Blade Runner: Black Lotus will make its premiere on Nov. 13 with a broadcast of two back-to-back episodes.
The final premiere date for the Crunchyroll and Adult Swim original series was revealed during a panel and virtual screening for the show held at this year's New York Comic-Con. A new trailer and piece of art were also revealed for the CG anime. The new series is set in between the events of the original Blade Runner movie and its sequel, Blade Runner 2049, and tells the story of a young woman who awakens in Los Angeles with no memories of her past or who she is. Gifted with deadly combat skills, the young woman must follow the only two clues she has -- a locked data device and a tattoo of a black lotus -- to find out who she is and figure out why so many people are after her.
The new series is being directed by the legendary team of Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama. Aramaki is a renowned designer who who began his career by helping to design the original Transformers and also worked on classic anime such as Genesis Climber Mospeada, which was one of the three shows that was later re-edited and rewritten to form the final arc of the Robotech series. Kamiyama is also an animation industry veteran, who got his start as a background painter on the original Ducktales animated series before moving on to classic anime such as Patlabor and Roujin-Z. The two are best known for also working together on the acclaimed Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
Kamiyama discusses his goals for the series at this year's Virtual Crunchyroll Expo, which was held in August. "You want to create something that is recognizably similar, but that also sets the trap of superficially recreating the feeling of the film, which can undercut the amount of impact that the new project can have on the audience," Kamiyama said, adding "So you have to figure out how to keep the same atmosphere, but tell a new story that will still be enjoyable, and contain surprises. You want to go beyond what's been done, in some way."
Black Lotus' CG animation was produced at Sola Digital Arts, an animation studio that specializes in computer graphics that previously worked on Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 and the CG cutscenes seen in the video game Tekken 7. Shinichiro Watanabe, the director of acclaimed anime series such as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, served as the new show's producer.
Source: Crunchyroll
