Human Lost unleashes a cyberpunk Ghost Rider in sneak peek at Fuminori Kizaki’s next anime film

Human Lost, Afro Samurai director Fuminori Kizaki’s cyberpunk adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s novel No Longer Human, has been on our radars since SYFY WIRE spoke with Kizaki, Toshiaki Obata (Psycho-Pass), and Shuzo John Shiota (president of Polygon Pictures) back at this year’s C2E2. Now the film, which showed off a trailer and concept art at its first-ever panel, is heading to U.S. theaters — and SYFY WIRE has a first look at what anime fans can expect from the sci-fi madness.

With Mad Max, Blade Runner, Akira, and Ghost in the Shell among the film’s influences, the themes of urban alienation and addiction take a body-morphing turn in the 2036 Tokyo-set film. Medical advances are keeping the super-rich alive for unnatural lengths...but at a cost. In the clip below, the hero, Ōba Yōzō, gets, well, there’s no way to sugarcoat this: he’s shot in the head and killed by the baddie, Masao.

Check it out:

Demonic monsters, a villainous plot, and a dog-robot carrying a sword. And they all get blown out of the water by Yozo’s Ghost Rider-esque “Lost Form,” which is just a fiery skeleton man that tears monsters apart with his bare hands. If all that doesn’t pique anime fans’ interest, it’s hard to know what will. Two fiery skull-faced badasses? Maybe they’ll show up by the film’s end.

Human Lost will get a limited theatrical release on Oct. 22 (subtitled) and Oct. 23 (dubbed).