Ran From: 29/4/05 - 28/10/05
Produced By: GONZO, WOWOW, Victor Entertainment
Episodes: 24

I wrote this on the TAYT Forums but decided to put it up here too.

I've reserved a space to rant about Trinity Blood. Spoilers ahead, though. I can't write reviews without spoilers, I think..feel like I'm tiptoeing around the subject. Do people actually write reviews without spoilers? And for those who're interested, I went slightly crazy over it so I have the OST too, and boy, that's a cool set of songs. Oh, and I reviewed it in my forum, as well. They're songs so they don't have spoilers! Probably. The review..

Trinity Blood features...a hot but not terribly original guy called Abel, who is a Crusnik - a kind of uebervampire who feeds on other vampires' blood. (This just means the blood spilled on the floor gravitates towards Abel, who stands holding a large blood-red scythe while blood trails on the ground towards him.) That he's a bishounen (maybe he's a bit old for this, though. xD) is no argument - but people have compared him to Vash of the Stampede (or something like that XD) and Alucard in Hellsing. But since I've heard of neither, I appreciate Abel for what he is - a priest (he wasn't always one) who seems horribly light-hearted, but can turn serious (and go into kickass Crusnik mode!) and dangerous when he's (or his friends are) being threatened.

But apart from Abel, the other characters didn't really seem to stand out - in particular, I hated Esther because...she was irritating. (And she liked Abel..but that's not why I didn't like her. Not really. -looks shiftily around-
) She was dreadfully impolitic at some parts, though granted, I may be too harsh in judgement. Ion Fortuna was likeable, as was Seth - but the possible relationship between Ion and Esther was hindered by the portrayal of Ion as about..fourteen. (And Esther as around twenty) Even though he does seem to look taller as the anime progresses, I wasn't really convinced. Tres the android is another side character who I found interesting - he shows himself to not be as much a slave to his programming as one might thing. But as a side character, he's (predictably) not really developed.

But on the whole, though the art in Trinity Blood (Gonzo!) was fantastic to behold, the plot left more questions than answers. The objective of the anime seemed a typical good guys versus bad guys scenario - if only more of the bad guys were mentioned. As it is, the Rosencreutz/kreutz (can't remember which spelling) Orden seems to be a front for Cain to gain WORLD DOMINATION than a real opposing group. Their aim of revolution reminded me slightly of X TV, but the grey area in that anime/manga was far greater, the characters on both sides more well-developed, and our sympathy for either side more easily divided.

As it is, basically the only bad guy we see in action seems to be Dietrich, the Puppetmaster. While he orchestrated some interesting conflict between best friends with Radu's betrayal to Ion, it seems like they decided to leave out all the other people in the Orden mentioned in the manga, which is a pity.

The music for this anime, though, was very well done - especially Inori, which, together with the suddenness and futility of Abel's death and Esther's resulting self-recrimnation, actually moved me to tears. However, it's frustrating getting teased by interesting flashbacks which seemed to imply that Cain was not always the world dominating, mother-killing sibling, and that Abel was once the bad boy. Along with Abel's black wings and Cain's white wings, this seems to be the key to the rift between the two brothers. (And their sister Seth too, but Seth is on Abel's side so..)

Other not-so-good areas about this anime - pretty much a "To Be Continued" ending. While I'm happy Abel was resurrected, I'm not too happy to know that they'll be fighting all over again and I won't be there to see what happens. -_- As well as episodes that I felt were odd and somewhat disjointed in linkage - and Noelle's untimely and unresolved death. (I hate the ones where you don't quite know whether the person's dead or not. -__-)

But I'd definitely watch it again, if only for the art and music. What can I say, I'm a sucker for bishounen.