The latest Blade Runner 2049 prequel is an anime from Shinichiro Watanabe

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Fans of Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi noir classic BLADE RUNNER have just a few more days to wait until Denis Villeneuve's "30 years later" sequel BLADE RUNNER 2049 reaches theatres. As this thirty-five year wait winds down, fans have been getting bonus prequel shorts to help them get through the final days. Ridley's son Luke Scott directed two of those prequels, 2036: NEXUS DAWN and 2048: NOWHERE TO RUN, and the third and final short has to come us from Shinichiro Watanabe, the creator of Cowboy Bebop.

Set in 2022, just three years after the events of the first BLADE RUNNER, Watanabe's short is an anime that deals with replicants and humans going to battle with each other, a battle that has a major impact on Los Angeles. Making an anime rather than a live action short allowed Watanabe to tell a story with a much bigger scope than the previous prequels. The anime is quite impressive, and tells of an important event that occurred between the two feature films.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 was written by Michael Green and Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the first movie and worked on the story for this one with Ridley Scott. 2049's synopsis: 

Officer K, a new blade runner for the Los Angeles Police Department, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. His discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former blade runner who's been missing for 30 years.

The film's cast includes Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Jared Leto, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, David Dastmalchian, Lennie James, Sylvia Hoeks, Carla Juri, Hiam Abbass, Barkhad Abdi, and Edward James Olmos.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 is scheduled for release on October 6th. Arrow in the Head's own Eric Walkuski has already seen the film and gave it an 8/10 review.