Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Promotional poster
Genre	Cyberpunk
Created by	Rafał Jaki Mike Pondsmith (Cyberpunk universe creator)
Based on	Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red
Screenplay by	Masahiko Otsuka Yoshiki Usa
Story by	Bartosz Sztybor Jan Bartkowicz Łukasz Ludkowski
Directed by	Hiroyuki Imaishi
Creative director	Hiromi Wakabayashi
Voices of	Kenn Aoi Yūki Hiroki Tōchi Michiko Kaiden Takako Honda Wataru Takagi Tomoyo Kurosawa
Opening theme	"This Fffire" by Franz Ferdinand
Ending theme	"Let You Down" by Dawid Podsiadło
Composer	Akira Yamaoka
Country of origin	Japan Poland
Original language	Japanese
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producers	Rafał Jaki Dylan Thomas Taiki Sakurai Yoshiki Usa
Producers	Bartosz Sztybor Saya Elder Satoru Homma
Editor	Masato Yoshitake
Running time	23–28 minutes
Production companies	Trigger CD Projekt
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (Japanese: サイバーパンク エッジランナーズ, Hepburn: Saibāpanku Edjirannāzu) is a cyberpunk original net animation (ONA) miniseries based on the video game Cyberpunk 2077 by Polish studio CD Projekt Red. The series was animated by Japanese animation studio Trigger under the supervision of CD Projekt and premiered on Netflix in September 2022. Set in the Cyberpunk universe created by Mike Pondsmith, the anime serves as a prequel to the game and takes place about a year before the events of Cyberpunk 2077.

Upon its release, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners received critical acclaim, with praise directed at its characters, animation, and worldbuilding. In October 2022, CD Projekt had initially announced that the anime would not be receiving a second season and stated that, while they were open to collaborating with Trigger for future projects, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners had always been planned as a standalone work. However, in September 2024, Netflix had announced a teaser regarding a collaboration between Netflix Animation, CD Projekt, and Cyberpunk 2077, stating a "return to Night City."

Synopsis

Setting

See also: Cyberpunk 2077 § Setting

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is set in Night City, a self-reliant metropolis located in the Free State of California that suffers from extensive corruption, cybernetic addiction, and gang violence. The city is split into six districts, each of which has its own precise living requirements, and is controlled by several megacorporations, including Arasaka and its rival Militech. The anime's story is primarily set in Santo Domingo, the oldest, poorest, and most industrial district of Night City, and takes place in 2076.

Plot

In a dystopia overrun by corruption, crime, and cybernetic implants, an impulsive but talented street kid named David Martinez, after losing everything he has in a drive-by shooting, chooses to survive on the wrong side of the law as an "edgerunner": a high-tech, black-market mercenary also known as a "cyberpunk".

Characters

David Martinez (デイビッド・マルティネス, Deibiddo Marutinesu)

Voiced by: KENN (Japanese); Zach Aguilar (English)

A Latino American teenager who is a top student at the prestigious Arasaka Academy. Due to coming from a very poor family, he is relentlessly bullied by his classmates and feels like he does not belong at school. A sudden and devastating tragedy leads him to abandon his education and puts him on the path of becoming an edgerunner.

Lucyna "Lucy" Kushinada (ルーシー, Rūshī)

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese); Emi Lo (English)

A young and mysterious netrunner who becomes romantically involved with David and introduces him to the criminal underworld of Night City. She has a particular hatred towards Arasaka and dreams of traveling to the Moon.

Maine (メイン, Mein)

Voiced by: Hiroki Tōchi (Japanese); William C. Stephens (English)

A veteran edgerunner who commands his own crew. He is one of Gloria's clients and allows David to join the crew under his guidance.

Dorio (ドリオ)

Voiced by: Michiko Kaiden (Japanese); Marie Westbrook (English)

Maine's girlfriend and second-in-command.

Pilar (ピラル, Piraru)

Voiced by: Wataru Takagi (Japanese); Ian James Corlett (English)

A foul-mouthed techie and a member of Maine's crew. He is also Rebecca's older brother.

Kiwi (キーウィ, Kīwi)

Voiced by: Takako Honda (Japanese); Stephanie Wong (English)

A veteran netrunner who is often cold and stoic, and a member of Maine's crew. She is also Lucy's mentor.

Falco (ファルコ, Faruko)

Voiced by: Yasuyuki Kase (Japanese); Matthew Mercer (English)

A member of Maine's crew who works as the group's getaway driver.

Rebecca (レベッカ, Rebekka)

Voiced by: Tomoyo Kurosawa (Japanese); Alex Cazares (English)

A young and trigger-happy edgerunner and a member of Maine's crew. She is also Pilar's younger sister.

Faraday (ファラデー, Faradē)

Voiced by: Kazuhiko Inoue (Japanese); Giancarlo Esposito (English)

A fixer who works for Militech. He has a business relationship with Maine's crew and often hires them to conduct jobs that usually involve them performing corporate espionage against Arasaka.

Adam Smasher (アダム・スマッシャー, Adamu Sumasshā)

Voiced by: Yukihiro Misono (Japanese); Alec Newman (English)

A bloodthirsty and fully cybernetic supersoldier who works for Arasaka as their chief of security. His English voice actor, Alec Newman, reprises the role from Cyberpunk 2077.

Ripperdoc (リパードク, Ripādoku)

Voiced by: Kenjiro Tsuda (Japanese); Borge Etienne (English)

A local ripperdoc who helps upgrade and install David's cybernetic implants, as well as providing him with the required immunosuppressants.

Gloria Martinez (グロリア・マルティネス, Guroria Marutinesu)

Voiced by: Yurika Hino (Japanese); Gloria Garayua (English)

David's mother and a paramedic who works herself to the bone to pay for his tuition at the Arasaka Academy.

Production and release

The series was announced during a "Night City Wire" livestream for the game on June 25, 2020, as a collaboration between CD Projekt and Trigger. Hiroyuki Imaishi directed the series, with Masahiko Otsuka and Yoshiki Usa writing scripts, Yoh Yoshinari designing the characters and serving as animation director, Yuto Kaneko and Yusuke Yoshigaki serving as assistant character designers, Hiroyuki Kaneko serving as assistant director, Hiromi Wakabayashi serving as creative director, and Akira Yamaoka serving as the show's composer. The anime's opening theme is "This Fffire" by Franz Ferdinand, while its ending theme is "Let You Down" by Dawid Podsiadło. Edgerunners also utilized songs from 2077's in-game radio stations. Rosa Walton's song "I Really Want to Stay at Your House" was featured prominently and critically praised.

Episodes

No.	Title	Storyboarded by	Directed by	Screenplay by	Story by	Original release date
1	"Let You Down"	Yoshiyuki Kaneko	Yoshiyuki Kaneko	Yoshiki Usa	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
In 2076, David Martinez is a young man attending the prestigious Arasaka Academy at his mother Gloria's behest, despite their financial struggle. David illegally modifies his visor to avoid paying for a required update to keep attending class. The modifications crash the school's system, and Gloria agrees to pay for the damages. On their way home from meeting with the headmaster, David engages in a brief argument with his mother, which ends when they are caught in a drive-by shooting between some gang members and a corporate executive's limo. Gloria is left badly wounded but receives care when David manages to access Gloria's savings account to pay for her medical costs. While Gloria is in the hospital, David discovers she stole a military-grade Sandevistan spine implant. David is assaulted by his classmate Katsuo Tanaka, who insults Gloria by insinuating that she earned the money used to pay for David's tuition via prostitution. Following the assault, David learns that Gloria's condition has worsened, and she subsequently dies in the hospital. After Gloria's death, David, who is now completely broke, meets up with Doc, a local ripperdoc who routinely supplies him with illegal braindances (virtual recordings of others' memories) and requests that Doc install the Sandevistan in his body.
2	"Like A Boy"	Yoshiyuki Kaneko	Yūichi Shimodaira	Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
Doc agrees to install the Sandevistan, which grants David the ability to undergo a temporary but incredible surge of super speed. Using his new abilities, David returns to school and beats up Katsuo. He does so in full view of the security cameras, resulting in his expulsion from the Academy. Katsuo's father, Mr. Tanaka, an Arasaka executive, notices that David can utilize the Sandevistan with no apparent side effects, making him a valuable test subject for Arasaka's latest product. Meanwhile, as David aimlessly wanders the city, he encounters a young woman, Lucy, who agrees to take him on as a partner. After a night of pickpocketing marks on the subway, David collapses due to overuse of the Sandevistan. Lucy takes David back to Doc, who prescribes him immunosuppressants and warns him not to use his Sandevistan more than two or three times a day, regardless of David's unusually high tolerance. Lucy invites David to her apartment, where she confides that her dream is to migrate off-world to the Moon. She shows David a virtual reconstruction of the Moon's surface, but this turns out to be a distraction to sell David out to a gang of edgerunners.
3	"Smooth Criminal"	Akira Amemiya	Mai Ōwada	Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
David is confronted by the gang, led by a man named Maine, who reveals that Gloria had sold the Sandevistan to him a day before her death and that he is one of her acquaintances. David reveals he's Gloria's son and offers to work for Maine, demonstrating his compatibility with the Sandevistan. Intrigued, Maine honors his friendship with Gloria by giving David a chance to prove himself. David then returns home, having lost his trust in Lucy. The next day, David meets up with the gang, and Maine introduces him to the other members: Kiwi, Dorio, and Pilar. David then participates in a heist to steal navigation data from Maxim Kuznetsov, a driver for Arasaka. The plan goes awry due to unexpected complications, and David and Lucy are forced to steal Maxim's limo to gain the data instead. Maine rescues them from Tyger Claw bikers out to claim the fresh bounty placed on their heads by Maxim and, impressed by his performance on the job, officially inducts David into the gang. David also meets Maine's fixer, Faraday, who brings them the job of stealing Maxim's navigation data to obtain information on Tanaka's movements. David then receives a message from the Academy offering to let him return, but he bluntly turns them down.
4	"Lucky You"	Yoshiyuki Kaneko	Akira Furukawa	Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
As a new recruit, David receives training and instruction from the other gang members, including running errands for Pilar and his sister Rebecca, learning how to drive from Maine, and jogging at night with Lucy. He also participates in several jobs with the crew, such as taking out a gang of Scavengers, rescuing Rebecca from the Maelstrom gang, and helping Lucy with pickpocketing. He learns that Lucy is a talented netrunner but not much else about her past. David confides with Maine that he has feelings for Lucy, but he's certain she doesn't feel the same and has trouble figuring out whether he should trust her. Eventually, David begins to feel at home with the gang. However, on the way home from a bar, Pilar begins harassing a homeless man urinating on the street. The homeless man is revealed to have cyberpsychosis and suddenly kills Pilar with a previously concealed arm-mounted launcher. When the cyberpsycho targets Lucy, David uses his Sandevistan to approach the cyberpsycho and shoot him, with Maine finishing him off. David takes Lucy home while the rest of the gang stays behind to deal with the mess, where Lucy reveals that her dream to go to the Moon is genuine. David promises Lucy he will take her to the Moon, and they kiss.
5	"All Eyez On Me"	Kōdai Nakano	Kōdai Nakano	Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
The gang tries to find more leads on Tanaka, and Kiwi mentions she discovered that he secretly indulges in illicit braindances created by "JK." David recognizes the initials as the handle of Jimmy Kurosaki, a famous snuff BD director who also custom-tunes BDs for special clients, including Tanaka, and David explains that Tanaka will have to be present in person for the tuning. Seeing an opportunity to ambush Tanaka, the gang attempts to kidnap JK, but he outwits them, captures David, and flees the scene with Lucy and Dorio in pursuit. JK subjects David to traumatic BDs to induce cyberpsychosis before he is stopped and captured by Lucy and Dorio. With no other choice, JK agrees to lure Tanaka in, but not before cautioning David that the Sandevistan will inevitably make him go cyberpsycho. Tanaka arrives to meet with JK and is subsequently captured, but not before JK is mortally wounded in the crossfire. With a Trauma Team unit incoming, the gang is forced to quickly evacuate with Tanaka, while David remains troubled by JK's words.
6	"Girl on Fire"	Kai Ikarashi	Yoshiyuki Kaneko	Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
Maine begins developing signs of cyberpsychosis as he starts having trouble controlling his implants, randomly blacks out, hallucinates, and has significant mood swings, culminating in him losing his self-control and suddenly assaulting Kiwi as she tries to hack into Tanaka's cyberware, seriously injuring her. Lucy only agrees to take Kiwi's place provided Maine is kept away and David accompanies her. As Lucy dives into Tanaka's mind, Tanaka regains consciousness and begs David to let him go, telling him that he was responsible for rescinding his expulsion from the Academy, he still has a future there, and that the edgerunners will kill him after they extract his information to tie up loose ends. This causes David to hesitate long enough that Tanaka's neural implant shorts out and kills him, risking killing Lucy, too. Dorio disconnects Lucy safely, but the gang's jammer is disabled, resulting in Trauma Team receiving Tanaka's vitals and en route with the NCPD as support. Maine first sends David and Lucy to their escape vehicle while he and Dorio take Tanaka to distract the authorities. However, during the battle, Maine begins to succumb to his cyberpsychosis, resulting in Dorio's death when she attempts to protect him. David tries to rescue Maine from the heavily armed police forces but can only watch as a regretful Maine blows himself, as well as Dorio and Tanaka's corpses, up, leaving David to flee with Maine's cybernetic arms.
7	"Stronger"	Yoshihiro Miyajima	Tomoyuki Munehiro	Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
A few months after Tanaka's botched kidnapping, David has become the new leader of Maine's edgerunner group, having taken on more implants—including Maine's arm implants—and becoming a renowned edgerunner himself. However, he has been unable to convince Lucy to rejoin the crew. After completing a job for the fixer Wakako Okada to rescue a VIP from the Maelstrom gang, David is approached by Faraday, who offers him a job from Militech against Arasaka as a test to see if he is worthy of inheriting Maine's last job to recover the data Tanaka was hiding. Faraday also requests that David try to recruit Lucy again. Returning home, David talks with Lucy to learn more about her past. She reveals she was part of a special team of child netrunners raised and trained by Arasaka to delve into the Old Net to recover lost data. However, with a high risk of exposure to rogue AIs and malware, the work was hazardous, resulting in much of the team being killed. Eventually, Lucy escaped Arasaka with her teammates, who were all killed the night they left the facility, the group having also murdered their handlers in revenge and ended up in Night City. She also admits that while she used to only worry about herself, she is now more worried about David's health. Later, Lucy kills an Arasaka agent investigating data about a test subject that was "mysteriously erased" from Tanaka's records.
8	"Stay"	Yoshihiro Miyajima	Yūichi Shimodaira	Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
Taking on Faraday's job, David kills an Arasaka lab director. Still, he shows signs of cyberpsychosis—during which he murders an innocent staff member who walked in on him killing the director. Meanwhile, Arasaka Counterintelligence is investigating the mysterious deaths of Arasaka personnel. Believing Militech to be involved, they arrange an assassination attempt on Faraday, who narrowly escapes. Due to Faraday's lack of results in recovering data on Arasaka's cyberskeleton project, Militech refuses to protect Faraday any further and he decides to betray them by making contact with Arasaka instead. Arasaka is willing to forgive Faraday for Tanaka's death in return for him tracking down the netrunner responsible for hiding Tanaka's data and killing their agents. Meanwhile, as David's cyberpsychosis conditions worsen, he suffers from trauma over the staff member he killed who reminded him of his mother, as the woman also had a son. Doc recommends that David scale back on his implants and is attacked by David, thus souring their relationship. David once again tries to recruit Lucy, but she insists there's something she has to take care of first and David considers breaking up with her. Lucy then detects another Arasaka agent looking for Tanaka's data and heads over to kill him, only to get captured by Faraday and Kiwi.
9	"Humanity"	Yoshiyuki Kaneko	Akira Furukawa	Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
After interrogating Lucy, Faraday and Kiwi discover that Lucy has been actively hiding Tanaka's data on David as a potential test subject for the cyberskeleton and was responsible for Tanaka's death to ensure his silence. Realizing this, Faraday plans to offer Lucy and David up to Arasaka to secure his position in the company. Faraday assigns David a mission to assault an Arasaka convoy to carry this out. David recruits the help of Kiwi, Rebecca, and Falco, and they manage to seize the convoy's main cargo, which is revealed to be the cyberskeleton itself—a mech-like cyberware that replaces a person's arms and legs. A Militech force then arrives, thanks to a tip from Faraday, who intends to force David to install the cyberskeleton and use it to destroy the Militech force as a demonstration of its power. Kiwi makes her escape as Faraday impersonates Lucy to trick him into installing the cyberskeleton. Lucy is able to escape briefly and warns David about Faraday's duplicity before being recaptured. Angered by the betrayal and Lucy's capture, David uses the cyberskeleton to annihilate the Militech force despite its massive toll on his body. He then tells Rebecca and Falco they will rescue Lucy and get revenge on Faraday.
10	"My Moon My Man"	Yō Yoshinari, and Sushio	Kōdai Nakano	Masahiko Ōtsuka	Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Łukasz Ludkowski	September 13, 2022 (2022-09-13)
After receiving military-grade immunosuppressants from Doc, a deteriorating David fights through Militech, Arasaka, and MaxTac forces as he, Rebecca, and Falco head for Arasaka Tower. Meanwhile, Kiwi has second thoughts about working with Faraday and decides to cut ties with him, so he has her killed as a loose end regarding the cyberskeleton. Before she dies, Kiwi tips off David and the others on Faraday and Lucy's location. Despite his condition worsening after running out of immunosuppressants, David attacks the tower and kills the Arasaka security to rescue Lucy, incapacitating Faraday in the process. Realizing the situation has spiraled out of control, Arasaka deploys their head of security, the legendary cyborg Adam Smasher, to put David down. As David begins succumbing to cyberpsychosis, Lucy kisses him, restoring his sanity. During the fighting, Faraday is thrown to his death by Smasher, who then crushes Rebecca to death and maims Falco. David tasks Falco with getting Lucy to safety while he stays behind to hold off Smasher but, despite having the cyberskeleton, David proves no match for the more experienced Smasher and is torn apart; content with the knowledge that Lucy is safe, David refuses Smasher's offer to become an Arasaka construct and is executed. Sometime later, Lucy fulfills her dream of traveling to the Moon but remains heartbroken as David is not there with her, imagining a vision of him from before he became an edgerunner standing alongside her.

Reception

In its first week, the show debuted on Netflix's top ten list, with 14.88 million hours of viewing. Its success helped increase the sales of Cyberpunk 2077 to 20 million units sold.

Critical response

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was acclaimed by critics and fans. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 16 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Booting up Night City with frenetic action and awe-inspiring visual flair, Edgerunners is an exceptionally stylish anime adaptation of the world Cyberpunk established."

Jonathon Wilson wrote for Ready Steady Cut that in "many ways, this is the Cyberpunk story the Cyberpunk game wanted to tell and couldn't." Matt Kim of IGN praised the exploration of the hostile life in Night City, specifically the visual effects, noting more of the focus was on the city rather than on some of the characters, and calling it "a wild ride, but worth every blistering second". In a review for Polygon, Kambole Campbell praised the "visual language for various in-game concepts," as well as the "sonic diversity in its score" and found that the show's best aspect was "[its] ability to depict the psychological unmooring of its characters without feeling inauthentic."

Video game director Hideo Kojima lauded the show as well, calling it "a miracle of squeezing the trigger to the world", and compared the art and world design favorably to the 1990 OVA series Cyber City Oedo 808. Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the original Cyberpunk role-playing game also praised the show, writing "It's like seeing my brain in a big screen anime." The publisher of the tabletop Cyberpunk game, R. Talsorian, announced plans for an Edgerunners-based expansion in November 2022.

Accolades

Year	Ceremony	Category	Result	Ref.
2022	IGN Awards	Best Anime Series	Won
	The Game Awards 2022	Best Adaptation	Nominated
2023	50th Annie Awards	Best Storyboarding – TV/Media (Yoshiyuki Kaneko for "Let You Down")	Nominated
	9th Anime Trending Awards	Sci-Fi or Mecha Anime of the Year	Won
		Best in Original Screenplay (Masahiko Otsuka and Yoshiki Usa)	Won
	7th Crunchyroll Anime Awards	Anime of the Year	Won
		Best Character Design (Yoh Yoshinari)	Nominated
		Best Animation	Nominated
		Best New Series	Nominated
		Best Opening Sequence ("This Fffire")	Nominated
		Best Score (Akira Yamaoka)	Nominated
		Best Director (Hiroyuki Imaishi)	Nominated
		Best Main Character (David Martinez)	Nominated
		Best Supporting Character (Rebecca)	Nominated
		Best Action	Nominated
		Best Drama	Nominated
		Best Voice Artist Performance (English) (Zach Aguilar as David)	Won
		Best Voice Artist Performance (French) (Dorothée Pousséo as Lucy)	Nominated
	Japan Expo Awards	Daruma for Best Anime	Won
		Daruma for Best Director	Won
		Daruma for Best Action Anime	Won
		Daruma for Best Original Soundtrack	Nominated
		Daruma for Best Opening ("This Fffire")	Nominated
	13th Newtype Anime Awards	Best Soundtrack (Akira Yamaoka)	4th place

Future

In an interview with Famitsu, CDPR community manager Satoru Honma said of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners that no plans exist for a second season but that if ever there would be, it would not be a continuation of the first season but "something completely different."

On September 19, 2024, Netflix released a short teaser for a new tie-in with Cyberpunk 2077. This follows rumors about a Cyberpunk: Edgerunners sequel and CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski signaling plans for more animated tie-ins.

Other media

Lucy is scheduled to appear as a playable character via downloadable content in Guilty Gear Strive.

A prequel manga series by, titled Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Madness (サイバーパンク: エッジランナーズ MADNESS, Saibāpanku Edjirannāzu Maddonesu), started on Kadokawa's Comic Alive+ website on December 13, 2024. Dark Horse Comics will release the manga in English in paperback format in North America.

External links

• Official website
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners at IMDb 
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia