Philip

OK, I’ll admit it: I’m a big fan of Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame! manga (or rather, Blam!) which details a desolate Earth that has been consumed by an ever-expanding city which acts as infrastructure to the mythical NetSphere, a completely computer driven alternative world. Just one slight problem - after the rise of infected cyborgs known as silicon creatures the NetSphere invoked their autonomous defense system, known as the SafeGuard to protect them by terminating all humans without Net Terminal Genes (who were able to be infected and converted into silicon creatures).

As a result, nobody left alive has the ability to communicate directly to the NetSphere to halt the expansion as almost all communication has ceased between the real world and the NetSphere. A roaming agent known as Killy is requested to find any remaining person with Net Terminal Genes to try and stop the uncontrolled growth of the city. Several other manga exist such as prequels (NOiSE, Biomega) and sequels (NetSphere Engineer) and one-shots (DigiMortal) that drop hints about the world of Blame!

What’s interesting is that life is cheap in Blame! as most people no longer have truly human bodies and can be turned into a digital persona with ease, extending their lives well past what you’d expect. Time also takes on new dimensions as regularly days or years pass getting from A to B or for a variety of other reasons. Effectively life has ground to a halt as survivors are effectively left between the iron age and limited information age eras struggling to survive without input from the NetSphere.

I missed it earlier, but it appears that Jinni’s Animation Studio have taken on a Blame! CG movie with Production IG. A Prologue DVD with about 3 minutes of footage + statuette of Killy costs about $63 Au (argh, 35c/second?) has recently come out that gives more hints about the upcoming CG movie release.

See it here, French.

By the looks of things it’ll be close to the end of the manga if the statuette of Sanakan is to be believed, what with her arm-fused GBE and wings when she took out an army of silicon creatures to save Killy’s friend, Cibo. Hopefully we’ll get to see some serious silicon creature ass-kicking from both Killy and Sanakan along the way.