long-suffering and ill-treatment by human beings, Vash chooses to remain hopeful and loving toward humanity; whereas Knives has fallen into a deep-seated hatred of the entire race despite never personally suffering at their hands. Their personalities also have other key differences: Vash cannot stand the despair of being alone, whereas Knives revels in his loneliness and has no desire for any company other than Vash.

Because Vash refuses to kill any of his opponents, he often suffers at the hands of a number of very unscrupulous enemies. As a result, his body is a patchwork of large scars, chunks of missing flesh supported by metal mesh, and stitch marks. Despite his hesitance to show his body especially to ladies whom he believes would be repulsed. As such, Vash never uses his power to remove them or repair his body, choosing to keep the scars as a reminder of the price he pays for his unlimited mercy.

Powers and abilities

Vash belonged to the race of organic generators - living sources of energy, referred to as Plants. Though he appears human, he has several characteristics that place him higher than that of the average man. Due to his high sensory perception, he is able to dodge bullets by reading the movements of others and instantly predict trajectories. He is physically strong enough to fire machine guns in each hand simultaniously, and is physically able to withstand greater injury than normal humans. Vash's lifespan is also much longer than that of humans, retaining his youthful appearance past 100 years of living. Despite this, he is still susceptible to grievous injury, and his ability to heal from such injuries is not much better than that of humans. Vash is also just as easily prone to intoxication from consuming too much alcohol as a normal person, which ironically is shown to hinder his attempts to conceal his naturally-high talent for marksmenship.

One account had Vash lose his left arm from the shoulder-down in a conflict with Knives in July City. This arm was later replaced with a cybernetic prosthesis with a built-in weapon.

Vash habitually carries a custom made .45 caliber silver or nickel-plated revolver double-action with a top break reloading mechanism that fires .45 Long Colt ammunition. Despite its appearance, it is shown having 7 shots in the fight against Goseph and Father Nebraska.

Notes

• Vash the Stampede was created by Yasuhiro Nightow where he featured in the setting of the Trigun universe.

In other media

Television

• In Trigun, Vash the Stampede appeared in the setting of the 1990s anime television series where he was voiced by Japanese actor Masaya Onosaka as an adult and by Kōki Miyata as an child whilst English actor Johnny Yong Bosch voiced him as an adult whilst actress Bryce Papenbrook voiced him as a child in the dub. Vash and Millions Knives were found by the crew as human-like infants a year before the Project SEEDS fleet arrived at Gunsmoke. The crew initially wanted to kill them; however, Rem threw herself between the twins and the weapons, begging for their life. In just one year, they aged nearly ten years in appearance and had much higher intellectual capabilities than normal. Steve disliked the idea of the living Plants on the control ship and did not conceal it. He insisted on the twins being monsters and often hit or kicked them when the other crew members were not around. One day in the recreation room, Rem cut Vash's hair and styles into his current spiky hairstyle. She says how Vash reminds her of her old boyfriend, Alex. She tells Vash "Thanks to him, I was able to face my mistakes without judgment. I learned to make them right again.". When Vash asks where he is, Rem tells him he's now in heaven. Vash then goes on to say that he will protect Rem and tells her he loves her. Knives, lost in his own thoughts of what his purpose for being there was, and possibly jealous of the close bond between Rem and Vash, eventually left to cut his own hair. When finished he runs his hand through it but gets angry and shouts "It's all wrong!", possibly because he could not copy Vash's hair himself. When Vash finds him shortly afterward and asks what happened, Knives smiles it off, saying "If we stay the same, there's no individuality." This is the first time that a change in Knives' demeanor can be perceived. Later, the crew discusses the twins' hairstyles, with Vash getting called a "momma's boy." Steve gets angry and calls the two of them monsters again then drapes himself over Mary when she tells him he's had too much to drink. Knives rebukes him, saying "You are a disgrace. Is that any way for a grown man like you to behave in the presence of innocent children?" Steve laughs manically out of the room. When the others comment on his crazy behavior, Knives whispers, "It's because he's afraid". Later on, Knives is seen entering Rowan's room, and then Mary's room. It is later implied Knives convinced Mary and Rowan that they should both make up a story in order to get Steve out of the way.

Appearances

• Trigun:

External Links

• Vash the Stampede Wiki Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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