Kodansha Comics revealed on Sunday that the upcoming anime film adaptation Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! manga will be a Netflix Original film. The film will premiere in 2017. The film's official site had streamed a trailer on Saturday.

Nihei and film director Hiroyuki Seshita were in attendance at the "Spotlight on Tsutomu Nihei" panel at Comic Con International in San Diego on Saturday, and Nihei discussed the film, saying that he drew a lot of new sketches for the film's development. He also showed a key character (pictured below) whose appearance is dramatically changed from the manga version that Nihei drew (the original manga ran from 1997-2003). Nihei said regarding the change, "it's largely because I didn't have the skill to draw characters like this back then." Nihei added that for even those who have read the manga, they will notice some changes from the manga in the new sketches that Nihei drew.

Nihei was presented with the Comic-Con International Inkpot award, which awards "individuals for their contributions to the worlds of comics, science fiction/fantasy, film, television, animation, and fandom services." Other Japanese recipients of the award include Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki, Monkey Punch, and Moto Hagio, among others.

Thanks to Deb Aoki for the news tip and images.