Features:
Description:
In "Escape from Pain," Vash and his friends bid an appropriately offbeat farewell to the gun-and-cross toting preacher Nicholas D. Wolfwood, as the two antiheroes help a young couple escape to freedom. Vash's past comes back to haunt him in the linked episodes "Diablo" and "Vash the Stampede," when Legato Bluesummers and the gargantuan Monev the Gale try to murder him. Vash escapes with his usual élan, but refuses to kill his would-be assassin. The ace marksman's behavior puzzles investigators Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson. They discover further hints about who Vash is (or was) when they see him without a shirt: his upper body is a mass of hideous scars. And the viewer has seen the intriguing Rem, the long-haired girl who appears only in Vash's memories. Meryl tries to decipher this charismatic and frustrating character in a report to the Bernardelli Insurance Society, which triggers a series of flashbacks from previous episodes. The outrageous man with the long blond crewcut is clearly the outlaw known as "The Humanoid Typhoon," but what does that mean? Director Satoshi Nishimura and writer Yosuke Kuroda aren't ready to tip their hands yet, and Vash remains the enigma he's always been. Rated for ages 13 and up for violence and mild profanity. --Charles Solomon
| 
