yotitaniumboyin

[sunthroughtherust]

tell me more about blame! bc i tried ten chapters and struggled to get into it but your take on it in the tags have made me curious to try it again

It's a manga about stairs

Ok that’s (kind of not really) a joke, but seriously don’t read it expecting a character or plot heavy story. The characters are basically just vehicles for the readers to experience the world and the plot exists…. Sometimes….. In its own way….. On its own schedule…….

The main draw for most readers (including myself) is the gigantic megastructure. In story humans created the megastructure and controlled it in the netsphere with their net terminal gene, a gene only humans had, but something happened and the gene began disappearing and humans started being hunted by the safeguards of the megastructure. Most of the places kyrii walks through are enormous but empty and ragged and old every room is so old and run down, but fun and interesting in a way. someone on tumblr once described the megastructure as like a forbidden playground not built for humans and i have to agree, every panel i see i just want to climb inside and explore. that’s kind of the fantasy for me, being able to walk around with no one else around me as i explore a long ago--maybe never even lived in-- abandoned city.

I will admit the plot leaves a lot to be desired especially whenever nihei writes like…. Explicit worldbuilding, at some point alternate dimensions came up so a character could body-hop into their own body again and it was…. Confusing. So much of the plot and miniplots and arcs are very confusing which can lose the gravity the series tries to go for, but honestly i find it funny in a very engaging way.

As much as i said the characters are just vehicles for the world, it would be better to say that nihei simply doesn’t want the story to be character-focused because he cares more about the architecture. the characters are plenty interesting but the story just doesn't make a habit of caring for their emotions. For example cibo once had to come face to face with an atrocity she caused and then it was never brought up again (but we stand an unethical girlboss scientist). Sanakan had a very in-the-background arc about becoming more human and essentially learning to love. Honestly love is such an important aspect to all of the characters in the series even if it doesn’t seem obvious at first and it's so human in so many ways despite only a few ‘real’ humans appearing in the series. Anyway im just rambling now, but basically nihei just writers things and it's up to the reader to accidentally stumble upon an obsession

ok that was a lot and i don’t know if i even explained the draw of the series, but if you really want to try and get into blame! i’d really watch the 2017 movie before attempting to read the manga again. It's a pretty watered down version of the actual story (since it actually went for a plot rather than just focusing on architecture lol) and it follows one of the arcs with people in them. Also you get a better understanding of the backstory which will give you more of a reason to stay with the manga. At least that was my experience with watching the movie without any prior knowledge of the manga and immediately being like MOAR!!

The only thing i have to say is that the 3d animated movie ‘cutiefied’ the characters too much in a way that i felt took away from the grittiness of the setting, but that’s personal opinion. Another personal opinion is that you should watch the movie simply for cibo’s introduction sequence because holograms being mistaken for ghosts fucking rock