Yesterday, the final prequel film for Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 hit the web. It’s called Blackout 2022, directed by Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo showrunner Shinichiro Watanabe. It’s scored by Flying Lotus (and, luckily, it’s not as graphic as Kuso), and might be the most essential out of all of the films released so far to understanding the world of the new film.
Yes, we know it’s anime. Yes, we don’t care. It’s still cool.
Watch it for free at Crunchyroll.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time that Watanabe has created a short for a Warner Brothers blockbuster: That honor would go to A Detective Story, which he made back in 2003 for The Animatrix series of shorts. We’ve embedded it below for your pleasure, and it’ll be pretty interesting to compare the styles of Future Noir in both works. I mean, we’re dealing with a dude who literally made an anime series about Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe having adventures in space, so it’s probably a given that they’ll share some similarities.
Animatrix 08 – Historia de un detective from gabriel on Vimeo.
Blade Runner 2049 hits theaters next Friday (October 6), so you better get your fucking depends ready, people. We hear it’s great.