Trinty Blood Box Set

Trinity Blood Box Set

Running time: 400 minutes approx over 6 discs.
Classification: 15
Distributor: MVM
Region: R2 PAL
Video: 16:9 Anamorphic
Audio: Japanese 2.0, English 2.0.
Subtitles: English.
Release Date: 30th March 2009.
RRP: £49.99

Overview:
Based upon a series of popular Japanese novels, Trinity Blood is a fast paced action/mystery series blending elements of the supernatural, futuristic sci-fi and Gothic horror.

Almost a millennium after a nuclear Armageddon left much of the Earth’s surface destroyed, the last remnants of humanity has turned to the Catholic Church for strength, pulling itself out of the ashes and back to a life resembling that of early 20th century Europe.

The Church may have helped bring humanity back from the brink but it’s own corruption and infighting weakens it from within but now they have more pressing issues to deal with as they now face a deadly threat from without. Previously believed to just be the stuff of legends, Vampires walk the Earth scheming to feed on the blood of an enslaved and subjugated human race. While many on both sides wish to live in peace and cooperation, forces from both camps threaten this uneasy truce. A secret society known as “AX”, formed deep within the Vatican, works to defend this delicate peace as their investigative & tactical team strives to protect the Church’s interests at all costs. Their most powerful agents are Father Abel Nightroad, himself ironically an ungodly Crusnik, a shape-shifting being capable of feeding on the blood of vampires, and Father Tres Iqus, a deadly and seemingly unstoppable cyborg priest created using long forgotten “Lost technology”.

When a Vampiric splinter group known as the Rosen Kreuz forms a terrorist legion intent on claiming sovereignty over the Earth it’s up to the AX to defend not just the Church but also the whole of humanity from destruction. Can Father Abel defeat not just the hordes of the undead but also an insanely enemy from the days of Armageddon all whilst attempting to atone for his own past transgressions?


Comments:
If the overview sounds somewhat familiar to many of you it’s because, put bluntly, it is very familiar. So let’s get this out of the way; Yes, this series is basically Trigun meets Hellsing with smatterings of Chrno Crusade and draws heavily on each of these for it’s settings, basic plot, and character makeup. If you want to go looking for similarities then you’re going to find them in droves and if that’s going to bother you then don’t buy this series. So, with that out of the way let’s move onto the show itself.

Trinity Blood starts out pretty formulaic for the first few episodes. Our bumbling lead, Father Abel Nightroad, is sent out to investigate a mystery wherein he uncovers that either an unspeakable monster is at large or heinous conspiracy is afoot, or sometimes both. Once the villain has been uncovered Abel then reveals that the “bumbling fool” persona is all a ploy to throw people off guard (yes, very much like Trigun‘s Vash the Stampede) before removing his restrictions to become of monstrous inhuman killing machine that kicks evil’s arse in the name of the Lord (yes again, very much like Hellsing‘s Alucard). Once the series has carried on like this for almost a dozen episodes and all the characters have been moved into place we switch into the big politics/mystery arc that continues until the end of the series. To be honest, while it’s all very enjoyable, there’s nothing groundbreaking going on here and there’s certainly no Earth shattering revelations to be found. You can pretty much predict where it’s going, who’s about to end up dead and just who that mysterious bad guy really is. The clues are all there right from the start, some subtle and some, well if they were any further away from subtle they’d need to hail a cab to get back again.

One thing I did notice about this series is that you need absolutely zero knowledge of Japanese culture and customs to enjoy it. In fact I would go think that there’s much about this series that western audiences would catch that the original Japanese audience may have missed. There’s references to many western action movies, such as Equilibrium, the Terminator series and the Matrix Trilogy to name but a few, sprinkled liberally throughout this show as well as a number of allusions to both modern and more classical western literature as well as religious scripture. On top of this, many of the locations used are based on real European locals such as Budapest, Venice, London and the Vatican. All of these are beautifully drawn and at times there’s a danger of the viewer being distracted by the scenery and missing out on some plot.

This nicely brings me onto the animation quality, which is not only impressively high, far superior to most anime movies even, but amazingly consistent throughout the entire 26 episodes. The producers of many anime series will choose to occasionally sacrifice the animation quality during a number of episodes in order to allocate resources to other episodes, generally to either the debut episode or the finale. The likes of Samurai Champloo, MoonPhase and Sousei no Aquarion are good examples of this. Trinity Blood however doesn’t seem to have fallen into this pitfall but where it does slide somewhat is with the ending… or lack thereof. This is unfortunately where it all goes a bit wrong. I was really enjoying this show and then it was suddenly over leaving me terribly disappointed with the anticlimactic “non-ending”. Rarely have I ever seen a series that cries out so desperately, and so obviously, for a second series. Much of the problem it seems is that the original novels on which this series is based were only part way through publication when the anime went into production. It also didn’t help when the creator & author, Sunao Yoshida, tragically died before he could conclude the story leaving the plotline sadly orphaned. Add to this the fact that the animation company behind this show, GONZO/GDH, are currently limiting the number of shows they’re committing themselves to each year in order to cut their costs and stay afloat during Japan’s worst recession in history and it looks like that second series may never come. It’s not all bad news though; A good friend of the original author has stepped in and completed the novels which are now being translated and published in both novel and manga form by Tokyopop, should you wish to see how the story really ends.

Musically this show is very impressive. The first half of the series sounds very reminiscent of the likes of Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne or indeed any other series scored by Yoko Kanno. As the series moves into it’s second half it moves more towards grand orchestral or sweeping choral pieces. After watching the first few episodes in both English and the original Japanese I opted to watch the rest of the series in English. This is because, for the most part, the dub version has been well handled. There are a few characters where the choice of vocal talent wasn’t the best but on the whole the rest of the voice cast more than compensate for them.

Ultimately if you were the kind if person who hated RahXephon because on first inspection it seemed like a pale clone (if you’ll pardon the pun) of Evangelion, or avoided Madlax as it was essentially Noir all over again, then this show isn’t for you. But if you’re able to enjoy a show on it’s own merit then this one to check out both for it’s sheer entertainment value and eye pleasing animation.

Extras:
Here’s where this box set falls down somewhat. Apart from a “Tarot card gallery” on disc one, all you get as extras is a pair of trailers on each disc. No art galleries, no commentaries and certainly no behind the scenes features.

The Trinity Blood Box Set is available from the likes of Amazon, Play and other major retailers from 30th March 2009.

Review: Penfold