Blade Runner Black Out 2022 is a neo-noir cyberpunk anime short film directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. The short is one of three short films, alongside 2036: Nexus Dawn and 2048: Nowhere to Run, that serve as prequels to the live-action film Blade Runner 2049. It debuted on September 27, 2017 on Crunchyroll.
Synopsis
Los Angeles, 2022 - Three years after the events of Blade Runner, the Tyrell Corporation introduces the Nexus 8 Replicants, which have a natural lifespan compared to the four-year lifespan of their predecessors. This results in mass riots by the human population, who use the Replicant database to hunt down all Replicants. Iggy, a rogue Nexus 8 unit, arranges to have a nuclear warhead explode over the city, triggering an electromagnetic pulse to cause a city-wide blackout and erase Tyrell's Replicant database.
