Trinity Blood is one of those anime that I never really payed much attention to when it came out. Whenever I hear “Trinity Blood,” I think of that Melty Blood game. Funimation sent me a review package of DVDs, and one of them was the Trinity Blood Volume 1 collector’s box. Awesome! Here’s my review:
Story:
The world has gone through Armageddon (or at least some kind of huge war). This catastrophic event has caused vampires to make their appearance. Actually, I think the vampires are just people with some kind of disease. The Vatican is always at war with the vampire factions.
One man, Abel Nightroad, is the Vatican’s secret weapon against vampires. He’s a sort of anti-vampire vampire called a Crusnik. The first volume contains four episodes that basically introduce the main characters. In addition to Abel, there’s the android Tres Iques and a cute sister by the name of Esther Blanchett. Oh, and the pope is a whiny teenager. Seriously.
Analysis:
So the main thing that’s driving the plot in this series is the conflict between the Vatican and vampires. There’s hints here and there of “Rozen Kreuz,” some super secret evil organization. So far, though, there’s just been a character of a week type thing.
It’s really almost getting to Scooby-Doo level predictability: Abel investigates something while looking weak, Abel gets knocked around a little, Abel turns on his nano-machine thing, and then kicks butt.
The series really feels a lot like another vampire anime, Hellsing. You know, like how there’s a super powerful vampire who kills other vampires? I suppose things might get a little more original when the main plot surfaces, but I couldn’t help but notice the similarities.
The DVD:
The review copy that I got was the special edition box. It came with a really cool box, some tarot cards, an information booklet and the first DVD (duh). The packaging and everything are very slick.
The video quality seemed a bit blurry at first, but it was less apparent later on. There was a bit of artifacting during the high movement scenes too. The animation quality is very good. Since the anime was done by Gonzo, I expected a lot of CG. The CG that was used really wasn’t really that bad. Luckily there’s no mecha in this anime…
The DVD comes with both an English and Japanese audio track. I listened to the whole thing in Japanese. I’m listening to the English track in the background while I’m writing this review. The quality of the voice acting varies, but Abel’s voice actor is solid.
The DVD itself had a few extras including trailers, a terminology section, and a creditless OP and ED. Not too much here, but the extras in the box sorta make up for it.
See My Colection Of Trinity Blood Series
Conclusion:
At this point, Trinity Blood seems like a fairly generic vampire anime. While Abel is pretty cool, it seems like Alucard from Hellsing could take him. Still, the animation quality and inclusion of vampires and androids makes this anime pretty cool. Hopefully the story will start picking up in the second volume.
