Vash

Walking to town with your best friend, and he's hungry.

Vash is represented as 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 (example: Needlehead). 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. In the anime, Vash loses 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’s typical ensemble includes a long, crimson trenchcoat with a high collar, assorted straps, and black buttons. It has slits on both sides from the waist down, which allow for ease in running, jumping, and climbing. His right sleeve is simply part of the trenchcoat, but his left sleeve is secured by a series of black straps and buckles.

Underneath his coat, he wears form fitting dark pants and knee-high combat boots with retractable knives in the toes and circular metal plates at the knees. His top is black and sleeveless, and is also tight to his body. Occasionally he will wear a pair of light amber-colored sunglasses with zigzagging arms, though these are frequently destroyed only to be replaced later.

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, discovers Vash and Knives. He agrees 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.

The Great Fall Knives (having internalized the horror and his emotions) is now unable to believe that humans and Plants can ever coexist, He uses 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.

July Incident The infamous July Incident occurred before the start of the manga, 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.

The incident secures Vash's reputation as The Humanoid Typhoon.

Superhuman physiology: Vash belongs 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 succeptable 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. Generator Power: Vash is able to transform his body to some extent, increasing his combat capabilities. But the main strength of the generator is the ability to reproduce a large amount of energy and efficiently use it for various purposes. He is also able to use this ability to heal or calm other Plants should they be damaged or excited. Angel Power: Vash is able to transform his body to some extent, increasing his combat capabilities. But the main strength of the generator is the ability to reproduce a large amount of energy and efficiently use it for various purposes. Defensive Wings: allow you to block powerful blows (level of destruction of the building) and bullets directed at Vash. The self-defense mechanism does not depend on Vash's consciousness and, with the activated "angel power", works independently. During his final battle with Legato in the manga, Vash uses his Plant abilities to create a fully automatic defensive blade. Anyone that enters with the range of these blades will almost instantly cut them without Vash's direction. These blades were able to cut through the massive Guernica with ease were able to cut Legato dozens of times before he could react. Blades: the wings take the form of narrow and long ribbon-blades with monomolecular sharpening, capable of easily cutting steel and stone into even pieces. At a distance, Vash himself controls the blades, when the enemy attacks close (for example, in the back of Vash), a counterattack of the automatic defense system is triggered, regardless of the desire of Vash himself. The radius of destruction is up to hundreds of meters at least, the speed of attacks is supersonic. Flight (levitation): Does not occur due to the wings, probably due to the manipulation of gravity. Sensory - After teleporting Knives, Vash was able to pinpoint his location. Reacted in advance to an attack from orbit. Teleportation: Vash is able to accurately teleport over vast distances. Barrier: After spending some time concentrating energy, Vash is able to cover a fairly large area with a protective barrier. The barrier is capable of withstanding at least a missile hit. Creation of black hole bullets: Using his energy, Vash materializes bullets into empty shells, which after a shot turn into mini-collapsars with a diameter of about a meter, sucking everything into themselves for several seconds. They can be used offensively, tearing the enemy apart, or defensively, absorbing attacks directed at Vash. Allows Vash to use his power without going into "angel" mode. In the series, within Vash's trademark revolver lies the catalyst needed to activate his "Angel Arm". The Angel Arm is Vash's ultimate weapon. Upon activation, his right arm transforms into a weapon powerful enough to destroy entire cities with a single blast. Vash fears the Angel Arm's potential for destruction and knows little about how to use it. In the manga, the Angel Arm is a natural feature of a plant's body and can be manipulated into various shapes to create a number of effects beyond destruction. His power using the Angel Arm is limited: like a battery, it contains only a certain amount of energy, and when that energy is gone he will die. Vash's Angel Arm typically takes the shape of a large cannon weapon, which uses a tremendous amount of power. As a meter of spent energy a plant's hair color gradually darkens as their internal power is spent until reaching a final color of black when fully depleted. To illustrate the power of the Angel Arm, Vash's hair began to darken after the second time he fires it, using enough energy to blast a hole in the moon. Throughout the manga, Vash learns to gain better control of his power to form smaller cannons and defensive feathers, he even shows mastery to an extent of infusing its singularity-inducing capabilities into bullets for proper use without firing it, although his hair continues to grow darker until it becomes almost completely black. By the climax of the series, he has only a small lock of blond hair left. Weapons .45 Long Colt Vashlongcolt 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. The engraving on the side of the gun describes it is a ".45 Long Colt AGL Arms Factory" with wings around the "AGL" as in angel. Vash's revolver has the barrel aligned with the 6 o'clock chamber, not the 12 o'clock chamber as is the typical configuration of standard revolvers. Very few weapons follow this form factor, the Mateba Autorevolver, and the Chiappa Rhino being the two most common. In the series, this handgun was created as part of a pair by Knives, of which Vash was given the silver model, and Knives kept the black model. Vash eventually carries both weapons for a time, before losing the black gun to Knives in another fight. Both guns were designed to be used left-handed, though Vash shoots right-handed.

In the manga, Vash uses his unique gun more out of mere novelty and habit. Visually the handgun in the manga is also different from that in the anime, though it still features the unique placement of the barrel in the 6 o'clock position. In Trigun Maximum, the revolver used in the anime appears for Vash for use as a two-panel replacement for his standard gun while it is being repaired.

VashArmGun Cybernetic Machine-gun Arm Vash lost his left arm from the bicep-down when Knives blew it off using a normal revolver, after Vash stole Knives' black Angel Arm pistol years earlier. In the manga, Knives cut it off when they were younger with a blade he formed from his own body. He now has a cybernetic replacement, which also conceals an integrated firearm. In both the series and manga, it is initially a powerful semiautomatic pistol that is later upgraded to a fully automatic submachine gun. The latter weapon has an incredibly strong recoil, forcing Vash to steady himself in place when using it. In the manga, Vash's cybernetic arm is severed during his attempt to escape Monev the Gale, causing him to spend a number of chapters with only one arm until it is replaced with the submachine gun-equipped arm. The anime episodes based on these chapters however leave his arm intact.

Vash typically goes to great efforts to conceal his cybernetic arm, keeping it wrapped in tight leather belts to give it the appearance of an ordinary arm. Whenever he uses his arm's integrated weapons, these wrappings are torn away to reveal the cybernetics underneath.

Other Weapons and Equipment WolfwoodVash Vash holding Wolfwood's punisher

In the series, Vash can be seen using a knife hidden in the toe of his boot in multiple episodes. During his battle with Brilliant Dynamites Neon, he uses an automatic weapon that appears similar to an AK-47 carbine. In the climactic final battle with Knives, he also uses Wolfwood's Cross Punisher.

In the manga, Vash's signature coat changes on multiple occasions, usually after being damaged, destroyed, or lost. At least one model is described as being bullet-proof. During a battle with Knives aboard The Ark, tubes on his then-present coat were used to reload his revolver and to feed ammunition into his sub-machine gun. The tubes were used without Vash laying hands on them, but it is not made clear if this is done by mechanical means, or by Vash using his plant abilities. The coat design never changes in the anime, remaining consistent with each repair or replacement. Due to his cybernetic arm, the left sleeve of Vash's jacket is heavily reduced.