
I loved watching how their relationship progressed over the course of the series and I was happy that the anime ended with Vash returning to Meryl after the battle with Knives. The evolution of Meryl's own feelings mirror Sakura's as well, originally seeing Vash has nothing more than a bumbling blonde idiot to later seeing him as a tortured, kind-hearted hero who she grew to love and believe in more than anyone else. The manga is comparatively more subdued in the romance department between Vash and Meryl, but also delves even further into it. Particularly, right before the final battle against Legato and Knives where Vash and Meryl hug and "knuckle-kiss" (where they both kiss their knuckles and fist-bump) to assure her that he would come back to her: While the manga doesn't end with them finally hooking up, the implication is that it will eventually happen, especially since Vash has the normal lifespan of an ordinary human now.
It's funny how Nightow claims that he sucks at romance, but considering how he wrote relationships in the Trigun manga *and* anime (where he actually wrote for several episodes), I think he's being modest.
Edited by Kagomaru, 07 January 2021 - 09:41 PM.