CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS 2

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ONA ActionCyberpunk: Edgerunners

REVIEWS

• 

  JustJaydan

  80/100
  Season 2 tries to be different while also keeping true, and it succeeds, somewhat. I give edgerunners S2 a 8/10.

  This was something, the second season of one of my favorite video game adaptions arrives and I of course watched all 10 episodes in a row with almost no pauses when this came out at 9 in the morning today. I first want to make this clear: This season is very different from season 1. First of all, the pacing. The pacing is very different and it was slower, no unnecesary time skips like in S1. There was a lot happening, we had four main characters and the main was Roman, the kid with the camera. But after some episodes, it seemed like Roman was a side character due to the screen time that D got. The crew back in S1 had screen time, but you could tell that David was the main character. Second, the animation. The animation in some bits we're very different, with weird angles and POVs it made it look like a whole different show. The animation was still great, but it was different in some ways.

  Now for the characters, I think these characters we're good, some better then the others. I liked D the most, he had some development throughout the story and he was funny. I liked his friendship with Roman, like brothers. Talia is a character that is.. meh. I understand her whole thing, but how she treated Roman was kinda disgusting. Calling a 12 year old you're boyfriend, teasing him, almost kissing him and bringing him to a theather drive-in where a romantical movie played? Seems pretty weird for a teenager. But at the end, I liked her. The third character was King, he had a killer intro but did nothing throughout the whole anime. I know his name is "Weak" but you can't go cyber psycho and then suddenly lose all your skills, he was still huge and couldn't even fire his heavy ass gun!? Then the fourth main character, Roman. A little kid with a camera who thinks BD's are overrated. I liked him, but I really thought he would have a bigger role or at least like kill someone.

  The creators we're straight up lying, they told us this was "Hero to zero" and more depressing then S1 but I didn't shed a single tear. I did feel attached to some characters, but it just didn't hit. I liked the throwbacks to David, I really thought they weren't going to acknowledge him but they did and his actions in S1 had concequences in S2.

  Now for my biggest problem: The Filler. This season went slower on the pacing, as I mentioned. So there was a lot happening, the problem? It was happening for nothing. Things happened but it didn't add on, so you we're just getting scene after scene of filler that didn't progress the story until episode 9 and 10 where it finally all came together. Also about the ending, I really thought they would all team up, but they didn't. I'm also mad that the main four had only all meet up for one time, ONE TIME.

  I have told you my positives and mostly negatives, but don't mind the negatives to much because not all of them brought the score down. Season 2 shines bright with a new story, new characters and slower pacing which allows more to settle in. Season 2 tries to be different while also keeping true, and it succeeds, somewhat. I give S2 of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners a 8/10.

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• 

  Hikairis

  80/100
  It Didn't Hit the Same, But I'm Glad It Exists

  I didn't know how they would ever get back to Night City without making the original feel less special, as I was going into Edgerunners season 2. I found myself so connected with David's story, I was not sure I would feel connected to another one cast. This is the best thing they could have done after seeing it, I think, wasn't to try and do it themselves. It's sort of its own show, its own universe, and I don't feel it's as accomplished as the first season, but there's a lot here I really like.

  I think I was most interested in one of the characters in D was probably one of them. He's looking for revenge, rather than David's revenge, and I loved watching how this changes his perspective of the way he goes about navigating Night City. It's fascinating how much it's possible to see someone going so totally nuts on a specific target that it becomes hard to tell what they truly want to do however what they feel that they have to do. Not everything that he is working on is quite as successful for me as it is for him, but I kept watching his journey and found it interesting enough.

  The other characters I liked were the different types of people who have different interests, such as Roman Carax, whose interest in analogue photography makes him feel somewhat out of this world. Somewhere between all the hustle and bustle of life, it's a breath of fresh air for a character to slow down and record, instead of jumping into the fray. I truly hope that they got more time with him, as I believe there is much more to discuss with him.

  Talia was particularly interesting to me. Some of the quieter moments were powerful because of the situation she was in and I also thought about her situation after some scenes. I really liked that she didn't feel like she was all of the time just defined by what she was dealing with. There is still a person under it all, trying to understand what's happening and I believe that is what makes her one of the more memorable additions to the cast.

  I think I was most emotionally involved with King's journey. It's interesting to see a person that was once identified with something who now has to discover themselves without that thing. Being with Talia was another aspect of the season that was important for me too. I liked the fact that their relationship did not just consist of solving one another's issues, but of gaining some sort of understanding in situations that were beyond either of their control. I just wish we had been given a little more time with them because some of their moments deserve a little more time.

  Avida and Capri are also interesting participants in the tale, but not quite as prominent as the main cast and I have a mixed opinion about how much time they get compared to the main cast. I found their respective roles interesting and they do expand the range of the series, but there were times when I wished there were more of an opportunity to develop them, rather than move on to the next development.

  The visuals continue the Studio Trigger tradition of doing what they're good at doing. Night City is stunning, the action feels like the same stylized chaos, and the juxtaposition of the colourful presentation with the world's ugly things just never gets old. One thing I really like about this franchise is that it can make any moment look great without making the situation behind it any more depressing. The visual style is not only a means to look cool, but also represents a personality for the world.

  I just don't feel like all the characters are given the care they deserve this season. There are lots of interesting ideas and relationships here that some of the developments would have benefited from more time. I wished I had more time to explore some of the quieter moments, particularly when the characters were allowed the time to be vulnerable with each other. That's what makes the more dramatic parts of the story interesting to me in the first place.

  And that's just where I believe the original stills have the edge of them. I really enjoyed emoting through David and Lucy's relationship, and the way it played out in the first season was so thought provoking for me. Season 2 is a much wider-ranging effort and I'm with it for the things that it's doing, but I didn't feel as connected with the ensemble as I did with Season 1. So it wasn't as though I wanted another David or another Lucy. I would rather have had different people, different struggles, than in any way the series didn't give us that. I only wish some of those relationships had been formed as close and as tight as they are.

  Nonetheless, I did like what this sequel has to offer. I don't need every sequel to a story I love to out-do the first one and I believe there is a lot to be gained from just going back to a world and discovering something new there to learn. My favorite for me are D, Talia and King, but Roman was a favorite, but he could've been explored more and more. Though I criticized, I never felt it was all necessary to be going back to Night City.

  I'd say Edgerunners season 1 is going to be the more memorable one for me, but I don't believe it makes this season any less worthwhile. It doesn't always have to be the same impact a sequel has as a previous one, it just has to give you something to ponder about. Edgerunners 2 does that, although as I said, maybe a little more from some parts of this story.

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• 

  Minulf

  83/100
  King wasn't the only one to downgrade.It was fun, and more Cyberpunk is always good, but S1 remains better all-around.

  Before anyone accuses me of glazing S1, I'm not. Both are fresh in my mind and in preparation for S2 dropping today, I binged S1 yesternight, and even on my third rewatch, S1 is an almost perfect tragedy. S2 is good, at times brilliant even, but the whole package isn't as well rounded, as powerful. Most of the characters are good, most of the impact is there, most of the chaos is there, but it didn't make me cry three times. In fact, there was only one time where I had slightly wet eyes and I shan't mention when cause I wanna keep this spoiler free.

  What differentiates the seasons from the get go and what immediately made me worry a lot was that instead of David (and to a lesser extent, Lucy) as the focal character around whom everything is balanced, here D needs to share screen time with Talia, Weak and Roman. That's four characters, though their screentimes are usually split into D + Roman and Thalia + Weak.
  Regardless, straightaway, I'm declaring that S2 would have been a lot better and more engaging if Trigger and CDPR focused on only one character, and that character should have been either Talia or King. D was... Okay, I guess, but I had a harder time connecting to him than the downbeat ex Merc or the rebellious teenager. Roman served tremendously well as an observer and a moral guardian later on, but outside of his role as "cute kid with a camera and boundless curiosity" there wasn't allat much to him. D was a bit, dunno, monochrome; I'm usually a sucker for revenge stories and his interactions with Capri were oddly wholesome, it's still kinda hard to write about him and his motives later on without spoiling, so I'll try not to. It's just the same old story again, you can't put three or four narrative foci in a ten episode show, no matter how tightly they're woven together. Hell, even the superior S1 struggled with balancing the storylines a bit. There were a few characters I really didn't like though, and Kyoko was one of them, just her design alone is as rotten and unplesant as she herself was for most of the show.

  What I do however really enjoyed about the show is the technical aspects. The animation is absolutely insanely gorgeous. and it doesn't matter if it's the normal look, the look through Roman's cameras, mental or cyberspaces etc, the show just looks incredibly good. Everything is fluent and captures the atmosphere of the show perfectly, be it explosions lighting our protagonists up from behind or them getting progressively more messed up after having the shit beaten out of them, the whole show looks... heavy. Polished but heavy if that makes sense.

  The audio design is also top notch, the voices in English, German and Japanese are absolutely perfect. But not only that, other elements like bullets ricocheting, grenades exploding and tires screeching all sound very natural and convincing. I'm admittedly not a fan of the opening, I know it's a rock classic but the songs too... Mellow for a cyberpunk extravaganza. The rest of the OST is very good though. And, if you for some reason read reviews before watching the show, don't worry, there is no "I really wanna stay at your house" that will mess you up. In fact, sadly, the show doesn't really have a connective leitmotif between its main characters cause, see above, we got four of 'em.

  What else can I say fresh of my first watch without spoilers... The character designs are sick and incredibly varied, down to the last gangoon; the only exception to this are the countless unnamed goons the corpos send after out folks, but that's a deliberate choice just to show that they are merely numbers in this dystopia. The character designs really are so, so good. Talia especially looks stunning with her Maelstrom but fancy vibe.

  Speaking of vibe, I think that's the thing that's the most off for me. In S1 the city talked to you. You saw people throw up in the streets and getting pleasured with automatic onaholes while spazzing to a BD. You generally saw more of the seediness of Night City with bare boobs and uncensored naked bodies, trips to bars and hangouts after successful heists in S1 and as someone who's a huge fan of the game, that seedy atmosphere is immensely important, and you didn't really get that in S2 which was sadly much more of an action/superpower showcase. S2 offers a very, I don't wanna say sterile look, but most of the show take place in hospitals, cars, not particularly dirty streets, sidewalks and so on. Still very entertaining but I won't remember it as fondly as S1... Now let's wait for S3.

  8.3/10

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