Title: BLAME!
Author:
Tsutomu Nihei
Literary
level: Elemental
Rating: 4/5
Authored by Tsutomu Nihei and
published in 1996, BLAME! is a cyberpunk story focused on the revival of humans
as the dominant beings. Kyrii sets on a personal journey through multiple
extravagant buildings and edifices that seem impossible to us today;
megastructures beyond belief. He is searching for the Net Terminal Gene (able
to take control of the robots gone rogue) while encountering security measures
in order to prevent him, automatons able to ravage any living being. His only
weapon of self-defense is his trusty graviton beam emitter, able to create a
greater level of carnage and explosion. The story itself is not told; you get
details purely on visual alone for the most part due to the severe lack of
dialog. The path he travels is filled with death for every individual he meets
is either torn apart or scarred; individuals and communities alike. The ending
is ambiguous. In the last three chapters, you get some dialog yet it suddenly
ends with Kyrii washing off outside of some system or structure.
The aesthetics, although crude, give
you the sense of dread and hurt, of yearning for some answers. It’s not always
that you “read” material with barely any words at all, but you learn to
appreciate the specific amount you get trying to figure out the ins and outs of
this dystopian society destroyed by technology and hubris. You want to
understand more and more and the short sentences given are enough for
worldbuilding as well. Robots, specially constructed to build more structures,
for transport, for investigation, and for death. To paint a picture of how big
these structures are he had to travel for 800 hours to one location (roughly 33
days). It took me quite some time to get through it, mostly because of the
inactivity and lack of dialog, but it kicks up midway making you want to find
the meaning to it all. On a short tangent: the animated movie does not give it
justice as well as not being entirely faithful to the source, mostly because it’s
centered around one village he encounters in his travels. The movie does
explain in a better way what Kyrii’s purpose is but everything else is too
dramatic in comparison to the manga.