Cinnamon Ass - Reborn Like a Zombie

Trinity Blood Episode 4 - The Star of Sorrow 2 - Hunter's Banquet

Gyula holds Abel and Esther captive, and reveals his plans - in order to gain vengeance for his murdered wife, Maria, he plans on destroying Rome and the Vatican Empire using a massive satellite weapon, the Star of Sorrow. Esther almost seizes the opportunity to kill Gyula, but Abel intervenes in order to stop her killing more people, saying that revenge is futile - however, Gyula finally reveals his vampiric nature and knocks both of them out before forcing Esther into dressing as Maria while he aims the Star at Rome.

However, mysteriously the Star fires on Istvan, and a mocking holographic image of Dietrich appears - he is, in fact, still alive, and reveals that he works for Rosen Kreuz and is attempting to start an all-out war between the vampires and the Vatican by convincing each group that they fired on each other. Esther attempts to make Gyula stop the machine, but his thoughts of revenge are all consuming - just before he kills her, Abel is rescued by Tres and goes Crusnik, severing Gyula's arm and leg. Abel overrides the security codes on the Star and stops it from firing, and Gyula, filled with shame, stabs himself through the heart. Delirious with pain, he hallucinates that Esther is Maria, and she indulges him by comforting him as he slips into death. Together, Esther and Abel head off to Rome, in order to attempt to deal with Rosen Kreuz...

I'm definitely liking Esther's character a lot at this point, which is helping make Trinity Blood a great deal more enjoyable - truth be told, I'm not especially invested in the Rosen Kreuz plotline or anything like that at this point. But the animation is really very good indeed, I like the characters (Abel is definitely sufficiently different from Vash so as not to be a complete clone) and I'm also rather impressed with the music - it veers a little towards the Bee Train end of the spectrum occasionally in that during some scenes it's mixed a little too loud, but overall it's pretty decent. Hopefully the series isn't going to go completely episodic again now, but we'll have to wait and see I guess.