Blame!

Plot

Killy, a silent loner possessing an incredibly powerful weapon known as a Gravitational Beam Emitter, wanders a vast technological world known as "The City". He is searching for Net Terminal Genes, a (possibly) extinct genetic marker that allows humans to access the "Netsphere", a sort of computerized control network for The City. The City is an immense volume of artificial structure, separated into massive "floors" by nearly-impenetrable barriers known as "Megastructure". The City is inhabited by scattered human and transhuman tribes as well as hostile cyborgs known as Silicon Creatures. The Net Terminal Genes appear to be the key to halting the unhindered, chaotic expansion of the Megastructure, as well as a way of stopping the murderous horde known as the Safeguard from destroying all humanity.

Along the way, Killy meets and joins forces with a resourceful engineer named Cibo and several groups such as a tribe of human warriors called the Electro-Fishers. Cibo and Killy are often pursued by the Safeguard, who view any human without Net Terminal Genes as a threat to be extinguished on sight. Because of the size and nature of The City and the violent lives led by its inhabitants, there are virtually no recurring characters and any alliances made are short-lived.

Setting

The City is actually a structure that began on Earth. The mechanical beings known as Builders, which move around reforming and creating new landscapes, appear to have begun building without end, creating an enormous structure with little internal logic or coherence. The City appears to be organized into distinct floors, with layers of an unknown material called "the megastructure" between them. Traveling between floors is extremely difficult as the megastructure is almost indestructible and approaching the floor boundaries results in a massive safeguard response. Only a direct Gravitational Beam Emitter blast is known to have been capable of penetrating the megastructure.

The City, and the Builders, were once controlled by the Netsphere and the Authority but they have since lost the power to control the expansion of The City due to the chaotic and insecure manner of its growth. Without intervention by a user with Net Terminal Genes they cannot reestablish control over The City nor the Safeguards, whose original job was to eliminate any humans who try to access the Netsphere without Net Terminal Genes. The Safeguard now attempts to destroy all humans without the Net Terminal Gene as the degradation of The City has corrupted their true goals.

In regards to the scale of the structure, NOiSE, the prequel to Blame!, states in its final chapter that "At one point even the Moon, which used to be up in the sky above, was integrated into The City's structure". It has been suggested by Tsutomu Nihei himself in his artbook Blame! and So On that the scale of The City is beyond that of a Dyson sphere, reaching at least Jupiter's planetary orbit (for a radius of around 5.2 AU, or 778,547,200 km); this is also suggested in scenarios such as Blame! vol. 9, where Killy finds himself having to travel through a room roughly the size of Jupiter (roughly 143,000 km).

Manga

The original Japanese manga was collected into 10 volumes (tankōbon) by Kodansha's Afternoon KC division. In February 2005, Tokyopop announced that it has licensed Blame! for U.S. distribution, with publication beginning in August 2005. After releasing the final volume in 2007, the series has gone out of print with several volumes becoming increasingly hard to find. In 2006 the Tokyopop distribution was nominated for a Harvey Award in the category 'Best American Edition of Foreign Material'. In February 2016, Vertical announced that it had licensed the series.

Volumes

NSE: Net Sphere Engineer

NSE: Net Sphere Engineer (ネットスフィアエンジニア, Netto Sufia Enjinia) is a sequel to Blame!. It was published in the infrequently released Bessatsu Morning magazine. NSE: Net Sphere Engineer follows a "Dismantler", a Net Sphere Engineer in charge of sub-dividing the nexus towers that incur Safeguard interference upon its detection of humans without the net terminal genes. Although humans are once again able to reside in the Net Sphere, the Safeguard are still a threat. The Dismantler goes on a journey to aid mankind in their survival. This one-shot was compiled in one volume with Blame! Academy, titled Blame Gakuen! and So On in 2008.

Blame! Academy

Blame! Academy (ブラム学園!, Buramu Gakuen!) is a spin-off series of Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei. Set in the same "City" as Blame!, it is a parody and comedy about various characters in the main Blame! story in a traditional Japanese school setting. Various elements in the main Blame! story are being parodied, including the relationship between Killy and Cibo, and Dhomochevsky and Iko. It was irregularly published in Afternoon. A compilation volume, titled Blame Gakuen! and So On was published by Kodansha on September 19, 2008.

Blame!²

Blame!² (ブラム!², Buramu! Tsu), subtitled Chronicle of the Escape from the Megastructure by the Eighth Incarnation of Pcell (第八系子体プセルの都市構造体脱出記, Dai-hachi Keikotai Puseru no Toshikōzōtai Dasshutsu Ki), is a full-color, 16-page one-shot. Like NSE: Net Sphere Engineer, Blame!² is a sequel to the original Blame!, taking place at a point in the distant future. It was published March 21, 2008 in the second volume of Kodansha's Weekly Morning Special Edition magazine, Mandala. This one-shot was also compiled in one volume with Blame! Academy, titled Blame Gakuen! and So On in 2008.

Blame!: The Ancient Terminal City

A trailer revealing a special Blame! short, appearing at the beginning of 8th episode of Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine (the second season of the anime adaptation of Knights of Sidonia), was released in November 2014. The episode aired in May 2015. The short is contextualized as a TV program that the people of Sidonia tune in for.

Film

Plans for a full-length CGI render movie were announced in 2007. However, this proposed CG film project was not released before Micott and Basara (the studio hired) filed for bankruptcy in 2011.

It was announced in November 2015 that the series will get an anime theatrical film adaptation. The film will be directed by Hiroyuki Seshita and written by Tsutomu Nihei and Sadayuki Murai, with animation by Polygon Pictures and character designs by Yuki Moriyama. It will be released globally as a Netflix original on the 20th of May 2017.

Manga

Jarred Pine from Mania.com commented "is not an easy task" to talk about the story in the first volume as "it leaves quite a gamut of questions open for the reader, nothing on the surface to give the reader a sense of direction or purpose."

Pine said Blame! doesn't have a mass appeal and "there will be quite a strong line dividing those who love and hate Nihei’s unique and convoluted cyberpunk journey."

OVA

Chris Beveridge from Mania.com stated if it is a "some sort of experimental thing" since "there wasn't much really experimental about the animation and the show could have been done much better as a true stand alone OVA" but praised the "visually interesting piece". Anime News Network's Carlo Santos also noted the "nonlinear patchwork of scenes and images" but he said "like so many things in anime, it's pretty, but it makes little sense." He felt the animation is "sacrificed".

Beveridge said the "plot is pretty simple" and Santos felt Blame! lacks story and coherence saying suggest "Blame! [anime] has a storyline is like suggesting that Pokémon has deep philosophical implications", and Beveridge said "it didn't tell its story well within the show".

Beveridge commented the "concepts and designs here are certainly intriguing but I think they failed badly at execution." Santos criticized some aspects but praised the art. He also stated the character designs "aren't as varied as they could be, but they have a stylized gracefulness that sets them apart from citizens of the future in other series." For Santos the setting "isn't so hard to understand" describing it as "the usual post-apocalyptic science fiction fare." Pine refers it as a "dystopian world".

Santos qualified Blame! as an unusual work saying "Blame! is one of those strange cases where you're not sure whether to rate it highly for terrific art or knock it down because of its opaque story."