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I love Cyberpunk. The game and the anime. It is such a breath of fresh air in comparison to all the corporate bulls**it we consume regularly. It made me seek and understand what "punk" means. Which helped me understand a lot more about modern history than I did before. I think that the punk movement, with its original ideas, have even more reason to exist now than back then. Specially with how powerful the top 1% is becoming right now. In the 17th and 18th century we had the beginning of the "Age of Enlightenment". Where the ideals of rationality and science started to replace the ideals of religion and monarchy. It contradicted the existing beliefs at that time. The punk movement began as a reaction to the corporate stagnation in our society. Any cultural stagnation breeds a movement looking to change it. If you listen to metal today. Remember that it sprang from the punk movement. And, ironically, even metal has become very corporate. Rock and metal is regularly shown in TV ads owned by the corporates that ruin our lives. The punk movement changed a lot of our society for the better, and sometimes worse, but we cannot forget what it stands up for. Because we will need it more than ever in this AI future.
Great job y'all. While I didnt feel the same about how.hoprless the show was, hearing you talk about that really made me want a Cyberpunk property with a lot more direct hope and levity in it. That would definitely be pretty neat!
I love your vids and tastes but man do we differ from music and story tastes. The music has bands like HEALTH which is as old or probably older than NIN that pulls that industrial sound that fits the 80s so well. I also notice a lot of people who crack on this IP without really getting into the context of Cyberpunk as a genre. For everyone reading, Cyberpunk's story is less an exploration of a dystopian America over corporatized than it is about Death and coping with loss and the feeling of not being fulfilled. Of course the story will feel like not much if you're a busy reviewer who can only engage with content so much. If you like COD narration, Disco Elysium, or something like Nier Automata (all of which I like) you probably have the wrong expectation of the work. Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077 is about living fast and dying hard. A very 80s sentiment. Do what you can and do what you want. Hence the punk part of cyberpunk as a genre--which falls in line with the typical rebellious depiction of punk. I don't think punk as you said it is a horrible bleak thing at its core. It's hedonist and nihilist and in the moment. Perhaps you've been carrying that weight of holding out for better days for your own benefit. Cyberpunk is just realistic in the sense that you're just hacking at a hydra. You shoot down one megabad and another one takes its place, but it's the plucky scrappy group of people you bring together and the people you lose along the way that builds you into something that eventually gets out of the rat race. Lucy got out. Lucy took some bangs and dents, but it took everyone to get there and that's what our society is like. We need help to get out of the game, other wise you're either a loser or another power player in the end. You can turn around and take a breath of Solarpunk and feel good, but running away from the bad things is a disservice to yourself. I'm not saying feel bad and be miserable like the rest of us, I'm saying that people can get something from this in the same way you learned how to have hope in your own low moments. Art isn't always a fiction of what could be, it's also a reflection. In all the reflections we see in that chrome we can reassert and redefine how we went to do this. Lucy had the time to reflect after being "special". David never questioned being special. Also things to do in the game before you watch: 1) Music Volume up, embrace the bass in the radio 2) Finish Act 1 3) Get chased by the cops at max level 4) Do FIxer jobs 5) Read the books either in game or online. The little world building pieces. This one is for the Fallout and Elder Scrolls fans Will you not go back to this like you said? Probably not as you are now, but I think this show has more going for it than we initially think. Keep up the cool vids dude. As a creative from Springfield, MA as a hometown, cheers!
Overall good analysis, although I think you miss the point of cyberpunk (or any -punk for that matter) as a genre. These worlds are supposed to be hopeless and corrupt and what makes them “punk” is the characters fighting against it knowing they’ll very likely lose. Its important to tell these stories because they’re much closer to reality than the “glorious victory facing an overwhelming foe” stories we’re used to. Punk genre stories convey to their audience that what’s most important is the relationships we form and the moments we’re alive and together, even in the face of certain doom. I’ve faced my mortality before and that lesson, despite being seemingly hopeless, is actually far more comforting than the alternatives because it tells you to hold close your ideals and your loved ones because that’s all you really have in the end. None of us make it out of this thing alive, so who are you and did you stay true to yourself while making sure the people you care for knew they were loved?
It took me awhile to come to terms with the ending of Edgerunners- I like to think the series is a cautionary tale about living for other's dreams and damning yourself through good intentions. David ends the show having made every choice that lead him there and fulfilling the words of every dream everyone else had for him, but not the spirit. His mom wanted him safe, Lucy wanted to leave everything behind and start over with him- he just never valued himself enough to realize what they meant.
Freaking BANGER comment. Eloquently put. I really liked the write up, it helped clarify my interpretation of the aspect of the story you talked about. Cheers! ^^
Yes! My partner and I both watched the anime and played the game all the way through (we got different endings in the first play through due to different play styles which was cool) but, depending on the ending you get, the game kind of has the same feeling. You realize how really dark Night City is, that there really isn't a way out. That either you're born at the top and just have to keep that status (which isn't easy either) or you're born at the bottom and die there or die trying to climb to the top. OR leave the city altogether IF you can get a big enough bag.
Paraphrasing a comment from another video here, but it really is tragic how he achieved all those dreams. His mom wanted him to make it to the top of Arasaka Tower..... And he does so, but as a fugitive. He wanted to follow in Main's footsteps and he does so.... By going psycho and getting his friends killed. Lucy wanted to go to the moon and he gets her there.... After replacing her dream with the dream of the two of them being happy together. David fulfills all of those dreams, just not in the way anyone would have wanted
Absolutely in full agreement. It left such a bad taste in my mouth but when my friend was talking shit about it, i couldn't agree that it was bad or meaningless, and actually explaining what was going on (because they didn't watch the full series), I came to this same conclusion. The shows ONLY misstep is in not better planting and watering the seeds just a bit more of David not just materially, but spiritually/psychologically getting entrapped by a brutal culture that does nothing but devalue human life, and the ways that infected his value of his own life. It was a twistedly selfish willingness to disregard himself that hurt those around him so much and damn if it doesn't hit close to home as a powerful warning for me. I don't think they needed to spell it out word for word, because leaving the viewer upset, dissatisfied, and maybe even pissed with how it all turned out, is key to sticking it into the heads of the people who need to hear its message most. I just think it would be way better if there were at least one or two little moments that helped better draw attention to the cause for his actions rather than relying _entirely_ on reading the subtext. I absolutely love when shows respect the intelligence and maturity of the viewer to sit them down with something like this, but they just barely missed the mark I think. I hate the idea of so many people missing the point of the series when just a few adjustments could have made it a near perfect show that spoke so well to so many.
i feel like david's story is similar to his mom. his mom works 24/7 for him to be successful at a megacorp, while david never actually wants it, he only wants his mom to stay at home and be with him. david sacrificed himself for lucy to get her to the moon, while all she wanted was to get away from night city and start over with him.
@@alpha_9997 money is well and good but if nobody likes you then is that really happy, corpos are about the most hated group off people among the general night city population
@@alpha_9997well, you'd be literally 24/7 someone's target, either it is competing corporations or your subordinates, ready to dismiss you and take your place And it seems they are eager to resort to violence in order to achieve their goals
@@ko71k52 you have enougn money to fight god, the only reason they stay is typically due to some misguided sense of loyalty. If im in their shoes, im moving to a remot island
Just for Context there is a way to Cure Cyberpsychosis. Mike Pondsmith, the guy who created Cyberpunk has said that Cyberpsychosis can be cured by Love. It's Human connection that helps a person recover from it and Love is the strongest form of connection. That is why David is this resistant, his Love for Lucy litteraly keeps him sane.
@@darkenedpsynoid Yup. In the TTRPG you had an empathy stat - which was directly linked to how much chrome you could pack before losing your marbles. . A high starting empathy gave a huge advantage if you wanted to go 'borg. So, yeah, love makes sense as a "cure" - anything that helps you feel empathy towards the puny fleshy sacks of blood around you again is a boon.
Welcome to the Edgerunner feels club. We got endless sadness, huge amount of Rebecca fanart, and non-stop playing of 'I really want to stay at your house.' 😭👍
I have replayed that song literally hundreds of times, so hauntingly heartbreaking in the best way. Rebecca and Lucy take their rightful place as Queens of Cyberpunk alongside Motoko Kusanagi, Priss (both Blade Runner and Bubblegum Crisis versions), Re-l Mayer (Ergo Proxy), Deunan Knute (Appleseed), Vivy (Flourite Eyes) and my personal favorite 2B (Nier Automata)
That is pretty much cyberpunk. High tech, low life. Ultimate all your struggles are meaningless as you cant stop the moneyed interest operating at levels you cant understand like its some kind of Lovecraftian eldritch god. It's a hell of a ride and nobody gets out alive
In the 90s , ANIME true anime not the westernized cartoons , most of the anime were DEEP sad and gave you a lonely / miserable feeling. This a an amazing project.
I feel Edgerunners could've used a couple more episodes inbetween to flesh out more things in the story. I think it wouldve been cool to see David rise up to Maine's position and see how he overcame that grief.
Even tho I think that the second half is weak, I think that adding more episodes would not benefit the story. It would take away more than it would add. Maybe an extra episode at most. It might make the second half a bit stronger however it wouldn’t have the same live fast, die young message it’s sending quite as effective
He didn’t overcome it, that’s one of the points of the show. Because the city is so ruthless he never had time to process what happened. The short length of the show is supposed to make you feel the same way
Nah, thought the pace was excellent. Too many shows and anime go on longer than they should. It wanted to tell a certain story, and it did it very well.
@@mookiestewart3776 yeah but it also makes me feel the show was rushed in some aspects. I just think it couldve used another episode or two to flesh out more stuff post maine, for better impact on the other characters decisions and deaths.
In my opinion, the saddest thing about the ending (sadder than all the deaths) is the fact that Lucy is alone and probably feels guilty as hell. She was trying so hard to save David that she ironically ended up being the the biggest factor in arasaka being able to lure him out. She distanced herself, got captured, got David wrapped up in a whole mess without ever being able to talk to him and clear her name. Imagine having to live with that guilt. I really felt for her in that ending scene on the moon, where she realizes that David is no longer there. You can tell she blames herself for everything. In the end, David failed to realize that her dream wasn't the moon anymore, it was a life of peace with him. Be it on the moon, or wherever. She just wanted him to be there. Imagine how she felt when falco said "if I turn around now David will have died for nothing" and when falco told her David apologized for not being able to go to the moon with her. Her entire being probably broke in that moment and the guilt probably started to kick in as she was fully taking in what was being said to her. I feel like if she communicated with David, and talked to him sooner, she could've gotten him off the cyberware that ultimately ended up giving him cyberpsychosis and they could've laid low, got enough money and potentially left. Truly one of the most tragic stories.
I remember seeing Fan art of Lucy curled up in the fetal position crying in a shower while on the moon a long time ago. Your comment helped me conceptualize that image again.
To be honest, my view on the heartbreak that is the ending is just summarizing what you said. the saddest part about how things turned out was that it was actually avoidable. if Lucy had just stayed part of the gang and told David that she was going to do her own thing on the side, Lucy would have never gotten captured, David wouldn't have fallen to cyberpsychosis, and the gang would be able to see the sunrise on a new horizon. So Lucy not only fells survivors guilt, which means she is saddened by that fact that she was the only one to survive, but she is also felling self-guilt, which means she is blaming herself for everyone's deaths because she fells that is her fault that they are all dead.
@@tariqsmith1235 you're spot on. It's such a tragic show and I really feel so bad for Lucy. What's worse is that they made one season and didn't look back to it. So we will never get closure from a potential season 2 or even an update as to how Lucy is doing. I've seen a lot of people speculate that when the screen turns black at the end, it's Lucy taking her helmet off on the moon to end it all. It's crazy how many theories have been made from this show. Truly a tragic masterpiece.
didnt look back to it? As bleak as things looked you can never say never considering how fucking successful it was obviously everything is in CDPR hands from here on out what they decide to do coz if they actually tried this could literally become one of most watched animes probably ever considering how dense the worl of cyberpunk is, obviously im running on full copium here but i want to have at least a little bit of hope that things might not have ended the way it did.tho studio trigger can go fuck themselves they ruin everything they touch. This wasnt even bittersweet just pure and insanely bitter@@breadthgaming
When the Cyberpunk genre was conceptualized in the 80's, the world was a very different place. It was made to contrast the hopeful and idealistic version of future that most other authors were creating. That's sort of why it got popular among the youth of the time. But I understand your point. It's eerie how much this just reminds one of today's world and boy, isn't that depressing.
They were made to contrast more hopeful futurist sci-fi at the time, however the reason they are so uncanny is because they were exaggerations and allegories for real problems or problems that could arise based on new technologies and their consequences. Futurism expects technological innovation will bring about a peaceful golden age and somehow change human nature, works in the cyberpunk and dystopia genre pose that we will be exactly as horrible and disgusting as we used to be if not made worse by the technological progress rather than made into some Star Trek moral high ground pacifist.
Does it make me a bad person that I will intentionally not hype this anime up to friends just tell em it was in my top 30 so they inevitably watch it and I get to see their pure unfiltered emotions at any of the soul snatching moments when they tell me I'm a bastard for not warning them?
I saw Cyberpunk Edgerunners late last year and it hit me different. The first thing I took of it was just how pessimistic and bleak it was. Being someone who is dark and occasionally pessimistic myself, it felt a lot like reality. I really love the characters and I'm bummed David didn't give Rebecca a little of the love she was showing him. I also saw this anime when I was super depressed and I cannot talk enough how good the outro song by Dawid Podsiadlo is.
If you haven't already seen it, they've got an official music video for the outro song, which I think was made by Studio Trigger again (the same animation studio that made the anime). Great companion for the song, although this is a Cyberpunk music video, so if you haven't seen it, then be ready for the BIG SAD.
I can't help wondering how David's life path might have been different had he chosen to accept Rebecca's advances after Lucy left. Would she have been able to get through to him and guide him to a better place? 😢
@@Jesus8998 I totally agree with you. This is one of those cases where just one action could have saved his life. Becca is a ride or die and a softie at heart but hey, love matter huh?
I thought that David not having a dream, was because he had his mom’s, Maine’s AND Lucy’s dreams to carry. He was taking those jobs to make money to get her to the moon, run the crew like Maine, and be successful for his mom. Still super bittersweet that in a world of greed and selfishness he wanted to carry the torches for others. When he takes his mom’s jacket, and Maine’s arms he physically even takes them up.
Just wanna say, in the game cyberpsycosis is heavily implied to just be regular people in a bad situation who didn't have the resources they needed to get help. They just happened to have the power to do great harm when they lose their shit.
It's just a regular psychotic episode except the guy going through it has a machine pistol he bought for $20 from a vending machine and a 30mm cannon built into his arm.
This is pretty much spelled out in the TTRPG that the video game and the anime is based on. There are full-body (or full-borg) people in the Cyberpunk 2020 and 2077 world who don't suffer from Cyberpsychosis and what it comes down to is money. In the TTRPG it's called the "Therapy Mechanic" and it's described as "One week of intensive psychotherapy combining stress and anger management counseling, hypnosis, and minor direct brain reprogramming, aided by pharmaceuticals, and a safe environment which may be induced by therapeutic braindance." with the mechanic playing out as: Patient regains 2d6 of their lost Humanity. Each piece of cyberware will decrease your maximum Humanity by 2. Each piece of borgware cyberware lowers maximum Humanity by 4 instead. Cyberware with 0 Humanity Loss on installation will not decrease your maximum Humanity. In the Regina Jones missions you basically see that, people who fall to cyberpsychosis almost to a T either don't have the resources for therapy, they had those resources stripped away from them, OR in the extreme cases they had the cyberware forced on them with no hope of therapy afterwards (thinking the Maelstrom one in particular). This lines up with basically how stuff is today and our current mental healthcare situation pretty neatly if you think about it, except taken to extremes due to the nature of the world it's portrayed in.
One thing I love the anime for is how much more graphic it made the cyberware installation come across. In the game it was just an upgrade path like any other, but because it was a first-person PoV where you almost never get to see your character outside of menu screens and buying/installing new gear happens in the snap of a finger, it was hard to really catch on to what you were actually doing to your body then.
Its worth mentioning that in the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson, the series of books that basically created the Cyberpunk genre, some of the main characters do get happy endings - because they walk the fuck away from the kind of life people like David and Maine lived
You completely missed the whole message about trauma. As a fellow former street punk this all hit very home. I've watched drugs and fast living consume friends but I also know the pain that brings you into such a spiteful life. And there really is no hope in this capitalist hellscape, unless we come together. The bad guys have fuckin won. We're already scraping by in a lame cyberpunk dystopia.
This is almost exactly one of the things I took away after watching as well. The USA is already here, corporations have already won. Banks and employers are getting bailed out by the gov, our Healthcare system is almost eye to abstract eye with 2077's depiction, cops are acting more and more like 'gang' members, the majority of people who have jobs realize its near impossible to move up in position, most of our politicians are controlled by greed, and we watch people go 'psycho' almost weekly across the country with more cases of shootings and murders. Going 'psycho' in reality is just as depicted, a loss of humanity, loss of empathy. We only talk about them because they have the capacity to do harm, people go through this everyday but instead off themselves rather than others. My points can be picked apart, judged, even disagreed with. But at face value, edgerunners/2077 did a great job of comparing nightcity and society's problems/dangers. In reality, all this funny business is done behind a 'professional' curtain, behind closed doors that only the rich and powerful may access. We're already divided and fending for ourselves. Everything needs to stay 'Politically Correct'* to keep this order we live by. Because if its PC*, its legal.
That is kind of the point that cyberpunk as a genre tries to make. The best you can do is go out on your own terms because there is no hope. That has pretty much always been the message of the genre of cyberpunk.
Thats not the point, its first,a warning, And second the human element,that there is a human element in that,thsts cyberpunk. How people deal with that,noröt how it destroys them.
I went into the show blind and had a very easy time enjoying it even while not having played the game. Cyberpunk as a genre is something that's always been a favorite of mine. Growing up, I loved the show Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad and the 95 movie Hackers and it wasn't until my early 20's when I stumbled across Neuromancer and was properly hooked on Cyberpunk as a holistic concept
The world of Cyberpunk is very depressing, but I don't think 2077 and Edgerunners story is meant to be a story of nihilisim or hopelessness, they are stories that represent hope in a hopeless world. They both showcase the opposite sides of walking the same path. V and David are very similiar in the paths they walk, they both want to be legends in a city that doesn't give a shit about them, they both lose people who are important to them and as they keep walking down that path, they eventually are faced with choices that will either make or break them. Davids pursuit to fullfill other peoples dreams was the only choice he made because he didn't have a dream of his own, he kept chroming himself up because once Mane died he was trying to live for Mane's dream. He never stopped to consider what he actually wanted and him dying at the end was a result of his poor decision making, if he chose Lucy instead of living for Mane after his death, then he might have actually been happy. V is similar in that regard, he wanted to be a legend but after he lost Jackie and realized that he himself was dying, he chose to cling to life even though everything seemed hopeless. In my opinion, the Panam ending once V gets the relic out off his head, is the canon ending. He's still sick and still on the verge of dying, but there is hope, and if you romance Panam, she wants to help V find a way to stay alive because Night City has taken everything from both her and V. Panam is V's Lucy, she wants to help V stay alive and she knows the only way to do that is to get V out of Night City. The same way Lucy wanted to go to the Moon with David by the end of the Edgerunners. I don't believe Cyberpunk Edgerunners is a nihlisitic story, its a story that shows the consequences of our poor decision making and living for ideals rather than living for the people you care about. But there is hope, you just need to get away from the things that are clearly bad for you. David couldn't do that, so he died, V's pursuit for legend status taught him that living for dreams might lead to his destruction so he chose to live with Panam and hope for a better future.
Disagree, I think they serve as a warning to the modern world, that if we continue down this path of crushing the middle class, we WILL make a world without hope, where the happiest ending you can hope to get, is becoming a porn addict who dies while tripping balls jerking off. There is no hope for you in edge runners if you are born poor. None at all. I feel a anime that better represents hope in a hopeless world is Berserk. As to why, well that would need it's own video essay.
I disagree... There was never hope... We knew it... When he started twitching... We knew it... When maine started twitching... We knew it... We knew it was over when he joined the crew... There was never hope... It's a hopeless city... It's a dark city... It's night city
I think the depressing ending is the cannon one, it is the only one that makes sense story-wise and is such a beautiful end to a tragic story. Also Judy and Panam endings are gender-locked, so they don't make sense as canon.
While I think your response is a perfectly reasonable way to look at it, for me I find it actually cathartic to see art accurately reflect how hopeless the modern world can feel.
That whole tangent at the end was exactly the point of the miserable and hopeless anime! In cyberpunk the bad guys have already won, and any attempt to stir the nest is feeble and misguided at best. But what I think kind of gets lost is that people still have to live in this world, and they are doing the best they can in it. Seeing David rise above the street filth was my favorite part of the show, because that was a feat in itself; finding family after losing it all, finding new purpose, losing it all again, filling shoes, saying goodbye. Even though he ultimately dies and it all feels rather pointless, how different is that from any of us? We will all have rather timely and boring deaths having achieved only very mundane and unworthy things in the grand scheme. David was not anywhere near as special as he thought he was; None of the characters in the show were. It is an extremely effective (i think anyway) cautionary tale both on an individual level and in the macro as well.
The tragic thing about david is that if he just had slowed down on getting chrome or just stick with what complements with the sandy he would have been fine. He truly was special but he was so caught up with his idea of other people expectations that he wasnt listening to others around him in the present. It fits with his character and the show too. He is someone who grew up too fast. He had a power that made him fast and the series was only 10 episodes. Although he lead a team, he was still a kid and was blinded by his immaturity and the bigger picture. Its poetry.
It's funny that for how punk it looks and feels, everyone just kind of accepts the system and tries to make the best in it. Which goes, at least for me, against the spirit of punk
You just opened my eyes, l think message of the cyberpunk is punk as a cautionary-tale kind of way but none of the characters are punk and just embrace the style over substance. Like how Silverhand wants to look like punk in public image but actually a corporate lackey.
"Everyone just kind of accepts the system and tries to make the best in it" lmao what? The edgerunners are literally outlaws wtf are you talking about.
@@xenn4985 outlaws to a barely existing goverment not to the capitalist system ruled by corpos. Big deal of the cyberpunk world (which is mostly just Night City tbh rest of the world isn't that detailed) that its ruled by corporations even tho there are pretentious laws.
@@cangirayicel7639 "not to the capitalist system ruled by corpors" as they actively attempt to undermine them? Seriously what the fuck are you talking about?
I haven't played Cyberpunk, but I was able to pick up on the terminology of the anime instinctively. They did an excellent job of communication through tone and visuals.
I think what I liked about this anime was that it was one of the few where there is no hope. There's so many anime where the good is at the end of the tunnel. This was the one where it's like no. Things are shit, will stay shit and how do people cope with it.
I agree. I've seen a million animes of the happy go lucky shonen teen protag just make everything fine in the end. And after a while I'm just like, that's not life. I saw edge runners as more of a Greek tragedy. Also from the table top of cyberpunk the mood of the game is always been that way. High tech-low life. Blade runner ghost in the shell, many of these are always bitter sweet, it's kinda ingrain in the genre. I think berserk is an unfair comparison. If you take it for the equal run time of story you would not say that it is hopeful. It's hopeful now after like literally decades of story and the overall tone has changed tbh (still goat). Also Rebecca best girl don't @ me.
@@asura7915 I mean berserk isn't aimed at kids and is pretty dark but still has hope ingrained throughout. Same with monster and probably others that i can't think off the top of my head. I personally haven't come across many "here's a bad world, no one will be happy let's see what happens" anime but if you have a few I'd like to know so I can watch them 😂 I need to add to my backlog anyway
I've been a fan of the tabletop RPG for quite some time and cyberpunk as a genre has always been one of my favorites. I totally understand the nihilism of it can be a downer, but I enjoy exploring that kind of dark setting where everything is just shades of grey. Now if only Shadowrun could get some love!
11:40 I LOVE that you picked one of the creepiest cyberpsycho fights to use here, haha. That one was well memorable. I picked the game up April Fool's 2021 as a bit of a cheeky joke to myself cuz it was heavily discounted and found it to be a surprisingly grand game that I dunked many more hours than expected into. Sure I'm unable to run it at past Medium settings on 1080p without some really bad stutters, but the game is brilliant eyecandy nonetheless. Can't wait for the DLC, and I'm glad that people did eventually come around on this game.
I didn't even know about this and I am gonna check it for sure after watching this video! The combination of Cyberpunk's futuristic setting and anime's storytelling style will make a perfect match.
My favorite ending of cyberpunk is with Panam’s help and having Judy leave with you and her. It’s hopeful. It’s one of least depressing endings imo. Wanna cry then off yourself in game and watch sad credits of characters leaving messages
"not enough time to build up this romance" - were you ever a teenager? This stuff happens immediately. Two young persons falling for each other, having nobody else, seriously this felt like the most believeable part of the whole series.
Correction at 8:46 anyone can't just scan people to see if there's a bounty and then off them to collect it. Night City is not like the wild west in that regard. It is specifically stated in the game that Victor had unique access to the NCPD police database and uploaded this to V's chip - this database is not something you just come across or can buy from a convenience store. It's classified info that is supposed to be exclusive to the NCPD and their partners - so anyone who DOES have it and do go out of their way to collect those bounties, are presumed to be collaborating with the NCPD because nobody else is supposed to have access to this info. This is why whenever you get close to a crime site or scan for a bounty, the NCPD registers you doing this because you (as V) have access to the database and clearance protocols associated with it. Random goons can't collect bounties like this or everyone would be off-ing each other in the streets as it'd be the easiest way to collect cash rewards (and buy would there be 1000s of people lined up to collect such rewards). Also another point about David, at 15:20 you say "he thinks' he's special, but he's really not". I think in this statement you miss a very important detail. David IS special. Very special. Like 1 in a million special. What he does, the tolerances he has, this is something so unique that even Arasaka heads showed interest. And THAT is exactly the danger of Night City. The fact that it doesn't matter if you're special or not, inevitably the city will still eat you up and spit you out like dirt. You can be special, you can become a legend. Fate arrives the same for all regardless of whether you are scraping by on the street, or you're David Martinez who can run the Sandevistan 10 times a day without imploding and take down entire military convoys on your own. In the grand scheme of the city, even the most special people are nothing more than numbers in line, waiting to be replaced sooner or later. It's also the key to why greed is so prevalent, because the city is great at giving special people hope and fulfil their desires, but with each fulfilment there is an unspoken contract of expecting a little bit more next time. And this back-and-forth aspect has no limits until one side breaks. And like the house in a casino, Night City doesn't break.
I think it works in both a literal and ironic way. You're right, he is special in how he can handle his chrome. But at the end of the day he's just another dead gonk who's only remembered by a few people who don't want to talk about him (per the 2.0 quest where you get his jacket). He was only special until he wasn't. And that's the best you can hope for in the Cyberpunk 2077 world, even if you're Saburo Arasaka or Adam Smasher.
Another great video. I really appreciate how you guys can delve in these dank dark topics but keep a shred of light despite it all. Makes me feel like I'm not alone.
I think the idea of Cyberpunk as a genre is exactly to show us how things end if we lose. It's subposed to be like a shock to your system "oh, fuck. We either do something now, or we end up in a place where there's nothing we can do". Hope is probably the number 1 drug I'm hooked on right now, but I can appreciate from time to time a slap in the face like this. On top of that, if the world had more people like You and I, it would look different but there's so many people just blindly enjoying the ride that's heading of a cliff. Smart people try to tell us, warn us, inform us, but nothing works. Maybe people just aren't afraid enough?
8:05 Hey! Don't play that game with me. I grew KNOWING North American House Hippos existed. Used to leave one bite of my peanut butter toast for em. Mother couldn't figure out why I would do that lol. Ironic considering the actual meaning behind that commercial.
“Its a finger pointing out how fucked we all are” I think is the best way to summarize cyberpunk as a genre in one sentence and also the exact reason I fucking adore cyberpunk. Fantastic vid!
This anime honestly kinda terrified me. Not for it’s intense violence, but it’s dark themes hitting so close to home. I interpreted the shows concept of “getting chromed,” as getting high of drugs. Both my parents lives fell apart from years of severe drug and alcohol abuse, to the point where it broke apart my family. Now 22, as a kid I swore to myself never to drink and do drugs, for my entire childhood was destroyed because of it. With only my grandmother to support me I excelled in high school, earning a full ride scholarship to a private college. Being a first generation college student in my family kinda gave me the same mentality as David, that I’m “built different.” COVID-19 hit during the start of my junior of college, and my entire life folded. I became depressed, overweight, started drinking, smoke nicotine and weed every once and a while. I began to abuse alcohol hard, and while both friends and family would try and lecture me about it I would shrug it off, thinking that “I’m different. I won’t end up like my parents.” And due to an ignorant mind set, drinking too much, and prioritizing parting over school I ended up dropping out of college. All those years of hard work I put in, poof, gone. And for what? A couple of bad hangovers the next morning? Looking back, life in college is so fucking easy. It seemed like hell at the time but man I’d do anything to get back in that environment one day. But as of the past 5 months I’ve been trying to better my life, stopped smoking weed and drinking and just been living in the gym. My goal right now it to get in the best shape of my life and enlist in the military, in hopes that it will help me become the man I want to be. Like David, I hope that “I’m not too far gone.”
Don't join the military bro. That's not the answer. Thats just having other people tell you what to do and what to think. Only you know what will make you happiest and be the best you.
Hey man, I hope the last 4 months have done you good. If you fell off the band wagon of this post, then my comment notification is a reminder to re-read this and get back on track; if you haven't and you're kicking ass, then just keep on kicking ass!
This anime captured life perfectly in the most simplest form. The more you fxck around, the more you gon find out. And some ppl think hope gets you out of every situation. Hope and being realistic are very important when it comes to life- I personally love how they handled this anime- David was warned MANY times on how the path he was takin will lead to destruction and he knew that. He could’ve stepped away many times but dove deeper into the edge runner lifestyle. He knew the risks, and he chose to be a legend. I love this anime, not for everyone who can’t grasp reality, but it’s undeniably top tier
1:10 is the best take on cyberpunk ive heard, with just simplicity. Absolutely correct. Theres a wierd spread of depth to cyberpunk, where some stuff is incredibly complicated with textbooks of history, and other parts are totally lacking in depth. Like how do I know the life story of a random monk - without being able to paint my car... Also loved the take on trigger, and I agree. I guess the consensus on promare from what I saw was people loving it (mainly to ship characters...) But I thought it was astoundingly mid aside from the visuals, it just made me think of evangelion the entire time and was never all that gripping. Plus I couldn't remember the names of 80% of the characters, since none of them really mattered. --- On the subject of how they talk, the main thing i noticed behind insults like "gonk" and other slang, was the lack of "I" Generally characters aren't leading with nouns, or at least not "I". They would say "Got it down" rather than "I get it" or "not scared" rather than "I'm not scared", etc. Etc. Not great examples but hopefully it gets the point across.
I was cool all the way til the end when I heard this "Mom you see that I'm on top" man that broke me David should have moved away from the city when his mom died.
Cyberpunk nut izzy here from the discord! The reception the anime was so well-received that the publisher Talsorian Games, is working on an adventure module for the TTRPG! Big props to Mike Pondsmith and his son for being two of the best game designers and world builders out there. I highly recommend playing the TTRPG. I'll be running Cyberpunk Red with my friends in the summer. From what I have play tested and seen, it plays quicker than DND and it has a nice fumble system if you roll a failure.
I might not know what I'm talking about here, but I got the feeling that the "I will never die" scene was kind've about like.. how deeply damaged people can sometimes have a tendency to fall really hard, really quick.
Ultimately i think that at its core cyberpunk is about human connection. The world we see in-game and in the anime is a warning of what the world will become (and partially already is) if man abandons that connection. One of the keys to happiness. The aldecaldo ending spells this out the clearest. V will be happy having found a family and living out the remaining time he has with them. Another point. Cyberpsychosis. Yes, the implants do their part. However for the most part going cyberpsycho is caused by external pressures that NC puts on the affected. The alienation. On the opposite side, the cure is love, that human connection.
Despite the fact I also thought of the I will never die scene from team America the sad truth is that it fits perfectly with Lucy's character and backstory as she has a pathological need to dissemble her emotions even from herself as a coping mechanism, "I think promising he would always be with her" would be a better promise in terms of narrative arc but lets just make things clear. That girl was emotionally damaged and she needed David to base their relationship on a lie of security if she was ever going to be able to trust enough to become emotional vulnerable again; the saddest part of all this and what makes me forgive the cliché as a sin is that she becomes obsessed with David's safety later on as the lie divorces itself from reality and David's attempts to Chrome up are done for the same reason, trying to live up to the at impossible promise.
A lot of the stuff that's less explained in the game came from the tabletop RPG, such as your Humanity stat being linked to how much chrome you can use before suffering cyberpsychosis. Unfortunately they didn't have enough time to implement the humanity stat in the game mechanics.
Dude this anime is a complete emotional rollercoaster! I remember when I did my first viewing of this series and it took me on this upbeat, RGB keyboard aesthetic, that fools you with the vibrancy, and then makes you feel like you just took a Haymaker from Mike Tyson in his prime punch to your face with the truth of the world! Not many animes have made me feel like that .
I was roaming around Night City last night and saw some junkie dancing. I was like atleast shes having fun in this squaller. Then I realized she was tweaking. It reminded me of the streets of Philly. We are living in this reality now. Ads, Corps, the 1% and the poor. If I was to die now, my son would be in the same situation as David. This Anime was deep, for me.
edgerunners was the first anime ive been able to sit through and enjoy, tried one piece, naruto, pokemon, jojo, and some others that im blanking on all the basic intro ones and this is the only one that made me wanna keep coming back to watch it plus it tore my heart out near the end
Me too. Edgerunners was my first anime and is still the best. All other animes are wasting my time by dragging the story and all the "funny" animation changes break immersion according to me. I think this anime is so good thanks to Cd projekt who wrote and produced this show.
Went in to this blind and that exact moment David was presented with that can of his mother's ashes by that automat hit me like a brick wall. Because holy shit that could be us. From that moment on I watched the show with only one singular thought. "If our society continues as it is that is where we'll be headed. That could be us." They managed to write a dystopia reality based in our current reality and it sure is existential capitalist nightmare fuel.
I love Cyberpunk 2077 and the anime is absolutely incredible. It’s so badassss and will make you cry. It’s one of my favorite anime in a long time. This is “punk rock cartoons”. The world of cyberpunk is great in the games and there’s some fantastic characters so it enhances the experience with the anime. I’ve watched it in English and Japanese . They’re both good. And yeah it’s depressing but it was so good
Thanks for validating my feelings about this game and the anime. It’s fun to see and immerse yourself in, but not really a great time to live in when you peel the layers.
I would actually say watch the show first if you can, for me it makes the whole punk vibe click and made me understand the whole “style over substance” being a substance of its own
Good writeup, but disappointed you didn't mention Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games or the TTRPG source that gave all of this form. Heck if the bought the game on PC you got a PDF of Cyberpunk 2020 in the game directory and Cyberpunk RED has been out for a while (with the Black Chrome sourcebook just being released) Also the music from about 6:00 was from the Brigador game was it? And Gridman and Dynazenon are my jam.
People keep calling edgerunners a video game adaptation. Its not. Its a multimedia franchise that started with tabletop books like 30 years ago. Cyberpunk 2077 is an adaptation itself.
I was never bored watching edgerunners i thought some of the characters were cool. The story amazing. The ending had me in a chokehold and now everytime i hear i wanna stay at your house i start bawling. Im going back to rewatch it
I should point out that the video game actually does fully explain Cyberpsychosis (and the tabletop as well) with the game doing it in little messages you read during the Cyberpsycho missions. Essentially it's only noteworthy because the people having a psychotic break are chromed up. It's a convenient excuse to not address a mental health epidemic at large. Just like peeps who have unaliving ideation shouldn't keep a gun in their house these guys shouldn't be chromed up. In the tabletop there's a way to go through a round of therapy and getting rid of some chrome to reduce your stress level and then build back up on the crhome. Same way a boxer puts on weight again after a fight and then cuts weight before a big match. The cycle. Your body and mind need time to heal. And how much chrome can you use? Well it depends. There's a "humanity" stat (cut content from the video game, exists in the tabletop) where the more well-adjusted a person is the more they can take psychic damage from traumatic experiences and physical alteration. David's was very high because he had a naturally resilient personality and body, a great friend group, a loving mother, and a promising future (in theory) making him an anomaly in Night City. The irony of Arasaka's quest to find someone who can use a lot of chrome safely being that the world they are creating has made those sorts of people an endangered species. (And Smasher is just a freak of nature/psychopath with unique brain.)
When I heard there wouldn’t be a season 2 I, no joke, said fine I’ll do it myself and I’ve had so much fun doing it as a college finals assignment, had to write it as a movie for the class currently breaking it apart into episodes, that I went ahead and wrote two more seasons. It goes Heavy Metal(S2) Hi-NRG(S3) and Shoegaze(S4)
I think there is merit in art that expresses bleakness plainly. Like Art that makes you feel ‘Bad’ isn’t Bad Art. It might even be very effective if that was the point. The hope is that we aren’t these characters so we don’t have to make their choices. Like you walked away from the scene. It def struck a raw nerve when I saw it. Not entirely comfortable. But docking points because something hits home too well seems counterproductive.
One important thing to point out here is that... She won... Lucy won. People all over night city walk the path of the edgerunner only to end up dead in a gutter or at best with a drink named after them. They come, they play, they get flatlined. As you said, its candy coated bullshit... You play to lose. But Lucy didn't. Lucy got the money, made it out alive, and thats no small feat when taking on the corps... but was it worth it? no. She won and her prize was a reminder that everyone else was fed to the meat grinder while standing alone on the moon. She is a smart kid though. I hope she takes her fortune and runs far far away.
I think one of cyberpunk 2077s take aways is a better way to look at the world. If you look around, there's these legends who died, each with their own philosophy and goals. These get passed on through time, through word of mouth and things they've written themselves. When other characters look at that there's a chance they think nothing of it, but there's also a chance that it means something to the person who found out. Johnny Silverhand died to burn Arasaka to the ground, but there's no chance he could completely destroy Arasaka by himself and a couple of crew members. There's still people who remember him on the streets, and subscribe to his philosophy. Maybe one day, if enough people put everything into what they believe in, they can beat an entity far far greater than themselves. This is best shown by V literally being soul melded together with Johnny, which only happens because corpo hubris catches them in the ass. He may have died, but lived(in the sense of being able to think and do shit) on because Arasaka thought he was great enough to keep alive, the people he nuked think this. Johnny and Vs situation shows that if you continue trying, and passing down your philosophy, when you die you still live on eternally through the people you change. For the better or the worse. "Quiet life or blaze of glory" isn't "Stay alive or die" for a reason. Because even if you become a legend when you die, its how you lived that's truly remembered. You can also find a BD in the game that gives a warning about not following Davids footsteps and going cyberpsycho.
I don't know how you missed it, but the game explains it wonderfully. insofar as the fixer sending you after them for 'research' understand things, anyway. but she got the big picture; too much mech=insane.
I really resonate with what you said at the end. With everything going on in the world and my overall outlook on life , feels like we are playing a game we have already lost and there is no good ending. It can be so hard to not lose hope and optimism I know I need to get out of that mindset but what you said at the end helped me realize why I’ve been so torn over the end of the show. I couldn’t fully grasp why I’ve been so distraught Best wishes to anyone that stumbles upon this
The anime has a lot of optimism, in the form of David. He's basically the most optimistic character to ever exist in that universe. He just keeps trucking along and never, ever loses hope, no matter how desperate things get. Even at the end, he dies with a smile on his face.
For anyone else that can't or doesn't want to play 2077, the world and lore is based off of the Cyberpunk tabletop made by Mike Pondsmith and I seriously cannot recommend it enough. New consoles are expensive but dice and paper are way cheaper For anyone who has played 2077 and heard "Maximum Mike" on the radio, yeah that was Pondsmith. Most of his segments are references to the tabletop lore, other projects he's worked on or with, or just inspiration for a Cyberpunk campaign of your own
@@philo2189 it’s the same reason you would read a book, you use your imagination to tell the story. Unless you mean that people should use computers to write stuff down and a random number generator for die, then I would argue that a lot of people prefer to write on paper no matter what century your in.
European here, yeah, I visited Miami last year and it *already* had 100% Night City vibes with the serving class and the ones being served. You make a good point there.
I saw this in my feed just now and FUCK. YES. I never asked you to cover it but for the past few months it was ALWAYS in the back of my mind, I agree so hard with the "most Bonsai Pop anime ever" take because I've been thinking the exact same thing this whole time hahahah. Ofc it's exaggerated but it's definitely up there. Thank you for finally making a video on it!!! Edit: Just finished watching the video. Fantastic work, and great takes as always. I feel a little dumb now but eh it's cool :P
@@Bonsaipop Aw, thanks a lot for responding! I really appreciate the sentiment, man :) Edit: Reason I thought it was a good fit wasn't only because of the edginess and aesthetic, I was thinking a lot about the philosophical undertones and the punk lifestyle too as you mentioned in the video. Thought you'd be able to relate to it and all. Glad you got something out of it!! :D
Hard agree, that is one of the reasons I love berserk, the contrast between hope and hopelessness. Without hope berserk would really be what a lot of haters say it is "a pointless grimedark fanservice"
It's always interesting to see the reactions from people that might not be big into the Cyberpunk genre. Especially at the sheer bleakness of it all. It makes sense that it hits close to home with the messaging! it was a genre birthed in a time not too disimilar. H was never about being the bis damn hero type. It focused on messy people fighting to keep existing in an overtly hosti le society. As a naturally pessimistic person, I love it. But I often worry that the catharsis tha the genre offers with it's critiques are prone to fall into that weird place where misery is celebrated ...
Not having optimism is the core identity of dystopia done right. I personally loved the fact that the show was willing to let down the audience and hurt them a bit. no happy ending. no optimism. no salvation for anyone. pretty much dark dystopian reality. i loved every second and the show remains in my hurt because it really hit the feels for me. Probably because of the double connection the the world thanks to the game. I wish more shows were willing to take that risk but in a good approach, i didnt like how akame ga kill killed of everyone for example. Here it felt meaningful or when it wasnt meaningful in the moment it had payoff later on big time. I will probably rewatch it at some point but whenever i play and hear that song i just hurt actually thinking about it. From that perspective it has to be in my top 10 of shows all time because not many shows do that.
I kept this on the back burner for a bit because... well its Cyberpunk. 2 weeks ago I was like "Fuck it I'll check it out I guess." 5 hours never flew by so fast.
Man, I always watch your videos when they first come out. But this one? I had to come back to it later. I was just not in a good place to resubmit myself to this show. Idk what it is, but this "short" series impacted my life SO MUCH. Absolutely beautiful work from everyone involved. Welp, here I go, starting the video now
Amen to that ending monologue, dude. Within the past year, I've had to confront the fact that I was an alcoholic, even if I was drinking to fall asleep, it was too much for my body to handle and I realized it was either get sober or die young. Next week I'll be four months without a drink, and aside from my sleep schedule being non-existent, I'm doing SO much better than I was before rehab. It's just so easy to ride along the wave and keep living the same cycle, but most of that shit is literal poison to the human body and WILL kill you, sooner or later.
they didnt need to add the child having a sexual relationship with a grown woman. he may be 17 but he is portrayed as much younger physically and emotionally.
@Gorp Azorp Sir bye. He's 17 and she's 20. He's 18 by the 2nd half. Not that big of a deal. Also he has to kill and steal in a terrible society that forces him to. Him being in a relationship with a woman 3 years older than him is nothing compared to what he had to endure. The age difference isn't even that bad.
@@etherealdreamerart in Japan they just try-hards for this type of s*** yes you are correct all the corrupt, greedy,murdering bullshit that happens around them is much worse than them seeing each other, but Japan they just got to put it in there somehow which is why they're tryhards...... they didn't need to have this relationship between these two but they needed the love interest which is why smh......
I feel that many people are stuck on 2077 because of the overload of glitches when the game first dropped, but even after that the main story is short and doesn't explain much about implants or cyberpsychosis or any of the other deeper stuff that Edgerunner fleshed out, but it's all still in the game. Everything is explained through Side Missions, Gigs, and the other side content. Problem is that it's explained through shards that you have to pick up and read or emails and files on computers, not through spoken exposition, which for many including myself is too much when there is too much info they are trying to cram in. I love this game, I love this anime, and I loved this video on the franchise. Your take on the punk mindset was a view that I never considered and helped to explain the characters and their goals in a way that an introvert metalhead like myself just didn't have the world view to notice on any of my watch-throughs.
Your synopsis was amazing for this. Where it didn't land for you or was too much to swallow in its bleak nature is a staple in the cyberpunk genre. Existential nihilism. But that's not a dig at ya for not liking it. Uncomfortability was the point yah know. You nailed it with your interpretation.
I feel like most the cyberpunk stuff I’ve seen is much less bleak and way more hopeful. Think of the ending of Blade Runner or Akira, which are definitely not bleak. It might show the horrors of humanity, but Blade Runner specifically shows the beauty and humanity in the world. I find the more fantastical war based stories of Gundam and other sci-fi to be more bleak in their worldviews. What Cyberpunk media would be more bleak, because those seem interesting
I think the most important thing is to remember that the game isn't 'source material' for edgerunners. Both are set in the same timeline of the cyberpunk world and in the timeline, the events of edgerunners actually falls 1 year before the events of the game in 2077. Behind the game is an incredibly complex and detailed world which has been built over several games and books since the 80's all which add story to this same timeline. You can view all of the events in this world and its backstory etc on the wiki.
I love this anime, it's in my top three. I do think it needed at least 2 more episodes at the bare minimum. I would have loved 24 episodes. There could have been some fun episodic stories akin to Cowboy Bebop with Maine's crew
I think you're a bit off with your perspective on David. Everything he was doing was to get Lucy to the moon. Everything. He took his promise so seriously he was willing to go insane and/or die for it. Also, one beautiful thing about this series is that in the expanded lore of Cyberpunk 2077, you find out that very few things can revert cyberpsychosis, but one of the things that can is love. Feeling a connection to someone else that deeply can bring you back into the world from the depths of madness, and I think that's beautiful. In a shitty world, you have to look for the brightest spots.
What do you mean the radio music is pales in comparison to GTA, cyberpunk 2077 music is waaaay waaaaaaay better than gta it's not even worth considering lmao, even ponponshit is better than 80% of what came out of gta radio 🤣 Also the game actually explain how cyberpsycho works enough if you read all the entry about it, and some of the cyberpsycho mission manifest give us contex on how each victim become cyberpsycho which is neat
Hi everyone! Just wanted to reiterate that this is just an opinion video, but thank you for watching!
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Thanks again to everyone who recommended this one!
-Mike
I love Cyberpunk. The game and the anime. It is such a breath of fresh air in comparison to all the corporate bulls**it we consume regularly. It made me seek and understand what "punk" means. Which helped me understand a lot more about modern history than I did before.
I think that the punk movement, with its original ideas, have even more reason to exist now than back then. Specially with how powerful the top 1% is becoming right now.
In the 17th and 18th century we had the beginning of the "Age of Enlightenment". Where the ideals of rationality and science started to replace the ideals of religion and monarchy. It contradicted the existing beliefs at that time. The punk movement began as a reaction to the corporate stagnation in our society. Any cultural stagnation breeds a movement looking to change it.
If you listen to metal today. Remember that it sprang from the punk movement. And, ironically, even metal has become very corporate. Rock and metal is regularly shown in TV ads owned by the corporates that ruin our lives.
The punk movement changed a lot of our society for the better, and sometimes worse, but we cannot forget what it stands up for. Because we will need it more than ever in this AI future.
Great job y'all. While I didnt feel the same about how.hoprless the show was, hearing you talk about that really made me want a Cyberpunk property with a lot more direct hope and levity in it. That would definitely be pretty neat!
I love your vids and tastes but man do we differ from music and story tastes. The music has bands like HEALTH which is as old or probably older than NIN that pulls that industrial sound that fits the 80s so well. I also notice a lot of people who crack on this IP without really getting into the context of Cyberpunk as a genre. For everyone reading, Cyberpunk's story is less an exploration of a dystopian America over corporatized than it is about Death and coping with loss and the feeling of not being fulfilled. Of course the story will feel like not much if you're a busy reviewer who can only engage with content so much. If you like COD narration, Disco Elysium, or something like Nier Automata (all of which I like) you probably have the wrong expectation of the work.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077 is about living fast and dying hard. A very 80s sentiment. Do what you can and do what you want. Hence the punk part of cyberpunk as a genre--which falls in line with the typical rebellious depiction of punk. I don't think punk as you said it is a horrible bleak thing at its core. It's hedonist and nihilist and in the moment. Perhaps you've been carrying that weight of holding out for better days for your own benefit. Cyberpunk is just realistic in the sense that you're just hacking at a hydra. You shoot down one megabad and another one takes its place, but it's the plucky scrappy group of people you bring together and the people you lose along the way that builds you into something that eventually gets out of the rat race. Lucy got out. Lucy took some bangs and dents, but it took everyone to get there and that's what our society is like. We need help to get out of the game, other wise you're either a loser or another power player in the end. You can turn around and take a breath of Solarpunk and feel good, but running away from the bad things is a disservice to yourself. I'm not saying feel bad and be miserable like the rest of us, I'm saying that people can get something from this in the same way you learned how to have hope in your own low moments. Art isn't always a fiction of what could be, it's also a reflection. In all the reflections we see in that chrome we can reassert and redefine how we went to do this. Lucy had the time to reflect after being "special". David never questioned being special.
Also things to do in the game before you watch:
1) Music Volume up, embrace the bass in the radio
2) Finish Act 1
3) Get chased by the cops at max level
4) Do FIxer jobs
5) Read the books either in game or online. The little world building pieces. This one is for the Fallout and Elder Scrolls fans
Will you not go back to this like you said? Probably not as you are now, but I think this show has more going for it than we initially think.
Keep up the cool vids dude. As a creative from Springfield, MA as a hometown, cheers!
Overall good analysis, although I think you miss the point of cyberpunk (or any -punk for that matter) as a genre. These worlds are supposed to be hopeless and corrupt and what makes them “punk” is the characters fighting against it knowing they’ll very likely lose. Its important to tell these stories because they’re much closer to reality than the “glorious victory facing an overwhelming foe” stories we’re used to. Punk genre stories convey to their audience that what’s most important is the relationships we form and the moments we’re alive and together, even in the face of certain doom. I’ve faced my mortality before and that lesson, despite being seemingly hopeless, is actually far more comforting than the alternatives because it tells you to hold close your ideals and your loved ones because that’s all you really have in the end. None of us make it out of this thing alive, so who are you and did you stay true to yourself while making sure the people you care for knew they were loved?
Maybe Made in Abyss is the most Bonsai Pop anime of all time
It took me awhile to come to terms with the ending of Edgerunners- I like to think the series is a cautionary tale about living for other's dreams and damning yourself through good intentions. David ends the show having made every choice that lead him there and fulfilling the words of every dream everyone else had for him, but not the spirit. His mom wanted him safe, Lucy wanted to leave everything behind and start over with him- he just never valued himself enough to realize what they meant.
Freaking BANGER comment. Eloquently put. I really liked the write up, it helped clarify my interpretation of the aspect of the story you talked about. Cheers! ^^
Yes! My partner and I both watched the anime and played the game all the way through (we got different endings in the first play through due to different play styles which was cool) but, depending on the ending you get, the game kind of has the same feeling. You realize how really dark Night City is, that there really isn't a way out. That either you're born at the top and just have to keep that status (which isn't easy either) or you're born at the bottom and die there or die trying to climb to the top. OR leave the city altogether IF you can get a big enough bag.
Paraphrasing a comment from another video here, but it really is tragic how he achieved all those dreams.
His mom wanted him to make it to the top of Arasaka Tower..... And he does so, but as a fugitive.
He wanted to follow in Main's footsteps and he does so.... By going psycho and getting his friends killed.
Lucy wanted to go to the moon and he gets her there.... After replacing her dream with the dream of the two of them being happy together.
David fulfills all of those dreams, just not in the way anyone would have wanted
Absolutely in full agreement. It left such a bad taste in my mouth but when my friend was talking shit about it, i couldn't agree that it was bad or meaningless, and actually explaining what was going on (because they didn't watch the full series), I came to this same conclusion.
The shows ONLY misstep is in not better planting and watering the seeds just a bit more of David not just materially, but spiritually/psychologically getting entrapped by a brutal culture that does nothing but devalue human life, and the ways that infected his value of his own life.
It was a twistedly selfish willingness to disregard himself that hurt those around him so much and damn if it doesn't hit close to home as a powerful warning for me.
I don't think they needed to spell it out word for word, because leaving the viewer upset, dissatisfied, and maybe even pissed with how it all turned out, is key to sticking it into the heads of the people who need to hear its message most. I just think it would be way better if there were at least one or two little moments that helped better draw attention to the cause for his actions rather than relying _entirely_ on reading the subtext.
I absolutely love when shows respect the intelligence and maturity of the viewer to sit them down with something like this, but they just barely missed the mark I think. I hate the idea of so many people missing the point of the series when just a few adjustments could have made it a near perfect show that spoke so well to so many.
i feel like david's story is similar to his mom.
his mom works 24/7 for him to be successful at a megacorp, while david never actually wants it, he only wants his mom to stay at home and be with him.
david sacrificed himself for lucy to get her to the moon, while all she wanted was to get away from night city and start over with him.
"bitter sweet" is the happiest you can ever get in the cyberpunk world and this anime did it so perfectly
Idk man, id say being an exec of a large corp aint too bad
@@alpha_9997 money is well and good but if nobody likes you then is that really happy, corpos are about the most hated group off people among the general night city population
@@alpha_9997well, you'd be literally 24/7 someone's target, either it is competing corporations or your subordinates, ready to dismiss you and take your place
And it seems they are eager to resort to violence in order to achieve their goals
@@ko71k52 you have enougn money to fight god, the only reason they stay is typically due to some misguided sense of loyalty. If im in their shoes, im moving to a remot island
“What weRe Yiu expecting?”
“I dunno,a happy ending?”
“People like us? In this city? We don’t get happy endings…”
Just for Context there is a way to Cure Cyberpsychosis.
Mike Pondsmith, the guy who created Cyberpunk has said that Cyberpsychosis can be cured by Love.
It's Human connection that helps a person recover from it and Love is the strongest form of connection.
That is why David is this resistant, his Love for Lucy litteraly keeps him sane.
And before that, he had other connections and people to care about that kept him going.
@@joelsasmad Yeah. Gloria did 80% of the Prep. Maine did another 20% and after that his Love for Lucy carried him to the End.
"Cyberpsychosis" is just a form of psychosis caused by cyberware, and if we can treat psychosis then we can treat "Cyberpsychosis"
Really love smh.......
@@darkenedpsynoid Yup. In the TTRPG you had an empathy stat - which was directly linked to how much chrome you could pack before losing your marbles. . A high starting empathy gave a huge advantage if you wanted to go 'borg. So, yeah, love makes sense as a "cure" - anything that helps you feel empathy towards the puny fleshy sacks of blood around you again is a boon.
Welcome to the Edgerunner feels club. We got endless sadness, huge amount of Rebecca fanart, and non-stop playing of 'I really want to stay at your house.'
😭👍
I have replayed that song literally hundreds of times, so hauntingly heartbreaking in the best way. Rebecca and Lucy take their rightful place as Queens of Cyberpunk alongside Motoko Kusanagi, Priss (both Blade Runner and Bubblegum Crisis versions), Re-l Mayer (Ergo Proxy), Deunan Knute (Appleseed), Vivy (Flourite Eyes) and my personal favorite 2B (Nier Automata)
Ugh you guys are so cringe
That is pretty much cyberpunk. High tech, low life. Ultimate all your struggles are meaningless as you cant stop the moneyed interest operating at levels you cant understand like its some kind of Lovecraftian eldritch god. It's a hell of a ride and nobody gets out alive
In the 90s , ANIME true anime not the westernized cartoons , most of the anime were DEEP sad and gave you a lonely / miserable feeling. This a an amazing project.
Fr
Welcome to the “I just want to stay at your house” pain cave.
Let's gooo
I feel Edgerunners could've used a couple more episodes inbetween to flesh out more things in the story. I think it wouldve been cool to see David rise up to Maine's position and see how he overcame that grief.
Even tho I think that the second half is weak, I think that adding more episodes would not benefit the story. It would take away more than it would add. Maybe an extra episode at most. It might make the second half a bit stronger however it wouldn’t have the same live fast, die young message it’s sending quite as effective
He didn’t overcome it, that’s one of the points of the show. Because the city is so ruthless he never had time to process what happened. The short length of the show is supposed to make you feel the same way
Nah, thought the pace was excellent. Too many shows and anime go on longer than they should. It wanted to tell a certain story, and it did it very well.
@@someguy3186 too many anime go shorter than they should.
@@mookiestewart3776 yeah but it also makes me feel the show was rushed in some aspects. I just think it couldve used another episode or two to flesh out more stuff post maine, for better impact on the other characters decisions and deaths.
In my opinion, the saddest thing about the ending (sadder than all the deaths) is the fact that Lucy is alone and probably feels guilty as hell. She was trying so hard to save David that she ironically ended up being the the biggest factor in arasaka being able to lure him out. She distanced herself, got captured, got David wrapped up in a whole mess without ever being able to talk to him and clear her name. Imagine having to live with that guilt. I really felt for her in that ending scene on the moon, where she realizes that David is no longer there. You can tell she blames herself for everything. In the end, David failed to realize that her dream wasn't the moon anymore, it was a life of peace with him. Be it on the moon, or wherever. She just wanted him to be there. Imagine how she felt when falco said "if I turn around now David will have died for nothing" and when falco told her David apologized for not being able to go to the moon with her. Her entire being probably broke in that moment and the guilt probably started to kick in as she was fully taking in what was being said to her. I feel like if she communicated with David, and talked to him sooner, she could've gotten him off the cyberware that ultimately ended up giving him cyberpsychosis and they could've laid low, got enough money and potentially left. Truly one of the most tragic stories.
I remember seeing Fan art of Lucy curled up in the fetal position crying in a shower while on the moon a long time ago. Your comment helped me conceptualize that image again.
@@jonathanrelatado5349 sorry that I made you remember that😭 it was just so sad to think about that, you know?
To be honest, my view on the heartbreak that is the ending is just summarizing what you said. the saddest part about how things turned out was that it was actually avoidable. if Lucy had just stayed part of the gang and told David that she was going to do her own thing on the side, Lucy would have never gotten captured, David wouldn't have fallen to cyberpsychosis, and the gang would be able to see the sunrise on a new horizon. So Lucy not only fells survivors guilt, which means she is saddened by that fact that she was the only one to survive, but she is also felling self-guilt, which means she is blaming herself for everyone's deaths because she fells that is her fault that they are all dead.
@@tariqsmith1235 you're spot on. It's such a tragic show and I really feel so bad for Lucy. What's worse is that they made one season and didn't look back to it. So we will never get closure from a potential season 2 or even an update as to how Lucy is doing. I've seen a lot of people speculate that when the screen turns black at the end, it's Lucy taking her helmet off on the moon to end it all. It's crazy how many theories have been made from this show. Truly a tragic masterpiece.
didnt look back to it? As bleak as things looked you can never say never considering how fucking successful it was obviously everything is in CDPR hands from here on out what they decide to do coz if they actually tried this could literally become one of most watched animes probably ever considering how dense the worl of cyberpunk is, obviously im running on full copium here but i want to have at least a little bit of hope that things might not have ended the way it did.tho studio trigger can go fuck themselves they ruin everything they touch. This wasnt even bittersweet just pure and insanely bitter@@breadthgaming
When the Cyberpunk genre was conceptualized in the 80's, the world was a very different place. It was made to contrast the hopeful and idealistic version of future that most other authors were creating. That's sort of why it got popular among the youth of the time. But I understand your point. It's eerie how much this just reminds one of today's world and boy, isn't that depressing.
I guess life imitates art
They were made to contrast more hopeful futurist sci-fi at the time, however the reason they are so uncanny is because they were exaggerations and allegories for real problems or problems that could arise based on new technologies and their consequences. Futurism expects technological innovation will bring about a peaceful golden age and somehow change human nature, works in the cyberpunk and dystopia genre pose that we will be exactly as horrible and disgusting as we used to be if not made worse by the technological progress rather than made into some Star Trek moral high ground pacifist.
We're pretty much in a cyberpunk dystopia already, we just don't have the cool tech yet.
We live in a cyberpunk dystopia minus the cool stuff
Does it make me a bad person that I will intentionally not hype this anime up to friends just tell em it was in my top 30 so they inevitably watch it and I get to see their pure unfiltered emotions at any of the soul snatching moments when they tell me I'm a bastard for not warning them?
Nah that sounds like how friends should be lol
I break my friends bones and kidnap them. It's what friends are for
imma do the same thing
hehehehe yeah boiii xD
This is the WAY
I saw Cyberpunk Edgerunners late last year and it hit me different. The first thing I took of it was just how pessimistic and bleak it was. Being someone who is dark and occasionally pessimistic myself, it felt a lot like reality.
I really love the characters and I'm bummed David didn't give Rebecca a little of the love she was showing him.
I also saw this anime when I was super depressed and I cannot talk enough how good the outro song by Dawid Podsiadlo is.
If you haven't already seen it, they've got an official music video for the outro song, which I think was made by Studio Trigger again (the same animation studio that made the anime).
Great companion for the song, although this is a Cyberpunk music video, so if you haven't seen it, then be ready for the BIG SAD.
@@tweda4 I have seen the music video and damn, it's even darker than the anime.
I can't help wondering how David's life path might have been different had he chosen to accept Rebecca's advances after Lucy left. Would she have been able to get through to him and guide him to a better place? 😢
@@Jesus8998 I totally agree with you. This is one of those cases where just one action could have saved his life.
Becca is a ride or die and a softie at heart but hey, love matter huh?
Because night city always wins
I thought that David not having a dream, was because he had his mom’s, Maine’s AND Lucy’s dreams to carry. He was taking those jobs to make money to get her to the moon, run the crew like Maine, and be successful for his mom.
Still super bittersweet that in a world of greed and selfishness he wanted to carry the torches for others. When he takes his mom’s jacket, and Maine’s arms he physically even takes them up.
The hopelessness of Edgerunners is the highlight for me; One series that actually comitted to it.
It hurt, but it was appreciated.
Just wanna say, in the game cyberpsycosis is heavily implied to just be regular people in a bad situation who didn't have the resources they needed to get help. They just happened to have the power to do great harm when they lose their shit.
It's just a regular psychotic episode except the guy going through it has a machine pistol he bought for $20 from a vending machine and a 30mm cannon built into his arm.
This is pretty much spelled out in the TTRPG that the video game and the anime is based on. There are full-body (or full-borg) people in the Cyberpunk 2020 and 2077 world who don't suffer from Cyberpsychosis and what it comes down to is money. In the TTRPG it's called the "Therapy Mechanic" and it's described as "One week of intensive psychotherapy combining stress and anger management counseling, hypnosis, and minor direct brain reprogramming, aided by pharmaceuticals, and a safe environment which may be induced by therapeutic braindance." with the mechanic playing out as:
Patient regains 2d6 of their lost Humanity. Each piece of cyberware will decrease your maximum Humanity by 2. Each piece of borgware cyberware lowers maximum Humanity by 4 instead. Cyberware with 0 Humanity Loss on installation will not decrease your maximum Humanity.
In the Regina Jones missions you basically see that, people who fall to cyberpsychosis almost to a T either don't have the resources for therapy, they had those resources stripped away from them, OR in the extreme cases they had the cyberware forced on them with no hope of therapy afterwards (thinking the Maelstrom one in particular). This lines up with basically how stuff is today and our current mental healthcare situation pretty neatly if you think about it, except taken to extremes due to the nature of the world it's portrayed in.
One thing I love the anime for is how much more graphic it made the cyberware installation come across. In the game it was just an upgrade path like any other, but because it was a first-person PoV where you almost never get to see your character outside of menu screens and buying/installing new gear happens in the snap of a finger, it was hard to really catch on to what you were actually doing to your body then.
Its worth mentioning that in the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson, the series of books that basically created the Cyberpunk genre, some of the main characters do get happy endings - because they walk the fuck away from the kind of life people like David and Maine lived
You completely missed the whole message about trauma. As a fellow former street punk this all hit very home. I've watched drugs and fast living consume friends but I also know the pain that brings you into such a spiteful life. And there really is no hope in this capitalist hellscape, unless we come together. The bad guys have fuckin won. We're already scraping by in a lame cyberpunk dystopia.
Explain your situation
@@jinchuriki7022 ......... What?
This is almost exactly one of the things I took away after watching as well. The USA is already here, corporations have already won. Banks and employers are getting bailed out by the gov, our Healthcare system is almost eye to abstract eye with 2077's depiction, cops are acting more and more like 'gang' members, the majority of people who have jobs realize its near impossible to move up in position, most of our politicians are controlled by greed, and we watch people go 'psycho' almost weekly across the country with more cases of shootings and murders. Going 'psycho' in reality is just as depicted, a loss of humanity, loss of empathy. We only talk about them because they have the capacity to do harm, people go through this everyday but instead off themselves rather than others.
My points can be picked apart, judged, even disagreed with. But at face value, edgerunners/2077 did a great job of comparing nightcity and society's problems/dangers.
In reality, all this funny business is done behind a 'professional' curtain, behind closed doors that only the rich and powerful may access. We're already divided and fending for ourselves. Everything needs to stay 'Politically Correct'* to keep this order we live by. Because if its PC*, its legal.
I'm sorry for you losses or experience but I don't think he missed the whole message about trauma??
@@WXW1Diagoko it's no biggy
That is kind of the point that cyberpunk as a genre tries to make. The best you can do is go out on your own terms because there is no hope. That has pretty much always been the message of the genre of cyberpunk.
Thats not the point, its first,a warning,
And second the human element,that there is a human element in that,thsts cyberpunk. How people deal with that,noröt how it destroys them.
I went into the show blind and had a very easy time enjoying it even while not having played the game. Cyberpunk as a genre is something that's always been a favorite of mine. Growing up, I loved the show Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad and the 95 movie Hackers and it wasn't until my early 20's when I stumbled across Neuromancer and was properly hooked on Cyberpunk as a holistic concept
The music and vibe of the series was so damn cool, plus David's journey was such a wild ride
The world of Cyberpunk is very depressing, but I don't think 2077 and Edgerunners story is meant to be a story of nihilisim or hopelessness, they are stories that represent hope in a hopeless world. They both showcase the opposite sides of walking the same path. V and David are very similiar in the paths they walk, they both want to be legends in a city that doesn't give a shit about them, they both lose people who are important to them and as they keep walking down that path, they eventually are faced with choices that will either make or break them.
Davids pursuit to fullfill other peoples dreams was the only choice he made because he didn't have a dream of his own, he kept chroming himself up because once Mane died he was trying to live for Mane's dream. He never stopped to consider what he actually wanted and him dying at the end was a result of his poor decision making, if he chose Lucy instead of living for Mane after his death, then he might have actually been happy.
V is similar in that regard, he wanted to be a legend but after he lost Jackie and realized that he himself was dying, he chose to cling to life even though everything seemed hopeless. In my opinion, the Panam ending once V gets the relic out off his head, is the canon ending. He's still sick and still on the verge of dying, but there is hope, and if you romance Panam, she wants to help V find a way to stay alive because Night City has taken everything from both her and V. Panam is V's Lucy, she wants to help V stay alive and she knows the only way to do that is to get V out of Night City. The same way Lucy wanted to go to the Moon with David by the end of the Edgerunners.
I don't believe Cyberpunk Edgerunners is a nihlisitic story, its a story that shows the consequences of our poor decision making and living for ideals rather than living for the people you care about. But there is hope, you just need to get away from the things that are clearly bad for you. David couldn't do that, so he died, V's pursuit for legend status taught him that living for dreams might lead to his destruction so he chose to live with Panam and hope for a better future.
Disagree, I think they serve as a warning to the modern world, that if we continue down this path of crushing the middle class, we WILL make a world without hope, where the happiest ending you can hope to get, is becoming a porn addict who dies while tripping balls jerking off.
There is no hope for you in edge runners if you are born poor. None at all.
I feel a anime that better represents hope in a hopeless world is Berserk. As to why, well that would need it's own video essay.
I disagree... There was never hope... We knew it... When he started twitching... We knew it... When maine started twitching... We knew it... We knew it was over when he joined the crew... There was never hope... It's a hopeless city... It's a dark city... It's night city
I think the depressing ending is the cannon one, it is the only one that makes sense story-wise and is such a beautiful end to a tragic story.
Also Judy and Panam endings are gender-locked, so they don't make sense as canon.
While I think your response is a perfectly reasonable way to look at it, for me I find it actually cathartic to see art accurately reflect how hopeless the modern world can feel.
agreed
That whole tangent at the end was exactly the point of the miserable and hopeless anime! In cyberpunk the bad guys have already won, and any attempt to stir the nest is feeble and misguided at best. But what I think kind of gets lost is that people still have to live in this world, and they are doing the best they can in it. Seeing David rise above the street filth was my favorite part of the show, because that was a feat in itself; finding family after losing it all, finding new purpose, losing it all again, filling shoes, saying goodbye. Even though he ultimately dies and it all feels rather pointless, how different is that from any of us? We will all have rather timely and boring deaths having achieved only very mundane and unworthy things in the grand scheme. David was not anywhere near as special as he thought he was; None of the characters in the show were. It is an extremely effective (i think anyway) cautionary tale both on an individual level and in the macro as well.
Huge fan of your channel. We have a very similar taste in anime. Basically everything you recommend, I like. Keep going!
I'm very picky with my anime but yeah bonsai has awesome recommendations
@@sea_triscuit7980 Yup, same here. What're your favorites?
The tragic thing about david is that if he just had slowed down on getting chrome or just stick with what complements with the sandy he would have been fine. He truly was special but he was so caught up with his idea of other people expectations that he wasnt listening to others around him in the present. It fits with his character and the show too. He is someone who grew up too fast. He had a power that made him fast and the series was only 10 episodes. Although he lead a team, he was still a kid and was blinded by his immaturity and the bigger picture. Its poetry.
It's funny that for how punk it looks and feels, everyone just kind of accepts the system and tries to make the best in it. Which goes, at least for me, against the spirit of punk
You just opened my eyes, l think message of the cyberpunk is punk as a cautionary-tale kind of way but none of the characters are punk and just embrace the style over substance. Like how Silverhand wants to look like punk in public image but actually a corporate lackey.
Yes and no, they are punk in the sense that they aren't corpo. They are all in their way fighting against the system within their own street systems.
"Everyone just kind of accepts the system and tries to make the best in it" lmao what? The edgerunners are literally outlaws wtf are you talking about.
@@xenn4985 outlaws to a barely existing goverment not to the capitalist system ruled by corpos. Big deal of the cyberpunk world (which is mostly just Night City tbh rest of the world isn't that detailed) that its ruled by corporations even tho there are pretentious laws.
@@cangirayicel7639 "not to the capitalist system ruled by corpors" as they actively attempt to undermine them? Seriously what the fuck are you talking about?
I haven't played Cyberpunk, but I was able to pick up on the terminology of the anime instinctively. They did an excellent job of communication through tone and visuals.
I think what I liked about this anime was that it was one of the few where there is no hope. There's so many anime where the good is at the end of the tunnel. This was the one where it's like no. Things are shit, will stay shit and how do people cope with it.
I agree. I've seen a million animes of the happy go lucky shonen teen protag just make everything fine in the end. And after a while I'm just like, that's not life. I saw edge runners as more of a Greek tragedy. Also from the table top of cyberpunk the mood of the game is always been that way. High tech-low life.
Blade runner ghost in the shell, many of these are always bitter sweet, it's kinda ingrain in the genre.
I think berserk is an unfair comparison. If you take it for the equal run time of story you would not say that it is hopeful. It's hopeful now after like literally decades of story and the overall tone has changed tbh (still goat).
Also Rebecca best girl don't @ me.
@@DeadpoolAli well that's your problem for watching a lot of Shonen anime that's how they always go
@@darkenedpsynoid yep ,obviously something thats aimed at a younger demographic wont have some super depressing or tragic ending
Glad it was like that too. The anime really did a great job at capturing the vibe of the game with it's own Trigger spin.
@@asura7915 I mean berserk isn't aimed at kids and is pretty dark but still has hope ingrained throughout. Same with monster and probably others that i can't think off the top of my head. I personally haven't come across many "here's a bad world, no one will be happy let's see what happens" anime but if you have a few I'd like to know so I can watch them 😂 I need to add to my backlog anyway
I've been a fan of the tabletop RPG for quite some time and cyberpunk as a genre has always been one of my favorites. I totally understand the nihilism of it can be a downer, but I enjoy exploring that kind of dark setting where everything is just shades of grey.
Now if only Shadowrun could get some love!
11:40 I LOVE that you picked one of the creepiest cyberpsycho fights to use here, haha. That one was well memorable. I picked the game up April Fool's 2021 as a bit of a cheeky joke to myself cuz it was heavily discounted and found it to be a surprisingly grand game that I dunked many more hours than expected into. Sure I'm unable to run it at past Medium settings on 1080p without some really bad stutters, but the game is brilliant eyecandy nonetheless. Can't wait for the DLC, and I'm glad that people did eventually come around on this game.
The fact that the anime is cannon, reveals so much while you’re playing. Your first home literally is the home Martinez grew up in.
I didn't even know about this and I am gonna check it for sure after watching this video!
The combination of Cyberpunk's futuristic setting and anime's storytelling style will make a perfect match.
My favorite ending of cyberpunk is with Panam’s help and having Judy leave with you and her. It’s hopeful. It’s one of least depressing endings imo. Wanna cry then off yourself in game and watch sad credits of characters leaving messages
Judy’s message in one particularly depressing ending really ripped apart my soul for days.
"not enough time to build up this romance" - were you ever a teenager? This stuff happens immediately. Two young persons falling for each other, having nobody else, seriously this felt like the most believeable part of the whole series.
unfortunately in this bleak world that kind of fast paced love is either taken by pornography or dating sites lol
Hell of a video man. especially that ending. Always helps to remember we can't give up and there is always hope.
I cried in the end. Can't even listen to the song without choking up
Correction at 8:46 anyone can't just scan people to see if there's a bounty and then off them to collect it. Night City is not like the wild west in that regard. It is specifically stated in the game that Victor had unique access to the NCPD police database and uploaded this to V's chip - this database is not something you just come across or can buy from a convenience store. It's classified info that is supposed to be exclusive to the NCPD and their partners - so anyone who DOES have it and do go out of their way to collect those bounties, are presumed to be collaborating with the NCPD because nobody else is supposed to have access to this info.
This is why whenever you get close to a crime site or scan for a bounty, the NCPD registers you doing this because you (as V) have access to the database and clearance protocols associated with it. Random goons can't collect bounties like this or everyone would be off-ing each other in the streets as it'd be the easiest way to collect cash rewards (and buy would there be 1000s of people lined up to collect such rewards).
Also another point about David, at 15:20 you say "he thinks' he's special, but he's really not". I think in this statement you miss a very important detail. David IS special. Very special. Like 1 in a million special. What he does, the tolerances he has, this is something so unique that even Arasaka heads showed interest. And THAT is exactly the danger of Night City. The fact that it doesn't matter if you're special or not, inevitably the city will still eat you up and spit you out like dirt. You can be special, you can become a legend. Fate arrives the same for all regardless of whether you are scraping by on the street, or you're David Martinez who can run the Sandevistan 10 times a day without imploding and take down entire military convoys on your own. In the grand scheme of the city, even the most special people are nothing more than numbers in line, waiting to be replaced sooner or later. It's also the key to why greed is so prevalent, because the city is great at giving special people hope and fulfil their desires, but with each fulfilment there is an unspoken contract of expecting a little bit more next time. And this back-and-forth aspect has no limits until one side breaks. And like the house in a casino, Night City doesn't break.
I think it works in both a literal and ironic way. You're right, he is special in how he can handle his chrome. But at the end of the day he's just another dead gonk who's only remembered by a few people who don't want to talk about him (per the 2.0 quest where you get his jacket). He was only special until he wasn't. And that's the best you can hope for in the Cyberpunk 2077 world, even if you're Saburo Arasaka or Adam Smasher.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners was a great show, I really loved its overall style, music and vibe. It was quite the wild journey.
Another great video. I really appreciate how you guys can delve in these dank dark topics but keep a shred of light despite it all. Makes me feel like I'm not alone.
Neat to find a video not only singing praise for the show. Liked your take on it.
@8:04 The house hippo is real btw, I know because I've seen it on TV.
I think the idea of Cyberpunk as a genre is exactly to show us how things end if we lose. It's subposed to be like a shock to your system "oh, fuck. We either do something now, or we end up in a place where there's nothing we can do".
Hope is probably the number 1 drug I'm hooked on right now, but I can appreciate from time to time a slap in the face like this.
On top of that, if the world had more people like You and I, it would look different but there's so many people just blindly enjoying the ride that's heading of a cliff. Smart people try to tell us, warn us, inform us, but nothing works. Maybe people just aren't afraid enough?
8:05 Hey! Don't play that game with me. I grew KNOWING North American House Hippos existed. Used to leave one bite of my peanut butter toast for em. Mother couldn't figure out why I would do that lol. Ironic considering the actual meaning behind that commercial.
“Its a finger pointing out how fucked we all are” I think is the best way to summarize cyberpunk as a genre in one sentence and also the exact reason I fucking adore cyberpunk.
Fantastic vid!
10:00
"it's not an escape. It's a finger pointing out how fucked we all are."
Realest shit I have ever heard.
"NO FUTURE" is a central theme of the world of 2077 though.
This anime honestly kinda terrified me. Not for it’s intense violence, but it’s dark themes hitting so close to home. I interpreted the shows concept of “getting chromed,” as getting high of drugs. Both my parents lives fell apart from years of severe drug and alcohol abuse, to the point where it broke apart my family. Now 22, as a kid I swore to myself never to drink and do drugs, for my entire childhood was destroyed because of it. With only my grandmother to support me I excelled in high school, earning a full ride scholarship to a private college. Being a first generation college student in my family kinda gave me the same mentality as David, that I’m “built different.” COVID-19 hit during the start of my junior of college, and my entire life folded. I became depressed, overweight, started drinking, smoke nicotine and weed every once and a while. I began to abuse alcohol hard, and while both friends and family would try and lecture me about it I would shrug it off, thinking that “I’m different. I won’t end up like my parents.” And due to an ignorant mind set, drinking too much, and prioritizing parting over school I ended up dropping out of college. All those years of hard work I put in, poof, gone. And for what? A couple of bad hangovers the next morning? Looking back, life in college is so fucking easy. It seemed like hell at the time but man I’d do anything to get back in that environment one day. But as of the past 5 months I’ve been trying to better my life, stopped smoking weed and drinking and just been living in the gym. My goal right now it to get in the best shape of my life and enlist in the military, in hopes that it will help me become the man I want to be. Like David, I hope that “I’m not too far gone.”
Don't join the military bro. That's not the answer. Thats just having other people tell you what to do and what to think. Only you know what will make you happiest and be the best you.
Hey man, I hope the last 4 months have done you good. If you fell off the band wagon of this post, then my comment notification is a reminder to re-read this and get back on track; if you haven't and you're kicking ass, then just keep on kicking ass!
This anime captured life perfectly in the most simplest form. The more you fxck around, the more you gon find out. And some ppl think hope gets you out of every situation. Hope and being realistic are very important when it comes to life- I personally love how they handled this anime- David was warned MANY times on how the path he was takin will lead to destruction and he knew that. He could’ve stepped away many times but dove deeper into the edge runner lifestyle. He knew the risks, and he chose to be a legend. I love this anime, not for everyone who can’t grasp reality, but it’s undeniably top tier
1:10 is the best take on cyberpunk ive heard, with just simplicity.
Absolutely correct. Theres a wierd spread of depth to cyberpunk, where some stuff is incredibly complicated with textbooks of history, and other parts are totally lacking in depth.
Like how do I know the life story of a random monk - without being able to paint my car...
Also loved the take on trigger, and I agree.
I guess the consensus on promare from what I saw was people loving it (mainly to ship characters...) But I thought it was astoundingly mid aside from the visuals, it just made me think of evangelion the entire time and was never all that gripping. Plus I couldn't remember the names of 80% of the characters, since none of them really mattered.
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On the subject of how they talk, the main thing i noticed behind insults like "gonk" and other slang, was the lack of "I"
Generally characters aren't leading with nouns, or at least not "I".
They would say "Got it down" rather than "I get it" or "not scared" rather than "I'm not scared", etc. Etc.
Not great examples but hopefully it gets the point across.
I was cool all the way til the end when I heard this "Mom you see that I'm on top" man that broke me David should have moved away from the city when his mom died.
Cyberpunk nut izzy here from the discord!
The reception the anime was so well-received that the publisher Talsorian Games, is working on an adventure module for the TTRPG! Big props to Mike Pondsmith and his son for being two of the best game designers and world builders out there. I highly recommend playing the TTRPG. I'll be running Cyberpunk Red with my friends in the summer. From what I have play tested and seen, it plays quicker than DND and it has a nice fumble system if you roll a failure.
One of the best anime I’ve seen. I did not expect this level of quality from a cyberpunk anime, but here we are!
I might not know what I'm talking about here, but I got the feeling that the "I will never die" scene was kind've about like.. how deeply damaged people can sometimes have a tendency to fall really hard, really quick.
I actually love that they went for the "I will never die" death flag so hard it was so ironic it was un-ironic
Ultimately i think that at its core cyberpunk is about human connection.
The world we see in-game and in the anime is a warning of what the world will become (and partially already is) if man abandons that connection. One of the keys to happiness.
The aldecaldo ending spells this out the clearest. V will be happy having found a family and living out the remaining time he has with them.
Another point. Cyberpsychosis. Yes, the implants do their part. However for the most part going cyberpsycho is caused by external pressures that NC puts on the affected. The alienation. On the opposite side, the cure is love, that human connection.
As a fan of Cyberpunk 2077, I can say that Edgerunners helped to enhance the game for me in the aftermath. Overall, a fun watch.
Despite the fact I also thought of the I will never die scene from team America the sad truth is that it fits perfectly with Lucy's character and backstory as she has a pathological need to dissemble her emotions even from herself as a coping mechanism, "I think promising he would always be with her" would be a better promise in terms of narrative arc but lets just make things clear. That girl was emotionally damaged and she needed David to base their relationship on a lie of security if she was ever going to be able to trust enough to become emotional vulnerable again; the saddest part of all this and what makes me forgive the cliché as a sin is that she becomes obsessed with David's safety later on as the lie divorces itself from reality and David's attempts to Chrome up are done for the same reason, trying to live up to the at impossible promise.
A lot of the stuff that's less explained in the game came from the tabletop RPG, such as your Humanity stat being linked to how much chrome you can use before suffering cyberpsychosis. Unfortunately they didn't have enough time to implement the humanity stat in the game mechanics.
Dude this anime is a complete emotional rollercoaster! I remember when I did my first viewing of this series and it took me on this upbeat, RGB keyboard aesthetic, that fools you with the vibrancy, and then makes you feel like you just took a Haymaker from Mike Tyson in his prime punch to your face with the truth of the world! Not many animes have made me feel like that .
I was roaming around Night City last night and saw some junkie dancing. I was like atleast shes having fun in this squaller. Then I realized she was tweaking. It reminded me of the streets of Philly. We are living in this reality now. Ads, Corps, the 1% and the poor. If I was to die now, my son would be in the same situation as David. This Anime was deep, for me.
edgerunners was the first anime ive been able to sit through and enjoy, tried one piece, naruto, pokemon, jojo, and some others that im blanking on all the basic intro ones and this is the only one that made me wanna keep coming back to watch it plus it tore my heart out near the end
Try Cowboy Beebop (Anime is better), and Altered Carbon(Anime and Live Action) I think you would enjoy them.
bet ive always wanted to enjoy it but cant get past cringing so ill give it a try thanks brother@@justmyluck6
Me too. Edgerunners was my first anime and is still the best. All other animes are wasting my time by dragging the story and all the "funny" animation changes break immersion according to me. I think this anime is so good thanks to Cd projekt who wrote and produced this show.
Went in to this blind and that exact moment David was presented with that can of his mother's ashes by that automat hit me like a brick wall. Because holy shit that could be us. From that moment on I watched the show with only one singular thought. "If our society continues as it is that is where we'll be headed. That could be us." They managed to write a dystopia reality based in our current reality and it sure is existential capitalist nightmare fuel.
I love Cyberpunk 2077 and the anime is absolutely incredible. It’s so badassss and will make you cry. It’s one of my favorite anime in a long time. This is “punk rock cartoons”. The world of cyberpunk is great in the games and there’s some fantastic characters so it enhances the experience with the anime. I’ve watched it in English and Japanese . They’re both good. And yeah it’s depressing but it was so good
Thanks for validating my feelings about this game and the anime. It’s fun to see and immerse yourself in, but not really a great time to live in when you peel the layers.
I would actually say watch the show first if you can, for me it makes the whole punk vibe click and made me understand the whole “style over substance” being a substance of its own
Good writeup, but disappointed you didn't mention Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games or the TTRPG source that gave all of this form.
Heck if the bought the game on PC you got a PDF of Cyberpunk 2020 in the game directory and Cyberpunk RED has been out for a while (with the Black Chrome sourcebook just being released)
Also the music from about 6:00 was from the Brigador game was it?
And Gridman and Dynazenon are my jam.
I don’t think that Imaishi was involved in Gridman or Dynazenon.
@@thomasffrench3639 possiblity true, I'm referring to Trigger overall though.
People keep calling edgerunners a video game adaptation. Its not. Its a multimedia franchise that started with tabletop books like 30 years ago. Cyberpunk 2077 is an adaptation itself.
I was never bored watching edgerunners i thought some of the characters were cool. The story amazing. The ending had me in a chokehold and now everytime i hear i wanna stay at your house i start bawling. Im going back to rewatch it
I should point out that the video game actually does fully explain Cyberpsychosis (and the tabletop as well) with the game doing it in little messages you read during the Cyberpsycho missions. Essentially it's only noteworthy because the people having a psychotic break are chromed up. It's a convenient excuse to not address a mental health epidemic at large. Just like peeps who have unaliving ideation shouldn't keep a gun in their house these guys shouldn't be chromed up. In the tabletop there's a way to go through a round of therapy and getting rid of some chrome to reduce your stress level and then build back up on the crhome. Same way a boxer puts on weight again after a fight and then cuts weight before a big match. The cycle. Your body and mind need time to heal.
And how much chrome can you use? Well it depends. There's a "humanity" stat (cut content from the video game, exists in the tabletop) where the more well-adjusted a person is the more they can take psychic damage from traumatic experiences and physical alteration. David's was very high because he had a naturally resilient personality and body, a great friend group, a loving mother, and a promising future (in theory) making him an anomaly in Night City. The irony of Arasaka's quest to find someone who can use a lot of chrome safely being that the world they are creating has made those sorts of people an endangered species. (And Smasher is just a freak of nature/psychopath with unique brain.)
Love you guys ❤️
When I heard there wouldn’t be a season 2 I, no joke, said fine I’ll do it myself and I’ve had so much fun doing it as a college finals assignment, had to write it as a movie for the class currently breaking it apart into episodes, that I went ahead and wrote two more seasons. It goes Heavy Metal(S2) Hi-NRG(S3) and Shoegaze(S4)
I think there is merit in art that expresses bleakness plainly. Like Art that makes you feel ‘Bad’ isn’t Bad Art. It might even be very effective if that was the point. The hope is that we aren’t these characters so we don’t have to make their choices. Like you walked away from the scene. It def struck a raw nerve when I saw it. Not entirely comfortable. But docking points because something hits home too well seems counterproductive.
One important thing to point out here is that... She won... Lucy won. People all over night city walk the path of the edgerunner only to end up dead in a gutter or at best with a drink named after them. They come, they play, they get flatlined. As you said, its candy coated bullshit... You play to lose. But Lucy didn't. Lucy got the money, made it out alive, and thats no small feat when taking on the corps... but was it worth it? no. She won and her prize was a reminder that everyone else was fed to the meat grinder while standing alone on the moon. She is a smart kid though. I hope she takes her fortune and runs far far away.
I think one of cyberpunk 2077s take aways is a better way to look at the world. If you look around, there's these legends who died, each with their own philosophy and goals. These get passed on through time, through word of mouth and things they've written themselves. When other characters look at that there's a chance they think nothing of it, but there's also a chance that it means something to the person who found out. Johnny Silverhand died to burn Arasaka to the ground, but there's no chance he could completely destroy Arasaka by himself and a couple of crew members. There's still people who remember him on the streets, and subscribe to his philosophy. Maybe one day, if enough people put everything into what they believe in, they can beat an entity far far greater than themselves. This is best shown by V literally being soul melded together with Johnny, which only happens because corpo hubris catches them in the ass. He may have died, but lived(in the sense of being able to think and do shit) on because Arasaka thought he was great enough to keep alive, the people he nuked think this. Johnny and Vs situation shows that if you continue trying, and passing down your philosophy, when you die you still live on eternally through the people you change. For the better or the worse.
"Quiet life or blaze of glory" isn't "Stay alive or die" for a reason. Because even if you become a legend when you die, its how you lived that's truly remembered.
You can also find a BD in the game that gives a warning about not following Davids footsteps and going cyberpsycho.
Phantom liberty really wraps it up to a amazing game now
I don't know how you missed it, but the game explains it wonderfully. insofar as the fixer sending you after them for 'research' understand things, anyway. but she got the big picture; too much mech=insane.
I really resonate with what you said at the end. With everything going on in the world and my overall outlook on life , feels like we are playing a game we have already lost and there is no good ending. It can be so hard to not lose hope and optimism
I know I need to get out of that mindset but what you said at the end helped me realize why I’ve been so torn over the end of the show. I couldn’t fully grasp why I’ve been so distraught
Best wishes to anyone that stumbles upon this
Adam is legit a real anime villain
The anime has a lot of optimism, in the form of David. He's basically the most optimistic character to ever exist in that universe. He just keeps trucking along and never, ever loses hope, no matter how desperate things get. Even at the end, he dies with a smile on his face.
For anyone else that can't or doesn't want to play 2077, the world and lore is based off of the Cyberpunk tabletop made by Mike Pondsmith and I seriously cannot recommend it enough. New consoles are expensive but dice and paper are way cheaper
For anyone who has played 2077 and heard "Maximum Mike" on the radio, yeah that was Pondsmith. Most of his segments are references to the tabletop lore, other projects he's worked on or with, or just inspiration for a Cyberpunk campaign of your own
It's 2023 why would I play with dice and paper?
@Phil O Becuase it is a completely different expirience from video games? You can truly make your own characters and stories, alter rules on the fly
@@joelsasmad again it's 2023 why would I play with dice and paper?
@@philo2189 That's fair, online stuff like Roll20 is probably more convenient. If you can play IRL then yeah get some pen, paper and dice my dude 😎
@@philo2189 it’s the same reason you would read a book, you use your imagination to tell the story. Unless you mean that people should use computers to write stuff down and a random number generator for die, then I would argue that a lot of people prefer to write on paper no matter what century your in.
European here, yeah, I visited Miami last year and it *already* had 100% Night City vibes with the serving class and the ones being served. You make a good point there.
I saw this in my feed just now and FUCK. YES. I never asked you to cover it but for the past few months it was ALWAYS in the back of my mind, I agree so hard with the "most Bonsai Pop anime ever" take because I've been thinking the exact same thing this whole time hahahah. Ofc it's exaggerated but it's definitely up there. Thank you for finally making a video on it!!!
Edit: Just finished watching the video. Fantastic work, and great takes as always. I feel a little dumb now but eh it's cool :P
Don’t feel dumb! It really does scratch all the itches, it’s just such a bleak anime 😂 I really did like it a lot 👌 thank you for watching!
@@Bonsaipop Aw, thanks a lot for responding! I really appreciate the sentiment, man :)
Edit: Reason I thought it was a good fit wasn't only because of the edginess and aesthetic, I was thinking a lot about the philosophical undertones and the punk lifestyle too as you mentioned in the video. Thought you'd be able to relate to it and all. Glad you got something out of it!! :D
So happy you saw it. Just starting the vid. Already happy
Hard agree, that is one of the reasons I love berserk, the contrast between hope and hopelessness. Without hope berserk would really be what a lot of haters say it is "a pointless grimedark fanservice"
It's always interesting to see the reactions from people that might not be big into the Cyberpunk genre. Especially at the sheer bleakness of it all.
It makes sense that it hits close to home with the messaging! it was a genre birthed in a time not too disimilar. H was never about being the bis damn hero type. It focused on messy people fighting to keep existing in an overtly hosti le society. As a naturally pessimistic person, I love it. But I often worry that the catharsis tha the genre offers with it's critiques are prone to fall into that weird place where misery is celebrated ...
THIS SHOW MADE ME CRY SO HARD T.T
Not having optimism is the core identity of dystopia done right. I personally loved the fact that the show was willing to let down the audience and hurt them a bit.
no happy ending. no optimism. no salvation for anyone. pretty much dark dystopian reality.
i loved every second and the show remains in my hurt because it really hit the feels for me. Probably because of the double connection the the world thanks to the game.
I wish more shows were willing to take that risk but in a good approach, i didnt like how akame ga kill killed of everyone for example. Here it felt meaningful or when it wasnt meaningful in the moment it had payoff later on big time.
I will probably rewatch it at some point but whenever i play and hear that song i just hurt actually thinking about it. From that perspective it has to be in my top 10 of shows all time because not many shows do that.
I kept this on the back burner for a bit because... well its Cyberpunk. 2 weeks ago I was like "Fuck it I'll check it out I guess."
5 hours never flew by so fast.
Man, I always watch your videos when they first come out. But this one? I had to come back to it later. I was just not in a good place to resubmit myself to this show. Idk what it is, but this "short" series impacted my life SO MUCH.
Absolutely beautiful work from everyone involved.
Welp, here I go, starting the video now
Amen to that ending monologue, dude. Within the past year, I've had to confront the fact that I was an alcoholic, even if I was drinking to fall asleep, it was too much for my body to handle and I realized it was either get sober or die young. Next week I'll be four months without a drink, and aside from my sleep schedule being non-existent, I'm doing SO much better than I was before rehab. It's just so easy to ride along the wave and keep living the same cycle, but most of that shit is literal poison to the human body and WILL kill you, sooner or later.
5:26
"Pales in comparison"
The urge to not smash my monitor right now
Edgerunners was a beautiful work of art. Speechless. Sadness. Bittersweet.
they didnt need to add the child having a sexual relationship with a grown woman. he may be 17 but he is portrayed as much younger physically and emotionally.
@Gorp Azorp Sir bye. He's 17 and she's 20. He's 18 by the 2nd half. Not that big of a deal. Also he has to kill and steal in a terrible society that forces him to. Him being in a relationship with a woman 3 years older than him is nothing compared to what he had to endure. The age difference isn't even that bad.
@@gorpazorp7309 I know what you mean
@@etherealdreamerart in Japan they just try-hards for this type of s*** yes you are correct all the corrupt, greedy,murdering bullshit that happens around them is much worse than them seeing each other, but Japan they just got to put it in there somehow which is why they're tryhards...... they didn't need to have this relationship between these two but they needed the love interest which is why smh......
I feel that many people are stuck on 2077 because of the overload of glitches when the game first dropped, but even after that the main story is short and doesn't explain much about implants or cyberpsychosis or any of the other deeper stuff that Edgerunner fleshed out, but it's all still in the game. Everything is explained through Side Missions, Gigs, and the other side content. Problem is that it's explained through shards that you have to pick up and read or emails and files on computers, not through spoken exposition, which for many including myself is too much when there is too much info they are trying to cram in. I love this game, I love this anime, and I loved this video on the franchise. Your take on the punk mindset was a view that I never considered and helped to explain the characters and their goals in a way that an introvert metalhead like myself just didn't have the world view to notice on any of my watch-throughs.
Your synopsis was amazing for this. Where it didn't land for you or was too much to swallow in its bleak nature is a staple in the cyberpunk genre. Existential nihilism. But that's not a dig at ya for not liking it. Uncomfortability was the point yah know. You nailed it with your interpretation.
I feel like most the cyberpunk stuff I’ve seen is much less bleak and way more hopeful. Think of the ending of Blade Runner or Akira, which are definitely not bleak. It might show the horrors of humanity, but Blade Runner specifically shows the beauty and humanity in the world. I find the more fantastical war based stories of Gundam and other sci-fi to be more bleak in their worldviews. What Cyberpunk media would be more bleak, because those seem interesting
I think the most important thing is to remember that the game isn't 'source material' for edgerunners. Both are set in the same timeline of the cyberpunk world and in the timeline, the events of edgerunners actually falls 1 year before the events of the game in 2077. Behind the game is an incredibly complex and detailed world which has been built over several games and books since the 80's all which add story to this same timeline. You can view all of the events in this world and its backstory etc on the wiki.
Honestly one of the visually and storyline best anime that I watched last year. I actually cried at the end, which hasn't happened in years.
They should've made 6 seasons and a movie. I was all in. New main characters or whatever, I'll get over it. I just wanted more. So fukn good.
I love this anime, it's in my top three. I do think it needed at least 2 more episodes at the bare minimum. I would have loved 24 episodes. There could have been some fun episodic stories akin to Cowboy Bebop with Maine's crew
I think you're a bit off with your perspective on David. Everything he was doing was to get Lucy to the moon. Everything. He took his promise so seriously he was willing to go insane and/or die for it.
Also, one beautiful thing about this series is that in the expanded lore of Cyberpunk 2077, you find out that very few things can revert cyberpsychosis, but one of the things that can is love. Feeling a connection to someone else that deeply can bring you back into the world from the depths of madness, and I think that's beautiful. In a shitty world, you have to look for the brightest spots.
What do you mean the radio music is pales in comparison to GTA, cyberpunk 2077 music is waaaay waaaaaaay better than gta it's not even worth considering lmao, even ponponshit is better than 80% of what came out of gta radio 🤣
Also the game actually explain how cyberpsycho works enough if you read all the entry about it, and some of the cyberpsycho mission manifest give us contex on how each victim become cyberpsycho which is neat