This is probably the first homepage dedicated to Afternoon Comic's incredible new Manga series.  There's really very little "story" to this manga at this stage.  It's really more a collection of images strung along with a single character-focused storyline to make the reader feel like she's in a new and bizarre world.

The world of BLAME!- referred to as a "Cyber Dungeon", it is not known if it is suuposed to represent the future or some bizarre other reality.  The world is characterized by the odd blending of millions of styles of architecture, as well as the fact that not a single thing yet encountered has appeared in any way... natural.  No trees.  No sky.  No animals as we think of them.  Everything sprawls in and endless hell of metal and concrete in three dimensions.

The hero's name is Killy.  His nature: Quiet.  His activities: Wandering through the world of BLAME! with a gun, blowing up half of everything he encounters.  He has travelled from below the "5000th level" every upwards, apparently looking for the cure to some sort of genetic disease that most people of BLAME! are afflicted with.  His only piece of equipment that he seems to hang on to from one encounter to the next is his pistol- a small, unimpressive looking thing that has the power of a rail cannon- anything that it fires at is destroyed.  And more often than not, the shot contines FAR past its target (through walls, etc) until it finally detonates in a huge explosion.

The story is the journey of a man through a world that looks like the best (and most terrifying) combination of Aeon Flux, a Fantasy-Style Dungeon, Clive Barker's Hell (as per Hellraiser), and a collection of H.R. Geiger's art.
 
I think it really does live up to it's name as a "Cyber Dungeon"- that's the general feel of this new manga.  Instead of Zombies, there's Cyber-Zombies with a personal net-link to relay information to others long after they're technically dead.  Instead of Giant Bugs, there's steel-eating larvae that seem to have gatling guns as natural weapons, perhaps grafted there a long time ago by some unknown race.  There's a race (can it be called that) of evil humanoids that resemble Clive Barker's Cenobytes more than some orc.  And absolutely EVERYTHING'S 'packing: there are no knives or broadswords, just cyberneticly-grafted gatlings and mobile car-sized lazer cannons.

BLAME! Is written by an unknown named Tsutomu Nihei.  There's only one Manga volume thusfar, since this series started only last year.  In the Afternoon Mangabon one mini-episode is released a month, and right now they're in the middle of their second "season".  The first season, all the episodes that make up the first manga, are characterized by huge amounts of splendid art and very little dialogue (Killy often spends his time wandering the area between the pockets of humanoid civilization, and doesn't often have much to say to those that he does meet).  I've nearly translated the entire book (about 250 pages)- most of the dialoge revolves around genes and chromosomes- and the search for a Pure Gene Model.

If you're interested in buying this manga- please check out the new "BUY THIS MANGA" secotion, above (I had so many requests that I had to put up a special section).