Trigun characters: Encyclopedia II - Trigun characters - Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Trigun characters - Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Nicholas D. Wolfwood (ニコラス・D・ウルフウッド Nikorasu D Urufūddo) is considerably different between the manga and anime versions.

In the anime he's a preacher and an excellent gunman, who in the original Japanese version speaks Osaka dialect. Nicholas and Vash meet in the desert when Vash's bus runs across Nicholas' motorcycle. He proves to be a valuable ally, but sometimes Vash and Wolfwood's philosophies conflict. In the end, he comes over to Vash's way of thinking, even though he was associated with Knives the whole time. Nicholas' purpose was to raise money for children he was taking care of at a church. Nick loves children, a good reason he and Milly hit it off so well. He is also known as Chapel the Evergreen in the manga. He is not Chapel the Evergreen in the anime, but it is alluded that he will receive the title once the original Chapel completes a task.

When Wolfwood was younger, he lived with his uncle, a violent alcoholic, and shot him. Afterwards Chapel somewhat adopted Wolfwood and trained him to fight and shoot. Many other facts about Wolfwood are unknown.

The giant cross that he carries, the Cross Punisher, holds 10 pistols (right and left arms of cross). Wolfwood later appears with the Cross Punisher II which is a giant machine gun (long part of the cross) and finally, a rocket launcher in the top. The trigger for the Cross Punisher II is a skull shaped symbol in the centre of the cross. In the manga, his teacher tells him that the Cross Punisher is the tenth weapon of its kind that has been built.

He was inducted into the Gung-Ho Guns for his service to Knives. As can be expected, the weapon/case is very heavy and only Wolfwood, Milly, and Vash seem to have no trouble holding it. Wolfwood states that it's heavy "because it's full of mercy."

During the course of the series, he develops a relationship with Milly that crosses from close friendship into romance. It was speculated by some fans that Milly was even carrying Wolfwood's child towards the end of the series, however these rumors are not widely accepted. In the manga, they don't have this relationship.

He is modeled on Tortoise Matsumoto, the lead signer of the Japanese rock band Ulfuls. The name Wolfwood (ウルフウッド urufūddo) is a corruption of Ulfuls (ウルフルズ urufuruzu), which is in turn a corruption of the English word soulful (ソウルフル sōrufuru).

In the manga, Wolfwood was raised in an orphanage before being induced into the Order of Michael's Eye, a priesthood that serves Knives. His master was Chapel, but this man is rather different from the anime version of Chapel. Wolfwood took the identity of this man when he joined the Gung-Ho Guns. During his training, Wolfwood has been physically enhanced to superhuman status including regenerative abilities that are triggered by special vials that he can consume. The downside to this process is that he ages faster than a regular human.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Nicholas D. Wolfwood", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki