Crunchyroll has unveiled the opening for their exclusive Crunchyroll original, the upcoming Blade Runner Anime, Blade Runner: Black Lotus. The opening contains the theme song ‘Feel You Now’ by Alessia Cara with both a vocal and non-vocal version.
The series is being animated by Sola Digital Arts who had previously worked on the Starship Troopers anime. It is being produced by Shinichirō Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop and Carol and Tuesday fame. Shinji Aramaki and Kamiyama will be directing, both having previously directed the Netflix Ultraman and Ghost in The Shell: SAC_2024 anime. The anime is due to be air in November later this year.
Black Lotus takes place in 2032 after the previous Blade Runner anime OVA Black Runner Black Out 2022 which in turn takes place three years after the events of the original 1982 film Blade Runner. It will be centred around a female replicant protagonist (replicants are androids in the Blade Runner world).
Both the English and Japanese cast has also been revealed:
- Jessica Henwick/Arisa Shida as Elle, a female replicant created for a secret and unknown purpose
- Will Yun Lee/Shinshū Fuji as Joseph, a mysterious figure who owns a spare parts junkyard in Los Angeles
- Samira Wiley/Takako Honda as Alani Davis, a fresh LAPD recruit
- Brian Cox/Takaya Hashi as Niander Wallace Sr, founder and CEO of the Wallace Corporation
- Wes Bentley/Takehito Koyasu as Niander Wallace Jr, a brilliant scientist working for his father
- Josh Duhamel/Taiten Kusunoki as Marlowe, a deadly Blade Runner
- Peyton List/Yoshiko Sakakibara as Josephine Grant, the wife of the police chief
- Stephen Root/Hochu Otsuka as Earl Grant, Police Chief of the LAPD
- Barkhad Abdi/Takayuki Kinba as Doc Badger, a black market dealer
- Gregg Henry/Masane Tsukayama as Senator Bannister, a politician with strong feelings on replicant production.
- Henry Czerny/Akio Nojima as Doctor M, a brilliant doctor and professor of medicine
- Jason Spisak/Kazuki Yao as Hooper, a journalist in the pocket of the Wallace Corporation
Crunchyroll will stream the Japanese subtitled version while Adult Swim will handle the English dub. It is confirmed to be 13 episodes long.
The original Blade Runner by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford as well as its sequel Blade Runner 2042 is available for viewing both physically and through streaming platforms. It is based on the Philip K Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Pretty much every cyberpunk anything takes at least something from Blade Runner. The grimy cyber city with neon everywhere, that’s Blade Runner.
The OVA short Blade Runner Black Out 2022 is available on Warner Bros’ Official Youtube Channel.
There’s even a Blade Runner mobile game you can check out.