oh. oh my.
So I downloaded all of TriMax through the latest chapter (99). And. And.
So yeah, I cried. Worst damn cliffhanger ever in the history of cliffhangers at the end of 99. I wonder who had planned ahead -- did Nightow already have the whole story mapped out from the beginning, and if so, did he tell the anime creators that it was okay to use his idea for Legato's death in the way they did? Because the death scene is very similar (though different in all those little ways that make the manga so much more), even though the anime version would have been finished first.
But. But. The scenes are similar, but the differences are killer. Legato doesn't give up. Legato doesn't want to die, doesn't want to escape his miserable life. He revels in his life, in every sick, twisted moment of it, and he fights Vash to the bloody bone before accepting that a death in battle from Vash while in Knives' service is the best he could ever ask for. And he sees himself in Vash, so much more so than in the anime and in such a profound way (not superficial like the arm-trade thing, but rather because of the parallel imagery of rape and mental powers and scarring and devotion to Knives), and that's creepy as hell. And tragic. And Legato is just so... God, I don't know. So not lost. I always associated Legato with a sense of loss and being lost, before. In the manga he's scarier and more sympathetic because of his lack of apathy -- ironic considering the majority of his time is spent in a coffin, but then you see that within that confined space he had been writhing and chipping away at the locks for so, so long, never as still as he looked, always with purpose. So focused. So devoted.
Also, wtf giant coffin-bearer morningstar machine-gun-cannon? Um. Okay. (What happened to the good old days of squashing people with motorcycles or forcing a crowd to pack themselves into one armored truck?)
Random question: why did Vash's coat turn black and why did it later abruptly turn back red again? I love Nightow to death but sometimes the lack of color and shading in his art makes it hard to decipher, and any given translation of the manga leaves something to be desired. It also doesn't help that few dialogue bubbles have any indication of which character they belong to -- pointy bits, chibi-doodles-in-the-corners... Not a whole lot of that going on here. But, oh well. Nightow's art and concepts are so far beyond awesome that I can deal with a little ambiguity of dialogue. I spend ten minutes staring at each page for the art, anyway, so it's not like it's a matter of speed-reading confusion.
Anyway. Why did I get off on a tangent about Legato? Um. Everyone is awesome. Everyone, holy shit, I mean -- Elendira. Livio. Razlo. (Okay so um yeah one of the parts that made me cry was that very last bit of fight between Elendira and Livio where Razlo "helped" Livio and then told him that his (Razlo's) power was Livio's power and they didn't have to "cooperate" because they were one being and then that dichotomy that had been torturing Livio for so so long, the dichotomy that ultimately killed Wolfwood because Wolfwood was trying so hard to heal it, it's finally gone and Livio is a free, whole person just in time to ALMOST DIE LIKE THAT, freakin' CHARACTERS, they need to stop SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME.) And Elendira was so wonderful through to the end and I almost wish she wasn't dead, but the nuclear threat outweighs that wish just a little bit. I don't want Vash and Knives interrupted again. This thing needs to run its course.
It's so close to the end. That's what's scary. Wolfwood and Legato and Elendira are dead, we've got Vash running hot on the sensory memory of killing Legato (more so than in the anime, where he had so much time to reflect on the act) and Knives pushing harder and wilder than ever for the end of the world because his cointegration of Sisters is falling apart and he can feel them -- and by proxy himself -- doubting for the first time ever.
Every fight is over but the last.
I hope the girls make it. They're so much less irritating in the manga, Meryl especially. And Milly is absolutely wrenching. The scene where Livio wants to tell her what he did to Wolfwood and then the others cut him off and tell Milly that he's just gone off to fight somewhere else and she nods and knows anyway and cries through a smile, God. Nightow is brilliant and cruel, and for a manga with such massive, flashy fight scenes and epic themes, the in-between character moments employ an unbelievably delicate touch.
Damn I love this manga.
Anyway. Ramble more later.
Because the art of Knives, the Ark and the ultimate "cointegration" of all the Plants with Knives at their core was all so gorgeous, I got inspired to draw immediately after reading.
Falling Toward Apotheosis - sketch
Not Nightow-quality or even Nightow-style, and the design of the "wings/blades" is done from memory and mostly impressionistic, but... I like it. A lot. No planning whatsoever beforehand, I just let a big swooping curve fall out of my pencil and built on that. This isn't the finished version -- I plan on inking it more, shading probably being crosshatch if I have the patience, and I might tint it. Don't want to use colored pencil on it; I like the idea of an all-ink piece, but I need to hunt down some colored ink first.
Also going to use the finished version for prompt #10 of my Fanart50 claim, "power."
Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day, people, and hopefully I'll have finished Trigun art and finished Last Exile stories for you soon.
-rave
So yeah, I cried. Worst damn cliffhanger ever in the history of cliffhangers at the end of 99. I wonder who had planned ahead -- did Nightow already have the whole story mapped out from the beginning, and if so, did he tell the anime creators that it was okay to use his idea for Legato's death in the way they did? Because the death scene is very similar (though different in all those little ways that make the manga so much more), even though the anime version would have been finished first.
But. But. The scenes are similar, but the differences are killer. Legato doesn't give up. Legato doesn't want to die, doesn't want to escape his miserable life. He revels in his life, in every sick, twisted moment of it, and he fights Vash to the bloody bone before accepting that a death in battle from Vash while in Knives' service is the best he could ever ask for. And he sees himself in Vash, so much more so than in the anime and in such a profound way (not superficial like the arm-trade thing, but rather because of the parallel imagery of rape and mental powers and scarring and devotion to Knives), and that's creepy as hell. And tragic. And Legato is just so... God, I don't know. So not lost. I always associated Legato with a sense of loss and being lost, before. In the manga he's scarier and more sympathetic because of his lack of apathy -- ironic considering the majority of his time is spent in a coffin, but then you see that within that confined space he had been writhing and chipping away at the locks for so, so long, never as still as he looked, always with purpose. So focused. So devoted.
Also, wtf giant coffin-bearer morningstar machine-gun-cannon? Um. Okay. (What happened to the good old days of squashing people with motorcycles or forcing a crowd to pack themselves into one armored truck?)
Random question: why did Vash's coat turn black and why did it later abruptly turn back red again? I love Nightow to death but sometimes the lack of color and shading in his art makes it hard to decipher, and any given translation of the manga leaves something to be desired. It also doesn't help that few dialogue bubbles have any indication of which character they belong to -- pointy bits, chibi-doodles-in-the-corners... Not a whole lot of that going on here. But, oh well. Nightow's art and concepts are so far beyond awesome that I can deal with a little ambiguity of dialogue. I spend ten minutes staring at each page for the art, anyway, so it's not like it's a matter of speed-reading confusion.
Anyway. Why did I get off on a tangent about Legato? Um. Everyone is awesome. Everyone, holy shit, I mean -- Elendira. Livio. Razlo. (Okay so um yeah one of the parts that made me cry was that very last bit of fight between Elendira and Livio where Razlo "helped" Livio and then told him that his (Razlo's) power was Livio's power and they didn't have to "cooperate" because they were one being and then that dichotomy that had been torturing Livio for so so long, the dichotomy that ultimately killed Wolfwood because Wolfwood was trying so hard to heal it, it's finally gone and Livio is a free, whole person just in time to ALMOST DIE LIKE THAT, freakin' CHARACTERS, they need to stop SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME.) And Elendira was so wonderful through to the end and I almost wish she wasn't dead, but the nuclear threat outweighs that wish just a little bit. I don't want Vash and Knives interrupted again. This thing needs to run its course.
It's so close to the end. That's what's scary. Wolfwood and Legato and Elendira are dead, we've got Vash running hot on the sensory memory of killing Legato (more so than in the anime, where he had so much time to reflect on the act) and Knives pushing harder and wilder than ever for the end of the world because his cointegration of Sisters is falling apart and he can feel them -- and by proxy himself -- doubting for the first time ever.
Every fight is over but the last.
I hope the girls make it. They're so much less irritating in the manga, Meryl especially. And Milly is absolutely wrenching. The scene where Livio wants to tell her what he did to Wolfwood and then the others cut him off and tell Milly that he's just gone off to fight somewhere else and she nods and knows anyway and cries through a smile, God. Nightow is brilliant and cruel, and for a manga with such massive, flashy fight scenes and epic themes, the in-between character moments employ an unbelievably delicate touch.
Damn I love this manga.
Anyway. Ramble more later.
Because the art of Knives, the Ark and the ultimate "cointegration" of all the Plants with Knives at their core was all so gorgeous, I got inspired to draw immediately after reading.
Falling Toward Apotheosis - sketch
Not Nightow-quality or even Nightow-style, and the design of the "wings/blades" is done from memory and mostly impressionistic, but... I like it. A lot. No planning whatsoever beforehand, I just let a big swooping curve fall out of my pencil and built on that. This isn't the finished version -- I plan on inking it more, shading probably being crosshatch if I have the patience, and I might tint it. Don't want to use colored pencil on it; I like the idea of an all-ink piece, but I need to hunt down some colored ink first.
Also going to use the finished version for prompt #10 of my Fanart50 claim, "power."
Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day, people, and hopefully I'll have finished Trigun art and finished Last Exile stories for you soon.
-rave