Trinity Blood, Rage Against the Moons, Volume 1, From the Empire Book

Piece of poo. Non-existent characterizations, no atmosphere what-to-speak of, cardboard cut-out Evil Hur-Hur vampires, excessive spouting of Church-related Latin with no sense that anyone is remotely religious, though they may say they are from the Vatican and they say they are priests. I shouldn't be surprised of course, but still. Make me believe!

It's hard to even call this a novel. It's more like a collection of short stories/cases that loosely tie together in a vague story arc. Many of the same characters tromp on and off, but we are given so little personality that it doesn't really matter. Quirks and odd mannerisms do not a character make! And no, it doesn't get better when the robot arrives.

The world seems potentially interesting, but it is almost entirely ignored, except when a name or random location is thrown out. The people feel stupid. The people ARE stupid, good and bad. The pope is a stupid kid getting jerked around by his siblings. The AX agents are only super b/c they're secret monsters, and not because they're any good at investigations.

The only good (or bad, depending on your point of view) thing is that the violent gore scenes are really quite violent and gorey. So the author managed to express something properly, I suppose, if that was his aim. But then again, I was so utterly not caring about the story that I wasn't affected by any of it. Girl gets crotch-grabbed and threatened by perverted vampire? Whatever. Vampire gets head chopped so that it dangles upside-down by the skin? So what.

Save yourself the money and just borrow it from the library if you must.