Takahiro Sakurai, Kana Hanazawa, Sora Amamiya, Kazuhiro Yamaji, Mamoru Miyano star with song by angela

A live-streamed "Blame Anime Film Project Unveiling" for the new anime film of Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! manga revealed the full one-minute trailer and a new poster visual on Niconico on Thursday. The trailer announced that the film will open in Japanese theaters for a limited two-week engagement on May 20, and it also announced the cast and theme song performers.

Update: The film will also stream exclusively on Netflix worldwide on May 20. Thanks, ultimatemegax. Source: animeanime.jp

The cast includes:



Takahiro Sakurai as Killy Kana Hanazawa as Cibo

Sora Amamiya as Zuru

Kazuhiro Yamaji as Pop

Mamoru Miyano as Sutezo

Aya Suzaki as Tae

Nobunaga Shimazaki as Fusata

Yuuki Kaji as Atsuji

Aki Toyosaki as The Authority (not pictured)

The band angela (Knights of Sidonia) is performing the theme song "calling you." The movie's original soundtrack will go on sale on May 17, along with a Blu-ray box for the earlier Knights of Sidonia and Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine anime.

The new visual will appear on posters at participating theaters throughout Japan on Saturday, and the theaters will also begin offering advance tickets with a large original sticker on Saturday.

Kodansha Comics had previously stated that the film was set to premiere this year as a Netflix Original film.

Hiroyuki Seshita ( Ajin ), who previously co-directed the anime adaptation of Nihei's Knights of Sidonia manga series, is directing the film at Polygon Pictures. Nihei himself is handling the film's script and character design, and is also serving as "creative consultant."

The film's official site describes the all-new story:

In the distant technological future, civilization has reached its ultimate Net-based form. An "infection" in the past caused the automated systems to spiral out of order, resulting in a multi-leveled city structure that replicates itself infinitely in all directions. Now humanity has lost access to the city's controls, and is hunted down and purged by the defense system known as the Safeguard. In a tiny corner of the city, a little enclave known as the Electro-Fishers is facing eventual extinction, trapped between the threat of the Safeguard and dwindling food supplies. A girl named Zuru goes on a journey to find food for her village, only to inadvertently cause doom when an observation tower senses her and summons a Safeguard pack to eliminate the threat. With her companions dead and all escape routes blocked, the only thing that can save her now is the sudden arrival of Killy the Wanderer, on his quest for the Net Terminal Genes, the key to restoring order to the world.

Nihei launched the science-fiction action story Blame! as his first manga series in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine in 1997, and ended it in 2003. Tokyopop published the 10-volume manga in North America. Kodansha published a new "master's edition" of the manga in Japan in 2015 that had six volumes. Vertical is releasing this new version of the manga in English, and it shipped the second volume in December.

The manga is getting an upcoming new novel adaptation written by Tow Ubukata (Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Psycho-Pass 2 series composition). The series is also inspiring an anthology of short stories, written by the following science-fiction authors: Issui Ogawa ( The Lord of the Sands of Time ), Nozomu Kuoka (Escape Speed light novel series), Tobi Hirotaka ( Autogenic Dreaming: Interview with the Columns of Clouds ), Denpō Torishima ( Kaikin no Tada ), and Mado Nozaki ( Babylon, know ).

The film itself is also inspiring an upcoming manga adaptation by artist Kōtarō Sekine (Ninja Slayer Kills).