Mind Maze

HE'S SO STUPIDLY CUTE I NEED HIM DEAD

new art from Nightow I haven't seen posted here yet

The reference is much more obvious to a Japanese audience, the destruction of an entire city in an instant by some bizarre power is much more familiar. Nightow acknowledges the connection specifically in this letter reflecting on the pilot chapter of trigun:

There's more connections, like how Vash and the other (nuclear) plants carry strange divine power, that can be both so so helpful to people (like nuclear power) or be wielded as a weapon. Except this one explores if the nuclear weapon was alive and sentient and loved people. this story breaks me

That's part of the reason it took me so so long to read Trigun, so many instances when he's talking about what's going on in this fictional world he's also talking about the irl bombings. Real things, real people, real ideas, real violence. Trigun is a much rougher read when you remember that and I just kept having to stop and digest and grieve. Here are some panels that stuck with me in regards to Hiroshima:

This scene (pretty self-explanatory, the decision for the US to kill all those people and all those "difficult decision" platitudes we see when the US decides to bomb somebody):

and the recurring theme of making excuses for violence, and the condemnation of trying to smooth over your feelings to make violence easier to stomach instead of just. recognizing that violence sucks. always. The story is extremely sympathetic as to why people choose violence. It's incredibly critical of downplaying what you have done.

The explosion itself.

The reflection that every life lost in July was a living breathing person:

Even this scene, just the city bustling like normal, everyone going about their day. sinking feeling with the knowledge that everyone here is about to die. I think a lot about the morning the bomb hit Hiroshima. Some people were on their way to work. Some eating breakfast. Some still asleep. Some kids preparing for school. Some doing laundry. Some nursing a hangover. Some being born. It's easy to get death counts as numbers etc but in that information people forget precisely what even a single life lost means. We weren't meant to comprehend death on that scale.

and, of course, Vash remembering those people. Nightow inviting us to do the same:

"Like bro he's going to friendship dump you so badddd. Like don't you know he's made friendship bracelets with everyone in the tri-state area."

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