Except that no writer of cyberpunk fiction would *ever* use the word cyberpunk to describe anything, much less have characters calling each other “cyberpunks.” That word is actually a cringe boomer critic word for a genre they didn’t understand. That’s just a detail but it says a lot! This series got the surface right, but the writers went with tropes rather than write real characters. Which is not “cyberpunk” at all. To fill your story with tropes is a very un-cyberpunk thing to do. So i have to disagree, this series got cyberpunk wrong, but nobody has enough interest in the actual good original cyberpunk fiction to care. Because gross, who reads books for fun?
@@sub-jec-tiv actually you'd be right if it was any other cyberpunk/sci-fi. Except, this is based on the tabletop where this style of cyberpunk is the theme and tone.
@@yes5937 Well depends on how you look at it. Even with V being a legend of Night City, he'll never live past the next few years, let alone few months, and he's accepted that fact. Everything he's done has been essentially pointless, and it's all hollow, only doing bigger and bigger tasks to ignore that fact. It's fairly obvious V isn't happy, far from it, the last bit of happiness in being the best died with Jackie, someone he'd call his best friend. Even with him being the legend of Night City, his brain is still deteriorating, so by all accounts, he's still surviving, just like he told Johnny earlier in the game. David DID become a Night City legend, however it's all smokes and mirrors to what's truly important in life. Night City establishes you as a legend, dead or not. The best ending, and happiest one, is likely the Aldecaldo ending, where he outright leaves Night City all together with his new found family. He's visibly happiest here, with the love of his life, and family looking after him. There's nothing left of Night City that can benefit him further, and as Panam says, the city chewed them up and spit them out. The happiest ending is just leaving it all together, just like Judy if you don't romance her. Judy had realized, through her endeavors, how depressed she really was in Night City.
I missed the commercial angle of the final scene, I took it as Lucy's dream being tainted because she had shared it with David and then lost him. She saw his memory because now the dream was to be there WITH him. She has her emotional moment, realizes her dream is over now and she kept David from dying in vain and she needs to find the next thing to live for, opens her arms to the sunlight and tries to embrace being there like he would have wanted her to. Like they did in the dream.
When I first played cyberpunk I've got this feel that the city of night city was like a character in the history. All people in it want to escape it or live in it to achieve its ambitions, most of them diyng trying.
The longer I spend in Night City, in Cyberpunk 2077, the more I personally feel the Aldacaldoes, to spite everything they go threw, probably have the best life of anyone even near that city, a big family that more than anything want to help eachother and be free to go where they want. Then again maybe I just resonate too much with the Nomads and have idealized them...
David Martinez is the perfect impersonation of being "special", but just not quite enough. Having always been smarter than most people around me, and having grown in a country with low standards in regards to education and professional growth, I always felt special and dreamt really big, and not only that, but people kept encouraging me saying that I was special and that I was made for big things. Only life began to show me that yes, I was special, but just not quite special enough to achieve those big dreams, and just as well got trapped into killing myself in a futile attempt to achieve those dreams, at points even disregarding my own health and wishes to continue moving forward. This anime really hit a lot of points really close to home.
Feel you man. When I was a kid, I was an autistic savant with the violin. My parents didn´t want to officially diagnose me, but they milked my special talent for everything they could. I missed out on my childhood. In the end it didn´t even matter, because it´s not just about the raw talent, but also about stress tolerance and mental health and the people you know in the industry, and that´s how people go from talent to pro. And that´s how... I didn´t. It took me five years to find my footing after I quit playing after high school, in a world I didn´t understand, because I had only lived for the violin. I did get to Uni and gave it my everything. But there, too, it turned out that I was a great student but I would never be able to handle the academic life as a professional. It´s been five years since I graduated. I will find a new thing to try now that I finally have autism support and ADHD meds. But I know now that it will be something I will achieve mostly to avoid just wasting my life; I´m not built for a career. Like you, I did really dangerous things to my health and pushed myself so hard I was hospitalized several times. Cyberpunk reflects my life experiences pretty well, unfortunately.
Feeling that a lot lately Moved out to a big city (tokyo) to chase my dream career, always highlighted a lot back home, even at some places here in the beginning but ... just never quite enough, never quite in the right place at the right time That's more dangerous than some addictions, if you ask me, being on the other side of it for 4 years.
I see life like a deck of cards. even with all the jokers in your hand, people are still able to cheat you out of the win, sometimes you play your cards the wrong way etc.
We're all playing Bullshit (the card game), life is all about how well you can bluff, not about your hand being better. All it takes is one lie to destroy you or another players at the table... and it's just so easy to lie...
My take away was that it represents the human condition of watching someone fail, and still choosing to continue down the same path with a mantra of "But I'm different." In my opinion showing the end of Maine's story was proof of that. They told us how David would end up through him. It represents a cycle, and the insanity of not learning from others mistakes, but having to fail yourself to finally learn that lesson. It's self destruction, stubbornness, and naivety wrapped up into one beautifully told story, in a way mocking so many 'special hero' stories that we hear so often. Some people complained it was too predictable, but honestly I think that was the point. It's the reason I've watched it twice now, and it still elicits strong emotions. David truly believed he was different until the very end, but as the viewers we see that in a way, he never was. He was just another edgerunner swallowed up by Night City, a blip on the radar of a desolate neon hellscape where no one lives long enough to learn that lesson. I'm also a huge sucker for pyrrhic victories, which they captured amazingly in those final scenes.
"Some people complained it was too predictable, but honestly I think that was the point." It is not like they were hiding it anyways, we see David die in the opening from the jump. We know how this is going to go down, so the journey is what matters. And the journey's a phenomenal ride.
Like his Ripperdoc's last words to him: Another tale for the next dreamer. Maine was the tale for David the dreamer, and David got his own drink in Afterlife, he's sure to inspire another wave of punks who will "aim high and go out with a bang". Who knows, Jackie seemed well-versed in the "lore" of Afterlife, perhaps to Jackie the dreamer, David Martinez was one of the tales he dreamt about.
It did tease us and David by having him able to withstand the cybernetics better than others. Making us think it was possible that maybe he was different. Especially with how lots of anime plays on that trope.
Finished the show yesterday and it's still haunting me. Can we just talk about the design of the cyber skeleton?? David became more powerful than he ever was, but they made sure to not make him look like a mech, or a high tech cyborg, he was just a torso strapped to a tank. No arms, legs, far from actually having agency. And the insane amounts of meds being pumped into him, making him vomit blood constantly, just to make him last a little while longer. What a truly hellish way to go.
To further add to how fucked up the thing is, it was just a proof on concept, something to use for tests on humans: it ONLY has the grav tech going for, no subweapons or anything to support it; using it guarantees the user to go mad and quickly die; installing the thing is ultra invasive, removing your limbs and turning you into a helpless torso; and to top it all off, if the gravtech fails (or get removed as we saw Smasher do), the bloody thing can't even sustain itself and crumbles apart. So yeah, this thing is not even a prototype, but a labrat test, and the fact someone designed it, got approved by the corpo and was made, well, it really tells us all about the setting, doesn't it?
I had the same thought. The cyberpunk genre is no stranger to body horror, but that _really_ made feel afraid of the direction cybernetics could go. I never played 2077, the game, so I don't know what "cyberpsychosis" actually is lore-wise. But through that scene I got the implication that it's the result of the organic brain not being able to cope or mesh with the rest of the body essentially being replaced by machinery. Like, obviously our bodies were never designed to be replaced by robotics. Evolution had no way of predicting that. The brain is _meant_ to be in a flesh-and-blood body, and it seems like removing that connection is what causes cyberpsychosis. Am I wrong? Probably. But it made me think about the horror of having your own brain reject your body. Presumably, even in the future, they can't just grow you a new flesh-body and slap your brain back into it, so the only answer would be more cybernetics or (like in the final fight) massive amounts of drugs. If you think about it, there must've been more drugs than blood flowing through his brain at that point, which is just... all kinds of medical horror to think about.
@@bugjamsYou're right on the money. Cyberpsychosis is caused by trauma. In the tabletop game, its linked to the Empathy stat and Humanity points. Every piece of cyberware causes you to lose some Humanity. Cutting off a perfectly good limb will be traumatic. Mental trauma (such as seeing something horrible) can also cause you to lose Humanity. Going to therapy and processing your trauma can restore some Humanity, but its very expensive and time consuming. Which is why most people in NC don't do it.
@@dylanlewis5113 To add to this, if you complete the Psycho Killer quest non lethally, Majority, if not every cyberpsycho has more than just the cybernetics to blame. And every time one reason is that they're not getting help for the trauma. Nobody's supporting the poor bastards who desperately need it. Because those who can afford to help them don't give a flying fuck about humans.
Imo, the point of edgerunners is a cautionary tale about not saving yourself, David kept focusing on saving other people’s dreams that he forgot to save himself, to the point he lost his humanity to cyberpsychosis, he lost himself. Even the in game when u put on the BD for the edgerunner mission It literally states that it was a cautionary tale, one that David didn’t listen, “will you?” That’s the whole theme of night city. You won’t be able to save other people, if you don’t first save yourself. It’s a tragedy because he couldn’t see himself in the picture with Lucy He only saw a fragment of Lucy’s dream. Lucy’s new dream was to be together with David on the moon. He had to save himself to achieve Lucy’s dream, in which he failed to do In which he failed to see. Because he never intended to save himself anyways, His whole reason to live was for other people. And if you only live for other people, then can you even say you’re living when you’re not living for yourself?
Bingo. This is exactly it. Edgerunners is also much closer to the Tabletop feeling than 2077 is capable of. Night City is lethal but running alone will get you killed far quicker than with other runners. The tabletop games are best played with friends because you're all just trying to survive. Is it pointless, doubtful. Hope never is pointless. Holding on to it when it's all you have is never pointless.
I think that’s a wonderful point. But here’s the thing: that’s why night city is the way it is. Everyone is just trying to save themselves. And what you get is a hellscape of greed and violence. If you fight for yourself you’re a crab in a bucket, but if you work together well someone has to be the crab at the bottom that gets left behind.
@@danaflo66that's the thing though, perhaps the biggest problem we as a collective have. Don't be a crab, don't step on others to get to the top, don't drag others down as they make their accent. It's called the soring effect, surround yourself with people on their way up who are doing it without being like a crab and you get caught up in their wake and you start to sore yourself. You naturally start emulating the behaviors and actions it takes to rise. But be self aware enough not to be a crab, don't pull others down and don't step on those attempting to catch your wake.
@@CrimsonUltrafox In my headcannon she spaces herself there, it was just too dark for CD Projekt Red to sign off on. I just can't see her character moving on after that. The nihilism she started the series with was reaffirmed as soon as she had started to disbelieve in it, and she clearly had a deathwish before David came into her life. Actually getting to the moon and finding it such a hollow experience without him would almost certainly push her over the edge. The final smirk after the hallucination disappears says it all.
@@negative6442 I don't think they ever show someone actually "pulling the trigger" on themselves AFAIK. I remember one sidequest where a guy does end up doing that to himself, but only the moment you lose of sight of him. Actually was morbidly intrigued by this and spent some time waiting, but it made no difference. The moment you turn around, bam.
When I saw the final scene I thought, "how bad is your world that such empty and gray place where you can't even walk without a suit, where there's no shades, colors, animals, beautiful landscapes, smells, etc etc is a better place to be, where you are with no one, just you and your self and the quiteness of the space)... ONE OF THE SADEST ENDING OF ALL TIMES...
I'm the opposite. My whole life I've seen space as the ultimate truth and going there as the only achievement that matters. I'll never get to go, but it would make life worth it. I think of all the humans over thousands of years that looked toward the stars and wanted nothing more than to know what is just beyond their reach, and died never knowing. We will all end the same way.
Lucy was robbed of her childhood, born into hell and cursed to live a meaningless life in the city she despises. The moon is literally the farthest away from that she can physically get and it's prohibitively expensive, thus unattainable. You cannot conceive of a more suitable dream for her character.
@@Anthony_Gutierrez yes, and that'd be your dream becoming true... just like my dream of flying a fighter jet through the clouds, many might not even understand why I even like that, and others could even see it as something scary or uninteresting... like the guy above said, Lucy's dream to go to the moon was to move the farthest away from all things... she wanted quietness, piece, but when she met David, she rapidly shifted, and decided that her dream was to escape with him... He made her feel alive and happy... But all that went gone with his death, so now she's just back to her original plan of escaping but with the sorrow of not having him by her side, which rendered the moon an even emptier place than before... Since Arasaka still exist, there were no change of plan, the moon was the perfect place to hide... Even if the marvel of going to the moon might vanish a few days after her arrival.
22:58 btw. if you played the game (a lot) you find out this is a Scav clinic.. his mother would've survived but landed in a clinic in which she was slaughtered for her chrome.
There is a lot going on in the ending and I agree with pretty much everything you said. The end credits is Lucy after David’s death. Once she parts from Falco she wanders the city lost, smokes her first cigarette in probably the past year, returns home to dive again looking for any sign of David being alive, confirms for herself that he is dead, and then is in such pain it physically hurts her. She runs just like she did after her childhood companions died during the Arasaka escape. Then she remembers the moon and desperately goes there. We see her looking detached from reality, goes off on her own, sees David there with her, smiles, sees him disappear, and feels fresh pain all over again. I agree that face she has before the cut is of exhaustion. I push back on those who think Lucy is going to commit suicide. I think that weak smile she gives is her understanding that David gave his life so that she could escape Night City. She will continue on even though she won’t be fully whole without him. I think Lucy basking in the Sun’s warmth is the beginning of a healing process.
Hmmm having read and indulged enough cyberpunk most of the time you can go with the most depressing option and it will probably be right. Like even in the case of characters that live like spider Murphy, spider Murphy lost the man she loved realize that his crowning achievement amounted to nothing because it only made things worse. And she just kind of sticks around doing things and helps Johnny get alt out but she has to shotgun blasts everything that is left of Alt just out there and tags it in hopes that she can bring it back into one piece so that way she can maybe bring her back and that's a character that lives, Even a character like rogue has a lot of depressing things about her life even if you get down to the point of basically everyone she knew is dead and she had to sell her soul so she could keep living and that way her kid to keep living as well, And if you follow the message of most of the stories and even the story of the show best case she's going to be someone like spider Murphy or rogue someone who has a lot of problems and kind of always stuck in the past, For me that's the best-case because there just isn't a lot of happy in that story's world.
It's definitely a pained smile of acceptance rather than one of her losing it. I totally agree, this is the start of her healing process. Throughout her entire life she's been stuck or running from Arasaka, unable to properly heal or live a proper life, so when she found David she finally had some security, and in losing him she feels that pain all over again. But she's a strong person. She ran from Araska without looking back, became an edgerunner who ran with a group and accepted the danger that came with that. All in all it's a surprise she didn't die in the end, so I think she'd have taken a bit to finally process that and go "Holy shit I'm still alive", then go and fulfil her dream of living on the moon. She's mourning, but that's just something you have to live with, especially in Night City. And at least now she can _finally_ stop running.
The class consciousness in this video is the message I wish more people saw. Most of us are just struggling day to day, running from one ‘high’ to the next. The main thing we all share in common is our class, that the rich and powerful will perpetuate the vicious cycle until we live in a world where it gives the majority of all of us the chance to achieve our goals.
Lmao. Sci Fi dystopian stories when written by leftists are probably one of the most generic stories to ever be written. They all follow the same format of anti-corporatist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, or class consciousness or whatever that is. The sci fi aspect is merely an aesthetic, it has absolutely no impact on the story. Ironically for all their talk about challenging the status quo, when writing sci fi stories the status quo remains unchanged with the real world. They have no plan to make new stories with different worldviews with different enemies and different ideological perspectives, they’re all the same class consciousness anti-capitalist anti-fascist story. It’s like they can’t imagine a world where things are different, that’s actually the reason why leftism itself is so unfathomably flawed, because despite all of the progress made over the years, leftist are never satisfied and still believe there needs to be change. It’s a downward spiral of vanity and self-indulgence. Only the best sci-fi stories about there are stories that explore the unknown. Stories that explore ideas and concepts that have never been thought of before, because who could imagine what the future may hold? No one in the 1600s could’ve ever predicted that humanity would invent a rocket ship that would take out to the moon, so what does that mean for the future? Not to mention societal standards and social stigmas, those will change too. And who knows what the enemies of the future will be? Will they be some authoritarian dictator with a big and powerful army? Or will they be some kind of enigma with powers and goals beyond our understanding? Who knows what the future holds.
Anti-capitalism has always been at the core of cyperpunk. Doesn’t matter though. If anti-capitalism is highly profitable then it will be very well funded like Edgerunners. You can make the most communist thing that has ever existed, and if people think it has mass appeal then you'll find the most hardcore liberals investing in it.
Unfortnantly the rich and powerful like to twist us and play us against eachother, dividing us into little groups that don't matter, Sex, Gender, Race, Political Lean, Red, Blue. So busy fighting among ourselves for scaps, we can't ban together as a society and make a meaningfull change. At the end of the day the only real side are the Rich, Powerful, Elites vs all the rest of us. And when i say rich, i don't mean the wealthy, i mean the mega rich.
I believe the "abstract dream" you referenced for Maine and David, was in total... becoming a legend. To make sure night city knows the the name "David Martinez". He took on Adam Smasher (even if he got bodied) and made enough money to send his girl to the moon! Even Falco got a cut! My favorite little moment is when at the beginning the Ripper tells him the dangers of the path he's taking. His response? "Whatever choom, like I give a shit"....same as his last words. Great video my dude 😎👍
Many have tried fixing Night City and had their souls crushed in the process. If you can not have substance, compensate in style. Shine like the brightest star and die a legend.
David actually dies smiling, he is gains his satisfaction from pleasing others, in one night he went to the top araska tower, became a nightcity legend, and got the love of his life to safety. He went out like a bolt of lightning streaking across the sky, shaking night city to it's very core.
Edgerunners really changed how I played Cyberpunk 2077. I started out desperately gunning towards a happy ending, or the happiest ending possible - then I saw the show and I realised that was folly. I scraped my old run, restarted and made this a journey to become an Afterlife legend. Burn bright, burn fast and take down as many corpos and scavs as possible. Paid more attention to Gigs and Side quests than main story. A totally different experience and an improvement.
People in Cyberpunk being told that their dream is going to the moon - at all costs, I feel mirrors the way families are told now that visiting Disney World is their dream, and so minimum-wage earning parents get into debt just so they can travel to a plastic fake capitalist-hell "world". Such a tragedy that because of the world they lived in, they didn't really talk - David and Lucy were almost like strangers, like him not knowing she preferred ice-baths to netrunner suits is one example, they lived together but still were in their own bubbles due to the tech distractions - we have this now, so 2077 will be much worse as the tech is inside your own head, and cannot be put-down like a phone. Brilliant video, it made me think more deeply about this world (and it's reflection of our own) - totally agree with your analysis of the ending being a bitter one.
One of my favorite things about the show is the OP. If you’ve never listened to it outside of the show you wouldn’t really notice but the song talks about burning the world around you even if includes yourself, taking down the established evils. But in the shows version of the song they remove all the lyrics talking about burning the city and fighting the establishment because the entire point of the cyberpunk is you can’t beat night city. You can’t win the only thing you can do is burn bright enough that you aren’t lost in all the neon light.
"Why didn't Maine or David just cut down on the chrome?" Because ultimately, it's not the implants that are responsible for cyberpsychosis. They're the convenient excuse. Throughout the game (and confirmed-ish by Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the TTRPG the game is based on), you find out that cyberpsychosis is more akin to PTSD than anything else, is fully treatable, and there are even recovery "retreats" for the well off. Johnny blamed a lot of his issues on "the Hand," a lot of cyberpsychos you see in game (and the one at the start of the anime) are vets, psychotic breaks tend to occur after major trauma. With David, he has a flashback to the BD, and tops an innocent, that starts to compound his trauma issues (after losing his mom, Maine, etc). Then Lucy gets kidnapped. You'll note that, even having the cyberskeleton, after he gets her *back,* without immunoblockers, he's lucid, aware, and out of psychosis. The chrome is just a way to pin it on something, and deny the need of mental health, much like capitalistic societies continue to find excuses to deny the needs of mental health today. Layers within layers.
This is false. Mike confirmed in a reddit thread that cyberpsychosis is a real thing. This theory holds up for cyberpunk 2077 but not the TTRPG where humanity is a stat responsible for cyberpsychosis and is affected by cyberware (and trauma, up to the dm's discretion).
@@kizylle5204 I didn't say cyberpsychosis wasn't real. I never said that. Never once. I said cutting back on the chrome wouldn't fix it. There's a difference, choom. I specifically mentioned Johnny and "the hand" because Pondsmith himself said, and I quote, "Took twenty years but you guys finally figured out that The Hand is Johnny's cyberpsyco expression, Internally, Johnny treats any horrible thing he does as 'The Hand took over.'" Direct quote from the creator. Again, I'm not saying cyberpsychosis isn't real. But if you read through my comment, and read through the reddit thread you're likely referencing (I'm assuming the one on r/LowSodiumCyberpunk wherein Pondsmith opens up in a comment "Time to (partially) explain CYBERPSYCHOSIS"), you'll see that my interpretation is inline with the creator. Quite literally the way he describes "David's starting Humanity" as being pretty high and then losing that is one (of many) ways of getting PTSD (I know. I've lived it. Living with it). But hey, at the end of the day, it is just that, me extrapolating on Pondsmith's words, the materials in game (both TTRPG and video).
@@diego2112gaming Cutting back on chrome WOULD fix it though. It restores your maximum humanity as based on the TTRPG. That is, maximum, not current humanity. You'd still need to go to therapy to get your humanity back to 100%. But installing implants will both lower your maximum humanity and decrease your current humanity, leading to cyberpsychosis without any trauma. It's not just finger-pointing, it's a real thing.
The cyberpunk TTRPG was my first TTRPG, and edgerunners is absolutely amazing at capturing the “crew” aspect of the roleplaying game, I absolutely love it.
So I had two thoughts watching this video, well I had more than two but two that really stuck around. 1) I remembered my sister describing David's character arc as: RIP to them but I'm built different. And 2) This is a great way to look at the show that really leads interesting places. I think "there's no point just a lot of reasons" is a pretty good description of life. Like that might sound pessimistic but think about it: in real life there's no moment where everything suddenly makes sense and you get everything you want. There's no big climactic ending where everything is wrapped up in a satisfying conclusion. And when you realize that it can either crush you or you can find reasons to live now that you know your life has no point, no end goal, no climax other than death. A dream is a point you make up for yourself but they don't come true and even if they did you'd still just be there waiting for it to make your life make sense now. Basically I think life is about the journey not the destination (cause we all know exactly where it's going eventually even if we try not to think about it) and for your life to be worth living you need to find worth in it just every day, in the living itself, instead of basing it all on some point, on some dream. Wow this got really weird and philosophical but I hope it makes sense.
The only goal worth chasing in life is leaving the world better than you found it. To borrow a phrase "We don't inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children" the people who come after you will have to live in the world you create, you have an obligation to make it better in any way you can. Most of all an obligation not to make it worse.
The distinction between the road and the desert was an analogy for Maine hitting the end of the road. Mike Pondsmith said "in the world of Cyberpunk you can't save the world, you can't save your friends, you can only hope to save yourself," and he was sure to let people know you will likely fail to even save yourself.
Also, this was an amazing video essay. Absolutely beautiful, you captured everything I felt but was unable to say while watching the series. David didn't die because he was chromed up but because he couldn't escape the fate and the mold society put on him. He was always told he would end up dead somewhere because of his upbringing and it felt like he was speeding towards that fate the whole show. It just makes me sad man
You did an amazing job on this review, and I believe that everything you said was genuinely from the heart…you sounded completely devastated at the end “It was all for nothing”, a damn good final quote I say
David was killed by his environment. The thing is though, he ended in beauty and greatness. He was up against Smasher in the end, and really made a scene for all to remember, including me. That last episode...man what a ride.
y'know what makes that final scene and song choice sadder? the fact the song reveals Lucy's true dream, staying with David. The song title is "I really want to stay at your house". How I read that ending section is entirely inspired by that, how Lucy shows she wants to stay with David over her originally revealed dream of going to the moon by the end, to the point where she was trying to stop him from putting on the Cyber-Skeleton even while being held hostage, she was trying to protect David and keep him alive, even though she knew he would come save her. So in the end, Lucy isn't just mourning David's death, she's depressed because her true dream can't be realized now. or ever. This is also seen in those last few episodes, where Lucy is fighting to stop the Corpo's from discovering what she did in episode 5 and 6, and her entire character is basically sidelined from the main Edgerunner crew because she is fighting to protect her and David's secret, and is seemingly saddened by his choices which is leading to Cyberpsychosis, to the point where Lucy starts sounding like Dorio to Maine, and is trying to convince David to downgrade his tech so he can stay with her longer, ending that off with her asking them to discuss his choices later, which inevitably, never came. The discussion was only to help her keep living her dream longer, even if David never realized that Lucy's dream had changed, because with David, she felt free, which was her dream. That shows all the way back at the beginning too, as David is the only person to know that Lucy wanted to go the moon, and is seen by their actions in the BD, how they don't seem very restricted for what they do, but when show ends, it has the feeling of still being very restricted (BD they were wearing their street clothes, ending was a space suit). I don't think that the song choice was picked at random, rather it shows Lucy's inner dialogue about her dream, how she couldn't wait for her dream to come true, and wanted to be by David's side no matter what happened, and misses him all the time by the time she goes to the moon. sorry for the tangent/paragraph TL;DR The song choice to end the show on isn't a random pick and shows Lucy's real dream.
I'm glad somebody else understands the paralysis REALLY good shows and anime can bring. Sometimes you find yourself truly enjoying a show but end up saying you will watch it later, you will stretch it out, you will watch it when the time is right all because you can not bear for to be over and being unable to ever watch it again for the first time. You do _eventually_ end up binge watching it, like ripping off a plaster, and being enraptured the whole time.
I could dissect edgerunners for hours. And with a statement like that you would assume I love the show. But I don't... I think the show is a perfect piece of writing, damn near flawless, but the only reason I ended up watching the show about a month ago now was because someone off-handedly mentioned to me that Rebecca died. Rebecca was the only character I had seen in the show up to this point because of her bright design and personality but I had never watched the show. I wish I had never been cursed with this horrific information. I am not lying when I say I could draw connections and analyze them for literal hours. Parralels between Rebecca's framing in act 3 and her brother's framing in act 2 and how this foreshadowed that Rebecca's own most problematic trait would lead to her death, or how David's fatal flaw of loyalty and lack of direction lead to his death as he spends the entire show chasing someone else's dream, be that Gloria's, Maine's or even Lucy's. I could point out the poetic Irony of Kiwi and Faraday's Deaths, where Kiwi Puts too much trust in Faraday despite her motto being about trusting NO ONE, and then how Faraday puts too much trust in Arasaka, both of which then die because the other party couldn't give less of a shit about them once something moderately more important comes up. In the case of Kiwi and Faraday it's making sure lucy is captured and faraday is protected, only for Kiwi to directly fuck up faraday's plan as Arasaka's goals are no longer about capturing Lucy and Protecting Faraday, but instead about subdueing David and decommissioning the cyberskeleton before David loses his mind razes the entire city. Or related, how Lucy's original goal despite being fulfilled at the end of the show is remarkably hollow because midway through the series her goal shifted from "Go to the Moon to Escape Arasaka" to "Go to the Moon with David to Escape Arasaka and Have hot sex with him" (Probably) And so when she gets there she has to face the reality that her dream is just as dead as David is. This show gives you worst kind of Bittersweet because instead of a show like Say Gravity falls where the ending makes you sad because you may never see them again,but also happy because these characters no longer have to risk their lives on a bi-weekly basis and can just kind of chill and live their lives. Edgerunners has the exact opposite effect. Every named character we cared about is dead. The only 3 Survivors are a heartless corporate puppet villain directly responsible for 2 of said characters deaths, and 2 Traumatized Survivor's guilt ridden wrecks of people who will be mourning the loss of their found family until the day they die. Everyone else is FUCKING DEAD. We get to not "Imply" how their story ends, we get to see it, in all it's unfair gorey detail. Faraday and Kurosaki and Tanaka show that this world is not exclusively unjust and evil, but just Unfair. They are bad people far worse than the maine crew, and yet they die all the same. And both them and everyone in this series dies for stupid fucking reasons. Not stupid in the Meta sense, where you feel the author's hand guiding the story in a direction it would not have otherwise gone, but in the sense that their deaths were so preventable, but their worst traits and flaws led them to a situation they had no good options in. Rebecca and Pilar Die because they are too Reckless and too Oblivious respectively to address the true danger of the situation they're in before it's too late. I already Mentioned Kiwi and Faraday, David's undying loyalty and lack of direction leads to him always chasing someone else's dream even if it breaks his mind and literally kills him. Maine was so obsessed with not letting anyone hurt his crew that he became the biggest threat to them and Dorio was so loyal to Maine that she wasn't willing to leave him behind. Kurosaki was just plain idiotic, lacking self-preservation instinct in a dangerous scenario despite not having much in the way of physically useful augmentations. You get the point. Every character dies from a usually preventable cause in a scenario they put themselves in as a result of poor decision making or undying loyalty to people who themselves had a death wish. I wasn't lying when I said I could go on and on and on and on. I haven't even gotten to all the little things like how David is left with nothing Maine's arm after he dies when Maine specifically said if he died he could keep his arms. Shit like that is FUCKING EVERYWHERE in this show, those little hints and framing that has a double meaning after you already know where everything is going. Ultimately I still kind of wish I was ignorant to all this though as I have always had a hard time trying to consume fan-content in place of it's canon counterpart in all media not just anime/tv. Rebecca's death just hit me way harder than any fictional character's death should've and it still fucking hurts to this day, not to mention David's death and the implicit question of whether living fast and dying young is better than a long life filled primarily with monotamy and boredom. As a young adult with no Direction in my life, I feel David's plight in a way I can't fully articulate, and we've all had dreams about being the real life Payday gang. Infamous criminals who manage to pull off feat after feat while never being caught showing THE MAN who is boss. Well David is perhaps the greatest example of what REALLY happens most of the time. You get caught and sent to jail or get caught up in enough gang violence to get shot apart without mercy. I explain this last bit because it also relates to Cyberpunk as a world. It's a Dystopian Hellscape Corporate Run Technocracy and I can't see a realistic way to fix it. The world is fucked beyond all measure. There is no "going back" there is no "fixing" the world of cyberpunk because it's all corrupt all the way down. There's no government or even really a resistance to fight against Araksaka, the world is a desolate wasteland outside of Night City, and Corporations rule everything about your life. I could go on, but to call this Long-winded would be the understatement of the year. Point is that Edgerunners tastes sour to me because of how well it is written. I can't call it fully Grimdark due to the small victories we get like Faraday's death, but it is a firmly hopeless world, where the outcome of the series may very well have been one of the better timelines considering how many times Rebecca alone gets herself into scenarios she could easily die in as a result of her reckless nature. I'm just sad man. I don't like Tragedies nor dystopias unless you take the role of the one who gets to topple them or rebuild them once the dystopia falls apart on its own. Cyberpunk is a true unfixable Dystopia, and any story told under it is likely to be misery porn or more likely what we get in edgerunners, a character focused tragedy where every death is simultaneously preventable yet inevitable. It doesn't help how aware I am that this entire tyraid was done because one of the few "Cute Anime Girls" I happened to like just so happened to be a show where death is not only possible for anyone, but likely for everyone. I'm not gonna argue Rebecca living would have been a better plotpoint, especially since her death is directly used to drain lighting and with it HOPE from the scene as Smasher finally corners his target (Rebecca's Design is fluorescent compared to the other edgerunners, and the shot of her lifeless motionless corpse, with nearly monotone coloring perfectly sets the hopeless tone the final non-epilogue scene of the show is going for) but I can't deny how badly that death in particular just hurt me. This is why I don't like tragedies because it just brings my mood down to even think about them. Not to mention how the writers sidestep Rebecca "Technically" not seeing David get killed in a very similar way to her brother, something she directly told David she didn't want to happen because of how much Pilar's death actually hurt her despite not showing it very often. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. I KEEP TRYING TO END THE FUCKING COMMENT BUT THEN SOMETHING ELSE COMES UP THAT I NEED TO POINT OUT AS SUCH INSANELY GOOD WRITING. You can do this for damn near every fucking scene in the goddamn show based on who or where a character is framed or positioned in comparison to another shot or whatever. Point is Rebecca is dead, I'm Sad. I wish I had never engaged with this property because 2077 is not very good and it's lack of anime artstyle makes me not like night city very much, and Rebecca's death caused a me to have a remarkably unreasonable amount of grief over the death of fictional character. There I"m ACTUALLY done this time.
They really did the setting and style of Cyberpunk justice without it feeling like a gimmick in anime form. The way it was voice acted made the conversations feel more real and less traditional anime and the way it concluded really captured the futility of it all. Also the soundtrack, "Stay at Your House" goes without saying, but others too like "Who's Ready for Tomorrow" is another banger!
I disagree. I mean, most of it was good, but the end... I dont think its *just* sad. David died with a smile on his face, and i dont think that was just because lucy got to go to the moon. It was because of two things. First, that he saved her life, which is why he got in the cyberskeleton (metaphor for the grim reaper) in the first place, and second, because he died as david martinez. Its like you said, he died because he remained himself to the bitter end... But that doesnt mean theres no value in doing that. If the world around you cannot let you live without turning you into something your not, if all of your strength isnt enough to stop it, theres merit in denying that, even at the ultimate cost. Suicide isnt the answer, obviously, but when its death while fighting tooth and nail for your own survival vs a living death of the socially dead, then thats different. David kept the right to choose. In that moment, he did inherit lucys dream, her real dream. He chose not to bend, but to break instead. Even adam smasher acknowledged this choice, made it literal with the offer to make david a cyborg like himself, and spoke with respect when david, smile and all, turned him down, in the most david way possible. Fuck being a legend, fuck being remembered, but the right to die while still yourself in a system that fucked up has true meaning.
Dude I’ve been trying to get this across as well - He found meaning in others and their dreams as he had clearly said TWICE he had had no dreams of his own. It was sad for Lucy, yes. But David was long past the point of ever returning to the “David” that she wanted to protect herself. In this bleak of a world this was the best ending we could have asked for
I think the point is that david could of stopped being a edgerunner long before lucy is kidnaped like lucy herself did when she left the group, where david and lucy could of just lived together. But what i think another tragedy of the show is, is that Lucy only realises her dream was to be with David in retrospect after David dies. But also that David is not aware of the fact that he himself is what Lucy wants, David dies happy in ignorance of what he thought lucy wanted, Lucy has to live with the knowledge that he didn't have to die for him to fufill her dream.
@@theangrymarinemcgovern2057 Oh, it's absolutely tragic for sure, but David wasn't *just* a vehicle for other peoples dreams. He didn't die for her to go to the moon, he died to stop her being kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. He achieved that, even though it cost him his life, and he got to die still himself. He may have been the type to sacrifice himself for others like Lucy said, but I think that part of the bitter sweetness of the ending was that he didn't die for a dream. He managed to pull himself beyond that. He overcame night city, the city of dreams, even though it killed him, by dying for something alive and real, while still himself, instead of dying for an empty dream while a hollowed out husk of a cyberpsycho. When Lucy kissed him and brought him back from the edge that one last time, that was when he became the most David, and resolved to live, or die, for people instead of dreams. His last act for Lucy wasn't saying "get to the moon", it was throwing himself in front of Smasher so she could get away. Under the cyberpsycho dream of getting to the top of arasaka tower, and after he'd already run as far as he could for Maine's dream, was a David that was truly happy and whole, however short lived. He didn't care about being special after that point, he didn't care about the moon, he only cared about saving as many of his friends as he could. Honestly, Lucy's ending is more sad than Davids. She doesn't get what she actually cared about, has to live to see David's story covered up, but David went out doing what he cared about most, what he loved most, and while utterly and perfectly himself. Night city may have killed him, but it failed to break him.
Well, that's when seen from David's perspective. I agree - David who has lost everything finally found a new meaning, a new goal in life, and at the end, mission accomplished, even if it costs him his life. Lucy also kinda did the same (the reason why she refused to join the gang) - all for nothing. If you symphatise with the female character, that's where all the sadness come from. In overall, Lucy went to the moon. But what so many idyllic people missed: David changed nothing, Lucy just got to the moon. But there will be more people like David (probably less "special") waiting to happen. That's the actual tragedy and why it is "pointless" masterpiece.
Lucy ends up buying a nook in the Columbarium for David and writes "You didn't take me to the moon, but you were there with me." It's really sad but I think Lucy came to realize the real value wasn't in escape or the moon, but the love she found with David. (The friends we made along the way lol) (From 2.0 update for the game)
Honestly, when i saw davids, his moms, and rebeccas niche, i had to literally stop the game for ike 20 mins and get my head together. Those three little paragrapghs contain so much more than a lot of games.
You cant convince me the doc wasnt their version of the devil… that man like everyone was a glutton but the art style they chose for him, how he wants to actually “help” a kid, yeah David paid him but it goes beyond that… also when david is tripping that man looks like robodevil from futurama but in their universe.. great concept and content i love this!👏🏼💯
11 months late but I agree with most of this except 18:10. Maine isn't telling David to keep Edgerunning, David just takes it that way. Maine is telling David to GET OUT. He's telling David: "Just run, get out of this." But David takes it at face value: "Maine wants me to carry on his dream."
I think the sadest is, David missundestand his mother and Lucy. His mom: "I want see you, on top of the Arasaka Tower" What she means: A successful career in this Bussines. What he did: Climbing and Flying on the top of this Bulding. But the sadest, Lucy want to the moon...but with David...not alone... That sad ending...because he tried to make the Dreams of his friends and Family possible...just for that...but he missed hte point, if some one want this dream with him...and thats Lucy. Knowing this, and he missundestood it again, makes the end more and more sad, i think.
Run in your 20s. Build in your 30s. Live in your 40s... I've not heard this before, but I understand and feel the appeal despite knowing the practicality of it. That demands complete sacrifice of my life in the duration of it until the very end. And it is still a lottery, hoping for a moderate prize winning, to feed the urge to keep going.
IMO the ending can be seen as more hopeful Yea David died but he died as David through it all. Like you said if he tried to make it corporate he wouldn’t make it as he is. And with all the cyber wear he still didnt go completly psycho dying coherent with his own mind and even piece of mind He even did accomplish his dream of protecting Lucy even if it’s not a perfect dream it’s the best that could’ve happened. He struggled through everything the world could throw at him and still died at peace
Really great video. Honestly raised my opinion of the via digging out some nuance I didn't think about before, especially loved your thoughts on that shot of David after Maine went cyberpsycho, and his failure to understand Lucy's dream. Subbed.
I remember William Gibson's 'Jonny Mnemonic' cyberpunk short story (it was adapted into a movie in 1995, the same year the first Ghost in the Shell anime adaptation came out, and it was Keanu Reeves who played Johnny, btw). The titular character survived against all odds and even ended up with his love - Molly Millions (another prominent character who inspired a good deal of cyberpunk female heroines, including Motoko Kusanagi and most recently - Lucy from the Edgerunners). Happy End? Hell, no. Johnny was brutally killed by corporate assassin soon after story's events, as we learn from Molly's flashback in the second novel of same series - 'Neuromancer'. So in the end, Johnny's victory was also ultimately pointless, as corpos killed him anyway, only slightly later. So, yeah: pointlessness is an inherent theme of classic cyberpunk genre.
@@egoalter1276 I'd rather say that Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic are connected trough one character: Molly Millions. Both stories are in the same universe and Neuromancer events have taken place shortly after Johnny Mnemonic.
What a great video. As a 90s kid who devoured anything cyberpunk (including playing in the far future of Cyberpunk 2020!) I loved this amazing deep dive.
David post time skip had enough money to go to the moon with Lucy. He even makes a remark of how cheap a trip to the moon is while seeing an ad. The ending could have just been them retiring. But in a way it wouldn't really change anything. It still would be a show about nothing.
What I got from the final scene is that the Point *is* David, is the human connection. That's why they show all of the experiences of their relationship and all of the other relationships throughout the final fight, and that's why Lucy smiles when she thinks of him on the moon. I read it as her deciding that even if Night City didn't value his life, even if he didn't value his life, she does, and the meaning he gave her life while he was in it makes it worth it to know him, even if he's gone now. So the final clip of the show is her turning around and feeling the sun, which I read as her deciding to keep the memory of David alive, and showing that his life actually had an impact on someone else, maybe even more than his death did.
I really like this. It’s easy to say everything is pointless on a grand scale, and maybe it is. But we don’t really live on grand scales, and we have profound meaning to the most immediate people in our lives.
I read Nuromancer and other cyberpunk books prior to this show. Any piece of media set in the cyberpunk genre can never have a happy ending. That’s what makes the genre so great. In that world there are no happy endings, but the sun will come up tomorrow over the port (even if the sky is the color of a television tuned to a dead channel) and life trudges on. The challenge in this near future is just to try and find a reason to live for another day without losing all hope.
I heard this from someone who was a criminal that all gangsters want to quit at the top. Like quiting when you got enogh money and power to start an empire where your kid and grandkid can ride the succes you made. And I think it is the same in night city
I really wanna make some comparisons between this show(This interpretation of it specifically) and one of Triggers other masterpieces, Gurren Lagan. Let's start with the first thing that got thinking about Gurren Lagan in this video, going to space and what it means, in Gurren Lagan it's gathering up every friend that Simon has made to fight a physical representation of depression/nihilism(depending on how you interpret it) and save Nia from it, and winning. In cyberpunk though, Lucy goes to space alone, because everybody else failed to find meaning beyond their abstract goals, Lucy was the only one that managed to recognize that her relationships mattered more than becoming a legend or going to the moon or whatever else. In Gurren Lagan it's a triumph and a challenge that they fight together to overcome for the sake of each and every one of them. In Cyberpunk it's a cold, hollow victory with no meaning, because nobody was fighting ever fighting for everyone else, it was for themselves or for someone else at the cost of themselves. The other one I really wanna make is between Main and Kamina, they both chased after impossible dreams and pulled the MC into that chase with them, passing it down to them during their deaths. Now it's their deaths I wanna focus on, when Kamina died he focused not on that dream but on Simon, imparting to him everything he could for Simon's sake, planting the seeds of the self confidence Simon never had, but desperately needed. When Main died he focused on his dream, a dream that (based on my interpretation of those face shots you bring up) he doesn't even see anymore, he's looking through the goal, not knowing the point of it all he can only see the way forward, and that's what he leaves David with, no real goal with any point he knows about, but a clear way forward that he runs down as fast as he can. Kamina gave Simon a reason live a full ife, and Main gave David a hollow and empty reason to die.
I loved your point made at 38:00 However, from my perspective.. The first time seeing Lucy's scene, I didn't notice a single ad. I had become numb to their surrounding world, fully absorbed by my own human emotion empathizing with her. It was only the 2nd time around, while purposely trying to pick out themes that I didn't notice the first time around, that I noticed a lot of the things you talk about. Personally... I think the story told, is the one from the real main character of the story, Lucy. She gets the most character development. Going from the belief that, "Cyberpunks don't become legend by how they live... but by how they died." to realizing, on the moon... that the sunlight doesn't feel anything like how it did in the simulation date they went on. Her perception is changed at realized, real version of the place of her dreams, and that's when her memory of David gives us the viewer the confirmation that in her mind, he became a real legend not by how he died... but by how he lived for others until the very end. A very bittersweet ending. Real, and gritty, less like a fantasy and more connected to our reality than a lot of us allow ourselves to acknowledge. ;)
What keeps me crying over this is that from episode 3 I was expecting Lucy and David to be together in the moon but when I saw David die just destroyed everything and showed how this city, this world is hell.
Yeah, Lucy went on a tourist trip to space. But this IS Lucy we are talking about. She could easily slip away from the tour, cover her tracks, and live there if she wanted to. Not that living in low gravity is healthful, but she could. Heck, she could pass herself off as staff and go back and forth. I don't know what she'll do next, but she has some options.
Haven't watched Edgerunners yet, but this video has convinced me to finally add it to my list. I've spent the vast majority of my life quietly trying to die, through skipping meals, showers, purposefully continuing bad habits, all in an attempt to get my absent mother to actually LOOK at me. It's left me with severe problems, both with my physical and mental health but also in my ability to communicate and trust others. I think I cried for a solid 30 minutes of this video, so thank you. This was an absolute masterpiece. And for everyone out there going through something similar, I hope you're doing alright. Things will look up; I'm 24 and have a room to myself for the first time in 3 years, my job is letting me go part time to help alleviate some of my health issues, and my best friend will be moving in with me and my sister soon. Everything comes around; you just have to let it.
I'm glad this video could resonate with you so much, hearing stories like yours helps me continue on the path as a RUclipsr!! I sincerely hope your physical and mental health improves, and that you find your happiness
@@AsukkaTV Oh wow, thank you for taking the time to reply a year after the video was posted! I do truly mean it; you've a very eloquent way with words and your analysis of the show and the human condition was very breathtaking. Thank you for the kind words; I certainly hope and pray that your own physical and mental health journey continues as well as it can. You've definitely earned the subscription from me :)
Pointless is a perfect description. They somehow made the ride exciting, without glorifying the gang life. I love it, loved the characters, and when the chickens came home to roost...it felt right. They all shoulda gotten 9 to 5s lol
my heart broke watching this anime. i bought the game about a week ago. and im still not done with the game. so i was hoping the show didn’t spoil anything for the game (thank god it didn’t) but this completely SOLD me on the franchise. if anything after i finished the show im going back to the game with so much appreciation toward this world.
This video single-handedly described the entire anime so absolutely on point is breathtaking. Mindblowing work Asuka. Truly truly wonderful work. I'll give you my sub and I wish I could do more.
From very early in the story I had a very strong feeling of having seen the same story before, and by the end it was beat by beat your classic drug lord story (or perhaps you may know them as "narco novela") and it strucks me how this form of art draws from human nature, the craving for power, money, and respect, to the most absurd of their limits, no matter if the setting is the deep jungle, a small town, or a futuristic city, we are still the same humans, beneath all that chrome, we still crave for the same thing. And it's quite frustrating to me that we can see the cycle, and we know how it ends, but we are unable to break out of it. David saw what an edgerunner life leads to, and he kept going at it, and even took in his own trainee to start the cycle again... it's just sad seeing that tragedy play out...
Having finally gotten around to watching Edgerunners myself and finding this in my feed I definitely think I found meaning in the ending myself. If you look at her trip objectively as just a trip then sure, David's dream of getting her to the moon may seem pointless, and maybe even David didn't think this deeply about the trip himself but to me his dream was bigger than that; he wanted to give her freedom. To Lucy escape was all she ever wanted and to her the moon symbolized that. He said as much when he first saw the poster in her room that it was a "gonk" thing to believe in, childish and pointless. To her it meant significantly more and when she confronted him about it and eventually they did the brain dance on the moon he understood what it meant to her. It was never about the physical moon, it was escapism. He made sure to give her the most valuable gift he could manage in the end. She found the moon wasn't the freedom she wanted, true, but it did free her from that pipe dream, gave her the freedom to look toward a future back in night city and to do more with what time she has left and the skills she has as a prodigy netrunner. Without him, yes, but that was a reality set in motion when he installed the sandevistan; something she knew when she hacked into Arasaka and discovered the plans for him. It is only pointless if you think of it in the Romeo and Juliet way. But no, I don't think so. I think it was priceless.
Thank you, for not stopping your "grind". Your perspective is extremely valuable, you bring out essential points in your videos, which I am forever grateful for. I hope your dreams will come true, or evolve into something more selfless and greater: I wish this for everyone reading this comment, and selfishly - myself.
Thanks for the depression and inducing me to self reflect once more as the show had done. I'm going to take a nap but before that I'll leave a sub and like.
Cyberpunk has easily become my favorite ip and game from the past few years, in the game choices you make have real consequences and you will feel them afterwards. The anime encapsulates that idea perfectly, the world feels so real despite being so suffocating and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
What an absolute blessing for me to come across this video. Thank you so much for the time and mental duress you put into this video. The entire package, I found was profound. Which I feel as your inspiration for this being being. I adore the Niet Automata OST that you used, it was so fitting for the feelings and cohesive points in your video. The struggle for human existence to strive for meaning in Nier, Kill La Kill and Cyberpunk Edgerunner and your video call for a life long journey of self-aware reflection. Thank you for producing this mate 👌💯🔥💥
A great irony of the show is, the only reason David worked himself literally to death was so Lucy could go to the moon, which she said was her dream. But in the end, the only reason Lucy actually went to the moon was because David told her it was his dream that she went to the moo, and that he needed her to see it through. I mean look at her at the end, the woman was very much dead on the inside. What possible reason could she have to spend an insane amount of money to go on this tour to the moon? Because it was the final wish of her lover, who literally died for this. Her dream became his dream and his dream became her dream. The reasoning was an ouroboros that devoured itself. But in the end, I think it all happened for something, I think David did save Lucy from the damned city. I think David, by giving his life to Lucy, whole and without reservation, instilled worthiness in her. She has to now take all of the love David had for her, and all of the love she had for David, and love herself in the same way. I think that is the point, David wanted Lucy to live, really live, in a way none of them really did because their lives were worthless, and now she has to, for as long as she can still remember David, she has to acknowledge her own worth, or David died for nothing.
The thing with David is he wasn't really special, hear me out before taking your torches and pitchforks, in cyberpunk the reason ppl get cyberpsychosis is because their humanity disappears and David had Lucy and the Main crew to get his humanity alive however the death of Main and kidnapping of lucy made him fall off the edge. V on the other hand had Johnny to help but he also was already well aware he killed dozens but his dream and his soul allowed him to keep his Humanity even after Jackie's death. Even tho he's a mass murderer, he still had a heart of gold and helped people as much as he could like Paname, Judith, Kerry and many more, even helping the a hole that is Johnny. In other terms David's Humanity was always fragile he just never really realized it. He believed he was special but that ultimately killed him since he didn't ran with Lucy when he had the chance
this is the video that best sums up how I feel when I finish watching edgerunners, an incredibly well-done experience all with the aim of telling you that it is pointless that nothing matters anymore, a feeling that thanks to how that society works that is not very different from ours only that in a future where there is basically no turning back, and to say that at the end of the day try to make or change simply does not matter, it is devastating since it is currently a change that we should make so as not to end up the same, it kills you more hope that there will even be one and more considering that most of us are just bombarded with so much bad news that it simply takes away our will, watching a series like this feels like the straw that broke the camel's back and more considering that comes from one of the most recognized anime studios for giving you messages that are the complete opposite.... still, let's see all this not as a warning, but as a call for help, from that we already have to change how our world works to never reach the level that the world of Cyberpunk edgerunners or 2077 is at
This was a beautifully done video essay, I just finished Edgerunners recently and wanted to hear more peoples thoughts on it, and this was everything I wanted in a video. Keep it up!
I always saw Edgerunners as a spat on the face on the self-consuming pursue of success and dreams. David is always told that his dreams are not his own and how that's a bad thing, but see Gloria, Maine and Lucy, none of them are happy throwing their lives away in that pursuit, unlike David who was the only one to die with a true smile of satisfaction in his face, ironic for the man who just lived for his friends. It's not about making it or not, Lucy on the moon proves that, dreams like Making it to the top of Arasaka and going to the moon are no different than the greedy schemes of the corpos of night city, after all, behind every single one of them there most likely was a mother who just wished for his son to reach the top of society. IMO, on the moon and staring at the sun, Lucy comes to realize exactly that, human connection is far more important than dreams. It's still a sad ending, but for someone who lived her whole life running and pushing people away (she even pushed David away at many points damm), that shot staring at the sun symbolises a new beginning, with the Sun, the card of renewal and a bright future, and David both being the forerunners of that change.
I tip my hat good sir, 45 min of critical analysis , narrative walkthrough and phylosophy, contemplation of void, escapism and purpose. my like and sub. thank you for not over using the main theme song. My take is that the realization that lucy's escape of her reality was David, and david's was giving her loved one the chance to live her dream, that chance he wasn't able to give to her mother and "father" ... in beautiful tragedy..... david by achieving his dream dies with a smile understanding that he's not gonna be a part of it... and when lucy goes to the moon out of respect for david, even if she already knew there was nothing there for her.... that david... her light... was gone.... but some how..... when the sun bathes her..... she managed to smile.... and come to terms with her reality..... that the pain of living in the hyper capitalistic dehumanizing sick world of night city..... that life.... was worth it..... and she would do it again.... and trade that moon for a simulation with david.....
In the face of this interpretation, it's a little ironic what made Edgerunners so poignant to me. It's a story of found-family. Watching it helped me realize that even if the world fully and unquestionably becomes Night City, I can be okay... Because of my partners, my brother, my momsc... My family, companions and friends. That makes it all worth it. Edgerunners is a heart-wrenching tragedy of not realizing that the true point of it all was the crew itself... It was Maine, Dorio, David, Lucy, Rebecca... And it was Pilar, Kiwi, and the cowboy guy whose name escapes me. And Rebecca was the only one who seemed to realize it. She enjoyed running the edge with her chooms. Her LIFE was running the edge with her chooms. dreams, corpos, the moon, every sad sack of on the business end of the barrel THESE PEOPLE HERE ARE WHAT MATTER - ALL THAT MATTERS. ...and that's what makes the ending so heartbreaking... Why I cried after the credits... And why I'm starting to cry again from writing this... They had the point beside them all along. Every last one of them did. Hell, even Pilar probably got it with how much he just lived in the moment without a care in the world. He was with Rebecca and the gang, so he could just relax and have fun. How much of a depressed trainwreck would he have been without them? If it had been his sister instead of him? They missed it, always chasing some enigma... Eyes lost on the horizon when they should've fucking turned to look back at each other. They had paradise all along and they took it for granted. And that hurts. Put it back... Put it all back... Pilar's death was the only fair one, the only honest one, the only one that wasn't a product of missing the point.
Absolutely, cyberpunk as a setting is so good at exposing little human things that we all appreciate but sometimes take for granted. The city eventually crushes the soul out of everything, we watch as these characters lose it all, and it reminds us of what we should be grateful for.
I had to stop the video mid-way, and say this, because it's the only method I have to reach out to you. I don't know you. I'll never know you, but I'm going to take a moment to talk to you, AsukkaTV, as best I can. If nothing else, thank you for this. You made something. You said something. You stood for something. You tried to get a piece of yourself out there, to get to the heart of things on a deeper "most real" level, and share what you've found. I'm listening. I don't know if anyone else will say things on this... vulnerable... a level. But... I will today. So, yeah. Thank you. Going to finish the video now as I think you also "get it" in a way that far too few do.
Thank you, I appreciate this a lot. I've also used the phrase "you made something" in this way, so I definitely see where you're coming from. I thank you for your honesty here
Hello. I must say those kind of good animes create good interactions with people. They dont want to fight with words, say their opinions and dispute but more swim in the appriciation what the felt and experienced here. I really think good movies make people more united, dont you think? We need more good things like Edgerunners! Regards from Poland
Perhaps the show is trying to tell us that materialism in the end is pointless, David risks his life to give lucy a holiday from night city in esscense. What the show is trying to say if that human connection and interaction is what truly makes us happy, David didn't need to die but materialism is all he knew his goal to send lucy to the moon was a materialistic dream he spent his whole existence making money, thats it. While he is edgerunning we barely see any intimate scenes with him and lucy he is trapped in night cities curse, Lucy herself is able to escape but is unsucessful in brining David with her. If all he is brought up in is materialism and poverty his value is directly tied to that of which i think this beckons massively to the outlook of younger and very materialistic generations. But on the flipside lucy is not brought up in poverty but she is brought up in an opressive environment, this is why she longs for freedom, not materialisitic gain. What the charachters long for in this series had correlation with their upbringing, David wanted to send lucy to the moon because his mother had sacrficed so much for him so to imitate his mother who he looked up to before she died, he wanted to sacrifice for someone else, even if it ends in his death just like his mother. Also, i do believe that had David actually willingly went to Arasaka to be the test subject for the cyber skeleton i can see him becoming the second Adam smasher, Cyberpsychosis is a mental disease not a physical one, what causes cyberpsychosis is stress and ones ability ot empathise this is why corpos don't go cyberpsycho they are in control they have everything they want the struggle for them just isn't there they have little to no empathy for those they kill (This is also why adam smasher is able to be fully chromed, becuase he lacks 0 empathy for anyone or anything). Poetically either the choice to go with Arasaka or become and edgerunner both lead / would lead him to the top of Arasaka tower, Fufilling his mothers dream in either a nuianced way or the litteral way. So no matter which path David chose he was always fufilling someone elses dream / desire.
On the subject of the sun as a symbol, there's a famous line: "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a chasing after wind."
Except... Edgerunner's story is not by studio Trigger... they got the story and characters from CDPR, but had freedom in how to draw them, action scenes ect. As far as I recall there were some minor story changes done by Trigger. Sooo generally - Story by: Bartosz Sztybor Jan Bartkowicz Łukasz Ludkowski It was also bounced by Patryk Jaki (CDPR responsible for story in cyberpunk) and Mike Pondsmith. If you look at credits it was largely coop by CDPR and Trigger. Only place where CDPR didn't meddle was animation/screenplay. But I think it works. Because story is this depressing eastern european feaver dream within American narrative, which was presented by Japanese studio.
...... that moment, when you come to realize. Your single mind set in persuit ing a future. And finally at the threshold, to find out how twisted and corrupt your initial dream has become. Then you embrace it.........
@@AsukkaTV a journey that was just killing and following a rotten system. I don't see how it's supposed to reflect on all human experiments. Mike Pondsmith and Phillip k dick didn't create that genre for you to think that, on the contrary, they are yelling " don't finish like that" it's like an alcoholic finding excuses to be an alcoholic pretending the whole world is alcoholic you re doing there.
What I love about this anime is how it got cyberpunk so right. In cyberpunk the biggest villian should always be the setting.
No matter what you do, it’s just another day in Night City.
Except that no writer of cyberpunk fiction would *ever* use the word cyberpunk to describe anything, much less have characters calling each other “cyberpunks.” That word is actually a cringe boomer critic word for a genre they didn’t understand.
That’s just a detail but it says a lot! This series got the surface right, but the writers went with tropes rather than write real characters. Which is not “cyberpunk” at all. To fill your story with tropes is a very un-cyberpunk thing to do.
So i have to disagree, this series got cyberpunk wrong, but nobody has enough interest in the actual good original cyberpunk fiction to care. Because gross, who reads books for fun?
@@sub-jec-tiv actually you'd be right if it was any other cyberpunk/sci-fi. Except, this is based on the tabletop where this style of cyberpunk is the theme and tone.
@@sub-jec-tiv damn, so this series is trash?
@@bringinthedope5929 No, this guy just has autism
When i first finished Cyberpunk back when it came out, the ending crushed me. But Edgerunners crushed me even more.
It's pointless, yet perfect
This is making me want to play the game
@@AsukkaTV you might not like the game because V actually becomes a night city legend and breaks the status quo
@@yes5937 Well depends on how you look at it. Even with V being a legend of Night City, he'll never live past the next few years, let alone few months, and he's accepted that fact. Everything he's done has been essentially pointless, and it's all hollow, only doing bigger and bigger tasks to ignore that fact. It's fairly obvious V isn't happy, far from it, the last bit of happiness in being the best died with Jackie, someone he'd call his best friend. Even with him being the legend of Night City, his brain is still deteriorating, so by all accounts, he's still surviving, just like he told Johnny earlier in the game. David DID become a Night City legend, however it's all smokes and mirrors to what's truly important in life. Night City establishes you as a legend, dead or not.
The best ending, and happiest one, is likely the Aldecaldo ending, where he outright leaves Night City all together with his new found family. He's visibly happiest here, with the love of his life, and family looking after him. There's nothing left of Night City that can benefit him further, and as Panam says, the city chewed them up and spit them out. The happiest ending is just leaving it all together, just like Judy if you don't romance her. Judy had realized, through her endeavors, how depressed she really was in Night City.
@@yes5937 depends entirely on the ending you get
The hole in my heart is now way bigger
I missed the commercial angle of the final scene, I took it as Lucy's dream being tainted because she had shared it with David and then lost him. She saw his memory because now the dream was to be there WITH him. She has her emotional moment, realizes her dream is over now and she kept David from dying in vain and she needs to find the next thing to live for, opens her arms to the sunlight and tries to embrace being there like he would have wanted her to. Like they did in the dream.
When I first played cyberpunk I've got this feel that the city of night city was like a character in the history. All people in it want to escape it or live in it to achieve its ambitions, most of them diyng trying.
It truly is a place purely for dreams
The longer I spend in Night City, in Cyberpunk 2077, the more I personally feel the Aldacaldoes, to spite everything they go threw, probably have the best life of anyone even near that city, a big family that more than anything want to help eachother and be free to go where they want.
Then again maybe I just resonate too much with the Nomads and have idealized them...
Or some like Viktor realize it is not true dreams and step aside.
and in the game you kill alot of em
@@NihilistAlien step aside? Every implant he chips is a psycho spread accrost the bricks.
David Martinez is the perfect impersonation of being "special", but just not quite enough.
Having always been smarter than most people around me, and having grown in a country with low standards in regards to education and professional growth, I always felt special and dreamt really big, and not only that, but people kept encouraging me saying that I was special and that I was made for big things.
Only life began to show me that yes, I was special, but just not quite special enough to achieve those big dreams, and just as well got trapped into killing myself in a futile attempt to achieve those dreams, at points even disregarding my own health and wishes to continue moving forward.
This anime really hit a lot of points really close to home.
Big facts
Feel you man. When I was a kid, I was an autistic savant with the violin. My parents didn´t want to officially diagnose me, but they milked my special talent for everything they could. I missed out on my childhood. In the end it didn´t even matter, because it´s not just about the raw talent, but also about stress tolerance and mental health and the people you know in the industry, and that´s how people go from talent to pro. And that´s how... I didn´t.
It took me five years to find my footing after I quit playing after high school, in a world I didn´t understand, because I had only lived for the violin. I did get to Uni and gave it my everything. But there, too, it turned out that I was a great student but I would never be able to handle the academic life as a professional. It´s been five years since I graduated. I will find a new thing to try now that I finally have autism support and ADHD meds. But I know now that it will be something I will achieve mostly to avoid just wasting my life; I´m not built for a career.
Like you, I did really dangerous things to my health and pushed myself so hard I was hospitalized several times. Cyberpunk reflects my life experiences pretty well, unfortunately.
Feeling that a lot lately
Moved out to a big city (tokyo) to chase my dream career, always highlighted a lot back home, even at some places here in the beginning but ... just never quite enough, never quite in the right place at the right time
That's more dangerous than some addictions, if you ask me, being on the other side of it for 4 years.
I see life like a deck of cards. even with all the jokers in your hand, people are still able to cheat you out of the win, sometimes you play your cards the wrong way etc.
We're all playing Bullshit (the card game), life is all about how well you can bluff, not about your hand being better. All it takes is one lie to destroy you or another players at the table... and it's just so easy to lie...
My take away was that it represents the human condition of watching someone fail, and still choosing to continue down the same path with a mantra of "But I'm different." In my opinion showing the end of Maine's story was proof of that. They told us how David would end up through him. It represents a cycle, and the insanity of not learning from others mistakes, but having to fail yourself to finally learn that lesson. It's self destruction, stubbornness, and naivety wrapped up into one beautifully told story, in a way mocking so many 'special hero' stories that we hear so often. Some people complained it was too predictable, but honestly I think that was the point. It's the reason I've watched it twice now, and it still elicits strong emotions. David truly believed he was different until the very end, but as the viewers we see that in a way, he never was. He was just another edgerunner swallowed up by Night City, a blip on the radar of a desolate neon hellscape where no one lives long enough to learn that lesson. I'm also a huge sucker for pyrrhic victories, which they captured amazingly in those final scenes.
"Some people complained it was too predictable, but honestly I think that was the point." It is not like they were hiding it anyways, we see David die in the opening from the jump. We know how this is going to go down, so the journey is what matters. And the journey's a phenomenal ride.
Like his Ripperdoc's last words to him: Another tale for the next dreamer. Maine was the tale for David the dreamer, and David got his own drink in Afterlife, he's sure to inspire another wave of punks who will "aim high and go out with a bang". Who knows, Jackie seemed well-versed in the "lore" of Afterlife, perhaps to Jackie the dreamer, David Martinez was one of the tales he dreamt about.
It did tease us and David by having him able to withstand the cybernetics better than others. Making us think it was possible that maybe he was different. Especially with how lots of anime plays on that trope.
Finished the show yesterday and it's still haunting me. Can we just talk about the design of the cyber skeleton?? David became more powerful than he ever was, but they made sure to not make him look like a mech, or a high tech cyborg, he was just a torso strapped to a tank. No arms, legs, far from actually having agency. And the insane amounts of meds being pumped into him, making him vomit blood constantly, just to make him last a little while longer. What a truly hellish way to go.
Such a good point
To further add to how fucked up the thing is, it was just a proof on concept, something to use for tests on humans: it ONLY has the grav tech going for, no subweapons or anything to support it; using it guarantees the user to go mad and quickly die; installing the thing is ultra invasive, removing your limbs and turning you into a helpless torso; and to top it all off, if the gravtech fails (or get removed as we saw Smasher do), the bloody thing can't even sustain itself and crumbles apart. So yeah, this thing is not even a prototype, but a labrat test, and the fact someone designed it, got approved by the corpo and was made, well, it really tells us all about the setting, doesn't it?
I had the same thought. The cyberpunk genre is no stranger to body horror, but that _really_ made feel afraid of the direction cybernetics could go. I never played 2077, the game, so I don't know what "cyberpsychosis" actually is lore-wise. But through that scene I got the implication that it's the result of the organic brain not being able to cope or mesh with the rest of the body essentially being replaced by machinery. Like, obviously our bodies were never designed to be replaced by robotics. Evolution had no way of predicting that. The brain is _meant_ to be in a flesh-and-blood body, and it seems like removing that connection is what causes cyberpsychosis.
Am I wrong? Probably. But it made me think about the horror of having your own brain reject your body. Presumably, even in the future, they can't just grow you a new flesh-body and slap your brain back into it, so the only answer would be more cybernetics or (like in the final fight) massive amounts of drugs. If you think about it, there must've been more drugs than blood flowing through his brain at that point, which is just... all kinds of medical horror to think about.
@@bugjamsYou're right on the money. Cyberpsychosis is caused by trauma. In the tabletop game, its linked to the Empathy stat and Humanity points. Every piece of cyberware causes you to lose some Humanity. Cutting off a perfectly good limb will be traumatic. Mental trauma (such as seeing something horrible) can also cause you to lose Humanity.
Going to therapy and processing your trauma can restore some Humanity, but its very expensive and time consuming. Which is why most people in NC don't do it.
@@dylanlewis5113 To add to this, if you complete the Psycho Killer quest non lethally, Majority, if not every cyberpsycho has more than just the cybernetics to blame. And every time one reason is that they're not getting help for the trauma. Nobody's supporting the poor bastards who desperately need it. Because those who can afford to help them don't give a flying fuck about humans.
Imo, the point of edgerunners is a cautionary tale about not saving yourself,
David kept focusing on saving other people’s dreams that he forgot to save himself,
to the point he lost his humanity to cyberpsychosis, he lost himself.
Even the in game when u put on the BD for the edgerunner mission
It literally states that it was a cautionary tale, one that David didn’t listen, “will you?”
That’s the whole theme of night city.
You won’t be able to save other people, if you don’t first save yourself.
It’s a tragedy because he couldn’t see himself in the picture with Lucy
He only saw a fragment of Lucy’s dream.
Lucy’s new dream was to be together with David on the moon.
He had to save himself to achieve Lucy’s dream, in which he failed to do
In which he failed to see.
Because he never intended to save himself anyways,
His whole reason to live was for other people.
And if you only live for other people, then can you even say you’re living when you’re not living for yourself?
Reminds me of the quote from Mike Pondsmith the original creator
"Cyberpunk isn't about saving humanity, it's about saving yourself"
Bingo. This is exactly it.
Edgerunners is also much closer to the Tabletop feeling than 2077 is capable of. Night City is lethal but running alone will get you killed far quicker than with other runners. The tabletop games are best played with friends because you're all just trying to survive. Is it pointless, doubtful. Hope never is pointless.
Holding on to it when it's all you have is never pointless.
David literally couldn’t believe that someone could love him enough to alter a dream as big as going to the moon.
I think that’s a wonderful point. But here’s the thing: that’s why night city is the way it is. Everyone is just trying to save themselves. And what you get is a hellscape of greed and violence. If you fight for yourself you’re a crab in a bucket, but if you work together well someone has to be the crab at the bottom that gets left behind.
@@danaflo66that's the thing though, perhaps the biggest problem we as a collective have. Don't be a crab, don't step on others to get to the top, don't drag others down as they make their accent. It's called the soring effect, surround yourself with people on their way up who are doing it without being like a crab and you get caught up in their wake and you start to sore yourself. You naturally start emulating the behaviors and actions it takes to rise. But be self aware enough not to be a crab, don't pull others down and don't step on those attempting to catch your wake.
I half expected her to take off her helmet, and was terrified she was going to.
Honestly, I kind of got the impression she does.
@@CrimsonUltrafox In my headcannon she spaces herself there, it was just too dark for CD Projekt Red to sign off on. I just can't see her character moving on after that. The nihilism she started the series with was reaffirmed as soon as she had started to disbelieve in it, and she clearly had a deathwish before David came into her life. Actually getting to the moon and finding it such a hollow experience without him would almost certainly push her over the edge. The final smirk after the hallucination disappears says it all.
@@shaness112233 Her taking the helmet off definately isn't too dark for CDPR to sign off on lmao, considering all the messed up stuff you see in 2077
@@negative6442 I don't think they ever show someone actually "pulling the trigger" on themselves AFAIK. I remember one sidequest where a guy does end up doing that to himself, but only the moment you lose of sight of him. Actually was morbidly intrigued by this and spent some time waiting, but it made no difference. The moment you turn around, bam.
@@perhapsyes2493 There's an entire quickhack dedicated to making people blow their own brains out
When I saw the final scene I thought, "how bad is your world that such empty and gray place where you can't even walk without a suit, where there's no shades, colors, animals, beautiful landscapes, smells, etc etc is a better place to be, where you are with no one, just you and your self and the quiteness of the space)... ONE OF THE SADEST ENDING OF ALL TIMES...
I'm the opposite. My whole life I've seen space as the ultimate truth and going there as the only achievement that matters. I'll never get to go, but it would make life worth it. I think of all the humans over thousands of years that looked toward the stars and wanted nothing more than to know what is just beyond their reach, and died never knowing. We will all end the same way.
Lucy was robbed of her childhood, born into hell and cursed to live a meaningless life in the city she despises. The moon is literally the farthest away from that she can physically get and it's prohibitively expensive, thus unattainable.
You cannot conceive of a more suitable dream for her character.
@@Anthony_Gutierrez yes, and that'd be your dream becoming true... just like my dream of flying a fighter jet through the clouds, many might not even understand why I even like that, and others could even see it as something scary or uninteresting...
like the guy above said, Lucy's dream to go to the moon was to move the farthest away from all things... she wanted quietness, piece, but when she met David, she rapidly shifted, and decided that her dream was to escape with him... He made her feel alive and happy... But all that went gone with his death, so now she's just back to her original plan of escaping but with the sorrow of not having him by her side, which rendered the moon an even emptier place than before...
Since Arasaka still exist, there were no change of plan, the moon was the perfect place to hide... Even if the marvel of going to the moon might vanish a few days after her arrival.
Lyk dis if u cry evertim
The emptiness was the point. She was trying to escape from her problems on Earth.
22:58 btw. if you played the game (a lot) you find out this is a Scav clinic.. his mother would've survived but landed in a clinic in which she was slaughtered for her chrome.
There is a lot going on in the ending and I agree with pretty much everything you said.
The end credits is Lucy after David’s death. Once she parts from Falco she wanders the city lost, smokes her first cigarette in probably the past year, returns home to dive again looking for any sign of David being alive, confirms for herself that he is dead, and then is in such pain it physically hurts her. She runs just like she did after her childhood companions died during the Arasaka escape. Then she remembers the moon and desperately goes there. We see her looking detached from reality, goes off on her own, sees David there with her, smiles, sees him disappear, and feels fresh pain all over again. I agree that face she has before the cut is of exhaustion.
I push back on those who think Lucy is going to commit suicide. I think that weak smile she gives is her understanding that David gave his life so that she could escape Night City. She will continue on even though she won’t be fully whole without him. I think Lucy basking in the Sun’s warmth is the beginning of a healing process.
I am already soo attached to lucy, that i dint even dare to watch edgerunners, because its making me so sad :CCCCCCC
Hmmm having read and indulged enough cyberpunk most of the time you can go with the most depressing option and it will probably be right. Like even in the case of characters that live like spider Murphy,
spider Murphy lost the man she loved realize that his crowning achievement amounted to nothing because it only made things worse. And she just kind of sticks around doing things and helps Johnny get alt out but she has to shotgun blasts everything that is left of Alt just out there and tags it in hopes that she can bring it back into one piece so that way she can maybe bring her back and that's a character that lives,
Even a character like rogue has a lot of depressing things about her life even if you get down to the point of basically everyone she knew is dead and she had to sell her soul so she could keep living and that way her kid to keep living as well,
And if you follow the message of most of the stories and even the story of the show best case she's going to be someone like spider Murphy or rogue someone who has a lot of problems and kind of always stuck in the past,
For me that's the best-case because there just isn't a lot of happy in that story's world.
Phantom Liberty added grave sites for the dead characters from Edgerunners that are obviously written by Lucy so she's almost confirmed not dead.
It's definitely a pained smile of acceptance rather than one of her losing it.
I totally agree, this is the start of her healing process. Throughout her entire life she's been stuck or running from Arasaka, unable to properly heal or live a proper life, so when she found David she finally had some security, and in losing him she feels that pain all over again.
But she's a strong person. She ran from Araska without looking back, became an edgerunner who ran with a group and accepted the danger that came with that.
All in all it's a surprise she didn't die in the end, so I think she'd have taken a bit to finally process that and go "Holy shit I'm still alive", then go and fulfil her dream of living on the moon.
She's mourning, but that's just something you have to live with, especially in Night City. And at least now she can _finally_ stop running.
The class consciousness in this video is the message I wish more people saw. Most of us are just struggling day to day, running from one ‘high’ to the next. The main thing we all share in common is our class, that the rich and powerful will perpetuate the vicious cycle until we live in a world where it gives the majority of all of us the chance to achieve our goals.
This.
The people will get there one day, those of us who are already must extend our to help them there. Solidarity to all my blue-collar friends. ✊
Lmao.
Sci Fi dystopian stories when written by leftists are probably one of the most generic stories to ever be written. They all follow the same format of anti-corporatist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, or class consciousness or whatever that is. The sci fi aspect is merely an aesthetic, it has absolutely no impact on the story. Ironically for all their talk about challenging the status quo, when writing sci fi stories the status quo remains unchanged with the real world. They have no plan to make new stories with different worldviews with different enemies and different ideological perspectives, they’re all the same class consciousness anti-capitalist anti-fascist story. It’s like they can’t imagine a world where things are different, that’s actually the reason why leftism itself is so unfathomably flawed, because despite all of the progress made over the years, leftist are never satisfied and still believe there needs to be change. It’s a downward spiral of vanity and self-indulgence.
Only the best sci-fi stories about there are stories that explore the unknown. Stories that explore ideas and concepts that have never been thought of before, because who could imagine what the future may hold? No one in the 1600s could’ve ever predicted that humanity would invent a rocket ship that would take out to the moon, so what does that mean for the future? Not to mention societal standards and social stigmas, those will change too. And who knows what the enemies of the future will be? Will they be some authoritarian dictator with a big and powerful army? Or will they be some kind of enigma with powers and goals beyond our understanding? Who knows what the future holds.
Anti-capitalism has always been at the core of cyperpunk.
Doesn’t matter though.
If anti-capitalism is highly profitable then it will be very well funded like Edgerunners.
You can make the most communist thing that has ever existed, and if people think it has mass appeal then you'll find the most hardcore liberals investing in it.
Unfortnantly the rich and powerful like to twist us and play us against eachother, dividing us into little groups that don't matter, Sex, Gender, Race, Political Lean, Red, Blue. So busy fighting among ourselves for scaps, we can't ban together as a society and make a meaningfull change.
At the end of the day the only real side are the Rich, Powerful, Elites vs all the rest of us. And when i say rich, i don't mean the wealthy, i mean the mega rich.
I believe the "abstract dream" you referenced for Maine and David, was in total... becoming a legend. To make sure night city knows the the name "David Martinez". He took on Adam Smasher (even if he got bodied) and made enough money to send his girl to the moon! Even Falco got a cut! My favorite little moment is when at the beginning the Ripper tells him the dangers of the path he's taking. His response? "Whatever choom, like I give a shit"....same as his last words. Great video my dude 😎👍
Many have tried fixing Night City and had their souls crushed in the process. If you can not have substance, compensate in style. Shine like the brightest star and die a legend.
@@JohnSmith-ox3gy My point Exactly Choom! 😎👍
At least the Afterlife will remember David Martinez chooms
@@ellagage1256 by that you mean Necronic Industries' technique of template neuro morphology to preserve people's minds?
David actually dies smiling, he is gains his satisfaction from pleasing others, in one night he went to the top araska tower, became a nightcity legend, and got the love of his life to safety. He went out like a bolt of lightning streaking across the sky, shaking night city to it's very core.
And that’s about as best as you can ask for in Night City.
Edgerunners really changed how I played Cyberpunk 2077. I started out desperately gunning towards a happy ending, or the happiest ending possible - then I saw the show and I realised that was folly. I scraped my old run, restarted and made this a journey to become an Afterlife legend. Burn bright, burn fast and take down as many corpos and scavs as possible. Paid more attention to Gigs and Side quests than main story. A totally different experience and an improvement.
People in Cyberpunk being told that their dream is going to the moon - at all costs, I feel mirrors the way families are told now that visiting Disney World is their dream, and so minimum-wage earning parents get into debt just so they can travel to a plastic fake capitalist-hell "world".
Such a tragedy that because of the world they lived in, they didn't really talk - David and Lucy were almost like strangers, like him not knowing she preferred ice-baths to netrunner suits is one example, they lived together but still were in their own bubbles due to the tech distractions - we have this now, so 2077 will be much worse as the tech is inside your own head, and cannot be put-down like a phone.
Brilliant video, it made me think more deeply about this world (and it's reflection of our own) - totally agree with your analysis of the ending being a bitter one.
Cyberpunk was so devastating to me because it is so damn real. That’s why it’s so painful. Even after the second viewing I felt it.
"Because he was there, because he was alive"... I can't, the tears are here 😭
One of my favorite things about the show is the OP. If you’ve never listened to it outside of the show you wouldn’t really notice but the song talks about burning the world around you even if includes yourself, taking down the established evils. But in the shows version of the song they remove all the lyrics talking about burning the city and fighting the establishment because the entire point of the cyberpunk is you can’t beat night city. You can’t win the only thing you can do is burn bright enough that you aren’t lost in all the neon light.
"Why didn't Maine or David just cut down on the chrome?"
Because ultimately, it's not the implants that are responsible for cyberpsychosis. They're the convenient excuse. Throughout the game (and confirmed-ish by Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the TTRPG the game is based on), you find out that cyberpsychosis is more akin to PTSD than anything else, is fully treatable, and there are even recovery "retreats" for the well off.
Johnny blamed a lot of his issues on "the Hand," a lot of cyberpsychos you see in game (and the one at the start of the anime) are vets, psychotic breaks tend to occur after major trauma.
With David, he has a flashback to the BD, and tops an innocent, that starts to compound his trauma issues (after losing his mom, Maine, etc). Then Lucy gets kidnapped. You'll note that, even having the cyberskeleton, after he gets her *back,* without immunoblockers, he's lucid, aware, and out of psychosis.
The chrome is just a way to pin it on something, and deny the need of mental health, much like capitalistic societies continue to find excuses to deny the needs of mental health today. Layers within layers.
This is an excellent point
This is false. Mike confirmed in a reddit thread that cyberpsychosis is a real thing. This theory holds up for cyberpunk 2077 but not the TTRPG where humanity is a stat responsible for cyberpsychosis and is affected by cyberware (and trauma, up to the dm's discretion).
@@kizylle5204 I didn't say cyberpsychosis wasn't real. I never said that. Never once.
I said cutting back on the chrome wouldn't fix it. There's a difference, choom.
I specifically mentioned Johnny and "the hand" because Pondsmith himself said, and I quote, "Took twenty years but you guys finally figured out that The Hand is Johnny's cyberpsyco expression, Internally, Johnny treats any horrible thing he does as 'The Hand took over.'" Direct quote from the creator.
Again, I'm not saying cyberpsychosis isn't real. But if you read through my comment, and read through the reddit thread you're likely referencing (I'm assuming the one on r/LowSodiumCyberpunk wherein Pondsmith opens up in a comment "Time to (partially) explain CYBERPSYCHOSIS"), you'll see that my interpretation is inline with the creator.
Quite literally the way he describes "David's starting Humanity" as being pretty high and then losing that is one (of many) ways of getting PTSD (I know. I've lived it. Living with it).
But hey, at the end of the day, it is just that, me extrapolating on Pondsmith's words, the materials in game (both TTRPG and video).
@@diego2112gaming Cutting back on chrome WOULD fix it though. It restores your maximum humanity as based on the TTRPG. That is, maximum, not current humanity. You'd still need to go to therapy to get your humanity back to 100%. But installing implants will both lower your maximum humanity and decrease your current humanity, leading to cyberpsychosis without any trauma. It's not just finger-pointing, it's a real thing.
@@kizylle5204 you read the OP backwards or smth?
The cyberpunk TTRPG was my first TTRPG, and edgerunners is absolutely amazing at capturing the “crew” aspect of the roleplaying game, I absolutely love it.
This guy gets it.
So I had two thoughts watching this video, well I had more than two but two that really stuck around. 1) I remembered my sister describing David's character arc as: RIP to them but I'm built different. And 2) This is a great way to look at the show that really leads interesting places. I think "there's no point just a lot of reasons" is a pretty good description of life. Like that might sound pessimistic but think about it: in real life there's no moment where everything suddenly makes sense and you get everything you want. There's no big climactic ending where everything is wrapped up in a satisfying conclusion. And when you realize that it can either crush you or you can find reasons to live now that you know your life has no point, no end goal, no climax other than death. A dream is a point you make up for yourself but they don't come true and even if they did you'd still just be there waiting for it to make your life make sense now. Basically I think life is about the journey not the destination (cause we all know exactly where it's going eventually even if we try not to think about it) and for your life to be worth living you need to find worth in it just every day, in the living itself, instead of basing it all on some point, on some dream.
Wow this got really weird and philosophical but I hope it makes sense.
The only goal worth chasing in life is leaving the world better than you found it. To borrow a phrase "We don't inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children" the people who come after you will have to live in the world you create, you have an obligation to make it better in any way you can. Most of all an obligation not to make it worse.
The distinction between the road and the desert was an analogy for Maine hitting the end of the road. Mike Pondsmith said "in the world of Cyberpunk you can't save the world, you can't save your friends, you can only hope to save yourself," and he was sure to let people know you will likely fail to even save yourself.
Well.. I did not cry watching the actual anime, but somehow broke into tears in the end of your essay.
Then my mission has been accomplished
@@AsukkaTVEvil bastard! 😭🫵
Also, this was an amazing video essay. Absolutely beautiful, you captured everything I felt but was unable to say while watching the series. David didn't die because he was chromed up but because he couldn't escape the fate and the mold society put on him. He was always told he would end up dead somewhere because of his upbringing and it felt like he was speeding towards that fate the whole show. It just makes me sad man
You did an amazing job on this review, and I believe that everything you said was genuinely from the heart…you sounded completely devastated at the end
“It was all for nothing”, a damn good final quote I say
I like how even in the car chase scene they got the jankey car physics correct
David was killed by his environment. The thing is though, he ended in beauty and greatness. He was up against Smasher in the end, and really made a scene for all to remember, including me. That last episode...man what a ride.
y'know what makes that final scene and song choice sadder? the fact the song reveals Lucy's true dream, staying with David.
The song title is "I really want to stay at your house". How I read that ending section is entirely inspired by that, how Lucy shows she wants to stay with David over her originally revealed dream of going to the moon by the end, to the point where she was trying to stop him from putting on the Cyber-Skeleton even while being held hostage, she was trying to protect David and keep him alive, even though she knew he would come save her. So in the end, Lucy isn't just mourning David's death, she's depressed because her true dream can't be realized now. or ever. This is also seen in those last few episodes, where Lucy is fighting to stop the Corpo's from discovering what she did in episode 5 and 6, and her entire character is basically sidelined from the main Edgerunner crew because she is fighting to protect her and David's secret, and is seemingly saddened by his choices which is leading to Cyberpsychosis, to the point where Lucy starts sounding like Dorio to Maine, and is trying to convince David to downgrade his tech so he can stay with her longer, ending that off with her asking them to discuss his choices later, which inevitably, never came. The discussion was only to help her keep living her dream longer, even if David never realized that Lucy's dream had changed, because with David, she felt free, which was her dream. That shows all the way back at the beginning too, as David is the only person to know that Lucy wanted to go the moon, and is seen by their actions in the BD, how they don't seem very restricted for what they do, but when show ends, it has the feeling of still being very restricted (BD they were wearing their street clothes, ending was a space suit). I don't think that the song choice was picked at random, rather it shows Lucy's inner dialogue about her dream, how she couldn't wait for her dream to come true, and wanted to be by David's side no matter what happened, and misses him all the time by the time she goes to the moon.
sorry for the tangent/paragraph
TL;DR
The song choice to end the show on isn't a random pick and shows Lucy's real dream.
I'm glad somebody else understands the paralysis REALLY good shows and anime can bring. Sometimes you find yourself truly enjoying a show but end up saying you will watch it later, you will stretch it out, you will watch it when the time is right all because you can not bear for to be over and being unable to ever watch it again for the first time. You do _eventually_ end up binge watching it, like ripping off a plaster, and being enraptured the whole time.
Imaishi is really good at sending characters into space.
I could dissect edgerunners for hours. And with a statement like that you would assume I love the show.
But I don't... I think the show is a perfect piece of writing, damn near flawless, but the only reason I ended up watching the show about a month ago now was because someone off-handedly mentioned to me that Rebecca died. Rebecca was the only character I had seen in the show up to this point because of her bright design and personality but I had never watched the show.
I wish I had never been cursed with this horrific information. I am not lying when I say I could draw connections and analyze them for literal hours. Parralels between Rebecca's framing in act 3 and her brother's framing in act 2 and how this foreshadowed that Rebecca's own most problematic trait would lead to her death, or how David's fatal flaw of loyalty and lack of direction lead to his death as he spends the entire show chasing someone else's dream, be that Gloria's, Maine's or even Lucy's. I could point out the poetic Irony of Kiwi and Faraday's Deaths, where Kiwi Puts too much trust in Faraday despite her motto being about trusting NO ONE, and then how Faraday puts too much trust in Arasaka, both of which then die because the other party couldn't give less of a shit about them once something moderately more important comes up. In the case of Kiwi and Faraday it's making sure lucy is captured and faraday is protected, only for Kiwi to directly fuck up faraday's plan as Arasaka's goals are no longer about capturing Lucy and Protecting Faraday, but instead about subdueing David and decommissioning the cyberskeleton before David loses his mind razes the entire city. Or related, how Lucy's original goal despite being fulfilled at the end of the show is remarkably hollow because midway through the series her goal shifted from "Go to the Moon to Escape Arasaka" to "Go to the Moon with David to Escape Arasaka and Have hot sex with him" (Probably) And so when she gets there she has to face the reality that her dream is just as dead as David is.
This show gives you worst kind of Bittersweet because instead of a show like Say Gravity falls where the ending makes you sad because you may never see them again,but also happy because these characters no longer have to risk their lives on a bi-weekly basis and can just kind of chill and live their lives. Edgerunners has the exact opposite effect. Every named character we cared about is dead. The only 3 Survivors are a heartless corporate puppet villain directly responsible for 2 of said characters deaths, and 2 Traumatized Survivor's guilt ridden wrecks of people who will be mourning the loss of their found family until the day they die. Everyone else is FUCKING DEAD. We get to not "Imply" how their story ends, we get to see it, in all it's unfair gorey detail. Faraday and Kurosaki and Tanaka show that this world is not exclusively unjust and evil, but just Unfair. They are bad people far worse than the maine crew, and yet they die all the same. And both them and everyone in this series dies for stupid fucking reasons. Not stupid in the Meta sense, where you feel the author's hand guiding the story in a direction it would not have otherwise gone, but in the sense that their deaths were so preventable, but their worst traits and flaws led them to a situation they had no good options in. Rebecca and Pilar Die because they are too Reckless and too Oblivious respectively to address the true danger of the situation they're in before it's too late. I already Mentioned Kiwi and Faraday, David's undying loyalty and lack of direction leads to him always chasing someone else's dream even if it breaks his mind and literally kills him. Maine was so obsessed with not letting anyone hurt his crew that he became the biggest threat to them and Dorio was so loyal to Maine that she wasn't willing to leave him behind. Kurosaki was just plain idiotic, lacking self-preservation instinct in a dangerous scenario despite not having much in the way of physically useful augmentations. You get the point. Every character dies from a usually preventable cause in a scenario they put themselves in as a result of poor decision making or undying loyalty to people who themselves had a death wish.
I wasn't lying when I said I could go on and on and on and on. I haven't even gotten to all the little things like how David is left with nothing Maine's arm after he dies when Maine specifically said if he died he could keep his arms. Shit like that is FUCKING EVERYWHERE in this show, those little hints and framing that has a double meaning after you already know where everything is going.
Ultimately I still kind of wish I was ignorant to all this though as I have always had a hard time trying to consume fan-content in place of it's canon counterpart in all media not just anime/tv. Rebecca's death just hit me way harder than any fictional character's death should've and it still fucking hurts to this day, not to mention David's death and the implicit question of whether living fast and dying young is better than a long life filled primarily with monotamy and boredom. As a young adult with no Direction in my life, I feel David's plight in a way I can't fully articulate, and we've all had dreams about being the real life Payday gang. Infamous criminals who manage to pull off feat after feat while never being caught showing THE MAN who is boss. Well David is perhaps the greatest example of what REALLY happens most of the time. You get caught and sent to jail or get caught up in enough gang violence to get shot apart without mercy. I explain this last bit because it also relates to Cyberpunk as a world. It's a Dystopian Hellscape Corporate Run Technocracy and I can't see a realistic way to fix it. The world is fucked beyond all measure. There is no "going back" there is no "fixing" the world of cyberpunk because it's all corrupt all the way down. There's no government or even really a resistance to fight against Araksaka, the world is a desolate wasteland outside of Night City, and Corporations rule everything about your life.
I could go on, but to call this Long-winded would be the understatement of the year. Point is that Edgerunners tastes sour to me because of how well it is written. I can't call it fully Grimdark due to the small victories we get like Faraday's death, but it is a firmly hopeless world, where the outcome of the series may very well have been one of the better timelines considering how many times Rebecca alone gets herself into scenarios she could easily die in as a result of her reckless nature. I'm just sad man. I don't like Tragedies nor dystopias unless you take the role of the one who gets to topple them or rebuild them once the dystopia falls apart on its own. Cyberpunk is a true unfixable Dystopia, and any story told under it is likely to be misery porn or more likely what we get in edgerunners, a character focused tragedy where every death is simultaneously preventable yet inevitable.
It doesn't help how aware I am that this entire tyraid was done because one of the few "Cute Anime Girls" I happened to like just so happened to be a show where death is not only possible for anyone, but likely for everyone. I'm not gonna argue Rebecca living would have been a better plotpoint, especially since her death is directly used to drain lighting and with it HOPE from the scene as Smasher finally corners his target (Rebecca's Design is fluorescent compared to the other edgerunners, and the shot of her lifeless motionless corpse, with nearly monotone coloring perfectly sets the hopeless tone the final non-epilogue scene of the show is going for) but I can't deny how badly that death in particular just hurt me. This is why I don't like tragedies because it just brings my mood down to even think about them. Not to mention how the writers sidestep Rebecca "Technically" not seeing David get killed in a very similar way to her brother, something she directly told David she didn't want to happen because of how much Pilar's death actually hurt her despite not showing it very often.
THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. I KEEP TRYING TO END THE FUCKING COMMENT BUT THEN SOMETHING ELSE COMES UP THAT I NEED TO POINT OUT AS SUCH INSANELY GOOD WRITING. You can do this for damn near every fucking scene in the goddamn show based on who or where a character is framed or positioned in comparison to another shot or whatever.
Point is Rebecca is dead, I'm Sad. I wish I had never engaged with this property because 2077 is not very good and it's lack of anime artstyle makes me not like night city very much, and Rebecca's death caused a me to have a remarkably unreasonable amount of grief over the death of fictional character.
There I"m ACTUALLY done this time.
They really did the setting and style of Cyberpunk justice without it feeling like a gimmick in anime form. The way it was voice acted made the conversations feel more real and less traditional anime and the way it concluded really captured the futility of it all.
Also the soundtrack, "Stay at Your House" goes without saying, but others too like "Who's Ready for Tomorrow" is another banger!
I disagree. I mean, most of it was good, but the end... I dont think its *just* sad. David died with a smile on his face, and i dont think that was just because lucy got to go to the moon. It was because of two things. First, that he saved her life, which is why he got in the cyberskeleton (metaphor for the grim reaper) in the first place, and second, because he died as david martinez. Its like you said, he died because he remained himself to the bitter end... But that doesnt mean theres no value in doing that. If the world around you cannot let you live without turning you into something your not, if all of your strength isnt enough to stop it, theres merit in denying that, even at the ultimate cost. Suicide isnt the answer, obviously, but when its death while fighting tooth and nail for your own survival vs a living death of the socially dead, then thats different. David kept the right to choose. In that moment, he did inherit lucys dream, her real dream. He chose not to bend, but to break instead. Even adam smasher acknowledged this choice, made it literal with the offer to make david a cyborg like himself, and spoke with respect when david, smile and all, turned him down, in the most david way possible. Fuck being a legend, fuck being remembered, but the right to die while still yourself in a system that fucked up has true meaning.
Dude I’ve been trying to get this across as well - He found meaning in others and their dreams as he had clearly said TWICE he had had no dreams of his own. It was sad for Lucy, yes. But David was long past the point of ever returning to the “David” that she wanted to protect herself. In this bleak of a world this was the best ending we could have asked for
I think the point is that david could of stopped being a edgerunner long before lucy is kidnaped like lucy herself did when she left the group, where david and lucy could of just lived together. But what i think another tragedy of the show is, is that Lucy only realises her dream was to be with David in retrospect after David dies.
But also that David is not aware of the fact that he himself is what Lucy wants, David dies happy in ignorance of what he thought lucy wanted, Lucy has to live with the knowledge that he didn't have to die for him to fufill her dream.
@@theangrymarinemcgovern2057 Oh, it's absolutely tragic for sure, but David wasn't *just* a vehicle for other peoples dreams. He didn't die for her to go to the moon, he died to stop her being kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. He achieved that, even though it cost him his life, and he got to die still himself. He may have been the type to sacrifice himself for others like Lucy said, but I think that part of the bitter sweetness of the ending was that he didn't die for a dream. He managed to pull himself beyond that. He overcame night city, the city of dreams, even though it killed him, by dying for something alive and real, while still himself, instead of dying for an empty dream while a hollowed out husk of a cyberpsycho. When Lucy kissed him and brought him back from the edge that one last time, that was when he became the most David, and resolved to live, or die, for people instead of dreams. His last act for Lucy wasn't saying "get to the moon", it was throwing himself in front of Smasher so she could get away. Under the cyberpsycho dream of getting to the top of arasaka tower, and after he'd already run as far as he could for Maine's dream, was a David that was truly happy and whole, however short lived. He didn't care about being special after that point, he didn't care about the moon, he only cared about saving as many of his friends as he could. Honestly, Lucy's ending is more sad than Davids. She doesn't get what she actually cared about, has to live to see David's story covered up, but David went out doing what he cared about most, what he loved most, and while utterly and perfectly himself. Night city may have killed him, but it failed to break him.
Well, that's when seen from David's perspective. I agree - David who has lost everything finally found a new meaning, a new goal in life, and at the end, mission accomplished, even if it costs him his life.
Lucy also kinda did the same (the reason why she refused to join the gang) - all for nothing. If you symphatise with the female character, that's where all the sadness come from.
In overall, Lucy went to the moon. But what so many idyllic people missed: David changed nothing, Lucy just got to the moon. But there will be more people like David (probably less "special") waiting to happen. That's the actual tragedy and why it is "pointless" masterpiece.
o.o
Lucy ends up buying a nook in the Columbarium for David and writes "You didn't take me to the moon, but you were there with me." It's really sad but I think Lucy came to realize the real value wasn't in escape or the moon, but the love she found with David. (The friends we made along the way lol) (From 2.0 update for the game)
Honestly, when i saw davids, his moms, and rebeccas niche, i had to literally stop the game for ike 20 mins and get my head together. Those three little paragrapghs contain so much more than a lot of games.
You cant convince me the doc wasnt their version of the devil… that man like everyone was a glutton but the art style they chose for him, how he wants to actually “help” a kid, yeah David paid him but it goes beyond that… also when david is tripping that man looks like robodevil from futurama but in their universe.. great concept and content i love this!👏🏼💯
I'm glad you found the energy and spirit to finish the script because this video was amazing.
11 months late but I agree with most of this except 18:10. Maine isn't telling David to keep Edgerunning, David just takes it that way. Maine is telling David to GET OUT. He's telling David: "Just run, get out of this." But David takes it at face value: "Maine wants me to carry on his dream."
I think the sadest is, David missundestand his mother and Lucy.
His mom: "I want see you, on top of the Arasaka Tower" What she means: A successful career in this Bussines. What he did: Climbing and Flying on the top of this Bulding.
But the sadest, Lucy want to the moon...but with David...not alone...
That sad ending...because he tried to make the Dreams of his friends and Family possible...just for that...but he missed hte point, if some one want this dream with him...and thats Lucy.
Knowing this, and he missundestood it again, makes the end more and more sad, i think.
Run in your 20s. Build in your 30s. Live in your 40s...
I've not heard this before, but I understand and feel the appeal despite knowing the practicality of it.
That demands complete sacrifice of my life in the duration of it until the very end.
And it is still a lottery, hoping for a moderate prize winning, to feed the urge to keep going.
"Love's gonna get you killed. But pride's gonna be the death of you and me."
IMO the ending can be seen as more hopeful
Yea David died but he died as David through it all. Like you said if he tried to make it corporate he wouldn’t make it as he is. And with all the cyber wear he still didnt go completly psycho dying coherent with his own mind and even piece of mind
He even did accomplish his dream of protecting Lucy even if it’s not a perfect dream it’s the best that could’ve happened. He struggled through everything the world could throw at him and still died at peace
Really great video. Honestly raised my opinion of the via digging out some nuance I didn't think about before, especially loved your thoughts on that shot of David after Maine went cyberpsycho, and his failure to understand Lucy's dream. Subbed.
I remember William Gibson's 'Jonny Mnemonic' cyberpunk short story (it was adapted into a movie in 1995, the same year the first Ghost in the Shell anime adaptation came out, and it was Keanu Reeves who played Johnny, btw). The titular character survived against all odds and even ended up with his love - Molly Millions (another prominent character who inspired a good deal of cyberpunk female heroines, including Motoko Kusanagi and most recently - Lucy from the Edgerunners). Happy End? Hell, no. Johnny was brutally killed by corporate assassin soon after story's events, as we learn from Molly's flashback in the second novel of same series - 'Neuromancer'. So in the end, Johnny's victory was also ultimately pointless, as corpos killed him anyway, only slightly later. So, yeah: pointlessness is an inherent theme of classic cyberpunk genre.
What the hell, Neuromancer had a prequel?
@@egoalter1276 I'd rather say that Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic are connected trough one character: Molly Millions. Both stories are in the same universe and Neuromancer events have taken place shortly after Johnny Mnemonic.
What a great video. As a 90s kid who devoured anything cyberpunk (including playing in the far future of Cyberpunk 2020!) I loved this amazing deep dive.
Yeah.. even though it's messed up, my head cannon is that Lucy took off her helmet as the credits rolled.
One thing that I noticed is that we were the ones reliving David's last few years through brain dance
David post time skip had enough money to go to the moon with Lucy. He even makes a remark of how cheap a trip to the moon is while seeing an ad. The ending could have just been them retiring. But in a way it wouldn't really change anything. It still would be a show about nothing.
Nobody makes it out of Night City
@@thewoodchipperr The place isn't magically cursed. You just walk into one direction until you're no longer inside.
What I got from the final scene is that the Point *is* David, is the human connection. That's why they show all of the experiences of their relationship and all of the other relationships throughout the final fight, and that's why Lucy smiles when she thinks of him on the moon. I read it as her deciding that even if Night City didn't value his life, even if he didn't value his life, she does, and the meaning he gave her life while he was in it makes it worth it to know him, even if he's gone now. So the final clip of the show is her turning around and feeling the sun, which I read as her deciding to keep the memory of David alive, and showing that his life actually had an impact on someone else, maybe even more than his death did.
I really like this. It’s easy to say everything is pointless on a grand scale, and maybe it is. But we don’t really live on grand scales, and we have profound meaning to the most immediate people in our lives.
I read Nuromancer and other cyberpunk books prior to this show. Any piece of media set in the cyberpunk genre can never have a happy ending. That’s what makes the genre so great. In that world there are no happy endings, but the sun will come up tomorrow over the port (even if the sky is the color of a television tuned to a dead channel) and life trudges on. The challenge in this near future is just to try and find a reason to live for another day without losing all hope.
finally, RUclips put a good Chanel on my recommended
I heard this from someone who was a criminal that all gangsters want to quit at the top. Like quiting when you got enogh money and power to start an empire where your kid and grandkid can ride the succes you made.
And I think it is the same in night city
Awesome analysis! Keep grinding choom!
Thanks for watching choom!!
I really wanna make some comparisons between this show(This interpretation of it specifically) and one of Triggers other masterpieces, Gurren Lagan.
Let's start with the first thing that got thinking about Gurren Lagan in this video, going to space and what it means, in Gurren Lagan it's gathering up every friend that Simon has made to fight a physical representation of depression/nihilism(depending on how you interpret it) and save Nia from it, and winning. In cyberpunk though, Lucy goes to space alone, because everybody else failed to find meaning beyond their abstract goals, Lucy was the only one that managed to recognize that her relationships mattered more than becoming a legend or going to the moon or whatever else. In Gurren Lagan it's a triumph and a challenge that they fight together to overcome for the sake of each and every one of them. In Cyberpunk it's a cold, hollow victory with no meaning, because nobody was fighting ever fighting for everyone else, it was for themselves or for someone else at the cost of themselves.
The other one I really wanna make is between Main and Kamina, they both chased after impossible dreams and pulled the MC into that chase with them, passing it down to them during their deaths. Now it's their deaths I wanna focus on, when Kamina died he focused not on that dream but on Simon, imparting to him everything he could for Simon's sake, planting the seeds of the self confidence Simon never had, but desperately needed. When Main died he focused on his dream, a dream that (based on my interpretation of those face shots you bring up) he doesn't even see anymore, he's looking through the goal, not knowing the point of it all he can only see the way forward, and that's what he leaves David with, no real goal with any point he knows about, but a clear way forward that he runs down as fast as he can. Kamina gave Simon a reason live a full ife, and Main gave David a hollow and empty reason to die.
I loved your point made at 38:00
However, from my perspective.. The first time seeing Lucy's scene, I didn't notice a single ad. I had become numb to their surrounding world, fully absorbed by my own human emotion empathizing with her. It was only the 2nd time around, while purposely trying to pick out themes that I didn't notice the first time around, that I noticed a lot of the things you talk about.
Personally... I think the story told, is the one from the real main character of the story, Lucy.
She gets the most character development. Going from the belief that,
"Cyberpunks don't become legend by how they live... but by how they died."
to realizing, on the moon... that the sunlight doesn't feel anything like how it did in the simulation date they went on. Her perception is changed at realized, real version of the place of her dreams, and that's when her memory of David gives us the viewer the confirmation that in her mind, he became a real legend not by how he died... but by how he lived for others until the very end.
A very bittersweet ending. Real, and gritty, less like a fantasy and more connected to our reality than a lot of us allow ourselves to acknowledge. ;)
What keeps me crying over this is that from episode 3 I was expecting Lucy and David to be together in the moon but when I saw David die just destroyed everything and showed how this city, this world is hell.
I liked the instant “Copied City” started playing in the background.
I love this video
Yeah, Lucy went on a tourist trip to space. But this IS Lucy we are talking about. She could easily slip away from the tour, cover her tracks, and live there if she wanted to. Not that living in low gravity is healthful, but she could. Heck, she could pass herself off as staff and go back and forth. I don't know what she'll do next, but she has some options.
Haven't watched Edgerunners yet, but this video has convinced me to finally add it to my list. I've spent the vast majority of my life quietly trying to die, through skipping meals, showers, purposefully continuing bad habits, all in an attempt to get my absent mother to actually LOOK at me. It's left me with severe problems, both with my physical and mental health but also in my ability to communicate and trust others. I think I cried for a solid 30 minutes of this video, so thank you. This was an absolute masterpiece. And for everyone out there going through something similar, I hope you're doing alright. Things will look up; I'm 24 and have a room to myself for the first time in 3 years, my job is letting me go part time to help alleviate some of my health issues, and my best friend will be moving in with me and my sister soon. Everything comes around; you just have to let it.
I'm glad this video could resonate with you so much, hearing stories like yours helps me continue on the path as a RUclipsr!!
I sincerely hope your physical and mental health improves, and that you find your happiness
@@AsukkaTV Oh wow, thank you for taking the time to reply a year after the video was posted! I do truly mean it; you've a very eloquent way with words and your analysis of the show and the human condition was very breathtaking. Thank you for the kind words; I certainly hope and pray that your own physical and mental health journey continues as well as it can. You've definitely earned the subscription from me :)
Pointless is a perfect description. They somehow made the ride exciting, without glorifying the gang life. I love it, loved the characters, and when the chickens came home to roost...it felt right. They all shoulda gotten 9 to 5s lol
Literally no words this was such a great video essay I hope you make it big homeboy
the best analysis of the show that Ive seen so far, and a critique worthy of the source material
my heart broke watching this anime. i bought the game about a week ago. and im still not done with the game. so i was hoping the show didn’t spoil anything for the game (thank god it didn’t) but this completely SOLD me on the franchise. if anything after i finished the show im going back to the game with so much appreciation toward this world.
Just binged the entire season and needed something to help me understand what emotion this made me feel. Thanks for the great vid👍
This video single-handedly described the entire anime so absolutely on point is breathtaking.
Mindblowing work Asuka.
Truly truly wonderful work.
I'll give you my sub and I wish I could do more.
From very early in the story I had a very strong feeling of having seen the same story before, and by the end it was beat by beat your classic drug lord story (or perhaps you may know them as "narco novela") and it strucks me how this form of art draws from human nature, the craving for power, money, and respect, to the most absurd of their limits, no matter if the setting is the deep jungle, a small town, or a futuristic city, we are still the same humans, beneath all that chrome, we still crave for the same thing.
And it's quite frustrating to me that we can see the cycle, and we know how it ends, but we are unable to break out of it. David saw what an edgerunner life leads to, and he kept going at it, and even took in his own trainee to start the cycle again... it's just sad seeing that tragedy play out...
When he said "Everything in his life hinges on what previously happened" that sounded like Determinisn to me
Having finally gotten around to watching Edgerunners myself and finding this in my feed I definitely think I found meaning in the ending myself. If you look at her trip objectively as just a trip then sure, David's dream of getting her to the moon may seem pointless, and maybe even David didn't think this deeply about the trip himself but to me his dream was bigger than that; he wanted to give her freedom. To Lucy escape was all she ever wanted and to her the moon symbolized that. He said as much when he first saw the poster in her room that it was a "gonk" thing to believe in, childish and pointless. To her it meant significantly more and when she confronted him about it and eventually they did the brain dance on the moon he understood what it meant to her. It was never about the physical moon, it was escapism. He made sure to give her the most valuable gift he could manage in the end. She found the moon wasn't the freedom she wanted, true, but it did free her from that pipe dream, gave her the freedom to look toward a future back in night city and to do more with what time she has left and the skills she has as a prodigy netrunner. Without him, yes, but that was a reality set in motion when he installed the sandevistan; something she knew when she hacked into Arasaka and discovered the plans for him. It is only pointless if you think of it in the Romeo and Juliet way. But no, I don't think so. I think it was priceless.
Thank you, for not stopping your "grind". Your perspective is extremely valuable, you bring out essential points in your videos, which I am forever grateful for. I hope your dreams will come true, or evolve into something more selfless and greater: I wish this for everyone reading this comment, and selfishly - myself.
Episode 6 is a masterpiece. And what a great video & analysis. Keep it up man.
if this show existed when i was a teen, i wouldve been obsessed with it
You know the video is good quality when you hear Nier Automata ost is used 🔥
Thanks for the depression and inducing me to self reflect once more as the show had done. I'm going to take a nap but before that I'll leave a sub and like.
rewatched this like 3 times. Amazing job, deserving of an amazing anime. Gonna go cry now
3 reasons David is guaranteed alive
1. NO BODY NO PROOF
2. i dont want it to be true
3. nuh uh
Its like i watched it allover again, im near tears.
But now i clearly understood why, i rarely felt this empty and sad after the ending of a media.
Cyberpunk has easily become my favorite ip and game from the past few years, in the game choices you make have real consequences and you will feel them afterwards. The anime encapsulates that idea perfectly, the world feels so real despite being so suffocating and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
This channel is my best discovery of the year. You didn't lie about talking with poetry. Cried three times.
What an absolute blessing for me to come across this video. Thank you so much for the time and mental duress you put into this video. The entire package, I found was profound. Which I feel as your inspiration for this being being. I adore the Niet Automata OST that you used, it was so fitting for the feelings and cohesive points in your video. The struggle for human existence to strive for meaning in Nier, Kill La Kill and Cyberpunk Edgerunner and your video call for a life long journey of self-aware reflection. Thank you for producing this mate 👌💯🔥💥
I appreciate this all, thank you!
A great irony of the show is, the only reason David worked himself literally to death was so Lucy could go to the moon, which she said was her dream.
But in the end, the only reason Lucy actually went to the moon was because David told her it was his dream that she went to the moo, and that he needed her to see it through.
I mean look at her at the end, the woman was very much dead on the inside. What possible reason could she have to spend an insane amount of money to go on this tour to the moon? Because it was the final wish of her lover, who literally died for this.
Her dream became his dream and his dream became her dream. The reasoning was an ouroboros that devoured itself.
But in the end, I think it all happened for something, I think David did save Lucy from the damned city. I think David, by giving his life to Lucy, whole and without reservation, instilled worthiness in her. She has to now take all of the love David had for her, and all of the love she had for David, and love herself in the same way. I think that is the point, David wanted Lucy to live, really live, in a way none of them really did because their lives were worthless, and now she has to, for as long as she can still remember David, she has to acknowledge her own worth, or David died for nothing.
The thing with David is he wasn't really special, hear me out before taking your torches and pitchforks, in cyberpunk the reason ppl get cyberpsychosis is because their humanity disappears and David had Lucy and the Main crew to get his humanity alive however the death of Main and kidnapping of lucy made him fall off the edge. V on the other hand had Johnny to help but he also was already well aware he killed dozens but his dream and his soul allowed him to keep his Humanity even after Jackie's death. Even tho he's a mass murderer, he still had a heart of gold and helped people as much as he could like Paname, Judith, Kerry and many more, even helping the a hole that is Johnny. In other terms David's Humanity was always fragile he just never really realized it. He believed he was special but that ultimately killed him since he didn't ran with Lucy when he had the chance
this is the video that best sums up how I feel when I finish watching edgerunners, an incredibly well-done experience all with the aim of telling you that it is pointless that nothing matters anymore, a feeling that thanks to how that society works that is not very different from ours only that in a future where there is basically no turning back, and to say that at the end of the day try to make or change simply does not matter, it is devastating since it is currently a change that we should make so as not to end up the same, it kills you more hope that there will even be one and more considering that most of us are just bombarded with so much bad news that it simply takes away our will, watching a series like this feels like the straw that broke the camel's back and more considering that comes from one of the most recognized anime studios for giving you messages that are the complete opposite.... still, let's see all this not as a warning, but as a call for help, from that we already have to change how our world works to never reach the level that the world of Cyberpunk edgerunners or 2077 is at
This was a beautifully done video essay, I just finished Edgerunners recently and wanted to hear more peoples thoughts on it, and this was everything I wanted in a video. Keep it up!
Thank you, I appreciate it a lot!
I always saw Edgerunners as a spat on the face on the self-consuming pursue of success and dreams. David is always told that his dreams are not his own and how that's a bad thing, but see Gloria, Maine and Lucy, none of them are happy throwing their lives away in that pursuit, unlike David who was the only one to die with a true smile of satisfaction in his face, ironic for the man who just lived for his friends.
It's not about making it or not, Lucy on the moon proves that, dreams like Making it to the top of Arasaka and going to the moon are no different than the greedy schemes of the corpos of night city, after all, behind every single one of them there most likely was a mother who just wished for his son to reach the top of society.
IMO, on the moon and staring at the sun, Lucy comes to realize exactly that, human connection is far more important than dreams. It's still a sad ending, but for someone who lived her whole life running and pushing people away (she even pushed David away at many points damm), that shot staring at the sun symbolises a new beginning, with the Sun, the card of renewal and a bright future, and David both being the forerunners of that change.
I tip my hat good sir, 45 min of critical analysis , narrative walkthrough and phylosophy, contemplation of void, escapism and purpose. my like and sub. thank you for not over using the main theme song.
My take is that the realization that lucy's escape of her reality was David, and david's was giving her loved one the chance to live her dream, that chance he wasn't able to give to her mother and "father" ... in beautiful tragedy..... david by achieving his dream dies with a smile understanding that he's not gonna be a part of it... and when lucy goes to the moon out of respect for david, even if she already knew there was nothing there for her.... that david... her light... was gone.... but some how..... when the sun bathes her..... she managed to smile.... and come to terms with her reality..... that the pain of living in the hyper capitalistic dehumanizing sick world of night city..... that life.... was worth it..... and she would do it again.... and trade that moon for a simulation with david.....
In the face of this interpretation, it's a little ironic what made Edgerunners so poignant to me. It's a story of found-family. Watching it helped me realize that even if the world fully and unquestionably becomes Night City, I can be okay... Because of my partners, my brother, my momsc... My family, companions and friends. That makes it all worth it.
Edgerunners is a heart-wrenching tragedy of not realizing that the true point of it all was the crew itself... It was Maine, Dorio, David, Lucy, Rebecca... And it was Pilar, Kiwi, and the cowboy guy whose name escapes me. And Rebecca was the only one who seemed to realize it. She enjoyed running the edge with her chooms. Her LIFE was running the edge with her chooms. dreams, corpos, the moon, every sad sack of on the business end of the barrel THESE PEOPLE HERE ARE WHAT MATTER - ALL THAT MATTERS.
...and that's what makes the ending so heartbreaking... Why I cried after the credits... And why I'm starting to cry again from writing this...
They had the point beside them all along. Every last one of them did. Hell, even Pilar probably got it with how much he just lived in the moment without a care in the world. He was with Rebecca and the gang, so he could just relax and have fun. How much of a depressed trainwreck would he have been without them? If it had been his sister instead of him?
They missed it, always chasing some enigma... Eyes lost on the horizon when they should've fucking turned to look back at each other. They had paradise all along and they took it for granted. And that hurts. Put it back... Put it all back... Pilar's death was the only fair one, the only honest one, the only one that wasn't a product of missing the point.
Absolutely, cyberpunk as a setting is so good at exposing little human things that we all appreciate but sometimes take for granted. The city eventually crushes the soul out of everything, we watch as these characters lose it all, and it reminds us of what we should be grateful for.
I had to stop the video mid-way, and say this, because it's the only method I have to reach out to you. I don't know you. I'll never know you, but I'm going to take a moment to talk to you, AsukkaTV, as best I can.
If nothing else, thank you for this. You made something. You said something. You stood for something.
You tried to get a piece of yourself out there, to get to the heart of things on a deeper "most real" level, and share what you've found. I'm listening. I don't know if anyone else will say things on this... vulnerable... a level. But... I will today.
So, yeah. Thank you. Going to finish the video now as I think you also "get it" in a way that far too few do.
Thank you, I appreciate this a lot. I've also used the phrase "you made something" in this way, so I definitely see where you're coming from. I thank you for your honesty here
Hello. I must say those kind of good animes create good interactions with people. They dont want to fight with words, say their opinions and dispute but more swim in the appriciation what the felt and experienced here. I really think good movies make people more united, dont you think? We need more good things like Edgerunners! Regards from Poland
Dude, I’m not a gamer but have a lot of respect for Cyberpunk 2077 and I had no idea about this show. Thanks for the heads up
Perhaps the show is trying to tell us that materialism in the end is pointless, David risks his life to give lucy a holiday from night city in esscense. What the show is trying to say if that human connection and interaction is what truly makes us happy, David didn't need to die but materialism is all he knew his goal to send lucy to the moon was a materialistic dream he spent his whole existence making money, thats it. While he is edgerunning we barely see any intimate scenes with him and lucy he is trapped in night cities curse, Lucy herself is able to escape but is unsucessful in brining David with her. If all he is brought up in is materialism and poverty his value is directly tied to that of which i think this beckons massively to the outlook of younger and very materialistic generations.
But on the flipside lucy is not brought up in poverty but she is brought up in an opressive environment, this is why she longs for freedom, not materialisitic gain. What the charachters long for in this series had correlation with their upbringing, David wanted to send lucy to the moon because his mother had sacrficed so much for him so to imitate his mother who he looked up to before she died, he wanted to sacrifice for someone else, even if it ends in his death just like his mother.
Also, i do believe that had David actually willingly went to Arasaka to be the test subject for the cyber skeleton i can see him becoming the second Adam smasher, Cyberpsychosis is a mental disease not a physical one, what causes cyberpsychosis is stress and ones ability ot empathise this is why corpos don't go cyberpsycho they are in control they have everything they want the struggle for them just isn't there they have little to no empathy for those they kill (This is also why adam smasher is able to be fully chromed, becuase he lacks 0 empathy for anyone or anything). Poetically either the choice to go with Arasaka or become and edgerunner both lead / would lead him to the top of Arasaka tower, Fufilling his mothers dream in either a nuianced way or the litteral way. So no matter which path David chose he was always fufilling someone elses dream / desire.
I’m pretty sure it’s implied that David had enough to allow Lucy to stay on the moon
What you're describing there is consumerism not materialism.
On the subject of the sun as a symbol, there's a famous line: "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a chasing after wind."
I was supposed to go to the store to get food to not starve. Instead I spent 43 straight minutes captivated by this video. Good shit my man.
Except... Edgerunner's story is not by studio Trigger... they got the story and characters from CDPR, but had freedom in how to draw them, action scenes ect. As far as I recall there were some minor story changes done by Trigger.
Sooo generally -
Story by:
Bartosz Sztybor
Jan Bartkowicz
Łukasz Ludkowski
It was also bounced by Patryk Jaki (CDPR responsible for story in cyberpunk) and Mike Pondsmith.
If you look at credits it was largely coop by CDPR and Trigger. Only place where CDPR didn't meddle was animation/screenplay.
But I think it works. Because story is this depressing eastern european feaver dream within American narrative, which was presented by Japanese studio.
I cant believe the effort that has gone into this. thank you
The video almost made me cry just as much as the show itself
...... that moment, when you come to realize. Your single mind set in persuit ing a future. And finally at the threshold, to find out how twisted and corrupt your initial dream has become. Then you embrace it.........
Video Essayist:
Nobody:
Interview with Trigger: Shit just looked badass.
I feel like this video perfectly sums up all of cyberpunk dlc included. Thank you for this closure.
Not pointless. This show teaches you some major life lessons. N is probably relatable to some people this show.
The show itself isn't pointless, I agree, it's more so the characters journey's and dreams that are
He doesn't mean it like that man... Also your profile pic is cursed.
@@AsukkaTV a journey that was just killing and following a rotten system. I don't see how it's supposed to reflect on all human experiments. Mike Pondsmith and Phillip k dick didn't create that genre for you to think that, on the contrary, they are yelling " don't finish like that" it's like an alcoholic finding excuses to be an alcoholic pretending the whole world is alcoholic you re doing there.
IM SO ADDICTED TO THIS ANIME
AND ITS ONLY 10 EPISODES
I LOVE THIS SHOW