Trigun

In the anime several of the episodic stories that happen in the manga are placed at the beginning of the series. They spend more time introducing the character of Vash as well as Meryll and Millie. It is not until the fifth episode, "Hard Puncher," that Meryll is convinced that Vash is indeed Vash the Stampede. It is not until the twelfth episode where the series turns from a wild romp with occasional troubling clues into a rather serious story with occasional humorous elements.
The design of the anime is crisp and fresh. Once animated, some of the scenes that were extremely confusing in the manga now make perfect sense and the impact is great. With Madhouse being the studio behind the project, the production quality is consistent throughout the entire series. Character designer Yoshimatsu Takahiro (SLAYERS, JUBEI-CHAN) and mechanical designer Zinguzi Noriyuki have managed to bring Nightow's story to brilliant animated life. Nishimura Satoshi, in his directorial debut, provided good pacing and ordering of the events in this anime. Voices such as Onosaka Masaya for Vash, Tsuru Hiromi for Meryll, and Hayami Sho for Wolfwood fit the characters well, giving a whole new depth to the story as they reveal it.
Perhaps the best way to summarize this series, or at least its more serious parts, is this quotation from the LD box set covers:

We are all like raindrops falling from the sky, eventually landing on this sandy star and drying from the heat of the sun. Even if protected by a huge umbrella, we never know what tomorrow may bring. Someday we will be blown by and absorbed into the sandy earth.

Shows like TRIGUN reveal how an old idea, like the Old West, can be reborn into something very new and different. This story is a unique and strong combination of humor, science fiction, drama, sacrifice, pain and joy. Both the manga and the anime come highly recommended. It is not often you see a series with this many complex and disparate elements melded together with such a variety of characters and situations.

Next: The Characters of Trigun