A monumental carcass of technology rusts in the desert. It was to have been a mega-modern plant that would have provided jobs, prosperity, and lives for thousands of people. But thanks to a few bugs, a few mistakes, and a little bad luck it was never completed leaving the denizens of Inepril City without jobs, livelihoods nor future - only despair and the desert wind. Which explains why so many decent ordinary people dare to undertake one of the most ill advised get-rich-quick schemes imaginable. They dare to hunt for Vash.

Vash, the Humanoid Cyclone, the legendary outlaw, he who cannot be killed and cannot be caught, he who leaves cities ruined in his wake, he who thousands of men and hundreds of traps have failed to catch - more to the point, he with a sixty billion double dollar bounty on his head. They dare to hunt Vash the Stampede.

Vash is a really swell guy. Sure he dodges bullets, defies death, and evades armies, but he's also kind to children, has good manners and a sense of humor, and isn't really out to hurt anyone. Nonetheless, everyone hunts him. Everyone fails. Which is exactly what Meryl Stryfe came to warn them about.

Meryl Stryfe works for an insurance conglomerate. Her thankless task is to try and keep the citizens of Inepril City from destroying their city in an insane attempt to save their city. In a town like this, in times like these, she has a very very hard job.

Who says fate doesn't have a sense of humor? Now that a city has done it's damnedest to kill him and fallen short, Vash turns around and donates the bounty he earned by defeating all the ex-con mercenaries hired to help kill him to those same citizens of Inepril city who wanted him dead. That money pays for a shipment of supplies and new engineers to restore the inert plant and Vash the legendary outlaw quickly becomes Vash, the most popular guy Inepril city's ever seen.

The sand steamer laden with supplies and engineers pulls into town with a surprise for Vash - a statuesque beauty clad in elegant flowing gowns with precipitously plunging necklines. Naturally she's the new head engineer, Elizabeth, and she hires the smitten Vash as a bodyguard.

Meryl has less luck protecting the hotel and town from blades and bombs than Vash does fighting off the assassin who shows up with them. Of course the assassin isn't the only one trying to kill Vash as he discovers only after walking into a deadly trap in the reactor of a plant about to explode. Someone else has been carrying a grudge against Vash for years, since the day her hometown was razed by the chaos that accompanies him on his wanderings - part of the events that a memory-impaired Vash has to piece together.

A man can only save Inepril City from itself just so many times before the old wanderlust starts up again, so when the sand steamer heads out into the dangerous hinterlands again, Vash is along for the ride. Also along for the ride is a suspicious stowaway street urchin.

After the urchin signals the dreaded Bad Lad Gang, the steamer is hijacked and placed under the command of the criminals' modest leader Ultimate Magnificent Dreadnaught Raider. Perhaps a really good gang leader could come up with a better plan to crack open the steamer's main safe than to drive the entire steamer up a narrow canyon and off a precipice; but as Ultimate Magnificent Dreadnaught Raider points out, "This is the super express to your final blaze of glory, if it's not flashy, what's the point?"

For thousands of years people have believed in concepts like hubris and karma that reflect an essential belief that if there is a god, She's probably an avowed lover of irony. The creators of "Trigun" have given us a series that will appeal to those who share Her sense of humor. Consider for instance: anyone who tries to save the city destroys the city, he who tries to avoid conflict is besieged by it, a mayor who makes terribly stupid decisions is rewarded, the legendary outlaw won't hurt a fly, peace-loving citizens devote themselves to the hunt, Vash has no great need for money but stumbles into it, the citizens of Inepril do nothing to earn it but get rich, and Meryl Stryfe tries desperately to save other people's money but winds up broke. In the world of "Trigun" Fate isn't merely fickle, she's downright perverse.

Plenty of anime titles mix an ironic motif or two into their story; "Trigun" mixes a little story into its irony. Other than a few nebulous hints about Vash's forgotten past (a familiar way for a series to justify lots of surprising revelations in future episodes), the plots of the these initial episodes consist basically of exploiting the premise (a man who can't be killed and world full of people with an incentive to try) for the maximum number of melees, chases, and mayhem. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As long as the action moves quickly and the slapstick bits come fast and furious the lack of character depth or development can be overlooked.

Less easily overlooked is the inconsistent art. Virtually every character but Vash utilizes the same four exaggerated facial expressions (mouth wider open than head with eyes closed - meaning "Whaaat;" mouth a tiny speck with cheeks puffed out like Dizzy Gillespie - meaning "D'oh;" enormous teeth bared, face flushed - meaning "Grrrr;" and jaw dropped, eyes replaced by spirals - meaning "Va-va-va-wow") and occasionally characters move quickly but their clothing and hair remain still, or their legs appear to be running but their upper body is static (known as the Scooby-Doo maneuver).

Exaggerated or overly simplified art for comic effect goes back at least as far as Tex Avery; but "Trigun" falls into the trap of asking the viewer to take some of the characters seriously some of the time, and think nothing of it when those same characters act like buffoons later. The creators actually pull this trick off at the end of "Lost July" when the episode segues from Vash's lovesick shtick to a melancholy ending surprisingly smoothly, but elsewhere the sudden changes in tone feel awkward. In various moments Ultimate Magnificent Dreadnaught Raider makes for a hilarious campy villain, and a despicable child-beater; but attempts at hilariously campy child beating are frankly off-putting.

The characters of "Trigun" may be shallow, but the series moves quickly and finds clever ways to torment them.