Tuesday | 30 APR 2024
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Blame! Again - Volume 1

Title:
Date: 2023-12-30
Tags:  manga

This is going to by my notes while re-reading because I really like the concepts in Blame and this will slow me down.

Background

Log 1

Child's not wearing a gas mask so this probably isn't the child at the end of the story.

Did Killy find this child and think it was the net terminal gene? This child is probably infected so I'm curious if it would have been able to access the netsphere.

The bridge is cool and looks intense to walk over.

They run into a real person on the bridge.

Killy smiles while killing the guy.

The Gravity Beam Emitter is so cool. It kills the guy and then continues to fuck shit up for 23 km. You can see the massive hole it made through the guy and on the other side of the bridge. I'm guessing that this is why so much destruction happens as Killy is destroying things in a huge way.

The kid says that the man wanted his cells. Sounds like they have already been hunted before.

The man didn't look like Silicon Life. We do get the first look at silicon life and damn are they scary looking.

The man thinks he found someone before the infection. Maybe the child does have the net terminal gene.

The child gets nabbed by the silicon life guys who shoot Killy in the foot.

Killy shoots the GBE and falls off where they were standing. He loses his gun and one of the silicon life picks it up and fires.

The statues are stupid cool and the giant staircase looks great.

Silicon life have elft with the child and in the background there is a group of people around a fire. There appear to be people in the windows looking on as they walk away.

Killy causes rockets or something. Perhaps. Either way silicon life is attacked and Killy uses a blade to cut the head and take back his gun.

He shoots and destroys the statues and the stuff behind it. Probably killed a ton of people as well.

The child has the thousand eye stare and looks infected by something now. He has boils and stuff.

If he had the net terminal gene, he may have lost it now.

Log 2

Killy is chilling in a bug storm. Just bugs falling and hitting everything. He;s in the shade.

We meet a girl with a dog. She is with the administration.

The dog likes Killy.

She does a test and finds that the child has mutations on chromosomes 10 and 11. This data is sent to the person on the call.

She tells Killy that on 3000th stratum there is a residential area that is functioning. That doesn't confirm humanity but it's something to investigate.

How big is a stratum. I'm taking stratum to mean a floor but a floor in this world is something else. Almost like Tower of God.

Killy reads a line from a book and asks what land is. Makes sense as there is no land in the city. It is all concrete and metal from the looks of it. There are no trees, no plants, no life at all. What the hell do the bugs eat.

The line is from Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home. A copy can be found in the internet archive.

It's also how Killy starts the story. There is lightning in the background.

The girl came in elevator and takes it back down.

Log 3

We see two people climbing in space suits. The background has buildings that look like they have lights.

They might actually be buildings. This is reminding of the ghost cities of China. Entire cities where there might be just a few people living.

What is a watcher and why does it kill one of the space friends.

What does it mean for a watched to blink out.

Why are they wearing space suits. The air should be fine in the city.

They have some sort of thrusters on the shoes to save a fall.

The watcher is dead. Killy shot it looks like. That explains blinked out. I wonder if it was a safeguard.

The two space people look to be siblings and Killy is currently out of commission. They take him back to their shelter. They've never seen a human outside the shelter before.

They have a giant TV screen showing a beach and palm trees surronded by pipes. Mad.

This group of people don't know about the net or the net terminal gene.

He puts something in his head and knocks out. I wonder why he felt safe enough to do that. Maybe because they saved him.

The shelter gets attacked by more watchers. Really here to fuck shit up. They look more organic, more rounded than the silicon life and safeguards.

Killy wants to know where the watchers come from.

The girl takes him and shows him a giant mass on a wall. That is where the watchers come from.

They are organic it looks like. They are bug people. Maybe an evolution thing. Over the massive timelines one branch of humanity became bugs.

He shoots the mass with his GBE and destroys it.

The reddit thread seems to imply that this might be a precursor while Nihei figure out where the story was going. The watchers sound like safeguards but aren't.

Log 3.5

I don't know why these chapters are really. The art looks much more rough so maybe this was early versions of stuff to come.

Killy is wearing a hood which we don't see often.

He walks pass something that looks vaguely like a tank with someone sitting next to it. Person is dead.

He takes an escalator that is working up. Interesting. I never thought that some of the stairs could be escalators.

He sees a point of light that he magnifies 23000 times. It turns out to be a symbol with an eye.

He gets to walking.

We see some thing that looks like vines here. This might be the first time I see plant life.

He makes it to the eye.

This eye might be the symbol of the silicon life. The place is a nest and is incubating silicon life babies.

He walks past tanks with glass ovals on them but we don't see inside.

He also takes a rectangle that he eats. It does not look like food but damn.

He makes eye contact with something that looks human.

Silicon life guard tries to kill him.

Killy uses the GBE and destroys the chamber and the silicon life.

Log 4

No more cloak so it might be a different thing.

Killy runs into a child. The child is part of the administration.

He asks if there are people around and that he needs food rations.

The child responds that there is a village 40 strata up and that it has food.

Killy says that he can give it something but the child gets shot. We see a fantastic eyeball.

It looks organic but we know the child comes back. I wonder if the gore is real or is the robots made of organic parts or maybe it's all oil.

Sasuke knows Killy down.

The child is reforming and gets shot up by Sasuke.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke have gotten the jump on Killy.

He passes for human. They debate killing him but don't.

They are shocked that he came from 5000 strata below. They didn't know it went that deep.

They tell him to get lost and never come near them.

They take his gun and throw his bag over the edge.

The child has reformed.

The child slaughters them. Sakura dies first, Sasuke next and Naruto get's a fantastic death. Everyone is getting beheaded and vaporized.

The child smiles at Killy.

Killy somehow has his gun back and is sitting there.

Interesting, I thought the administration was protecting the humans. It might be the administration has no restrictions and no real desire to protect humans that don't have the net terminal gene. Or maybe because the humans attacked first, it was allowed to attack.

Log 5

Killy's doing some electrical work to get some lights going.

He doesn't have a new bag yet.

We see some actual plants in pots and a clothes line with sheets.

Some dead people. Not sure who killed them.

Killy is getting genetic samples from the dead people.

One of them is still alive.

Asks Killy to take him to a nearby village.

What is a brain engineer.

The guy shows Killy a recording of the attack. Silicon life came through.

He tells Killy he has the genetic archives of a family that lived here and that he can take copies.

It was the administration. Interesting.

Killy claims to not know what the administration is.

I thought Killy was part of the administration. Maybe he's forgotten.

We've long forgotten what the words on our retinal displays mean. That is so fucking cool and bleak. Imagine looking at symbols and not knowing what the fuck they mean.

Some of the best panels are from here with the walking and corridors.

Safeguards appear. They don't do much.

After telling Killy you can't shoot through their exoskeleton, Killy does so with the GBE.

He continues to fuck shit up behind his target.

Killy takes the guy to an area that looks to be his village but he's died on the way.

A ton of safeguards are everywhere. The village was attacked.

Log 6 - Silicon Life

This chapter starts where the last left off.

We see Silicon Life and a Safeguard duking it out. Silicon Life wins out.

The Silicon Life says it knows Killy.

They have a talk. Killy asks if they knew the administration was attacking. They say they were just passing by and the administration wasn't really attacking.

The silicon life says they don't care about humans not even as vermin.

Killy tells the Silicon Life that he found a strata deep down where they produce embryos. He tells them he destroyed it. Why does he tell him. Is it guilt?

The Silicon Life looks upset ands asks if it was really him.

Killy smiles here.

They know about his GBE.

The girl silicon life looks excited to fight. She threw a body and it went splat I think.

She kicks his head through a pillar where Killy is stuck.

She is going through his pockets to find the genetic material he has been gathering.

Killy breaks out of the pillar.

He shoots the girl silicon life in the head and destroys the entire building.

Killy gets shot up and he falls deep down.

The silicon life don't give chase.

Log 7 - The Builders

This chapter starts where the last left off as well. Killy is caught in some pipes.

A human finds him and tells him that Yaki wants to meet him.

This sector is a growth sector and so the builders are especially active.

Killy asks where there are no walls on the other side.

Kumoi is shocked.

Akima is across a giant bridge that you can't see across. You shoud be able to. That is a terrifying distance.

Kumoi says they have been waiting a long time for Killy.

Kumoi thinks Killy is the healer for Yaki.

Some machines break into the place. Killy uses a tape recorderer that spits out binary. This stops the machine.

The machine was a builder.

Kumoi wants Killy to stop another bigger builder. It will soon rebuild the area they live in.

They hook it up a to speaker and stop the builder.

Yaki proceeds to jump in happiness and gets shot.

Hilarious.

I think its the Silicon Life guy from the previous chapter. He smile at Killy.

They fight and Killy shoots him with the GBE.

Kumoi is dying and Killy tries to give him some peace that the healer is here.

Killy starts the walk across the bridge to Akima.

Log 7.5 - Abandoned Nest

We get some color. Everything is lit and there blues and greens.

We go into a red room. I wonder what colors mean.

This chapter doesn't do much. We see many buldings with many windows. I wonder if this place was ever lived in or was this the builders building for the sake of building.

Log 8 - The Cluster

Killy has crossed the bridge. He sees a girl getting something that is oozing from a door. He tries to talk to her, the girl runs, a sandworm thing attacks. Killy shoots it dead.

He wants to talk to her but she doesn't understand him. Her tribe comes in and saves her.

They vanish afterwards.

Killy stumbles into a shop with people. Absolutely crazy. This might be the strangest way her ran into these people. These people are huge. Killy is standing and they are the same height sitting.

The net terminal gene shows people images and letters on their retinas. He asks the shop if anyone has that happen. The peron has never heard of it but says that he might be able to ask at another shop up above.

They shopkeeper puts Killy on the delivery truck that will go to the cluster.

They have the idea of races. This big people seem to be different from humans.

Yoshio looks to be some sort of cyborg bonded to the ship.

This is a proper ship. It can fly.

Killy is currently in the abandoned stratum. The administration doesn't work out here.

Bio electric is a company of scientists in the cluster.

The same people from before attack the ship and Killy drives them off.

They call them drybodies.

Tetsan the delivery guy is dead. Just Yoshio left.

They were delivering to Bio Electric. Huge robot things and people come to get the delivery.

The cargo is the drybodies, they were trying to get their people back.

Bio Electric uses them to do transplants as the bodies of a drybody is great.

Killy stomps Yoshio out.

He kills the bio electric guys and shoots them all out.

We see some weird slug people who can protect against the GBE. Goddamn who the fuck are these guys.

He is smiling again while shooting a bunch of GBE shots. After the dust settles, the things are still standing.

They blast him and he gets punched through a wall.

He somehow escapes and enters a town. Probably a company town.

Log 9 - Bio Electric Inc

Killy is in what is a real city now. It looks to have stores and people living there.

Workers are getting executing for disobeying the company. This is like Cyberpunk.

A guy tells Killy how to sneak into Bio Electric.

He runs into a group people that already know about him and what he did the bio electric warehouse. They want his help and his GBE to overthrow bio electric.

Killy tells them he's here to see the scientists.

They demand the gun. He beats them and runs.

He get's into Bio Electric and one of the guarding robots looks very much like a safegaurd. Interesting.

He's trying really hard not to use the GBE.

We see english text, it says security.

Now something that looks like Silicon Life attacks him.

They throw him down a pit.

A guard robot attacks but just as Killy is about to shoot he is stopped by Cibo and told she is going to hide his presence.

We see the skull of Cibo, it's being kept alive by some machinery. She wants his help.

Bio Electric was never able to reproduce the GBE.

Killy asks Cibo if there is anyone with the Net Terminal Gene here and she says she never checked. They do have the genetics of all the employees though and she could show him.

She demands that he takes her with him. She tells him to take her with him.

They get to the right place and there are also bodies. Killy tells her that she can get one after she gets the records.

Cibo says that the gaurds will be on them when she dives. The idea of swimming and diving into the internet is interesting. The net sounds like a spider thing but we surf the web.

Killy defends with the GBE destroying Bio Electric.

Cibo opens a door to the Prime Cyber Brain.

The silicon life that threw him and the slug people are here defending the Prime.

Killy's arm is chopped off with his gun.

The silicon life looking thing is locked up. Cibo hacked it and she appears in a fresh new body to save the day.

I didn't realize that the scientist and cibo were the same person when I first read it so I thought this was a completely random entrance. So dumb.

Cibo shuts down the silicon life and slug people and she trys to kill the president of bio electric.

Cibo tells Killy to shoot him and the net terminal gene isn't here. She used him to kill the president. She says with tears that bio engineering happening here isn't right. I wonder what experiments the president was doing.

Killy uses the GBE with his other arm and shoots. He gets flung back because of the recoil.

The president falls into the city. He is huge.

Cibo was never able to leave the stratum. She knew it existed but they never break through. The GBE is what is letting him pass through. Why were other people not shocked.

Cibo says they were once able to create the terminal genes but they got destroyed by counterprograms.

Cibo had always wanted to punch a hole through the stratum so she joins Killy.

They spend ten days walking up a tower to get to the top of the stratum.

Volume 1

That covers volume 1. The final chapter is what sets up the real plot that will be the rest of the series.