BLAME!
Preface
I believe that the key factor which makes a piece of text worth reading, or any piece for the matter, is trust. At its foundation lies transparency, the idea that the author will not deceive you about their intent or what they are trying to convey. Permit me then, this very transparency in saying that I am not a fan of sci-fi. Thus, you may come to the conclusion that this isn’t a review whereby you’re meant to ascertain whether BLAME! is worth your time or not, because surely there is a more objective review out there for that. Before I even start, let me concede that objectivity is not the goal here, but rather just me talking about some of my gripes with the genre and why I don’t particularly enjoy BLAME! as a result of that.

However, before I start, you may have come to wonder why I would even watch a sci-fi movie if I don’t like them. Well, there are two reasons, the first was vital to me watching it around this time and not at any other, and it came about as a result of a certain experiment. However, whether this recent reason which forced my hand existed or not, I would have watched BLAME! at one point or another. The second reason is stubbornness. You see, I do not fall into the mental trap of thinking that a genre is inherently worse than any other just because I’ve yet to see a piece which gets me to love it. Simply put, think of it like a fuzzy eater who doesn’t like much food, yet they try everything over and over in hope they will find something to love. This is indeed my relationship with sci-fi, a search for the piece that will turn it all around, and unfortunately, BLAME! wasn’t that. However, it also reminded me of some beauties of this genre, and I will certainly talk about them.

My usual reviews are split into Story/Characters/Sound/Visuals categories, however, I do not have much to say about some subjects here, and thus, to avoid being formulaic, I will merely have one big section dubbed ‘The Review’ to give my overall thoughts, and a sub-section for my miscellaneous thoughts, conclusive with the review’s summary.
Before I begin, allow me to apologize for this novel-sized preface, and say that I will try to contain all manner of spoilers in the spoiler tags, if however, you wish to go in this movie completely blind, please stop reading here.

The Review
The premise of BLAME! initially struck me as an ordinary premise of its genre, but I do think the setting of an infinitely self-expanding city naturally paves way for an interesting mystery which speaks to the core of its creation. Whether this is a genre-staple or not is something you’d have to ask its own experts, not being one, I can neither confirm nor deny this, but I can express praise and state that it’s an idea I find very interesting.
The opening sequence has some pretty striking imagery of a cold, metallic city which is nigh indifferent to the humans inhabiting it. The setting is further enhanced by the foreboding Watchers, great metallic beasts which immediately engaged my attention and… they were never seen again after the movie’s prologue which was a big disappointment.

Anyway, the prologue features a group of young children going out of their fortified village to scour the city for food, they are almost immediately ambushed by a group of exterminators, which you can think of as the fodder-level enemies of humans, yet fodder-level or not, they are dangerous nonetheless and kill a sizable chunk of the group as the kids try to retreat. And their reaction to this horror is one of my first gripes with what I’ve seen from the genre, it’s cold and stiff. Now, one could make an argument that these kids are battle-hardened veterans, something which could be attested to by the rust on their gear, but how the main character and few surviving members react to the slaughter of their friends, you’d think they were indistinguishable from the robots they were fighting against.

The rest of the story plays out in a way where even I cannot complain about the pacing. The fights are hype enough, but lack emotional engagement because the cast isn’t particularly lovable. The stakes however, are very high. For all we know, this is the last remnant of humanity fighting for survival, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this factoid wasn’t true, we will see.

The spoilers below are in reference to the ending, kindly do not open unless you viewed the movie.

Spoiler, click to view

There is a plot twist somewhere in the middle of the story which shakes things up, and forces humans to leave the village. The ending is a timeskip which goes far into the future, and highlights how uninteresting the cast is, by making you part with them and waiting for you to realize you kinda don’t care.

Anyway, our cast of debatably human creatures return to the village, their attempts fruitless, and now the residents have to find a way to get food. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that, during their retreat, one character is saved by an edgelord named Killy. Now, visiting his [character page]( /character/3762/killy) on Anilist will state that he is the main character, but he literally never gave me this vibe during the movie so I will continue referring to the female kid whose name eludes me as the MC. The manga may do the job of positioning him to be the MC far better, and I intend to read it, but this is a review of the movie, and the characters will be dissected as such.

Now, Killy is a weird character, and one of few notable ones aside from our MC, a robot named Cibo, and the head of the village who, according to Anilist doesn’t even have a name, and is instead referred to as ‘pops’. If he does have a name, do pardon my forgetfulness, I am not good with those. The reason I say Killy is weird mostly has to do with how uninteresting he is, given the role he plays. He is mostly stiff and dull, doesn’t evoke a sense of an interesting mystery, and gives the vibe of being vacuous, in a bad way. He is equipped with an extremely strong gun with a long-ass sci-fi name I couldn’t bother remembering, and a pretty competent fighter too, and has come to the village searching for a human with the ‘Net Gene Terminal’, a concept with which the viewer will not be acquainted during this movie, but my guess would be that it’s the:

Spoiler, click to view

admin code which would allow the owner to control the city, and grind it to a halt.

Pops is a character I like decently enough, you can clearly see that the duty of caring for the last remnants of humanity and being their leader wears on him. I connected with this character the most, yet the writing never allowed for neither proper development, nor any catharsis to his character, thus at best I’d give him a strong six. The female kid MC is boring, dull and a microcosm representing most of the cast. Cibo is… whatever.

The one thing I can say I loved in this movie was the amount of metallic imagery and vast spanning shots which highlight the city. They did a good job of capturing the atmosphere of the piece, and this is one of sci-fi’s greatest strengths, atmosphere. Especially true here, the cinematography had me hooked from the start, and that’s worthy of praise.

The animation wasn’t bad, the movie is rendered in CGI, and the issue is that it’s sometimes incredibly choppy. I remember a shot early on as some people were walking with camera positioned over someone’s shoulder, it deadass appeared to me they were animated in 3 frames per second. This almost never happens, and stating that it’s a big issue would be a disservice to the movie, but when it does, it’s incredibly jarring and thus, worthy of mention.

The music is alright. There’s a piano track that’s played, and arguably overplayed, as it accompanies some weird scenes where it doesn’t belong. It’s mostly quiet and subdued but I don’t mind. I do wish it was more in spirit of the genre. Sound effects were awesome, but I think having those in such high quality is a staple of this genre, as it was always about many interesting sounds you don’t often hear in real life.

Voice acting is stiff, I didn’t enjoy it very much. It almost has zero emotion and acts as a very weak sell to engage you further. Whenever I do the voice acting section in my other reviews, I usually name standout performances, however, I’ve none this time around. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. For clarity’s sake, let me mention I watched the movie subbed.

Miscellaneous Thoughts A section where I ~~freestyle~~ bullshit my way into making this review seem convincing. To start, let me say I’ve genuine appreciation for people who write reviews for a living, even writing something as measly as 1.5k words took its mental toll on me, one which I hope isn’t reflected in the quality of my writing, but I leave that to your judgement.

Let me also say that, if any mistakes were made at any point here, feel free to point them out to me, as I, to yet again be completely transparent, didn’t watch the entire movie very attentively, and my attention would go all over the place from time to time. I could blame the movie for this, but you would also be right to be mad with me for not giving it proper respect, that is also fine.

So, I’ve also said some things about sci-fi, but I hope that if you’re a fan of it, you didn’t take it to heart. Let me proclaim that I absolutely do not think any genre is inferior to another, and that this is merely a matter of preference. However, I am constantly searching for a new thing which could potentially make me into a fan, and in my defense, I think that’s enough for now. I will definitely find something I like one day, and I will likely review it. Just a shame BLAME! wasn’t it really, but who knows, it may still be, if the manga is good.

Before I summarize this vichyssoise of verbiage, let me thank you for sticking through with this review of mine, I genuinely appreciate it.

Summary BLAME! is a stiff movie complimented by nice atmosphere and decent fights. A quick and somewhat engaging watch which feels like an advertisement for its manga counterpart. I’d recommend checking it out if sci-fi is your thing, and if not, I wouldn’t count on it to change your impressions of the genre.