Trinity Blood

Genre: Action
Format: 24 Episodes
Allegiance: Gonzo
Director: Hirata Tomohiro
Vintage: 2005
Intelligence Agency Report by: Loner
The world after Armageddon is divided between humans and vampires, and both distrust each other immensely. Abel Nightroad is a Vatican priest that works for AX, an organization that tries to resolve vampire-related cases and keep a peaceful equilibrium between the two races. He is also a Crusnik, a being that feeds on the blood of vampires. His encounter with Esther, a young nun with a mysterious past, will have great impact on the fate of both races.

Field Agent Report by: Loner
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
6.75
7.25
7.50
9.50
9.00
Overall 7.00

GONZO has an unfair reputation as a studio that values style over substance. Their recent productions such as Kaleidostar and Speed Grapher are able to contradict this claim by delivering good stories with engaging characters. Trinity Blood, broadcasted at the same time asSpeed Grapher, has the potential to further prove GONZO’s critics wrong. It is a shame that this potential is never realized.

Credit must first be given to the technical aspect of this series. The artwork and animation are exceptionally well done, as expected from GONZO. The portrayal of various European cities such as Rome and Barcelona is impressive, with the depiction of the elegant yet solemn medieval-style architecture being especially eye-catching. The background music also enhances the atmosphere greatly, and adds a haunting quality to the series.

It is unfortunate that Trinity Blood falls short in terms of its content. The setting of the series cannot be better for it to become a cult classic. There are too many anime out there that has an organization that hunts down vampires as its premise, but this one adds a degree of originality to this clichéd formula. Vampires are for once not shown as nasty blood-sucking monsters, but as highly civilized beings that have the same desires for love and peace as humans do. The characters are also intriguing, as they all have mysterious pasts or motives. Abel Nightroad is especially noteworthy, as the question of what are the Crusniks and where they come from serve as captivating themes. However, the story and these characters are never properly developed. Instead, the writers begin telling the story in a disjointed way, slipping in fillers that focus on minor and useless characters at the wrong times. A lot of hints at the relationship between the characters are thrown out, but very few of them are properly dealt with. The story does get a lot more coherent midway through the series, but the ending leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, as it not only follows the disjointed style that plagued the earlier part of the series, but also resolves none of the problems that need to be answered properly. Most importantly, very little light is shed about the Crusniks’ past and struggles, even though they are the central aspect of the show, which infuriated me immensely.

In the end, I am left ruing over what this series could be, rather than savoring what it has become. Everything about this series, especially its plot and characters, has the potential to be something memorable. Instead, it turns out to be a disjointed mess. GONZO could have hit another jackpot with this series, but in the end they just let it fall into mediocrity.