Millions Knives

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Millions Knives, just before his battle with Vash the Stampede in the final episode of the Trigun anime.

Millions Knives (ミリオンズ・ナイブズ Mirionzu Naibuzu) is a fictional character from the anime and manga series Trigun. Within the story he is Vash the Stampede's sinister twin brother and is the main antagonist of the story. He believes that humanity is a plague that must be exterminated because they survive by consuming the plants and all the planet's natural resources.

[edit] Background

In the anime, it's speculated that some of his hatred toward mankind originated from the abuse he suffered as a child from one of the Project SEEDS crewmember, a human named Steve. He started innocently, until Knives made up his mind about humanity ("That is the true nature of these pathetic beasts known as humans. They're all are selfish, arrogant, insolent, grossly imperfect organisms. They make me sick to my stomach.", episode 26 "Under The Sky So Blue".) He began to kill the crew of the SEEDS mainship, one by one, then attempted to cause all the ships to crash into a desolate, barely habitable desert planet. Only a sacrificial effort by Rem Saverem managed to save some of the ships. He first tried to convince Vash to join his quest, but eventually the two became bitter rivals.

The origin of Knives' hatred towards mankind is a bit more developed in volume 7 of the Trigun Maximum manga. As plant-children on the sleeper ship carrying humans to a new planet, Vash and Knives eventually discover they once had an older sister, Tessla, whose ghost often appeared to them. Because Tessla was the first fully-evolved plant known to mankind, she was subjected to endless tests and experiments, until she developed cancer and died. Upon discovering what is left of her dissected body, Knives passes out and Vash literally lashes out at Rem, fearing that the same fate awaits his brother and himself. Rem eventually convinces Vash that humanity will accept them and that no harm will come to them. For a while, it seems as though Knives is also convinced, but this turns out to be a mask: Knives believes humanity will never accept powerful beings such as Vash and himself and he has reached the conclusion that the only way to survive is to exterminate humans before they gang up on him.

In the anime, Knives took Vash to the wreckage of a SEEDS ship 14 years after their arrival, and spent a year rummaging through it, making a pair of very special guns: the Angel Arms, one black, one silver. Knives gave the silver one to Vash with the intention of using the guns to wipe out humanity ("These are our new siblings, and this one will be yours. We will use these guns to dispose of mankind"), but Vash wouldn't stand for it and he did something he never thought he'd do: he shot Knives in the leg and ran off with Knives' gun. He eventually made contact with the humans.

In the manga, Knives and Vash explored the planet before separating after an argument when Knives slaughtered a city that had captured Vash. Vash panicked and shot Knives in the back, and Knives retaliated by using his Angel Arm to cut of Vash's left arm.

In the anime, after making contact with the humans Vash searched had been tracking down the last blood relative of Rem, only to learn that Knives had killed him. It was then that Knives returned the favor from over 80 years ago and shot off Vash's left arm and took back his own gun. Then he unlocked the hidden power in Vash's gun, threatening to unleash a catastrophic blast in the city. Desperate, Vash then turned the gun on his brother and fired.

In the manga, Vash was searching for Bill Conrad, a crewman aboard the SEEDS ship he and Knives grew up on. Knives found him first and used Conrad's knowledge of plants to study his and Vash's powers. Knives decided to test Vash's powers by activating Vash's Angel Arm, which led to the July incident.

In both the anime and manga, the July incident left Knives' body shattered. He regenerated it through plant manipulation and advanced technology. While recuperating, he hired a special group of skilled assassins, the "Gung-Ho Guns."

[edit] Character

As Trigun unfolds, it becomes apparent that Knives believes that humans are parasites that need to be exterminated. He wants to create a peaceful and fair world with Vash and his other plant brethren, and he believes the only way to do this is by killing off all humans. Knives never claims to be a god; simply a superior being to homosapiens. If Knives were able to kill all humans and begin creating his "Eden" on Gunsmoke, it is very likely that he would act similarly to Vash, and act as a kind and loving individual. This can be seen in the final episode of the anime, where Knives peacefully rests amidst the oasis he has created and greets Vash as his brother arrives, but this could actually be a facade of placidity.

At the end of the anime, Vash and Knives finally meet and have one last epic duel, in which Vash wins and carries Knives off, probably to try and change his perspective (and to Meryl and Milly).

The manga is still not finished.

Although Knives is technically the biggest “villain” in the series, we see very little of him in the manga and even less in the anime. Because Knives is seen so little in the series, it's hard to get much of his personality aside from his hatred for humans and Vash's softness. He loves Vash and believes he is misguided, just as Vash cares about Knives and believes him to be misguided. He wants Vash to pay for shooting him, but other than that, Knives’ main goal is convincing Vash to join his side - something he realizes he will never be able to do as the story progresses.

[edit] Abilities

Knives understands his origins and powers better than his brother Vash and as a result he knows how to tap into his powers and create weapons such as the Angel Arms. In the anime, Knives develops special weapons, the Angel Arm. On the surface, they resemble Colt revolvers, but underneath they hide a special power core. These power cores, when held in either of their hands, transforms the guns into very lethal weapons. It can actually cause their arms to morph into miniature versions of one of the SEEDS guns, the true power of the Angel Arm. At even a 13% maximum output, the results are nonetheless devastating.

Knives is also a powerful telepath, using his ability to manipulate other plants, evident in two flashbacks (Ep. 26: "Under the Sky So Blue"): when he almost causes a plant to combust in order to kill humans, and the instance in which he manipulates Vash's Angel Arm. He can also use this power on humans, evident in Episode 17: "Rem Saverem". In this episode, Knives kills the crew members one by one via manipulation and the apparent insanity that the crew members seem to suffer from.

Note: Fusion, the process that powers the stars, has a matter-energy conversion rate of 1%. If 13% maximum output means 13% efficiency in converting matter to energy, the Angel Arms are, in effect, nuclear weapons that can be aimed and reused, and can scale up to the multi-gigaton range. By comparison, the strongest nuclear weapon tested to date is a Soviet bomb that had a yield of 50 megatons, or 1/20th of a gigaton. This is reasonably consistent with what is shown in the anime, and if true, only Knives's respect for non-human life has prevented him from unleashing a general nuclear holocaust to purge humanity from the planet.

In the manga, the Angel Arm is a natural ability of a plant, and does not require a revolver to use his power. Knives' power manifests itself as an array of extremely sharp blades. Also, Knives further learns how to increase his power by mergeing with other plants. As is seen in multiple instances in the manga where he absorbs his "sisters" into his left arm, taking their power source into his. The side affect being that when using his power, parts of the plants he has absorbed can be seen, arms, legs, and the occasional horrified face peak through the cloak he wears from his left shoulder to keep it concealed. Later he tries to use this ability to absorb his brother, Vash, yet almost becomes overpowered due to Vash's more potent "flow", in this instance Legato steps in to pull Knives away from the brink before he is lost.

After fusing with thousands of plants, Knives launches his "Ark", a floating ship which travels around the Planet Gunsmoke, absorbing almost all the plants on the planet. This results in the near total collapse of human civilization on Planet Gunsmoke, as cities are left with no means of producing power, water or food. He claims that when he removes all the plants, the humans will kill each other over resources, thus proving to Vash that is all humanity is good for. As he absorbs more and more plants, his Ark takes on the form of a living organism, capable of defending itself and even in some cases teleporting short distances.

[edit] Voice actors

• Adult Millions Knives Voiced by: Tooru Furusawa (Japanese), Bo Williams (English)
• Young Millions Knives Voiced by: Masamichi Ota (Japanese), Joshua Seth (English)