Couldn't agree with you more. I'm utterly baffled why people give this anime so much hype.
There are plenty of characters who don't kill. Batman, Superman, Kenshin, etc. They remain loveable characters because there's a prison/jail system in place, with laws and consequences for committing crimes.
In Trigun, Vash doesn't hold these criminals responsible for the crimes they commit. He just tells them to "run along".
So they can kill, rape, and destroy property on another day, as long as it's not under his watch.
This is so unbelievably stupid, that I can't even recommend this anime to kids. It is universally insulting to the intelligence of all human beings regardless of age. If I watch this with a little kid, eventually at the end of the episode the kid will ask me why Vash doesn't put the bad guys in jail. And I won't have an answer other than:
Vash has an extremely immature view of right and wrong. Actually it's beyond immature. His moral compass has been damaged by childhood trauma. His childhood scars won't allow him to accept the simple fact that letting a murderer(who continually kills) live free is infinitely more evil than killing the murderer. His childhood scars won't allow him to comprehend how selfish he truly is, and how he kills more people indirectly, when he saves serial murderers.
It's almost like when Knives killed the spider and Vash became angry. Knives actually saved much more butterflies in the long run, because the spider won't kill any more butterflies in the future.
Vash would rather save both the spider and 1 butterfly, which will eventually result in much more dead butterflies in the future since the spider is still alive.
Vash would have to imprison the spider and feed it some kind of high protein plant based substitute for the rest of the spider's life. Either that or follow the spider for the rest of it's life and continually save butterflies until the spider starves to death.
Since Vash isn't willing to do any of the basic things necessary to ensure human public safety (Such as when he allowed Gasback to walkaway from a bank heist in the movie "Trigun Badlands Rumble", then obviously he's ok with the spider killing many future butterflies as long as he doesn't have to bear witness to it.
You can't compare Vash to batman just because they both don't kill. Joker breaks out of maximum security prisons. But at least Batman tried his best to ensure public safety. Vash allows serial murderers to walk off into the sunset, with absolutely zero consequences.
Morality is a luxury. Without civilization (technology/economy/laws/infrastructure), morality is a luxury almost no one can afford.
Vash is equally as moronic as Morgan from the walking dead.
Vash the Stampede is quite possibly the worst anime character ever created.
Such a waste of my time. Watched a couple of episodes. I looked at the IMDB ratings, and assumed that I would end up loving Trigun. I was only two episodes into the series, and I made a crappy decision to purchase these two statues:
http://www.amazon.com/Kotobukiya-Trigun-Stampede-Gunman-ArtFXJ/dp/B00E5MG184/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1454704007&sr=1-2&keywords=vash+the+stampede
http://www.amazon.com/Kotobukiya-Trigun-Badlands-Nicholas-Wolfwood/dp/B00AQA0N06/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1454704027&sr=1-2&keywords=nicholas+d+wolfwood
They haven't even arrived yet, and I'm already cancelling the order because I don't want eternal reminders of the single worst anime, and anime characters I've ever encountered in my entire life staring me in the face for the rest of my days.
Two eternal reminders of the hours of life I'll never get back. I don't even care if I don't get a full refund. I would rather throw those hellish things away, than sell them and risk having some poor shmuck bamboozled into thinking that the anime is actually worth watching.

8. Degrading yourself to diffuse a dangerous situation is a noble thing to do.

7. Plants are damn powerful

6. "You should never get between people and their pudding"

Its heavy coz it's so full of mercy.
There is no Justice, there is only me.

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"We're not God. Not only are our powers limited, we sometimes are driven to become the devil himself."

3.)"I wanted to save the Spider, and the butterfly!"
"You have your answerNow go." - ber-Morlock - The Time Machine

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