Watch the gorgeous Blade Runner 2049 anime prequel

Are you looking forward to Blade Runner 2049, but unsure what happened in the intervening years between the original Blade Runner and the new film? A new anime, titled Blade Runner: Black Out 2022, from Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe, should fill in some gaps. Ridley Scott’s 1982 original was set in 2019, and this new 15 minute short takes place three years later. Fresh from making his directing debut with Kuso, Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus has provided the score.

This is the third short film prequel to be released ahead of Blade Runner 2049’s release. The first prequel, 2036: Nexus Dawn, revolves around Jared Leto’s character, Niander Wallace. The second film, 2048: Nowhere to Run, puts the spotlight on Dave Bautista’s character, Sapper. This third prequel, the only animated film of the three, tells the story of how replicants were blamed for an electricity failure that caused a worldwide blackout in 2022, and the subsequent anti-Replicant feeling which resulted in a ban on their creation. 

The anime, which can be watched via Crunchyroll, is introduced by Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve. “I have been given the amazing opportunity to direct Blade Runner 2049, which picks up 30 years after the first film,” he says. “With that in mind, I decided to ask a couple of artists that I really respect to create three short stories that dramatize some key events that occurred after 2019, when the first Blade Runner takes place, but before 2049, when my new Blade Runner story begins.”

Blade Runner 2049 is released on 9 Oct by Sony; watch Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 in full via Crunchyroll here, and check out the trailer for the new anime in the YouTube player below.