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The Show:
FUNimation has fully embraced the Blu-ray format and
continues to release a steady stream of HD anime. The
latest in the line in Trinity Blood:
The Complete Series, a fun series that has its
flaws. The main problem is that it's
reminiscent
of a few series that have come before. In
any case this world filled with vampires and lost technology is worth
visiting,
especially if you haven't picked up the DVDs yet.
The show takes place a good while after a nuclear war nearly
destroyed all of mankind. As uncounted
millions perished, something else arose to torment humanity: vampires.
Stronger, faster, and arguably more vicious than humans, the
vampires,
who call themselves Methuselah, have been locked in an on-and-off war
with
humanity every since.
The major power on the planet is now the Catholic Church,
headquartered in the Vatican. The Pope, Alessandro XVIII, is a young teen,
who is very indecisive and often scared to make a decision. He's ruled by Cardinal Francesco di Medici
and his sister, Cardinal Caterina Sforza.
The two are continually fighting over the best course of action
and poor
Alessandro XVIII is caught in the middle.
Francesco wants an all-out war with the vampires and hopes
to wipe them out once and for all no matter how many humans are killed. Caterina is more level-headed and councils
moderation. She has an organization
under he, called AX, which she uses to advance her cause and thwart her
brothers.
An integral member of AX is Father Abel Nightroad, a goofy
seemingly scatterbrained priest who has a secret: he's
really a Crusnik. If vampires are higher
than humans on the
food chain, the Crusniks are at the very top.
They're even stronger than vampires and feed off of vampire
blood. Nightroad hides his true identity
however,
and has taken a vow not to kill (though he does it often enough.)
Of course on the other side of this war are the Methuselah
who honestly fear that they're being targeted for extermination by the
humans. With their back up against a wall,
is it any
wonder that they are fighting the humans?
There's good and bad in this series. First
the good: These aren't Twilight
vampires that want to take lonely girls to the prom, they're
vicious killers who don't mind slaughtering dozens of people. That's good, I'm tired of wimpy vampires
(though I do like True Blood... so go
figure.)
The animation is also very good. Created
by Gonzo, the show is gorgeous with a
nice gothic tone and the character designs are well crafted. The people all have a distinctive look, and
the vampires are pretty evil looking.
The quality of the animation is high too, with facial
expressions
telling part of the story.
On the bad side is the story itself. While
watching this, I couldn't help but
think of other anime series that parts of the show were borrowed from. Oh, a cool kick-ass religious order, just
like in Chrono Crusade, and the main
character projects a real goofball personality to hide that he's really
ultra-powerful just like in Trigun,
and he's fighting vampires and we're seeing lots of blood and severed
limbs
like Hellsing. I could go
on, but you get the point. This show just
seemed like a recycle of other
ideas without much original to say. This
is especially true of the first half of the series, where the shows are
episodic and don't really seem to be going anywhere.
After the halfway point the overreaching plot
become more evident, but by that time it's hard to really care.
Though things do pick up in the second half, when all was
said and done I was neither excited about the series nor disappointed. My reaction was "Meh, it was worth watching,
but I doubt I'll go through it again."
It's an average series that never quite rises above that level.
The DVD:
The 24 episodes in this series arrive on three Blu-ray discs
which come in a pair of Blu-ray cases.
They in turn are housed in a very attractive slipcase. The cover art on the slipcase is actually
very good.
Audio:
This set offers viewers the choice of the original Japanese
track in Dolby Digital stereo or an English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a
Japanese
5.1 audio option, something I wish would pop up more frequently on
Blu-rays. In any case both tracks
sounded fine, thought the English option had more *umph* during the
fight
scenes with good use made of the sound stage, putting the viewers in
the middle
of the action. Even so, I enjoyed the
Japanese track just a bit more, I thought the voices fit the characters
a bit
better.
Video:
Like the show itself, this disc has a pretty high *meh*
factor. The 1.78:1 1080p image doesn't
look bad at all it just doesn't do much to excite me either. The colors are solid and strong and the
blacks are nice and inky, but the lines are not as tight as they could
be and
appear a bit soft. Things look good on
the digital side of things, with only a slight amount of banding in a
few
spots. Overall it looks good, but I wasn't
blown away.
Extras:
The set is a little light on the extras, like the DVD boxed
set of the series. The only things you'll
find are a clean opening and closing and some "historical artifacts", a
glossary of terms used in the show.
Final Thoughts:
I'll admit that I'm marching to the beat of a different
drummer on this one. Both Todd Douglas
and Don Houston enjoyed the series a lot more than I did.
It's not that it's bad it's just something
that I've seen before, and done better.
Though I haven't done a direct comparison between this Blu-ray
set and
the earlier released DVDs but I'd be willing to wager that this is not
a
gigantic improvement over the SD version.
As such, it would make a good rental.
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Buy: