Blade Runner: Black Lotus

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021)

This was not what I expected for CGI in 2021. At times the CGI is superb and really is a groundbreaking force towards what shows could do in kind. At other times, however, it is awful and shows a terrible reflection of what not to do. The main characters tend to be great all the way through but many side characters sometimes look like the lowest quality threshold possible.

The story is pretty generic but it is paced well and is pretty enjoyable. It was never going to truly end due to the extremely expansive world of Blade Runner. Many unexpected ... things happen throughout the show.

The sound is beyond. The music used is of amazing quality and perfectly suited, it really gives emphasis to the show. The SFX is awesome; slicing, exploding etc sounds amazing. The voices are pretty top-notch too.

Whilst the show was never going to be a 9 or 10 it could have easily been a solid 8 had they not messed around and put more effort into its CGI.

7/10.

Ah, Kenji Kamiyama. Your work since GitS:SAC season 1 has yet to fail to disappoint me.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus is the latest Kamiyama-directed title I have reviewed here on MyAnimeList, following Eden of the East, GitS:SAC 2nd GIG, and GitS:SAC – SSS in exactly that order. At the end of my Solid State Society review, I said I would make the smarter decision and avoid GitS:SAC_2045 based purely on my past experience with the directors’ work. The Blade Runner films being personal favorites of mine apparently superseded my better judgment, however, when it came to Kamiyama’s second outing as the frontrunner for a CGI anime ... series, so here we are.

The pleasure I gleaned from this show only became guilty in the last pair of episodes. For most of the first ten or so, I was pretty genuinely having a good time, but that enjoyment was so obviously in spite of the show’s few attempts at being a serious and thought-provoking cyberpunk story in the same vain as its predecessors, attempts that virtually entirely fall flat. I say this because there is a massive emphasis on action sequences and nailing the audio-visual aesthetic which completely overwhelms any and all but the most barely-dramatic moments that create only the most barebones emotional connection between the characters and audience. Credit where it’s due: Black Lotus pulls no punches in being a series that looks and sounds amazing with design elements and environmental details that are absolutely to my taste, but it’s not a stretch to say I felt basically nothing for these characters. It isn’t even necessarily because they are poorly defined; they just don’t do anything really dramatic. The final pair of episodes are just all action all the time until the narrative weight drained away and I just wanted it to end already. And, make no mistake, I was only referencing the core cast when I said the characters are not that poorly defined. Side characters show up and vanish as quickly as snow on a warm day usually without even half an episode of on-screen presence for the show to utilize their somewhat unique positions to provide new perspective on the setting.

So, if the side characters are mostly relegated to the background, there is nothing done to explore the setting further, the (few) main characters have very, VERY little in the way of meaningful dialogue, and the audience has basically no emotional attachment to anybody at all for the vast majority of the show’s run, then what are we left with? A completely by-the-numbers revenge story with a heroine that is basically invulnerable and targets that are both unabashedly reprehensible and as destructible and threatening as paper airplanes. This is all set to a backdrop involving only the most rudimentary science-fiction elements taken from the Blade Runner films with basically nothing new introduced. Once most of the very barebones drama is ironed out by the end of episode four, the story all but limps from one action scene to the next until the end of the show. Episode ten is the oddball here, being both a brief reprieve from the violence and one of the strongest outings in the series because it actually has some measure of emotion, a pulse of sorts. Unfortunately, it still culminates in a finale that does little to actually end the narrative with any satisfactory arcs for the characters and, having seen Blade Runner 2049, does even less to serve as a prequel (to a film that already had four if you count all the canon shorts).

In the end, the best that can be said here is that Blade Runner: Black Lotus looks and sounds great. Just like its predecessors, it leans more heavily into film noir than science fiction, something of a welcome contrast to the very technobabble-heavy atmosphere-lacking Ghost in the Shell franchise. But, for as much praise as I can and will continue to shower upon the production quality, Black Lotus leaves much to be desired when compared to other shows let alone its own forerunners which have cemented themselves as classics that captured the essences of their respective eras and translated them into the most beautifully-realized dystopian worlds. Perhaps no other work had done so since another Philip K. Dick masterpiece, The Man in the High Castle. It’s a tall order for a series, or any work, really, to match that level of cultural importance or even to be as well-made. I have no doubt that Kamiyama and co. were incredibly anxious and stressed when trying to come up with a story to tell on top of getting all the aesthetic details right. I think, at the end of the day, the overall effort is highly commendable; there was clearly an immense amount of love, passion, and hard work put into making Blade Runner: Black Lotus feel as close to the originals as it could feel, and many people, Kamiyama included, deserve a standing ovation for realizing such an ambitious goal so impressively. However, the fact is that this series is not well-written. Its characters and story are almost entirely uninteresting and the only engaging aspects of the setting are lifted from the works for which it is clearly banking on the audience having immense appreciation and nostalgia. It deeply and truly saddens me that, in spite of having that appreciation, I cannot recommend this show. If you want hardcore film noir and science fiction but also aren’t afraid to encounter the surreal and weird, then I would instead recommend checking out Serial Experiments Lain. Maybe I’ll review that next.

Happy watching!
- LC

“Hunt down…Eliminate… Black Lotus”

This show, like any piece of media, can technically be judged on its own. However, when one makes an entry into a series/franchise, it would be illogical to not consider that entry in relation to its series/franchise; otherwise, why not make it an original work? By this line of thought, I will primarily be reviewing Blade Runner: Black Lotus as a Blade Runner work; only light mentions will be made as to how this show stands on its own as independent media (There will be a dedicated subheading for this section, so you can skip to that if that’s all you want). ... (Extremely Minor Spoilers).

Like many of the great science fiction worlds out there, the world of Blade Runner has a distinct and unique style and feel. While Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) have several stylistic distinctions, they ultimately still maintain the “DNA” of the world. So, what is the “DNA” of Blade Runner, and does Black Lotus contain it? The answer to this my vary per person, largely depending on how much they gleaned from/connected to the world, but my answer is this:

-Blade Runner is quiet; at times there is noise, but it remains the background to loneliness and isolation.
-Blade Runner is pensive; great stretches of time are dedicated to building ideas and emotion in the audience and characters.
-Blade Runner is beautiful; life and desolation, mood and atmosphere, color and light.
-Blade Runner has signature questions; What constitutes life? Do we make choices? What is the value of a memory? What makes love real? Who are you?

Black Lotus has some of these genetic sequences; it’d be hard to make anything resembling Blade Runner without them. Unfortunately, Black Lotus’ engagement with these ideas and stylistic signatures largely remains surface level and, at times, is completely absent.

-Music-
While some of the tracks present within Black Lotus connect with the distinctive score of Vangelis, the vast majority of tracks (especially the end of episode stings) are a complete tonal departure for the series. The music ends up not just out of place with the larger world, but also a jumbled mish mash that fails to help this entry form a concise identity of its own.

-Action-
Action in Blade Runner is typically fast, efficient, and highly lethal, with action only being drawn-out when it is punctuated by long segments of tension building (ultimately again met with a rapid conclusion). Action in Black Lotus is often sluggish and floaty, failing to convey the decisive brutality that usually punctuates combat with Replicant and Blade Runners. Even when an action scene is “quick” in duration, the fighting itself usually remains somewhat slow. The most “showy” action ends up seriously straining credulity; one such scene ends with an huge explosion that sees both characters caught in the blast completely unscathed, one of whom flies out of a skyscraper-high building.

-Characters-
Between the original, 2049, and Black Lotus, all three have largely remained focused on their protagonist, with room for a handful of interesting side characters. Thus, there is something of a significant burden on this main protagonist, as they have to guide us not only through the world, but make us interested in their journey. Not much is known about them prior to the events of each story, but their journey and conclusion is meant to leave a mark. Trying to understand and connect with Deckard and K is part of the appeal of Blade Runner; they are themselves, but we could be them, too. Elle is a character with no memory; considering the importance of memories to the Blade Runner world, this is a fairly interesting set up. Unfortunately, even by the end of the anime, Elle has very little to show for herself. According to Black Lotus, not having any memory means you have no character traits, personality, or capacity for reflection and thought, leaving us with a character who has nothing to connect to and little to offer the narrative beyond a killing machine who pushes the plot along at a snail's pace. Additionally screen time in Black Lotus is haphazardly allocated among the cast, with characters like Officer Davis taking up a significant amount of the story, only to ultimately be so inconsequential that removing her from the story would legitimately have no impact whatsoever.

-Themes and Questions-
Does Black Lotus address the themes and questions of Blade Runner, or at least pose ones of its own? Barely. While some questions return in some form (ex. Memory, love, choice), nothing new or memorable is espoused on these topics. Further, the show fails to consider much about itself; Black Lotus’ ideas only exist to service events in the narrative, not the other way around.

-Lore and connection-
How does Black Lotus fit in between the two main films and incorporate the world? Eh. It doesn’t need to exist, and the incredibly short (15min) animation “Blade Runner: Black Out 2022” actually does a better job of being a connecting piece if that's important. On another note, some aspects of the Blade Runner lore are either underplayed, absent, or straight up incorrect; To name a couple, the effects of the Blackout are largely unexplored, despite only being a decade prior, and the show straight up retcons/gets the source of Niander Wallace’s blindness wrong (in 2049 he was born blind, in Black Lotus he has normal vision until being slashed with a sword). You may consider these things largely inconsequential, but to me it suggests little diligence and care in creating a fitting entry into the Blade Runner world.

—On its own—
Black Lotus is a largely boring, barely thoughtful, tedious piece of science fiction. It’s fairly tasteless, and can really only be enjoyed if you appreciate it at surface level, which is coincidentally the only level it offers. If you want cheap action, skim the episodes for the fight scenes, determine if you like them, and dump most the rest. The only mood this show created in me was apathy, and the only atmosphere stale air. There are a couple of redeemable moments, 1 character, and maybe one whole episode, but this show is largely a monotonous mess where life is meaningless and you’ll be wishing for the death Black Lotus is dealing out.

I could have said more, about Blade Runner, about the performances, even about positives, but we both know this is long enough. TL;DR, avoid this show if you see something special in Blade Runner, and avoid it if you have taste in science fiction. If neither are applicable to you, perhaps you’ll find some morsel for your consumption.