What do you get when you cross Trigun with Hellsing? Right, Trinity Blood. It plays in a futuristic-like setting, in which both Humans and Vampires (or rather Terrans and Methuselahs) live, but in which social rankings still remain very important.
The story of Trinity Blood rapidly changes from extremely good to extremely bad. Some episodes are unbelievably well thought out. Everything fits, and the plots leave you guessing all the time. At other times, however, the show leans a bit too much on using random coincidences and copies too much from Trigun.
The first half of the episodes feature father Abel Nightroad engaging in a couple of missions, each time accompanied with different side-characters. Some of these episodes may be a bit too complicated to follow. Other, however, were very interesting to see, especially when you were barely able to completely follow the plot, it was great to see all the different surprises.
The second half of the show, the missions begin to connect a bit more to each other, but they also take much longer than before. This may indeed become a bit boring, but the endings of each of those missions are magnificent and they will blow you off your chair. Then we have the ending itself. It consists of the last half of the last episode. I hate to say it, but it felt a bit incomplete. There are so many questions left unanswered. So many things yet to be solved. There was also a bit too much unneccesary action in the ending, which really could have been done better.
The different characters that Trinity Blood features are great. I’m especially a big fan of all the different members of the Vatican, but also the new characters introduced around the later episodes work great. Each of them has some kind of unique thread, which makes them interesting to watch. Their part was also the reason that the ending didn’t resolve in a total disaster. The first half of the last episode featured the side-characters in action. I totally loved this. Not even a second was wasted on it and each of the characters showed their utter best. Then the goodness ended and predictability began, unfortunately.
Although most of the characters were wonderful in this anime. There’s one character that just does NOT fit in this show: Esther. Somehow the creators took a liking in her, so they decided to give most of the screentime to her, instead of the side-characters. This is such a pity, because now that I think back a bit, I realize that almost all of the lesser moments of this anime featured her in one way or another.
The graphics in this anime look amazing. Especially the CG is top notch. The background music is nice to hear, but it’s not really anything special, or something. It’s just decent.
Overall, it was a very nice series to watch. Unfortunately, one character had to ruin it.
Why you should watch this: If you liked Trigun and Hellsing, or you are a fan of complicated plots, then you will like this anime.
XD, the ending didn’t feel incomplete, it WAS incomplete, that can easily be turned into a 2nd season. Kinda reminded me of Black Blood Brothers, had the same thing. And idd, I disliked the moment where ester had to leading role too, but I did like the methuselan queen :p
Part of the reason it was incomplete, I think, was because the original writer of the light novels had passed away before completing his work. I believe a close friend of his is still continuing with the novels based on notes and such, although I am not fully informed on the subject. They are still being translated into English, and I don’t know if the series (there’s more than one) have been finished yet. There are two right now: Rage Against the Moons and Return to the Mars. I don’t know if there will be more.
The ending of the anime reminded me of Hellsing in that sense of incompleteness (and for similar reasons, too). 🙂 That’s why I am so excited about the Hellsing Ultimate OVAs that are still coming out. They can do the original storyline full justice now that the last chapter of the manga has been released. It’s closer to the manga plot AND has better graphics. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, someone will try something similar with Trinity Blood. Although the graphics were pretty good already. But maybe they can give Isaak von Kampfer black hair instead of blue hair. XD
I know you usually focus on anime, but if you have a chance to glance at the novels I would highly recommend it. The original Japanese, if you can read it, would probably be more rewarding than the butchered English translations Tokyopop dishes out. Give them a try either way, though. The characters are better fleshed out, and Esther doesn’t seem so pointless. And you get to see characters who were cut from the anime but important to the original story. Never mind that the creators ignored most of the first series (Rage Against the Moons), but there were several storylines from the second series that were not included in the show. It simplifies the politics of the TB world too much. For example, in the anime Rosenkreuz is held responsible for the assasination of Prince Gilbert and his wife. In the novels it was Gilbert’s former mistress who led the rebellion against him so that her child with him would gain the throne. That’s just one example.
By the way, which characters did you like the most, and why? I like that you were drawn to the side characters. Many fans tend to focus on Abel and Esther, which annoys me a lot.
I think that the character who immediately stood out for me was the pope himself. The bizarre construction in which a weakling such as him is in total control, and is constantly influenced by his older brother and sister was a great idea that hooked me to this series. The rest of the side-cast was interesting too.
It’s a shame that this is a bit of an imperfect adaptation. It’s a very interesting series, and it would really have been an awesome series with a few more refinements.