#delicious weapons

Right, this one is slightly closer to the last post. Let's try to continue this trend. Actually, let's not. If this continues in a linear fashion, I'll be writing the ninth post before the seventh, and that's some serious time-travel-grade shit.

Fair warning: there will be quite a few screenshots this time, so many good shots to take.

So, we open on Vash proving that he doesn't actually walk everywhere, getting out of a hitchhike at a graveyard. Cheery business.

Cutting quickly, we arrive at the scene of pretty much the entire episode, a random bar containing the insurance girls and what appears to be a rich girl and her butler. The place has become a refuge from a sandstorm, and Meryl isn't all that pleased with the situation.

Suddenly a deep-voiced moustache with a man attached draws a gun on the heiress. HOSTAGE TIME.

---TITLE CARD---

So, we have the situation: a moustache has taken hostages, a different moustache (this time attached to a man wearing a police chief badge) is outside commanding his men, and a third moustache attached to the heiress' father arrives, understandably worried about the situation.

You can tell which one is the Earl. He has the larger moustache (status)

So there's a load of very serious sounding hostagetalk and policebanter, along with implications that this nobleman is (or was) part of some shady business that the police chief is/was also a part of.

Then Vash flaps into the scene, oblivious to everything because his iPod was especially funky at that moment.

I'm going to have at least one ridiculously derpy Vashface per episode at this rate

His sudden appearance outside the bar causes the criminals to get riled up and shoot at him, but Vash has plot armour and cannot be harmed by their villain-of-the-week bullets. Still getting down with his bad self, Vash makes it into the bar.

This is one of them 'locals only' pubs, right? I'll go then.

Long story short, Vash gets taken for an idiot by the criminals and is tied up alongside Meryl and Milly. After a short exchange where both parties blame the other for their recent bad luck, Vash spots his target. The heiress (wearing a dress) has been suspended from the ceiling. There is ample space underneath her. And she is helpless and wearing a dress.

WONDER VASH POWERS ACTIVATE! FORM OF A PERVERTED EARTHWORM!

Hi-jinx ensue, with our trussed O-jou-sama saying typical rich girl things about money, and Vash getting stomped on for being a creeper. Average hostage situation stuff that I'd imagine goes on all the time in such circumstances.

Meanwhile, outside, the sheriff reveals his master plan to save the day. The only thing that can stop a group of bandits is A GROUP OF WORSE, MORE MURDEROUS BANDITS (obviously).

In anime, some weapons are made of ice lollies. This is the only explanation for why you see so many licked knives, or as in this case, guns.

The earl decides to pay said mucho banditos to solve the problem, because he is functionally retarded and doesn't think that the first thing this group of amoral, money-crazed, mass-murdering psychopaths will probably do once they have his daughter is take her hostage again.

Inside:

Vash hasn't learned his lesson.

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GUITARS

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SRATIUG

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We return to the criminals having a spot of tea and engaging in some light conversation about the weather. Only kidding, they're throwing glasses around and talking about extortion. They hear a rumour over the radio that Vash the Stampede is in town just as an armoured vehicle arrives which they presume is their requested escape vehicle.

It is not their escape vehicle.

The ultrabandits quickly pull what I like to call the 'Pyroteamkill Manoeuvre', driving their armoured car directly into the front of the building, then leaping out and proceeding to shoot all of the guns. All of them. Also they spend their time chuckling like tickled babies. #WhyIsThisEvenATrope?

Cover is taken.

Vash takes some pro-active action by bicycle-kicking the heiress down from the rafters using his trusty boot-knife. Milly and Meryl have managed to wriggle over the bar, along with the lead moustache of the first group of criminals.

One of the second group decides that if their target isn't going to die willingly, he'll get his chucks by torturing the butler instead. Vash immediately loses his derpface and gets all heroic. And then doesn't shoot him. The bandits can't believe their luck, and raise their guns, when Milly breaks out the big guns.

That is a massively oversized non-lethal alternative.

Through a series of events, all the attacking bandits are knocked out or otherwise temporarily disabled. Vash quickly lets us in on a little of his pacifist philosophy, and then we get to hear the TRAGIC BACKSTORY of why this whole situation happened in the first place. Our proud earl and his loyal sheriff were once murderous banditos themselves, and our first batch of criminals are the surviving children of the townsmen slaughtered when they took ownership of the town with violence.

Vash leaves the bar and relays the criminals' new demands. Bostalk (the earl) is forced to comply after realising that his jig is more or less up.

Unhappy moustaches.

The deal is: the daughter goes free, but the father has to have a pistol duel with the head bandit to satisfy said bandit's thirst for vengeance. Being a pacifist, Vash is sad that this is how it must be.

But after it emerges that the earl is hit, not in the heart, but the shoulder, the mood of the scene changes.

It's an emotional rollercoaster that lasts all of 5 seconds.

Just as moustache the first says he's going to turn himself in, the real villain of the piece (ol' baldy the sheriff) reveals himself, openly admitting in front of everyone present including several other lawmen, two reputable insurance company employees and the daughter of the richest man in town that he intends on using this situation to grab power.

Quickly disarming everyone, the sheriff revels in his new found (and you guessed it: extremely temporary) status as KING OF TOWN. Vash grabs of Meryl's attention with just his eyelids, and then psychically requests backup for his upcoming pants-on-head insane rescue attempt. At least, that's what I can gather from the fact that he just looked at her and blinked, anywho.

Uh, teacher?

Distracting everyone for one second with a question, Vash then tackles a lawman to the floor. Meryl uses THIS distraction to reveal that her coat is made of guns.

There's like, 50 holdout pistols in there at least. What the shit?

And then she proves that although she's an insurance clerk for a day-job, her main passion is apparently being the world's greatest female run-and-gun crackshot; disarming all the corrupt lawmen with expertly aimed weapon shots. Vash has a little chat with the sheriff.

Just a friendly chat.

Vash and Meryl team up to destroy the sheriff's badge (THE SOURCE OF HIS POWER, NOW HE IS HELPLESS), and Vash forces the sheriff to repeat his catchphrase that we are just learning and that only turns up in a few other episodes.

All together now:

RUVU ANDO PIISO

Aaaaaand... scene.

GUITARS

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So, let's have a look at what we've learned here:

Fighting fire with fire is totally the best idea ever

Meryl is the world's foremost authority on handshots

50 small guns strapped to the inside of your overcoat in no way negatively effects your acrobatic manouevres

Some weapons are DELICIOUS

There are two types of crying ;_;

Murdering, from the first person perspective at least, is HILARIOUS

If you didn't have a moustache in the old west, you weren't shit