Trinity Blood (Collector’s Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Trinity Blood (トリニティ・ブラッド) is a 2005 television anime series based on Sunao Yoshida’s light novel series of the same name with illustrator Thores Shibamoto. The series was adapted by studio Gonzo and the staff credits include director & series composition writer Tomohiro Hirata, series composition writer Atsuhiro Tomioka, character designers Atsuko Nakajima & Thores Shibamoto, and music composer Takahito Eguchi. The series first aired in Japan on April 2005.

Background:

“Humanity shares the world with vampires, and vatican priest Abel Nightroad is neither. He is something far more terrible – a new breed to be feared by even the most fearsome.

The two races tremble on the brink of war; some seek harmony, while others pursue a dangerous shift in the balance of power. An agent of the formidable AX, Nightroad is tasked with maintaining the fragile equilibrium. When a common adversary arises, only cooperation between the two races can offer survival. The enemy of an enemy is a friend, and father seeks salvation for all.”

Plot Synopsis via MVM Entertainment, December 2022.

Gonzo was among the many studios that a lot of people enjoyed checking out during the 2000s, especially when you consider their line-up with the likes of Afro Samurai, Gantz, Hellsing, Last Exile, Samurai 7 and many more. That decade was essentially the peak for their works since over time they ended up being overshadowed by other studios, namely newer ones like MAPPA and WIT Studios or those who have been around and continued to offer strong hits like Madhouse and Sunrise. Even though they haven’t produced as much anime in the last decade compared to before, their catalogue of titles in my opinion holds up fairly well, even if some of their releases that were released on Blu-ray ended up being upscales.

Trinity Blood is among the shows that I was familiar with but never had the chance to watch. It’s a vampire series that Funimation in North America picked up for release in 2005 and released on DVD. The series did well enough for the distributor to make available on Blu-ray, though it’s one of their in-house upscales.

MVM Entertainment in the United Kingdom released Trinity Blood many years back when they were putting out single volumes and also thick box sets for their DVD titles. The series had remained in print for at least a decade, until eventually the DVDs went out of print. Then MVM announced they had picked up a select number of Gonzo shows they previously released and will be releasing them on the Blu-ray format, which included Trinity Blood. With the Funimation catalogue slowly going out of print (with some returning under the Crunchyroll branding), it’s good timing for the series to remain in print here in the UK.

Collector’s Edition Contents:

What I like about MVM Entertainment’s collector’s editions for Trinity Blood and a few other Gonzo shows is that they are basically taking the assets from Funimation’s original Blu-ray releases which is rather nostalgic in a way.

This release is presented with a rigid box containing an Amaray case to house the Blu-ray discs, in addition to 4 art cards and a 24-page booklet. The booklet includes interviews and character designs which I believe is the same content included in the older Funimation releases.

The artwork is free of any BBFC content but the back cover does contain information about the series and disc extras, because as mentioned this is identical to the old Funimation Blu-ray artwork. The collector’s edition Blu-ray has 1000 units printed for an SRP of £59.99, and is also available as a standard edition Blu-ray, which was released a few months after.

The series has been available for a while and I purchased my copy during a Deal of the Week offer over on MVM’s retail store Anime-on-Line for £19.99.

Physical Contents:

• Rigid Box with Amaray packaging and semi-clean artwork
• Info for specification and BBFC description on back cover
• 24-page Booklet
• 4 Art Cards

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: MVM Entertainment
Released: 19th December 2022

The collector’s edition release for Trinity Blood contains all 24 episodes across three Blu-ray discs, with the encode & authoring done by Funimation via their release in 2010. The audio options are Japanese with English subtitles and the Funimation English dub.

The white subtitles are unlockable during playback, and the regions are restricted to Blu-ray players set to B.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Upscaled format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	3 BD-50s

Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:

Disc 3:

• Historical Artifacts
• Textless Songs:
  • Textless Opening “Bloody Trinity Mix”
  • Textless Ending “Broken Wings”

Unboxing Photos:

Final Notes:

Trinity Blood is available to purchase on Blu-ray by MVM Entertainment in the UK & Ireland. The collector’s edition Blu-ray release can be bought through Amazon UK, AllTheAnime Store, and Anime-on-Line Store.

For the standard edition, it is also available across different retailers including Amazon UK, AllTheAnime Store, and Anime-on-Line.

(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)