"Blade Runner 2049" goes anime, as one last prequel short released before the film's arrival has been made available for fans. This time around, the prequel was made by "Cowboy Bebop" director Shinichirō Watanabe.
The 15-minute prequel short film, titled "Blade Runner: Black Out 2022," is available for viewing on anime streaming website Crunchyroll, although it is region-locked for some places. The new prequel short is significantly longer than the previous live-action shorts, "2036: Nexus Dawn" featuring singer and actor Jared Leto, and "2048: Nowhere to Run" starring wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista.
"Black Out 2022" takes place in fictional future Los Angeles and features major problems between humans and replicants (bioengineered androids), after the upgrade from the Nexus 6 line replicants to the new Nexus 8 ones.
In the anime prequel short, the two defective replicants were hunted down and lynched by a mob of human supremacists who felt threatened by the replicants due to the latter being more advanced and capable beings. Staying true to its namesake, "Black Out 2022" explains how the replicant lynching was quelled: an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) detonation, which caused a massive blackout and shut down most replicants.
The said EMP explosion caused one of the most important events in the "Blade Runner" universe, as it paved way for the replicant prohibition. This caused the creators of the replicants to adapt, making new replicant models that were more obedient and controllable.
Director Watanabe spared no expense in ensuring the quality of "Black Out 2022," evident in the quality of the short's animation, which was reminiscent of his previous projects like "Matrix"-based animations "Animatrix" and sci-fi bounty hunter series "Cowboy Bebop."
The upcoming "Blade Runner 2049" will take place after the prequel shorts and will follow Blade Runner (replicant hunters) Officer K (Ryan Gosling) dealing with older replicant Nexus models which presumably have gone rogue.
"Blade Runner 2049" is set to arrive in theaters on Oct. 6.
