Trigun Lore- How the Angel Arm design came to be.featured

Trigun Manga Vol. 1 cover published by Tokuma Shoten.

A number of events happened in a short time period during Trigun’s early development. The comic began serialization Tokuma Shoten’s Monthly Shōnen Captain in March 1995, but the magazine was discontinued in December 1996. Shōnen Gahosha’s seinen magazine Young King Ours offered Nightow a spot to release a comic and he wasn’t quite done with Trigun just yet, so he continued it as Trigun Maximum starting in October 1997 (the name had to change due to legalities). This timing overlapped with the original anime development and became quite a source for interesting lore!

Trigun Anime art by Takahiro Yoshimatsu.

Madhouse offered Nightow an anime adaption long before most of the manga was complete, so approximately 60% of the anime is filler- but there are many Nightow guided scenes that offer insight to his plan for the story, and the anime even influenced his designs for the manga!

There was an overlap in the timing of the writing of the anime and manga for the Fifth Moon Incident, but Nightow and Director Nishimura did not want to reveal Knives yet, so they used Rai Dei and Legato. Nightow’s vision can be seen in anime vs manga shots.

The Trigun anime Angel Arm, originally designed by Jinguji.

One of the most interesting developments from the anime is that Jinguji (1998 anime mechanical designer) came up with the original concept of the Angel Arm. Upon seeing the design, Nightow loved it so much he kept it for the manga!

Angel Arm design featured in Trigun Manga.

“Trigun means ‘three guns,’ so I had the idea of one of Vash’s arms transforming into the third gun. So I told Jinguji-san, ‘I want the gun to be like an angel, or something grotesque like that,’ and he came up with that design. Seeing the result, I was like, ‘Holy cow, this is amazing. Mega-accepted~!!’ (lol). I was thankful for how he stayed in tune with the image I had in mind, and then even surpassed it. So, the original design for the Angel Arm was actually by Jinguji-san. I just faithfully traced what he had made (Interview with Nightow, Trigun Art Book, 1999. Translation by cerealandchoccymilk).