Light Novel Review: Trinity Blood Rage Against the Moons V.1
Story:
In the post-apocalyptic future, a secret war is being fought between the human world, controlled by the Vatican, and the New Human Empire, controlled by Methuselah - or vampires. Within the Vatican, AX is the elite spy agency. Headed by the Cardinal Caterina Sforza, brother to the young pope Alessandro XVIII, its members include Crusnik, the enigmatic, powerful, and clumsy Abel Nightroad; Gunslinger, the gun-toting android Tres Iqus; Sword Dancer, the elite swordsman Hugue de Watteau; and the Iron Maiden, the hologram commander nun Kate Scott. Together, they work against the Rozenkreuz Orden, lead by Contra Mundi, who wish to start a war between humans and vampires. Trinity Blood: Rage Against the Moons volume 1 is comprised of four short stories. Flight Night, where Abel has to stop a vampire terrorist from flying an airship into Rome. Witch Hunt, where Abel’s protection of a young witch finds him at odds with the Gunslinger. From the Empire, the longest story, has Abel teaming up with the vampire nobel Astharoshe Asthe to find a vampire serial killer in Venice. And Sword Dancer, where Hugue protects a nun from a vampire conspiracy in Amsterdam.
Impressions:
I’ve always liked Trinity Blood, ever since I first saw the anime. While the base elements of Trinity Blood are cliche and overused (powerful catholic church fights vampires, clumsy lead with incredible power, secret societies, etc.) it’s the details that make TB fun. For one thing, there’s a deep level of historical and biblical allusion that pervades the work. It’s fun finding a character who’s last name is Medici, an Italian Renaissance family, or an energy weapon name Gae Bolg. TB is also something of a steampunk novel, with energy weapons and flying airships side by side with vampires and witches. Though, in a similar way to the Vampire Hunter D novels, all the magic is easily explained through science. There’s also a lot of latin thrown in, like sayings from Mass, or even countries’ names, like Albion or Hispania. Sunao Yoshida has crafted a rich world for TB to take place in. Sometimes I found myself wishing to know about the history of the world then the actual plot taking place.
The actual stories in this volume are mostly stand alone with a few interconnecting plot pieces. They’re similar to the anime episodes they’re named after, but with some differences. The “From the Empire” story is greatly expanded, with Isaak Fernand von Kamper as a major villian; and “Sword Dancer” is shorter. I found no major faults with Sunao Yoshida’s writing. It was definately more mature than Scrapped Princess, and provided a nice level of detail. Some of the action scenes were clumsy, but that happens in writing all the time. The content was surprisingly very bloody, much more so than the anime. Sunao has no qualms killing innocent bystanders in gruesome ways.
Now for the production values. Once again Tokyopop replaced the full-color cover with its garish, white-black rendition. Fortunately, they still used a piece of THORES’ beautiful art. THORES has a wonderfully detailed art style, which is replicated throughout the many drawings in the book. There are no full-color spreads to speak of, though, there are some spreads in the back of the book, presumably from when the stories ran in a magazine. There’s also a nice map of the TB world. My only suggestion, aside from using the damn original covers, would be TP include a glossary of sorts, to explain the many historical and biblical allusions made. That’s probably asking too much, though.
Overall, I found the first volume of Trinity Blood an excellent read, a pulpy bit of macabre fun. Hellsing meets Trigun meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, if you will. Anime fans should definately read it to get a look at the source material. The next volume of Trinity Blood, part of the Reborn on the Mars storyline, won’t be published until October. What’s with all these damn long periods between these novels? It took TP like a month between the Scrapped Princess ones. And I have to find a different place to order the Shakugan no Shana novel from. According to Rightstuf, it’s not coming out till October 17, while Amazon already has it in stock!
>>What’s with all these damn long periods between these novels?
Translation issues? Just a random guess. Latin, allusions abound, and funny names don’t exactly make for quick translation as opposed to Scrapped Princess’ presumably simpler world. What’s the price, btw?
I found it sad how the anime had so much promise yet ended abruptly, but I suppose that’s what mortality does to you. Apparently Rage against the Moon’s continued by Sunao’s friend, would be interesting to see if there’s huge stylistic differences.
Also, I need to read those two one-shot mangas you linked to, but time’s been rather lacking. Damn.
Comment on May 9, 2007 @ 11:35 pm
Translation may be an issue in TB, but I doubt it. But nothing excuses the fact that Kino no Tabi V.2, which I know for a fact is fully translated, not being released till Febuary next year, according to TP’s website. TP’s light novels all sale for around 7.99 USD, which is pretty good for something longer than a manga.
Comment on May 10, 2007 @ 2:58 am
Yeah, those release delays for novels are really annoying, particularly given that SutePri is by far the worst thing they are publishing at the moment. Kino is something to do with having to re-negotiate with the licensor or something, but it is absolutely a pain in the arse. Twelve Kingdoms (which is a wee bit more than $7.99, but is hardly light ^_^) I can at least understand given the size and the stalled Japanese schedule.
I’d love to know what is going on with the Shana novels distribution - I’ve had my copy already (though I ended up having to go to Amazon.com - annoying because normally the UK would have carried it, which would have saved me a LOT on shipping), but nowhere else seems to have it. The manga version, on the other hand, is everywhere. How annoying. It’s a pretty fun book though - if the fact that they’ve dropped a couple of pictures doesn’t bother you too much, it’s worth the wait.
As for Trinity Blood, well, I thought it was OK. It’s all very generic Japanese Vampire fiction, but the crazy pacing and the way it jumps around made it pretty fun to read. I did kind of think the insane body count was needlessly gratuitous though - making a point that death is common is one thing, but if you take it too far I tend to feel it has the opposite effect of just making it look like the heroes are untouchable.
Oh, and to be honest, I didn’t really like the illustrations in this one. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something which seems really odd about them to me…
Comment on May 10, 2007 @ 5:50 am
What a loss for not reprinting the beautiful spreads, which were pushed back to the end of the book and having no color.
Character descriptions, timeline, and glossary is in the Trinity Blood Canon, the 13th book (after R.A.M. 1-6 and R.O.M. 1-6) TP will eventually publish. Please note that this is more of a guidebook of the story, without much, if any, reference to real world history.
Comment on May 23, 2007 @ 5:02 am