As a tie-in to the new Blade Runner 2049 film, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy director, Shinichiro Watanabe directed a brand new anime short titled Blade Runner: Black Out 2022. The new short anime runs 15 minutes, and it connects the original classic scifi film to the new 2049 movie. It’s now free-to-watch via YouTube and Crunchyroll. However, the YouTube version is restricted to Japan only, and Crunchyroll’s version will be released later.

Set three years after the original Hollywood film, Blackout 2022 reveals a new type of replicant, which are the franchise’s human-like sentient machines. However, human supremacists are out to get them. Using the Replicant Registration database, they are tracking them down in order to exterminate them. The anime follows a prostitute replicant named Trixie, who several of these supremacists attack. However, a former military-use replicant named Iggy rescues her. Now, both of them are running from these Human Supremacists, who seek to eliminate them.

The main Blade Runner 2049 film itself will have its world premiere in Los Angeles this 3rd October. Fans are expecting the English-subtitled version of the anime to hit the internet before that.

As for those who’ve watched the anime short, they’ve said that the fight scenes are reminiscent of the Cowboy Bebop anime.