Across the extended universe of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner – in films, comics and cartoons – we have seen a lot of LA and a bit of space, but probably not enough of the rest of the world. Thus, new comic book series Tokyo Nexus, the first volume of which is now released in trade paperback, gives us a new window into the Earth of the alternative early 21st century, and… honestly, it’s not all that different.
The story, from writers Kianna Shore and Mellow Brown, opens with Tokyo immigrants and private detectives Mead and Stix. He (Stix) is the happy-go-lucky killer with a heart of gold, and she (Mead) is the hard-bitten one, the head of business and private detection. Approached by a potential client with mysteriously deep pockets and a murdered sister, they both smell trouble. But Mead can’t resist the money or the mystery, while Stix has other (more or less ethical) business to attend to. A spanner is thrown into the only slightly convoluted works by the appearance of an American blade runner with Japanese ancestry and a rogue killer skinjob to track down.
Any further details of plot would be spoilery, but you get the idea. In fact, you can get the idea within a few pages of the comic and by knowing what the Blade Runner setting is all about. Sadly, the plot is not deep or intricate enough to feed the sense of atmosphere, and the storytelling is often filled with info-dumps followed by under-explained action sequences. Equally, the characterisation is underdone for everyone except Mead and Stix (and even then, it is harder to know if we know so little about them because the story is holding back or because there’s just not that much to know).
Tokyo Nexus’s major saving grace is Mariana Taibo’s art, particularly the detailed and occasionally expansive backgrounds that set the atmosphere of 21st century Tokyo. Leaning heavily on Moebius (whose The Long Tomorrow was a key inspiration for the look of Ridley Scott’s original film), the little intricacies of costume on this or that passing background character can be a delight. However, what they still fail to do is create something that really feels distinctively Tokyo, besides feeling more airy and bright than the oppressive detuned television skies of LA.
Entertaining enough but lacking the requisite sense of atmosphere or mystery to feel sufficiently Blade Runner-y, Tokyo Nexus is pretty but slight, an addition to a growing canon that adds little but takes away nothing.
