Kara Dennison
December 31, 2021 
After the last couple years, it would be really nice if we could predict what 2022 has in store. But there’s good news: thanks to our favorite anime, we can!
… okay, so I’ve just been told that legally I cannot make this claim. The most I can say is that these three series have interesting events and advances taking place in the new year. However, should it happen that these things do occur this year, it would be a wild coincidence. And we’d all remember that you heard it here first, right?… By which I mean you didn’t hear it here first. Because I didn’t say it.
Look, you’re here to read about full dives, so let’s get on with it, eh?
Near Light Speed Travel
Time isn’t just a flat circle in Aim for the Top! Gunbuster, it’s a rubber band you can wing across the galaxy. The Gainax series literally rewrites physics for this legendary mecha anime OVA, in which two girls take down aliens in an enormous mecha. But before they can pilot the Gunbuster, the have other missions to attend to. One of those, a near light speed scavenging run, has them leaving in July 2021 and returning in January 2022.
It’s the first time they experience the time displacement that comes with their missions, but certainly not the last. And before long, a few months will look like a quick nap comparatively. Their coach warns them that even a small mistake could make them effectively unstuck in time.
Replicants Break the Internet
The appropriately named Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 has its own vision for this year’s happenings. Serving as one of several bridges between the two Blade Runner feature films, this Shinichiro Watanabe piece shows how the world collapsed in the run-up to 2049.
Replicants Iggy and Trixie have a mission: destroy Tyrell’s replicant registry so they can no longer be hunted. The operation also causes a massive (as the title says) blackout, cutting off power in the city and effectively taking down the Internet. So you’ve got that to look forward to. Fortunately, there will be something else to take up your time…
Yes, Yes, FullDive
Yep, it’s 2022. This is the year we can plunge our senses into a fantasy world and get trapped there until we die.
Okay, that’s a little unfair on Sword Art Online. The FullDive system is pretty rad, divorced from the terrible events of the series. Like in Gun Gale Online, for instance. You could theoretically have a great time in a VRMMO. We do, however, recommend you not pop on any intriguing-looking VR helmets unless you know they’ve had adequate QA first. This is not the year for that risk.
Best wishes for a lightspeed, fully-immersive 2022… hopefully with few to no Internet blackouts.
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