Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022) - REVIEW
"You don't make a name as a Cyberpunk by how you live."
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a milestone for the studio that animated it, Trigger. Studio Trigger was founded by previous Gainax Studio members, including the director himself, Hiroyuki Imaishi. Hiroyuki had previously directed works like Dead Leaves and Gurren Lagann, and had worked on animation for titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Medabots, and Fooly Cooly. Once he formed Studio Trigger, his directorial debut there was with Kill La Kill, and he'd go on to direct the movie Promare.
With his animation and directorial background, you can absolutely follow the trajectory right to Cyberpunk Edgerunner's stylistic and bombastic nature. Backing up Hiroyuki's distinctive stylistic approach is the ever-reliable color designer, Yukiko Kakita, who was the color designer for Little Witch Academia, Kill La Kill, Promare, and BNA. Before their more recent Studio Trigger work, though, they were also a cel painter for Ghibli movies like Princess Mononoke and The Cat Returns, and Hosoda movies like The Boy and the Beast and Wolf Children. In a series like this, where the world and backdrop are as much a character in the show as the rest of the cast is, as is the case with Night City, it's especially important to make it feel full of life and unique - which is where Yukiko's skills get to shine as a color designer, making every single frame pop with vivid neon colors.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners follows the protagonist, David, as he tries to cope with his place in life, and try to climb out of the capitalist hole he's fallen into. In doing so, though, he traps himself in a cycle of vengeance and cybernetics as he enhances his physical body with cybernetic implants. As the characters and narrative continue to point out, though - the more you rely on these cybernetic implants, the more you lose your organic self to it and fall into what's called, "Cyberpsychosis".
This all plays back into the theme of capitalism and those in poverty with providing the impoverished with sometimes their only means of escapism: drugs. While on the surface we see David losing himself to the cybernetics over time, just a step below that is a story of a man losing himself to addiction to cope with everything he's dealing with, and struggling through that addiction while trying to climb out of the hole he's in.
It's an intense series that packs a massive punch in just 10 episodes, being a visceral experience all throughout, both visually and narratively. It's a story of corruption, corporate-brutality, addiction and loss, capitalist dystopia, the cycle of hate and violence, and so much more. The hyper-fast, punchy dialogue paired with the always insane visual direction from Hiroyuki, all blanketed over an emotional character study of vengeance and addiction, makes this not just one of the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time, but arguably Studio Trigger's best anime of all time.
My Current MAL Rating: 8/10
Top 100 Contender: Yes
Current Top 100 Rank: 15/100
