The Blade Runner universe expands its reach with Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus, the first installment set in Japan. This IGN Fan Fest 2025 interview delves into the creation of this new series with writers Kianna Shore and Mellow Brown, exploring how they crafted a unique Tokyo within the established cyberpunk aesthetic.
Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus Behind-the-Scenes Art Gallery
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Instead of directly referencing iconic cyberpunk anime like Akira and Ghost in the Shell, Shore and Brown drew inspiration from post-3.11 Tohoku Disaster Japanese media and contemporary Japanese society. Shore cites anime such as Your Name, Japan Sinks 2020, and Bubble as influences, while Brown aimed to reflect current Japanese societal hopes and anxieties, exploring potential positive and negative futures.
The writers contrast the dilapidated, neon-masked Los Angeles of the original films with their version of Tokyo in 2015: a seemingly utopian city concealing a brutal underbelly where disobedience carries severe consequences. This "hopepunk" Tokyo, as Shore describes it, provides a unique setting for the story.
Tokyo Nexus features a standalone narrative, though it incorporates subtle nods to the broader Blade Runner universe, including the ever-present Tyrell Corporation. The series builds upon previous entries like Blade Runner: Origins and Blade Runner: 2019, contributing to a larger narrative involving a secret civil war between different Blade Runner organizations.
Central to the story is the partnership between Mead, a jaded human, and Stix, a Replicant. Their bond, described as a platonic life-partnership forged through shared trauma, forms the emotional core of the series, exploring themes of codependency and survival in a harsh environment.
The narrative unfolds around a conflict involving Tyrell Corp, the Yakuza, and Cheshire, a new player aiming to challenge Tyrell's Replicant market dominance. Cheshire's introduction of a new military-grade Replicant model adds another layer of intrigue to the unfolding conflict.
Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus Vol. 1 - Die in Peace is available now. You can also purchase it on Amazon. This interview was conducted as part of IGN Fan Fest 2025, which also featured previews of IDW's new Godzilla shared universe and an upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog storyline.
