I originally started writing this post back in November 2024 but never really got around to wrapping up all my thoughts until now. A lot has happened between then and now, so consider this me finally sitting down after some distance to put the rest of it into words.
On nights alone in Korea, I found myself weirdly coping with the loneliness by relying almost entirely on random stand-up comedy clips YouTube kept recommending on my feed. I couldn't bring myself to watch—or even search for—anything else. No Netflix shows, no movies, maybe a five-minute Korean web drama at best. I got sick of the whole funny-haha thing pretty fast and eventually moved on to playing GTA: San Andreas – Definitive Edition (the Netflix version) on my phone just to get through those long, lonesome nights.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and one of those USB-C telescopic mobile gaming controllers, and with the phone unfolded and snapped into the controller it honestly felt like I was playing on some weird “high-tech, low-life” handheld console. It was actually pretty sick. But, naturally, being in the constant state of ambient suffering I was in, I dropped that too after a night or two. I do still look forward to trying the GTA: San Andreas online mod when I get back home, though.
Still haven't gotten to that.
Wall in the restaurant with velcro name tags of guests from the show
Oddly enough, the night after that, I was alone in my new Airbnb flat when YouTube recommended me a very perfectly timed video from the channel DamiLee.
I'd seen some videos from that channel before, like the one about Kowloon Walled City (which wasn't really new information to me, but the video was still well produced—albeit a bit cringe). This one, though, was about the manga BLAME!, which I was already somewhat familiar with.
Back around 2007 or 2008, I went to this really small anime store in Houston with my roommate at the time and found the 2003 anime OVA version of BLAME! on DVD in the bargain bin for like four or five dollars. It looked interesting, so I grabbed it. My roommate, meanwhile, bought a bootleg Fist of the North Star movie OVA that didn't have the same ending as the one I'd seen before (more on that some other day).
Anyway, I remember watching the first few episodes of BLAME! back then and thinking, wow this would make really cool background visuals at a party or something—very cringe stoner thoughts, I know. I was young. At the same time, I also remember thinking how crazy it was that it lined up almost perfectly with the exact aesthetic I was into at the time—characters with these super elongated bodies striking oblique yet weirdly fashionable poses. I was really deep into fashion photography back then, so it all just clicked.
After finishing watching that DamiLee video I was sold and instantly dove headfirst into everything BLAME! So as any truly sane anime and manga fan would do, I started the series in complete reverse order of release with the newest Netflix adaptation BLAME!(2017) And MY GOD as if I wasn't already deep in the shits with the sense of urban isolation I was feeling at the time in Seoul, I somehow managed to double down and absolutely pummel myself in the head with even more depictions of isolation, and bleakness than I was prepared for.
It's been a full year since that time so I don't really have the recollection to write full on reviews of each piece of BLAME! media and I am not about to rewatch and reread everything just for this post. So I will just give my brief thoughts on the series overall, both the manga and the animations.
BLAME! (2017)
1 hour 46 minutes, Streaming on Netflix
I would say this was a pretty accessible entry point to the series. Not the coolest animation style as its mostly 3D CG but it's not bad. It also might not really give the strongest sense of cosmic otherworldliness you will for sure get from the manga and OVA as it is pretty condensed and plays out more like your typical Netflix anime. I still enjoyed myself though and it only made me want more.
BLAME! VER.0.11 (2003)
6-episode OVA
So this was the OVA that I mentioned earlier that I had bought the DVD of when I was fresh out of high school. This was my first time watching the full thing through though. Each episode is only 6 minutes long so I was able to breeze through this and immediately get started on reading the manga afterwards. Yes it was very short but I loved every single fucking minute of it! Super artsy fartsy in its approach and will leave you with more questions than anything. It's really fucking cool how each episode just drops you into a totally different point in time, with what feels like hundreds of years having passed in between episodes. Highly recommend this as a companion piece to the manga, but wait to watch it until after you've read it. It will give you just that tiny bit more immersion you will be craving afterward.
BLAME! (1997-2003)
10-volumes, written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei
As much as I loved my time in Korea, there were stretches where things were genuinely brutal to cope with completely on my own. Being in another country without my usual go-to friends to lean on or confide in, I didn't really have much in the way of emotional support when I was feeling down and lonely. Sometimes I'd go out to these techno clubs (Club Faust or Beton Brut) by myself, drink until I'd had my fill, and just sink against the wall there feeling the relentless, mesmeric sound of the music slowly liquefy my thoughts. The constant pounding of the four-on-the-floor bass administering a kind of emotional anesthesia. I'd be out for hours—interact here and there with the occasional oddball character—and some nights I wouldn't talk to anyone at all, aside from the routine, transactional exchanges with bartenders or convenience store clerks.
I was in one of the most densely populated cities in Korea, but I felt utterly, and irrevocably alone. At the time, I didn't know there was a word for what I was experiencing—urban isolation.
Packed subway cars where no one spoke. Crowded streets where everyone moved with purpose except me. The loneliness didn't come from being alone—it came from being surrounded and still feeling absent, almost like I was invisible. City noise replacing actual conversation. And the city always had sound, I just felt like it never had any voices meant for me.
Large portions of BLAME! capture that exact feeling. You follow the main character "Killy" as he walks for days, months, even years through an ever-expanding city, sometimes not seeing another soul for decades, just trying to reach his goal. The megacity Killy traverses through is endlessly dense, but emotionally empty. Architecture without humanity. Killy, the protagonist, has this almost unreal resilience—he's never discouraged, never gives up on what he's searching for. I won't pretend I immediately clocked the parallels or that I suddenly saw him as some emotional role model right off the bat (aside from, you know, wanting to be a cool superhuman like him). Forgive me my media literacy honestly isn't the strongest. I come from a family of immigrants who didn't finish school and weren't really exposed to literature, art history, or theory, so that part of my brain didn't really start developing until I made it to art school.
I started reading the manga when I was at my absolute lowest. At that time, I couldn't bring myself to meet up with people, and I was too hungover to do much of anything besides drag myself to the CU around the corner to buy more beer and soju. But Killy—no matter what happened to him—just kept going. It's just that he endures with purpose, while I was enduring without any clarity whatsoever. He regenerates physically, I was trying to regenerate emotionally, with way less success. Killy kept moving because he had something to find. I kept moving because standing still felt worse. So when I read, I was able to escape my own misery by living vicariously through him.
Killy’s goal is to find a person who has the“Net Terminal Gene,” which can stop the machines from continuing to ruin what's left of humanity. But what does humanity even mean when the world is already so far gone? People aren't even fully human anymore, considering the sheer amount of biological change that's happened over millennia. Civilization has advanced so far that it's almost entirely erased its own origin point.
Finding the Net Terminal Gene stops feeling like a quest to save humanity and starts feeling more like a quest to prove humanity still belongs in the world it built—that we still have the right to access the systems we created. It’s like the world outgrew its creators and locked us out. It's pretty fucked to think about—especially now, with the advancement of AI and shit. Us building something so vast and self-sustaining that eventually it no longer needs you at all. But even in all that post-human emptiness... companionship still emerges.
Killy meets Cibo. My Cibo. My guardian angel. Cibo takes care of Killy, and she took care of me too. It's a love born out of friendship more than anything else. Killy doesn't really experience emotion the way normal humans do, so he never shows immediate affection or attraction to Cibo, but as the story progresses it becomes painfully clear how deeply they care about each other—enough that I'd absolutely call it love.
Cibo goes through so much: her body is destroyed multiple times, she undergoes these insane transformations, and I vaguely remember this one scene where Cibo sits next to Killy and waits for like 20 years for his body to regenerate after he had been completely decimated by one of the Silicon Creatures—which the manga depicts in the span of, like, a single panel. All those years lost in the space between a single page. Urban isolation does this weird thing to your senses where days start blending together, nightlife replaces daylight structure, sleep schedules invert, and insomnia creeps in. Weeks pass without any real memory anchors. Reading BLAME! felt eerily parallel to that. I cried at the panel where Cibo tells Killy she's going to join him on his journey. It hit me so fucking hard because in this fucked up world where humanity itself feels like it's dissolving and built on isolation, two people still chose not to wander alone. It's genuinely beautiful. I have a thing for those moments in films or dramas where two people who are clearly meant to love each other begin their partnership—even if it isn't framed as romantic at first(We all know what we're rooting for deep down though ;) T_T ^0^). There's just something about that exact turning point that always gets me. The moment someone chooses to insert themselves into your life, or when two people make that quiet, life-altering decision to keep moving forward side by side.
There's so little dialogue in BLAME! that it lends itself perfectly to adding your own soundtrack while reading. I'd put on Tim Hecker or William Basinski—stuff like Virgins or Vivian & Ondine—and it fit insanely well. I even had a few moments where a track would shift right as some action kicked off, so perfectly timed that I started screen-recording as I read because the pairing felt almost intentional.
That said, this manga puts a really fucked-up feeling inside you about the fragility—and futility—of the human form. Key characters get obliterated left and right. Some can regenerate, some can't. Some undergo grotesque transformations, others experience bizarre age regressions or body-horror-adjacent changes—some of which honestly don't feel that far removed from things that exist in our own world. The Silicon Life, as a race, are especially interesting and thought-provoking. Why do they fight? Where did they come from? Are they inherently evil, or just acting according to their nature?
I enjoyed the absolute shit out of this manga—far more than the Netflix adaptation. It carries a darker, heavier tone thanks to the pacing and Nihei's art style, and I'm really glad it does. I've always been drawn to bleak slow-burn stories like this, and BLAME! absolutely nails that feeling. It was exactly what I needed at that time. The best therapy I could ask for.
NOiSE (2000-2001)
1 volume written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei
NOiSE is a prequel set roughly 3,000 years before BLAME!, and it's just as dark and bleak as you'd expect. Honestly, it's a must-read if you want to bang yourself on the head one last time and really bask in the fucked-up glory and depression of this world. It doesn't soften anything—it just adds more context and makes everything feel even heavier in retrospect.
BLAME GAKUEN! AND SO ON (BLAME ACADEMY!)(2008)
1 volume written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei
This one is a much lighter, parody/spinoff series that technically takes place in the BLAME! universe, though I'm pretty sure it isn't canon. It reimagines all the characters as teenagers going to the same high school and getting into various hijinks. It's very Japanese in that way, and honestly it almost feels like an excuse for Nihei to mess around, perv out a little, and experiment with different art styles.
You can clearly see a big evolution in his artwork here. There's a noticeable jump in boldness and polish compared to the earlier stuff. Definitely a stronger sense of artistic identity here—greater use of color, this trippy airbrush-like finish, and characters that feel more rounded and human-like, less jagged and robotic-seeming. The volume also includes a one-shot sequel manga called BLAME² (BLAME Squared), which shifts us back into the same tone and weight as the original series. It's a must-read for diehard fans who want anything resembling a sense of “what happens after.”
That being said, it's very short and very abstract. You're not really going to walk away with a clear understanding of everyone's fate or some neat resolution. From what I remember, there's basically no closure at all, which is extremely on-brand.
WOLVERINE: SNIKT! (2003)
5 issue limited series comic book written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei
A short while after I finished BLAME! and its sequels/spinoffs, I ended up talking about it with a friend who’s also really into manga and comic books. We were both geeking out over it when he told me that Tsutomu Nihei had actually done a collaboration with Marvel on a Wolverine series called Wolverine: Snikt! I instantly hopped on that and read the whole thing in one sitting.
The parallels between it and BLAME! are immediately obvious—the sheer sense of scale, the violence, the isolation. Wolverine feels like the perfect Marvel-universe counterpart to Killy in a lot of ways. They share so many similar traits, both stat-wise and thematically. But Wolverine also carries this inherent sadness to his character that lends itself perfectly to Nihei’s style of storytelling.
He's got the healing factor, just like Killy, and because of that he's lived for nearly 200 years. With that kind of lifespan comes an insane amount of accumulated loss—loved ones, heartbreak, suffering, pain. The kind of pain that doesn't heal. Emotional pain.
So yeah, it's safe to say BLAME! had a massive impact on me. I still find myself chasing that feeling I had the first time I read it—the feeling of wanting to be alone in a strange, hostile, unfamiliar world. Or maybe it's the feeling of wanting to be alone together with someone (Cibo), with my own Cibo ~
(⸝⸝> ω <⸝⸝) (⸝⸝๑ ̫ ๑⸝⸝⸝) ( ⸝⸝´ ᵕ `⸝⸝) (⁄ ⁄•⁄-⁄•⁄ ⁄) (,,>﹏<,,)
I don't really know why I love stuff like this. Definitely some kind of catharsis for sure. To semi-quote Nicole Kidman,“Somehow, heartbreak feels good.”
I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, because there's something I want to address. I've definitely gotten shit before for deliberately seeking out and liking depressing or as the Japanese like to call it,“Utsuge”media. And yeah, I get it—it probably makes sense that I should be grateful I don't suffer from depression to the extent that others do. But I still do suffer. I've had a friend straight up tell me that I'm not depressed, that they know what real depression looks like. I don't think it's ever that black and white though. I feel like I definitely have some level of it, even if I'll never know exactly what that means. Mexican families don't fucking believe in going to therapy lol. Maybe one day, when I'm rich, I can finally get a shrink. And yeah, I know it's kind of a shit move to just “blame the parents,”but in my case it really feels more like a broader cultural thing.
For now, it's just on me to do my best and actually put in the work to change. It's really common for people to self-diagnose, or even get a professional diagnosis and then go, “I have this disorder, therefore I behave this way,” and use it as both an explanation and a justification for shitty behavior. You can miss me with that.
The point of receiving a diagnosis—at least the way I see it—is so you can learn how to live with it and treat it, so it doesn't dominate and destroy your fucking life—or the relationships and people in it. Constantly talking about self-improvement or mental illness scratches that itch in a way that feels instantly gratifying. People see that you're “trying,” but no real steps ever get taken. It’s way easier than actually putting in the time and effort to improve as a person.
Anywayyyyyys, I did just find out that Tsutomu Nihei has other works like Knights of Sidonia and Biomega, so you best believe I'll be getting balls deep into those over the next few days. Knights of Sidonia also has an anime adaptation that looks stylistically similar to the BLAME! Netflix movie, so I'll probably start there—like any truly sane anime and manga fan would, obviously.
What's funny (and kind of pathetic, if I'm being honest) is that this whole spiral back into anime and manga really kicked off because of that brief interaction I had with the video-artist girl that night at the whiskey bar. When she asked if I liked anime and I awkwardly downplayed it, I think something in my brain short-circuited afterward—like I suddenly felt the urge to reconnect with that part of myself I'd just brushed off, like I was trying to earn retroactive cool points in a conversation that had already ended. Almost like I had something to prove, even though she has no idea about any of this—and probably never will. Pretty lame, I know. But I guess something good came out of it anyway.
And finally, for no real reason at all: I want to add that I started writing this post on my Royal Kludge F68 Bluetooth foldable mechanical keyboard. It's part of my little travel workstation setup since it folds in half and fits really nicely in a backpack. It has tactile switches, though you can also opt for linears. There's just something about it that makes me want to write more—I can literally feel myself slipping into a zone whenever I type on it. It's something akin to what I would imagine actual writers feel when they buy those Freewrite digital typewriters. Not sponsored, unfortunately.
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