New art and the opening sequence from Crunchyroll and Adult Swim's upcoming Blade Runner: Black Lotus anime series have been revealed.
The new show was previewed during the yearly Crunchyroll Expo, which is being held virtually this year due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. The panel for the upcoming cyberpunk series featured commentary from directors Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama. Aramaki is a legendary designer who who helped create the original Transformers and also did design work for Genesis Climber Mospeada, which was one of the three anime shows that would later be re-edited and broadcast together as Robotech in the United States. Kamiyama has had an equally storied career in the animation industry, getting his start painting backgrounds in the original Ducktales animated series before moving on to classic anime such as Patlabor and Roujin-Z. The two previously worked together on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and are once again teaming up from Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
For Black Lotus, the directors wanted to strike a balance between realism and the stylized animation styles commonly seen in anime. The directors also stated that they wanted to portray a more diverse cast, similar to the mix of different people and cultures you would see in modern day Los Angeles. The opening theme from the series is "Feel You Now," by Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Alessia Cara.
Aramaki and Kamiyama aren't the only anime industry legends working on Blade Runner: Black Lotus. The series is also being produced by Shinichiro Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, and is being animated by Sola Digital Arts, who previously worked on Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 and the CG cutscenes seen in Tekken 7.
Like the recent comic book series, the new anime takes place in between the events of the original movie and the start of Blade Runner 2049. Crunchyroll describes the series:
Los Angeles 2032. A young woman wakes up with no memories, and possessing deadly skills. The only clues to her mystery are a locked data device and a tattoo of a black lotus. Putting together the pieces, she must hunt down the people responsible for her brutal and bloody past to find the truth of her lost identity.
Blade Runner: Black Lotus will debut on both Crunchyroll and Adult Swim later this year.
Source: Crunchyroll
