Based on the first manga by Tsutomi Nihei, of “Knights of Sidonia” fame, “Blame!” is a CGI anime, in the visual style that Netflix seems to promote intensely at the moment.
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The story takes place in the distant future, where an infection has caused the automated systems humanity created to spiral out of control, resulting in a multi-leveled structure that keeps expanding itself in all directions, and a number of robots called Safeguards hunting down the remaining humans, under orders from the defense system of the machine. In one of the corners of the city, a group of humans, self-named Electro-Fishers, are struggling to survive in the middle of Safeguards and the lack of food. As the story begins, a girl named Zuru and her young friends, in an effort to help the struggling grown-ups go on a search for food on their own. Their “trip” however, ends up almost in complete disaster, save for the appearance of Killy the Wanderer, a rather mysterious but quite powerful individual, who saves Zuru and a couple of her friends in the last minute. The remaining ones, along with Killy, return to the village, and after some discussions with the elders, he decides to help them. Soon, he reaches the Rotting Shrine, followed by Zuru and a group of other Electro-Fishers. Their search brings them to the remains of a robot named Cibo, who is introduced as a former scientist from before the disaster. Cibo promises the villagers that she can help in a number of ways, even producing food rations, if they bring her to a nearby, automated factory. The group begins towards there after a while, but it is soon proven that the promise was too good to be true.
Hiroyuki Seshita has taken many liberties with the original, in essence adding much more dialogue and context, since the original's approach was mostly visual. This approach benefits the narrative and particularly its cinematic value quite significantly, since the main characters and their agonies and purposes are analyzed thoroughly, adding context to a film that could easily be a series of nonsensical action scenes. In that fashion, the anime unfolds through a combination of survival horror, thriller and mystery, and technopunk elements, that come together artfully through Seshita's direction.
The comments about leaning extensively on machines are obvious, but the general storyline allows them to become the main source of drama in the title, adding even more to the context. Add to all that a number of plot twists and revelations and the death of many protagonists, and you have the very intriguing backbone of the movie's narrative.
Of course, the focus remains on the action, and the many and quite lengthy sequences are extremely well animated and designed, with the spider-looking-and-moving Safequards fitting the nightmarish premises of the title to the fullest. Furthermore, when they give their place to even more powerful enemies, both the transition and the new elements are quite well implemented, resulting in even more impressive scenes. The design of the characters, the robots, the enemies, and the mechanic background, as much as the animation by Polygon Pictures find their apogee here, although their quality in the non-action scenes in anything but disappointing. The only fault I found is the difference of power between Killy and the Electro-Fishers, which, in essence, deems them useless on a number of occasions.
The overall entertainment “Blame” offers is on a lower level than “Knights of Sidonia” whose many episodes gave the opportunity for a much richer story, but still remains a well-animated and quite fun effort, that will definitely satisfy fans of techno-action.
