Should I watch the Cyberpunk 2077 anime?
The highly-anticipated game, Cyberpunk 2077, from the studio behind the Witcher games seemed to make so much money even with its disappointing launch that it could throw some of that money into an anime series. But is the Netflix anime series, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, worth your time?
Straight off the bat, it is super mature. Yes, that takes into account that it is an anime; it is well-deserving of the mature rating. Violence, foul language, nudity, etc., it’s got it all in spades. In the first episode alone, you get the typical anime shock treatment of the mature elements. But this shouldn’t be a surprise for those who have kept up with the game. Unlike typical anime series that throw in the elements as a way to shock viewers or just for gratuitous (red: horny/fan-service) reasons, this series actually weaves it into the story in such a way that you almost become numb to it. Ironically, that is probably the intended effect considering how the how Cyberpunk 2077 universe is as well as how the story develops. It goes beyond even the typical, numb feeling of, “Yeah, it happens,” to not even noticing it at all because it just blends into the background as naturally as something that people normally, do like walking or talking. I’m not one who revels in the use of abject nudity, violence, or foul language – especially for simple shock purposes; usually awkward at best and at worst, juvenile – not because I’m prudish or anything, but simply because people usually don’t use it artfully to tell the story. We’re not so disconnected from reality to not know that things like this don’t happen in real life, but often its portrayal and integration of it into a story is so clumsy and juvenile that it makes one wonder if they actually live in the same reality as normal human beings. But the mature elements in this series mixed with the other elements of the story to give the feeling of dread and numbness that the series, I believe, set out to achieve. And when I noticed it towards the end of the series, I was amazed.
So, enough of that. Usually a mature content warning doesn’t take up as much space as that one, but it just needed to be highlighted.
Now, considering that the anime was developed by the team at Studio Trigger (in cooperation with CD Projekt Red, of course), you would be well within your right to be cautiously optimistic. However, considering that Netflix anime sometimes lean in to the dreaded cheap CG anime look too much, the caution in the cautious optimism is well warranted as well. So of course it might seem to be bad news that I reveal that the series uses CG heavily. But it’s not. For once, an anime studio remembered that CG is used as an enhancement to a series and not as a pure cost-cutting measure (like Polygon Pictures likes to do). As someone who has some experience in the industry, it is often easier for me to tell that CG is used in a shot, so bad CG usually has a more exaggerated effect on me than those who don’t have industry experience. So, yeah, I noticed it here. However, the shots they chose to use it in benefitted from the use of CG. Especially considering budgetary and time constraints (again, a hold-over from my experience in the industry), it allowed them to be used in areas that could be more impactful without reducing the quality of the scenes where CG was used. So definitely not a Berserk type fail or even Knights of Sidonia obviousness.
More on the visuals: if you’re expecting the same grittiness and tones of the Cyberpunk 2077 game, sorry to break it to you, but it doesn’t look like that. However, this isn’t really a point for disappointment. The visuals, while it does not look like the game, it carries the world very well. It’s like a more pastel, iconographic representation of the Cyberpunk 2077 world. And it works.
As hinted earlier, the story is something with real weight and real progress. There are a few parts in the beginning that are a bit iffy – awkward, even – but should not feel too unfamiliar to someone familiar with anime. Thankfully, not too much of that stands in the way, and even if it does, you have that trusty fast-forward button to pull you through.
One thing that really stands out is the portrayal of how lack, or even poverty, in a capitalist world can spiral out of control when something unexpected happens. In fact, these scenes might be painful to some due to how close to home it may hit, even in a supposed “rich” country like the U.S., especially in the case of medical emergencies.
Talking about the story any more could really get into spoiler territory, and you guys know we don’t do you like that here. Instead, feel assured that the plot, even if it isn’t something that sounds great when explained, will be more than enough to tell a satisfying story, at least in terms of completion; and that’s all I'll say about that.
But with all good stories, they are almost always held up by good characters. This is no exception. Even those that don’t have as much weight end up giving you more weight than you expect. That might be cryptic but obviously any more than that will lead to spoilers. The designs (apparently by the same designer for Little Witch Academia) are really good. Anyways, it’s really difficult to say more on the characters without delving into spoiler territory. So we’ll leave it at that.
One quick word on the audio and music of the show before we move on to the conclusion of this article: it wasn’t good. Oh wait, that might make it seem like I’m including the voice overs in that statement, but I’m not. The VO work (at least the Japanese version) was great, even though it was quite challenging to consolidate it with the slang-heavy subtitles that did not line up very well to the Japanese dialogue. Performance-wise, pretty good all around – at the very least, not distracting. As for the other parts of the audio makeup, sound effects were not terrible, but it didn’t have the oomph that one would expect. Maybe I was hoping for too much. I have not played the game (that’s a whole other saga: basically pre-ordered, didn’t work, waited forever for a fix, and gave up due to refund policy limitations, and now too burned to chance another try), but from the trailers and the general expectation of modern AAA games, you’d think the audio would be on the level but it wasn’t. The real problems were the songs. Like… what? It was a bad mix of like techno (not like the actual genre of music, but in the cyberpunk sort of techno way), indie-mumble, replacement anime song (because they don’t want the original Japanese song), auto-tuned whatever. Just as bad as that previous sentence, maybe worse. But not Yasuke opening song bad. In any case, I’m glad that the “Skip Intro” and “Next Episode” buttons existed. Ugh, so bad, but at least they didn’t get some 30 year old anime band like ONE OK ROCK, BUMP OF CHICKEN, or Porno Graffitti to do the music.
Now should you watch it or is this just some glorified ad to get you to buy the game? If the mature stuff doesn’t bug you, then it is a definite watch. I think that if you’ve played the game it’ll add more layers to the Cyberpunk 2077 world. However, if you haven’t played the game, like me, it is still a good first dive into the world. Worried about being left on a terrible cliff-hanger or something? Don’t be. It is satisfying ending in terms of completeness. Whether it gets a second season or not, you could walk away without worrying about it.
