Cyberpunk Edgerunners

Normally I wouldn't talk about a show like this because I am not well versed in the genre or the table top RPG that Cyberpunk 2077 is based on but I couldn't stop thinking about it for a week after I finished it. I'm going to approach this post from two ways: 1. How the anime itself worked out for me and 2. Just how much it uses stuff from 2077. This isn't going to be a full-on review in my usual style and will be me just talking about how the show did its thing.

Premise: David Martinez is having a really bad time. A poor kid getting bullied at a corpo school and whose mom is just barely keeping everything together in order to raise the scratch to cover his tuition. On top of that, during one really bad day, he and his mom get caught up in a gang shootout and she dies. Pushed to the edge by the city's madness, David falls in with a crew of Edgerunners just to survive and feel some semblance of control or purpose.

I had a blast with this show. I started it only planning to watch the first two episodes and before I knew it, I was on the final episode. The fights in this show are absolutely insane looking which is to be expected from Trigger. The way the show visualizes how the Sandevistan works is absolutely gorgeous and beautifully done. It left my jaw on the floor every time David used it. The show looks stunning across the board. This show is one hell of a trip.

Night City is rough if you're not working for a corp and thats putting it mildly. If you don't get killed as collateral damage in some gang attack, you just might run into some random spaced out psycho in a back-alley who'll blast your head off at a moment's notice. Thats not even getting into the amount of gonks on the street who might try to mess with you as you go about your day. The only way to survive as a runner is to chrome up so you don't fall behind and the more you add, the more your clock ticks down. I figured out how the show would most likely end by the halfway point and I was still on the edge of my seat.

I'm not gonna lie, I've spent way too much time roaming Night City in 2077. In all honesty, I've spent more time than I should have farming Night City's mooks for item drops. Its basically my go-to game these days when I'm not playing stuff on the Switch. However, it did not occur to me just how long I've spent playing it until I saw this show. I knew exactly where every scene was taking place just based on minor background details. It more than did the city justice. Even the show's soundtrack is pulled from the game and I'm almost certain I heard a few sound effects from the game here and there. I think I may have also seen a few quickhack menu displays from the game fly by at one point.

Do I recommend the show? Definitely. Everything else aside, its a Trigger anime and it goes hard on the spectacle. I honestly think it would be worth a recommendation on that aspect alone. Overall, I had a great time with the show. I don't see any way to continue the story from this season but if there were another season and/or anime spinoff, I'd like it to be sort of a season long anthology type of show. I'd love to see a season centered around the gangs of Night City and how they interact. Maybe also a season about corporate power struggles and skullduggery.