May 06, 2005
Trinity Blood Episode 2 - Witch Hunt
Abel and another priest from the Vatican, the robotic gunslinger Tres Iques, investigate a church where vampires have been killing each other, and discover a small girl, Elyssa, hidden in the cellars. Elyssa is a powerful telepath, who awakens horrifying flashbacks in Abel (which, according to the credits, involve someone called "Cain Nightroad", presumably his evil brother or somesuch?) and obviously caused the vampires to attack each other. While Elyssa hates the priesthood, Abel manages to befriend her, but Tres is under orders to either keep her confined for the Vatican or kill her as she is basically a weapon - Abel deactivates Tres and hands Elyssa over to a nun who turns out to be a vampire in disguise seeking to use Elyssa for Rosen Kreuz, so the bishounen duo rides out and smites some eldritch butt.
I enjoyed this episode more than the first one because Abel wasn't being quite so Vash-like - while he still had moments of humour, he wasn't being accidentally great or anything like that. The moppet was annoying, as to be expected, but overall things were pretty good this episode, with some great animation once more and some juicy angsty backstory to get into eventually.
The one real problem with this episode is that it doesn't follow on at all from the previous one - Tres is now working with Abel after having been in about five seconds of the previous episode launching rockets from a giant airship, and I have no idea how they ended up investigating the church or anything. Not that it really matters, but it WAS a little offputting at the start of the episode.
Posted by BluWacky at May 6, 2005 10:01 AM | TrackBackIt might be just my untrained eyes, but I didn't find the animation in this episode all that great, especially for a Gonzo anime. There were some rather awkward scenes, like Tres' screwed-up mouthflaps in the beginning, or when the picture practically froze on Abel for some 7-8 seconds in the church. The action was also a disappointment - the fight with the vampires was good, but Tres shooting at Abel and the kid just wasn't as stylish as it tried to be, and Tres just standing there, letting Abel electrocute him was pretty unbelievable (oh, he WAS shooting, but not at Abel).
Ah well, it was fun, though. I was surprised to hear "kei" - I haven't heard that pronoun in anime since Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Posted by: kuromitsu at May 6, 2005 02:24 PMI am very glad to know that they got rid of Abel's Vash attitude! The first episode was good but a bit creepy on how he acted a bit *too* much like that Vash. Sometimes GONZO makes great animes but they tend to get lazy and lack giving their characters good depth.
Posted by: Miharu at May 13, 2005 01:16 PM