Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

So I was thinking I should probably go back and finish some of those partially completed series I started blogging last year, and Trinity Blood happened to be nearby. Thus, a half-marathon was born, though this post only covers up to the first major arc.

As stated in previous Trinity posts, I found the show to be easy to digest and light on substance, at least for the initial one-shot episodes. However, there were several niggling flaws that only grew as the show went on.

Ep. 5 features Esther accompanying Abel back to Rome, where she enlists in the ranks of the A-X organization, known for putting on a great animanga convention every year. She meets the familiar bigwigs like Caterina, along with the other Enforcers. Aside from Abel and Tres, there’s William, the doctor we briefly met in episode 2, who’s a technological genius. Then there’s Havel, who has a cloaking ability, and Kate, the battleship commander whose ghostly holographic projection is used to communicate with people on land. And finally, there’s Noelle, who has psychic powers and needs to get more sun. She seems to have a thing for Abel, too. Say bye to Esther for now, as she doesn’t show up much until ep. 12.

Ep. 6 takes this large group out of the picture, and focuses on the Hughe, the Sword-Dancer enforcer. He’s a brooding blonde bishounen that lives only for vengeance against the vampires. Caterina sends him to Amsterdam (a Vampire territory) to investigate a series of blood sucking murders. This episode was actually quite cool, and exemplifies Trinity Blood’s penchant for excellent one-shots. The ending was unintentionally funny though, as Hughe kills a gazillion innocent vampires to avenge a fallen Sister, but she’s actually just unconscious. Ah well, at least it served as a good excuse to cut up some undead limbs!

Ep. 7 introduces Leon (codename: Dandelion!!), a strong fighter who’s working off his prison time by doing missions for A-X. Him and Abel go to an isolated island where a scientist was conducting experiments on the children in his orphanage. This episode was also well-done, though the whole Peter Pan theme was iffy. I wonder what Leon was imprisoned for in the first place; he seems like a good-natured guy. Anyone care to shed some light on this, or do we find out later on?

Ep. 8 features to start of a mini-arc. Noelle and Abel are sent to investigate some mysteriously collapsing buildings in Barcelona. They don’t find anything incriminating, so Noelle decided that they should spend the rest of their time sightseeing and having fun. Noelle’s maturity is a nice break from Esther’s scaredy-cat act, and I was totally rooting for her when she started making moves on Abel (with the aid of some wine, of course). However, duty calls when A-X picks up a tip that the nefarious Rozenkreuz is behind things again. Sadly enough, Noelle bites the dust in the course of the investigation, and Abel becomes depressed since he was unable to protect someone important to him. Noelle actually dies in an uncharacteristically abrupt way; the building she is in collapses, leaving no time for tearful farewell speeches. My sadness was further compounded in episode 22, whereupon I realized she had been the only interesting character thus far (;_;)

Ep. 9-10 concerns a plot by the Archbishop to destroy Rome with the aid of Rozenkreuz’s sound wave weapon that Noelle and Abel previously learned about. Through some political maneuvering, snap depression, and purple-squid battling, A-X manages to save the day in the end. This mini-arc was neat, as we finally get to see all the Enforcers in action, as well as some Church intrigue. Abel had to up his nanomachine percentage to beat the Rozenkreuz assassin this time too. Powah uppu!

Ep. 11 was a horrible, horrible episode featuring Abel’s east-meets-west teamup with Asta, a vampire agent. I’m still not sure who was supposed to be Jackie Chan or Chris Tucker though. The episode was incredibly rushed, and the plot made huge illogical jumps. Before I knew it, the dynamic duo had saved the universe from the vampire hegemony, Balle Masque, and ZAFT all in one fell swoop. Only near the end of the episode did they suddenly explain what the heck was going on, after 20 minutes of totally unrelated nonsense.

Up to this point, I had been seriously enjoying Trinity Blood, and was willing to tolerate its shortcomings. I can’t say the same about the next 10 episodes though - that’s when the first major arc begins, and it’s actually worse than the fillers. Inconceivable! But true.

A couple minor quibbles…

1. Get a real intro, sheesh. Gonzo does it again, choosing instead to recycle episode clips. There’s no original animation - zip, zero, zilch. That’s actually worse than the usual, as even Speed Grapher had some original stuff in its intro. On a complete tangent, I think the improved opening for Magikano absolutely rocks.

2. The character design and animation of Trinity Blood are quite good, especially for a Gonzo series. There’s some spectacular fights thrown in, but there’s also some real stinkers, in which the action consists of a quick black screen cut accompanied by slashing sounds, and the hero is then seen posing victoriously over the fallen foe.

3. The blur effect for the vampires is pretty nifty.

4. Abel’s goofiness is extremely irritating, even more so than Vash. He busts out the silly antics at the most inappropriate moments - it’s absolutely criminal. However, much like in Trigun, he gets really grim towards the end, and I expect the quality of the show to rise dramatically.

5. There’s just something about Caterina’s massive floppy hat thing…

Edit: Just finished the last episode. Goodness, I’m practically speechless. So many mixed feelings bubbling up in my head. It’ll take some time to get them sorted out….