Graphic Novel Reviews: Blade Runner 2019: Home Again, Home Again

Pay no attention to the date in the title. This is not the 2019 we remember.

Blade Runner 2019: Home Again, Home Again takes place in a futuristic world and ironically mostly in 2026. The Blade Runner franchise is a futuristic detective story where investigators called Blade Runners eliminate rebellious, manufactured humanoid androids called Replicants. This volume is the final book in a trilogy, and Blade Runner 2019 Home Again, Home Again perfectly captures the tone of the movie franchise.

Ash is a Blade Runner who ‘retires’ Replicants. Due to a spinal injury, she wears a cybernetic brace. She has returned to earth to confront Selwyn, a Replicant producer striving to make Replicants that can evolve without biological engineering. In her search, she is arrested, injured, betrayed, and reunited with friends.

This volume is satisfying for franchise fans who embrace epic world building. The original Blade Runner movie is set in a cyberpunk version of 2019, and the sequel movie takes place thirty years after the first. This graphic novel series and its upcoming sequel series bridges the gap between movies and expands the world of the Blade Runner franchise. Blade Runner 2019: Home Again, Home Again gives audiences more girl power action and more exploratory hints of the off Earth colonies.

Do you have to know the movies to understand this graphic novel?

No. This graphic novel can be read as a cyberpunk adventure. However, as the conclusion story, this volume should be purchased with the first two graphic novels. Knowing the films adds depth for the reader to checkmark which elements the writers wanted to explain further, but this series is purely exploratory. Reading this series is not necessary to enjoy the movies either. The fan service is befittingly very subtle. Even the title “Home again, home again” is a wink to a brief interaction with prototype Replicants in the first film.

This graphic novel is presented in full color, and the stylistic choices for the setting and character designs match the tone of the films. There are even some guest characters from the films. Ash’s inner dialogue is shared as the ‘camera’ pans through the futuristic world of Los Angeles 2026. Ash’s introspective journey weaves through her investigation and is highlighted with bursts of action.

Blade Runner 2019: Home Again, Home Again makes a great read for fans of the movie-verse, the anime, Ghost in the Shell, or the science fiction novel series, The Expanse.