Blame!

The story takes place in a city where it's said that has thousands of levels.

In a shutdown area, thousands of levels overlap each other, you couldn't tell the sky from the ground and you couldn't tell which way is up or which way is down. Maybe the original purpose of this story is to unravel the mysteries bound in this time and world. For the humans who found this vast rare multi-level city, the mysterious main character "Kirii" wanders to search for the "Net Terminal Genes" that were not infected. Kirii's burden and his search for the "Net Terminal Genes" is a goal like no other and is very much the mystery of this story. Log1~Log6 contains the story of Cibo that wasn't done in the original works. The Cibo who strayed away with Kirii and wanders about. A disc thrown away in the rubble. Cibo starts downloading. Just who's "Memory" will he end up with?

(Source: AniDB)

Note: These clips are meant as a bonus to the manga, and should only be taken as such. Do not expect any plot in these. They are merely animated (short) scenes from the manga.

Killy Main

Cibo Main

Aizawa, Asuka Japanese

Genitalias Supporting

Metajiini Supporting

Kawando, Kenjirou Producer

Inokawa, Shintarou Director

Tetsura, Noriyaki Storyboard, Art Director

Nihei, Tsutomu Original Creator

Reviews

Jan 9, 2023

EmperorThor

Recommended

Funny

This is actually very deep and profound anime that is a complex metaphor or allegory to a world we live in.

Unfortunately few would be able to understand the idea of this show. However I think that is not what creators indented.

Then wanted to send a message to select few who could get it. Now I finally got their message as well.

I guess I can almost quote the main character. I am looking for humans with Net Terminal Gene, that is a metaphor as well.

Well I guess I want to find people who can understand this stuff as much as I do and talk online.

It would ... be interesting to talk.

Of course only if you understood it the same way as I did. I have no interest in people who is not getting it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 8, 2007

slashed

Mixed Feelings

This anime is just a small collections of moving images from the manga really. Thus it is only any fun at all if you\'ve read the manga and loved it.
There is no story to it, though there does seem to be a point to it (it certainly brought something to my attention).
The animation looks good, I liked it.

Since it doesn\'t show any more then just a few scenes, there\'s no story of itself whatsoever, character development is non existent and none of it will make any sense to you at all if you haven\'t thoroughly read the manga and remember every single detail. The manga ... is my absolute favorite ever and even I had trouble following what was going on at first.

So, watch it if you liked the manga, but leave it if you don\'t know it or didn\'t like the manga...

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 13, 2016

bmoore07

Not Recommended

I never rated anything a one out of ten… until I encountered Blame.

Perhaps it was because I am a man of the pencil and paper, and I tend to become extremely irritated when others criticize my work. As a result, I don’t particularly enjoy ripping someone else’s culmination of effort to shreds. Instead, I always appreciate the thing or things a crappy series pulls off successfully, even if they are ultimately insignificant, and I make sure to feature them in my review. Perhaps I chose not to hand out ones because of my opinion that anyone who habitually gives low scores to the things they ... watch must not enjoy what anime has to offer. Perhaps I chose not to rate anything a one out of ten because I set an impossible standard for what I considered to be the worst of the worst. The standard? An anime has to be just as unbearable or shoddier that Adam Sandler’s infamously crappy Jack and Jill, which is difficult to do even if you’re trying. I never thought I would live to see the day when my expectation for the most despicable of trash would not only be met but far, far exceeded. Unfortunately, I encountered Blame.

Blame began as an obscure success, what many consider to be Tsutomu Nihei’s finest work. It explored a unique perspective on the post-apocalyptic dystopia out Earth had become, or so I’ve heard (Thanks to the anime, I will never read the Blame manga). Group TAC, known for spearheading outrageously low-budget products like Baki the Grappler, is the company that agreed to producing Blame, which had become a 6-episode ONA (An ONA is basically an OVA abut much, much shorter). Utterly unaware of the consequences of my sin, I bought the Blame ONA on Amazon because it was cheap, about a dollar plus shipping fees, but the low price slapped onto this title should’ve been a massive red flag that Blame wasn’t going to be worth my time. What finally enlightened me on Blame’s true colors was its DVD menu; it’s an exercise in frustration as the menu options are in an inhuman, indecipherable language. With all of this at the top of your mind, do you really think the anime itself would actually be good?

Each of Blame’s six episodes conclude after a measly five minutes of airtime yet that doesn’t dissuade the fact of this anime overall feeling as if it slogs snail-like to the end of time. Much of this is due to a lack of experience and passion for the art of cinematography; Blame is riddled with lengthy, purposeless, yawn-inducing still shots and in one sequence, the camera pulls off a pointless 360-degree rotation. On top of that, there’s occasionally a blue silhouette of a shark randomly floating across the screen (Don’t expect there to be a reason for this). What really causes this ONA’s cinematography to be absolutely unendurable is when Blame attempts to add some flair to the animation. In one scene, a barrage of epileptic fit-inducing multicolored flashing lights invade the screen (An episode of the iconic Pokémon was banned in Japan for this very thing but Blame is able to get away with it because nobody cares about Blame), The ONA occasionally employs moments of TV static, complete with sound effects, but why I do not know. The fourth episode attempts adopting a trippy feel to Blame with its hazy, dreamy style but everything just looks blurry. At this point, you’re most likely thinking, “Okay, well the animation sucks. Does this thing even have a good storyline?” If you were thinking that, the answer is a definitive and resounding no.

To claim Blame doesn’t have a solid storyline would be a phenomenal understatement; Blame has no storyline whatsoever. For starters, the title’s driving purpose is established and explained in a fashion that barely comes across as vague (the closest I could formulate to a plot point was something about “network genes”). Because there is a profound depravity of structure and cohesion in the ONA’s plot foundation, Blame’s story simply sucker-punches you without warning with random events, quotes, statistics, and characters, and expects you to care about all of them. Speaking of characters, the ones in Blame are but inanimate representations of what a character should be. The protagonists, more precisely the only human-esque drawings that receive the most screen time, are a black-haired guy (Killy) and a white-haired chick (Cibo); both of them have no depth, dimensions, likability, purpose, or chemistry between them (They’re not even good enough to come across as stereotypical). The character designs in Blame are invariably hideous and all of them basically look the same (Why? Because again nobody cares about Blame, not even the animators). There are only two voice actors in Blame (one for Killy and one for Cibo), another enormous red flag for potential viewers, and when they have to portray other “characters”, their lifeless voices are manipulated through an audio processor in order to sound different. The actors’ utter lack of what the world of classical theater call “stage presence” is more glaringly apparent thanks to the supremely bland dialogue in Blame. Even the infamous MD Geist had a titular character whose actor voiced his role with as much faux-masculinity as he could muster. However, effort is a stranger to Blame.

“You should remember me,” – Cibo (Episode 3)

2003 was an absolute Hall-of-Fame year for anime titles (genre-defining classics like Planetes, Last Exile, Gungrave, Texhnolyze, and Fullmetal Alchemist were released) but Blame was fortunately ushered into the public through the backdoor, little known back then and virtually forgotten now. Sadly, I will never be able to forget or forgive Blame, especially for the so-called “ending”. To summarize Blame’s finale, Killy and Cibo didn’t complete their mission (of which I’m not totally sure I understand) but were apparently about to, practically nothing is explained, and I finished this abomination more perplexed than when I started. Most likely knowing that they would be ruthlessly criticized for Blame’s existence, Group TAC decided to label this title “an experimental animation” but that shouldn’t have allowed them to lazily smash crap together and christian it an anime. Why Group TAC, or any other production company, would decide to animate Blame is beyond me; the manga wasn’t a guaranteed money maker. A mainstream hit of ridiculous proportions. The Blame manga was more akin to a hidden gem, a cult classic, with a miniscule yet insanely devoted fanbase so naturally only the most avid devotee of the manga bothered watching Blame at the time (There’s a reason why it was so cheap on Amazon). Overall, I have to say Blame is by far the worst anime I’ll ever witness in literally every way, shape, or form. There is nothing it did right, no valid reason to rate Blame above a 2 out of 10, and this is coming from a man who was once exposed to what I regard as “the Unholy Trinity of Anime”: Mars of Destruction, Pupa, and Boku no Pico.

At least Mars of Destruction had a decent soundtrack.
At least Pupa had bothered to attempt adding depth to its story.
At least Boku no Pico had one quality scene.

I would rant for a few more paragraphs about how disgusting Blame is but I think you get the point by now and I won’t say anything else because I highly doubt a lot of people are even reading this.

Why? Because once again nobody cares about Blame).

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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Psychological Swap

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	Poll: Blame! Episode 6 Discussion Retro8bit - Oct 4, 2009	23 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Jul 9, 5:42 AM
	Poll: Blame! Episode 3 Discussion Beatnik - Jul 25, 2008	10 replies	by wallus81 »» May 2, 4:35 PM
	Poll: Blame! Episode 2 Discussion Arcanus - Feb 13, 2010	9 replies	by StateofOhayo »» Dec 29, 2023 6:22 AM
	Poll: Blame! Episode 1 Discussion Beatnik - Jul 25, 2008	10 replies	by StateofOhayo »» Dec 29, 2023 6:16 AM
	Poll: Blame! Episode 5 Discussion Arcanus - Feb 13, 2010	9 replies	by Kowareta99 »» Nov 2, 2019 6:03 AM

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