Blame! offers one of the best and most intriguing settings in sci-fi, the concept of a Megastructure, that is, a structure so large that "At one point even the Moon, which used to be up in the sky above, was integrated into The City's structure". It has been suggested by author Tsutomu Nihei himself in his artbook Blame! and So On that, the scale of The City is beyond that of a Dyson sphere (a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.), reaching at least Jupiter's planetary orbit (for a radius of around 5.2 AU, or 778,547,200 km); this is also suggested in scenarios such as Blame! vol. 9, where Killy finds himself having to travel through a room roughly the size of Jupiter (roughly 143,000 km)." -Wikipedia
The structure started on Earth and was created by humans that at some point lose control of the city, who had kept expanding at an uncontrollable rate for an unspecified amount of time, creating a massive labyrinth and since then, treating humans as vermin to exterminate. The main protagonist is looking to regain control of the city, while humans doing their best to survive this hostile environment, not knowing if there are others out there.
For me, this is the first and only time I had ever heard of a concept such as this in any media. I've been wanting to see this story in anime form for quite a while. This movie's story is not an adaptation of the manga, but rather a new original story created by the author himself, and it serves really well as an introduction to this world. The upcoming movie is supposed to start adapting the manga story, but we'll have to wait for its release to confirm that.
This concept is not explained in the movie, but it helps to know it in order to appreciate what you are seeing.
The animation has incredible visuals, Polygon Pictures really has excellent 3d technology and they know how to leverage what 3d does best, like photorealistic backgrounds, camera movements in a 3d environment, interesting textures, shadows, and lights. Add to that a good choice of artistic composition to every frame and interesting color palettes. This movie's visuals are the best 3d has to offer!
The audio is of exceptional quality as well, from sound effects to interesting music that helps to set the mood for each scene without being overwhelming or distracting. The dub is excellent! And I highly recommend it so you can focus on the visuals (unless you speak Japanese of course).
The story has no comic relief, instead, every character is serious about doing their best to survive, bringing a sense of reality and we still see some character development, despite the short timeframe the story takes place.
Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who likes sci-fi, action, serious plots, mysteries, and hypothetical theories about the universe we live in.