Crunchyroll and Adult Swim gave Blade Runner a closer look at the next incarnation of the Blade Runner franchise at NYCC. Blade Runner: Black Lotus finally has a release date – November 13, 2021. The first two episodes of the series will debut both on Crunchyroll and on Adult Swim's Toonami block.
Along with that news, the NYCC panel featured new key art for the series and a brand new trailer.
New Trailer of Blade Runner: Black Lotus, a Crunchyroll and @AdultSwim Original, fresh from #NYCC 🦾 pic.twitter.com/Mqg5pcOo0X
— Crunchyroll (@Crunchyroll) October 7, 2021
During the panel, executive producer Joseph Chou revealed the genesis of Black Lotus can be traced back to The Animatrix. He reflected on the idea that Blade Runner is among the most influential science fiction films ever released. It explores a theme extremely popular in Japanese cinema – "What makes a human?".
According to Chou, the serialized nature of Black Lotus will allow this story to dig deeper into the themes and conflicts of the franchise than the films or previous animated shorts were able.
"There's got to be a narrative that runs through, that can actually expand on that," said Chou. "The one luxury we had – the 13 episodes that we had – to spin a yarn. What happens then? If we know this is the core issue, how does that affect humanity as a whole?"
Co-director Shinji Aramaki shed a bit more light on the plot of Black Lotus, describing it as "a revenge story of a female Replicant." But much like the original film, Black Lotus is ultimately about the Replicants' search for identity and an understanding of their unique condition.
Co-director Kenji Kamiyawa noted that Black Lotus also shares some key similarities with Ghost in the Shell, particularly given that both stories feature female protagonists with artificial bodies struggling to understand the nature of their existence. Like other Replicants before and after her, the main character (voiced by Jessica Henwick) will struggle with the question of whether or not she possesses a soul.
Blade Runner: Black Lotus is set in the year 2032, between the events of the original Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2047. The series also takes place ten years after the events of the "blackout" of 2022, and Kamiyawa confirmed the series will deal heavily with the societal changes and profound loss of technological progress that event caused.
The series also features the voice talents of Will Yun Lee, Samira Wiley and Brian Cox.
Check out IGN’s review of Blade Runner 2049 for our take on the last Blade Runner film, or check out the first Blade Runner: Black Lotus story trailer here.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.