Coming out on a wave of unprecedented hype before being lambasted as a disappointing release, Cyberpunk 2077 certainly has made its mark on the gaming industry. Having put in over a hundred hours into the game, I thought that story, characters, graphics and setting were really excellent but the stupid amount of bugs, missing or half-baked features and unfillfulled promises really marred my experience. It’s only now nearly two years after its initial release that the game is in a relatively stable state and substantial new content is finally on the cusp of dropping instead of trying to mend all the fractured pieces. Coinciding with the Edgerunner DLC release, CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger have collaborated together to release an anime out on Netflix’s streaming platform. The result is that the animation staff and writers, who worked on shows like Kill la Kill and Promare, have managed to revitalize a product that many gamers had written off as another overhyped and broken project.    I don’t like the Netflix model of dumping the entire show at the same time. While it is not beholden to the weekly broadcasting schedule of TV channel providers, I would have preferred to spaced out the hype just like how Riot’s Arcane was delivered in three episode chunks over a couple of weeks. Edgerunnners is genuinely good and it’s a shame that it doesn’t get the traditional buildup of publicity and makes the discussion around the show uneven. It does seem that the show is still gaining popularity as evident by the massive increase in player count for the two year old game.

Mimicking the story beats of its video game counterpart, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the story of a street kid named David Martinez trying to survive in a technology and body modification-obsessed, crime-ridden city of the future. When tragedy strikes his personal life, he slaps on a military-grade cyberware and begins his transformation from a schoolboy at a prestigious Arasaka academy to a mercenary outlaw known as a Cyberpunk. Along the way, he gets swept up with the Edgerunners, a crew that does jobs for a shadowy fixer. I think that’s why the show is better than the game is because it keeps hitting all the right story beats and character interactions without the gameplay getting in the way. The Cyberpunk 2077 shown in all those reveal trailers and gameplay walkthroughs was too good to be true. I got more out of the ten episodes than the dozens of hours that I waded through in the game. There were some really cool moments with Johnny Sliverhand and V as well as a couple of the different story paths that can be chosen but there were a lot of mediocre gameplay elements to fight through

Like V and many others from the game, most of the cast from the anime are memorable enough even though the focus is often on the two main leads of Lucy and David. Lucy is the kind of character that follows in the line of eccentric female leads like Haruko (FLCL) and Zero Two (Darling in the Franxx) with a very strong opening introduction as she teams up with David in the opening episodes. Unfortunately, I felt that her character drops off in the crazy department in the second half of the show by becoming aloof and moody when the megacorporations of Arasaka and Miltech get directly confrontational with the Edgerunners. Thankfully, Rebecca, a cyberwared maqqurerating as a loli, picks up the slack with her psychotic behavior and affiliation with big shotguns and heavy machine guns. It’s funny that CD Project Red barked at the idea of having a character of small stature be in the show to the point where Studio Trigger threatened to walk away from the project if she wasn’t included. It also goes the same for all the secondary characters as each of them have such a striking and unique design that reveals so much about their personality.

Which makes it all the harder to see when the overarching themes of Edgerunners come crashing into David and his Cyberpunk buddies. This is by far the most bleak anime that Studio Trigger have done and it is certainly a departure from their other shows where the protagonists always overcome their physical challenges through the power of badassery. I just love seeing their simple dreams being played out in the glittering neon-lit skyscrapers before being chewed out by the harsh realities of cyber augmentations, corporate agenda and violent culture of Night City. In spite of the graphic violence and promiscuity, their themes are far more relatable than the lofty ideas of the surveillance state controlled by an hivemind in Psycho-Pass or more abstract concepts like Ghost in the Shell’s transhumanism. For Lucy, it is making her way to the moon and for Maine, it is forming a familial relationship with the crew that he takes on gigs. In David’s case, he doesn’t really have a theme except to take on others’ goals like his mother’s ambition to see her son rise up the ranks of Arasaka or fulfill Lucy’s moonbound desire.

From a technical standpoint, the animation looks as good as their theatrical release of Promare but the 3D modelling and motion is on the goofier side and has never been the strong point of this studio. Artistically, Studio Trigger perfectly captures the bright neon lights and seedy atmosphere of  Cyberpunk’s underground life. Night City is the kind of pre-existing chaotic playground that Hiroyuki Imaishi (Director of Gurren Lagann and Panty & Stocking) can thrive in without resorting to galaxy-spanning robots or ludicrous talking clothes. Instead, the producers have opted for dialing up the violence and sexuality that was already present in their previous works. The Netflix license did wonders for Trigger’s creativity as it is unconstrained by TV broadcast censors which allow for the violence to be as graphic as it can be with heads getting blown apart and innards splattering across the screen. Life is cheap in Night City and it definitely shows as the body count goes into the dozens within the three minutes of the show. Likewise, the sexualized bits that would be considered brazen in the standard anime shows are portrayed as normalized within the context of the futuristic society that doesn’t give a shit anymore. The widespread and public use of mastabuerty toys and adoption of technology catering to sexual gratification is something that makes Edgerunners makes very clear in its presentation.   

Music was never an issue in the game with the composers making some really good hits during the more memorable scenes as well as having a whole slew of radio stations that had completely original soundtracks from artists on what a cyberpunk future might sound like. Some of the songs made it over to Edgerunners and boy, does it hit differently after experiencing David and Lucy’s journey. Once it was just nice background music as the player cruises from quest to quest has now been re-contextualized to be something far more emotionally provoking.

The only real problem I had with Edgerunners was how short it was. It’s not because I selfishly wanted to spend just a bit more time with the characters before their ascension into Night City’s legend status but rather that there were certain points that could use an additional episode or two to flesh out the Edgerunners crew. It’s nothing compared to Netflix’s other ten episode anime show released in 2018, Devilman Crybaby, which had serious pacing issues in the second half of runtime consisting of a jarring shift in tone and subject matter before speedrunning through its apocalyptic ending. Still, it is something to be said for Studio Trigger on never ever letting up on the frantic pacing and keeping the momentum going.

If you played through Cyberpunk 2077, this is an easy recommendation to go watch the anime and get drawn back to the deceptive allure of Night City with all the furious over-the-top action of Studio Trigger. If this is your first step in the world of Cyberpunk, I suggest that you take some time (or build a gaming pc) to play through the main campaign at the very least. Edgerunners is a strong enough show to stand on its own, but the world of Cyberpunk is brimming to the rim with lore. There are cameos, locations and history that only could have been appreciated by those who have previous experience with the tabletop version or video game. However which way you decide to watch, it is certainly exciting to see more multi-media projects coming from some of the biggest franchises that actually don’t suck and have board mainstream appeal.

8.5/10