Characters / Cyberpunk: Edgerunners – Corpos, Criminals, and Fixers

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In the City of Dreams, there are few with a spotless record. For many, turning to a life of crime is a choice of necessity, not whim, but there are many more who gleefully tread on the wrong side of the law with no signs of repentance. Maybe they have enough eddies to keep the Badges at bay. Or maybe they know which strings to pull that keep those detectives on a tight leash. Or, more likely, they're just so dangerous that no one would would dare to raise a hand against them. Or perhaps they're just a slippery fucker who knows how to avoid the eyes of good old Johnny Law. At any rate, they're the type of person where, whenever they're around, the only people who can protect you from them are yourself and your chooms, so you'd better be on their good side. Otherwise, have that iron ready, just in case they decide you'd look better smeared across the side of a megabuilding.

The following are the Corpos, Criminals, and Fixers that appear in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

Fixers and Criminals

Faraday

Faraday

"It is my place to see the larger picture. It is yours to listen. You will do as you're told."

Voiced by: Kazuhiko Inoue (Japanese), Giancarlo Esposito (English), Bruno Choël (European French), Raúl Anaya (Latin American Spanish)

A four-eyed fixer from Santo Domingo who often employs Maine and his crew for gigs.

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• All for Nothing: Even if he didn't end up getting splattered into a fine paste in the last episode, it's made clear to him that he wasn't going to get that position in Arasaka's top brass like he wanted because of how badly he screwed up with the cyberskeleton project.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • His personal security squad is exclusively comprised of men dressed in rather sexual and flamboyant outfits, who he on occasions will stroke and touch sensually. They contrast rather conspicuously with his otherwise very professional and strait-laced look. On the other side though he does drop a few vaguely sexual innuendos when talking to Kiwi and their shared past, hinting at a possible relationship, but again is vague and could just as equally be him trolling her. Otherwise, nothing about his sexuality comes up in either direction.
  • In the Japanese subtitles, his gunman is tagged as "gigolo" during their phone call in Episode 10.
• Ambition Is Evil: Faraday is an ambitious man willing to do anything to achieve his goals. This includes sending David's crew to either be slaughtered by Militech or captured by Arasaka, handing over Lucy to Arasaka for the bounty on her head and murdering Kiwi for outliving her usefulness. Even after he believes he's secured corporate protection from Arasaka, he states he has no intention on stopping and will keep doing everything he can to rise to the top.
• An Arm and a Leg: David's gravity implant severs one of Faraday's legs from his body, forcing him to call Trauma Team in an effort to escape.
• Bad Boss: Infamously so. A Fixer's job is to provide a reliable workflow for mercenaries and the best ensure their people are satisifed with fair deals and receive tasks that they'll be more than happy to take up. Faraday does neither of those, seeing everyone as an expense he's gladly able to part with at a moment's notice. Moreover, he rarely, if ever, follows his word on any deals he makes, leaving his mercs either hanging or dead, which has made him a very dodgy person to work for as Rebecca dryly notes during the Cyberskeleton heist. This leaves either only the desperate or those who are tempted by offers that sound too good to be true for the mercy that do end up working for him. Both Kiwi and, indirectly, David pay the price as a result.
• Big Bad: Faraday's ambition to ascend the corporate ladder is what puts Maine's crew in harm's way, far beyond the normal risk of being an edgerunner. He firmly steps into the role once he double-crosses Militech and receives Arasaka's backing to retrieve the Cyberskeleton by using David as the live guinea pig. That being said, he's far from the biggest threat in Night City.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He has dreams of ascending the corporate ladder and becoming more than a fixer, and while his machinations cause David and Lucy no small amount of grief, he's swimming with much bigger fish and isn't as smart or capable as he thinks he is. He's easily played by Arasaka Counterintelligence for their own ends, and they later drop Faraday altogether when his plotting backfires on them in the form of a vengeful David going on the warpath with the Cyberskeleton. More, the climax of the series is against Adam Smasher, with Faraday being treated as an afterthought, suffering an ignominious death. By accident, may we add.
• Bullying a Dragon: Faraday can't stop antagonizing people who could crush him like a bug ranging from Militech to Arasaka to Adam Smasher. He even becomes his most hostile to David only after he's equipped with an Arasaka superweapon.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Has a habit of switching allegiances on a dime the second it suits his end goals or his stands something to gain from it. He betrays Militech for Arasaka for a better offer, sends David and his crew into a trap and tries to personally kill his long-time associate Kiwi after she helped him with the setup.
• Disney Villain Death: Ultimately meets his end when David knocks him out of the top of Arasaka Tower. Viewers even get treated to the gory, gory impact.
• Extra Eyes: Has a distinctive face implant which replaces one of his eyes with three stacked on top of each other. The four eyes rolling across the pavement are the only recognizable body parts of him left after he falls out a window and splatters like a bug on the pavement.
• Faux Affably Evil: Speaks rather formally and keeps a respectful air around the people he organizes, at first, but is quick to show how terse and slimy he really is once he's established power over his runners' pockets and he isn't afraid to double cross any of the people in his employ at a moment's notice, as both David and Kiwi can attest too.
• Foil: To David - both originated from Santo and have expressed a desire to reach the top of Arasaka. Both also (at least initially) have few visible cybernetics. But while David had no real goals for himself and only wanted to be an Arasaka executive for his mom's sake, Faraday wants to be on the top out of ambition. David is loyal while Faraday is duplicitous. Most telling of all, David gives Faraday an extremely Undignified Death a couple of minutes before he chooses to Face Death with Dignity against Adam Smasher.
• Hate Sink: Faraday is quite possibly the single most detestable person in Edgerunners. Katsuo is just a run-of-the-mill bully who's easily dealt with and Adam Smasher, who personally kills Rebecca and David, only does so on orders from Arasaka's CI agents for a paycheck; Faraday, meanwhile, is a self-absorbed, arrogant Bad Boss who throws his weight around anyone who's willing to put up with him for a job at best and actively betrays them and/or sends them on suicide missions at worst, not ever caring about the consequences so long as it benefits him. He double-crosses and kidnaps Lucy and forces David in a no-win situation that requires him to don the cyberskeleton and succumb to cyberpsychosis lest he and his friends all get killed by Arasaka's armed forces. He's ultimately the one most responsible for everything bad that happens at the end of the series - specifically, Rebecca and David's aforementioned deaths. He ends up getting his just desserts when David goes on a rampage at Arasaka's headquarters and get in a fight with Adam Smasher, with Faraday getting killed in the crossfire.
• The Heavy: Becomes the most personal opponent to David once he decides to double-cross Militech and side with Arasaka, kidnapping Lucy to secure his deal with them. However, it's made abundantly clear for all of his efforts, he is a nobody in the grand scope of the setting.
• It's All About Me: Faraday only cares about himself and his ambitions, everyone else can go hang the moment they stop being useful.
• Jerkass: Permanently rude and condescending to everyone he talks to, even people vastly out of his weight class like Arasaka's top enforcer, Adam Smasher. Unfortunately for him, it's not without consequences - his abrasive, obstructive attitude is terrible for engendering loyalty and tends to result in people planning around him because they know he won't tell them important details.
• Karmic Death: Faraday has plans to make it big and has such a big view of himself that he tries to order around Adam Smasher. In the end, he gets knocked out of the top of Arasaka Tower by accident from an attack Smasher aimed at David and is splattered into red paste on the ground below with no one noticing, or any real way to identify his body afterward.
• Ludicrous Gibs: It's what you'd expect from getting to watch the end result of a Disney Villain Death unfold. Some of the only recognizable bits left of him are his eyes rolling away from his remains.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Faraday is an exceedingly appropriate name for such a fair-weather ally.
  • Faraday cages are devices which can block cell and radio signals. Quite appropriate for a man who likes witholding information even to his supposed allies.
• Middle-Management Mook: As a fixer Faraday serves as a middle man, passing on assignments to mercs from his corporate bosses. Best exemplified when Faraday meets with his Militech handlers and they withhold crucial information and treat him just as condescending and disposable as Faraday treats his own mercs. He becomes this to Arasaka when they make him a better offer, giving David and his crew a "job" which is a trap to get David to put on the cyberskeleton. Despite Faraday's ambition to rise to the top, he's ultimately a Big Bad Wannabe as he has neither the brains nor the brawn to achieve his goals and relies on hiring out more competent and deadlier people to do his dirty work for him.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Faraday may act like a big shot but he's not even an especially important Fixer. Just a Fixer who sometimes acts as a middleman for the corps, but he wants to move up to becoming an actual corporate employee instead. But at the end of the day, he's nothing but just another tool for them, something that can be exploited to put a degree of separation from themselves; used without any respect or care, only kept around because he's convenient, and thrown away without hesitation when he proves too much trouble to keep. He even has the temerity to think that he can give orders to Adam Smasher.
• Smug Snake: Attempts to extort Arasaka with Lucy when his plan goes south, despite all the carnage his plans caused, and even tries to talk down to Adam Smasher of all people, demanding him to put David down despite having no authority over him whatsoever. Amusingly, Adam Smasher has no idea who he even is or why he is ordering him to do the job he was going to do anyway.
  Faraday: Adam Smasher, hurry! Go on, kill the boy!
  Smasher: Who the fuck are you?
  Faraday: You fucking merc! Do your job!
• Treacherous Questgiver: He gives David's crew a job to hit an Arasaka convoy which is actually arranged for David to put on the cyberskeleton and perform a "field test" against an army of Militech soldiers.
• Undignified Death: For a major villain, Faraday's end is very unceremonious and mundane, getting knocked out of a building by accident and falling to his death.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Faraday's attempts to exceed his orders results in David succumbing to cyberpsychosis and going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to get back his girlfriend.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Faraday believes Maine's flaw is his personal attachment to the people in his crew, saying that familiarity muddies the mind and was what led to his death. Faraday displays no such attachment, being willing to betray anyone at a moment's notice for his own advancement.
• We Have Reserves: How he treats his hires ultimately, as Faraday could not actually give a shit less if they come back in one piece or not, and in fact counts on massive causalities when hiring for big jobs such as during the Cyberskeleton con so he pays far fewer dividends. It's to the point it's Lampshaded by Rebecca that it's typical behavior when they see he's hired a bunch of Mooks to distract an Arasaka convoy carrying the Cyberskeleton and didn't tell them he expects them to die. It makes the irony of the reveal, that Arasaka sees him as just as expendable, all the sweeter.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • Militech scale back their support for Faraday and refuse to protect him from Arasaka due to his repeated failures to procure information about the Cyberskeleton.
  • While Arasaka are initially happy to turn Faraday to their side, they quickly lose their patience with him when his plan to force David to don the Cyberskeleton backfires horrendously on them. When Faraday arrives at Arasaka Tower, security is given very specific instructions to kill him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • After Kiwi does her part in handing over Lucy and luring David's crew into a trap, when she meets him to get her payment, Faraday shoots her, revealing part of securing his own corporate protection with Arasaka is eliminating anyone who knows about the cyberskeleton project. Kiwi manages to escape and survive just long enough to send a vengeful David after their traitorous fixer.
  • Was also planned for him as well by Arasaka when his ambition to please causes the biggest shit-show Night City has seen since Johnny Silverhand's bombing of the Arasaka headquarters when his plan for David goes hard south with their tech, closing out their deal abruptly and seeking to dispose of him once they resolve the crisis with the Cyberskeleton. However, David is able to do their work for them after goading Smasher's missiles to help his escape with Lucy.

Jimmy Kurosaki

Jimmy Kurosaki

"You either lose yourself forever, or you die. No in-between."

Voiced by: Yoshito Yasuhara (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English), Boris Rehlinger (French), Christian Stempler (Latin American Spanish)

A renowned braindance artist with ties to a certain Arasaka executive, putting him in the crew's crosshairs.

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• Ace Custom: Has at least two Militech Wyverns he modified himself to be both bulletproof and resistant to hacking.
• Agent Peacock: While he's mostly known as a flamboyant techie, Jimmy is a very dangerous man between his EMP emitter that's strong enough to put David on the ground and his custom attack drones. He's the first indication the crew has gotten in over their heads in their pursuit of Tanaka Sr.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Kurosaki's mentioned in a conversation between David and Doc as the person behind the XBDs David's enjoying before he plays an active role in the plot in episode five.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Subjects David to a brutal custom braindance, forcing him to experience the perspective of several murderous cyberpsychos while preying on his insecurities.
• Die Laughing: Before he bleeds out he fixes David with a very creepy grin and knowing look, gurgling out a final chuckle before flatlining.
  • The worst part is, it is difficult to know if this actually happened, or if it was an early sign of David's encroaching Cyberpsychosis.
• Expy: Of Peter Riviera, being a hammy and over-the-top Master of Illusion, that loves inflicting Mind Rape to anyone that crosses his bad side.
• Extra Eyes: Has several extra eye implants mounted to the back of his head, albeit covered by his hair.
• Faux Affably Evil: When David introduces himself, Kurosaki is civil but not exactly warm. The second David regains consciousness after Kurosaki forced him to experience an XBD, Kurosaki begins speaking in a much more excited and friendly manner, clearly reveling in trying to drive David to madness. He maintains his shallow affect of affability even as he's forced to work with Maine's crew.
• Hannibal Lecture: As part of his attempt to break David he gives him a vicious speech digging into his fears and insecurities, saying he's not special, he will die horribly and/or go insane, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. He's ultimately right.
  Kurosaki: I've seen plenty of chrome jocks go psycho over the years. Some metal's simply not meant to mix with meat. Your 'ganic body, your soul, gets pushed to the edge. Teeters on the brink. And it always ends one of two ways. You either lose yourself forever... Or die. No in-between.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Catches one of Tanaka Sr.'s flechettes straight to the throat, dying in minutes from a combination of bleeding out and choking on blood.
• I Surrender, Suckers: When Dorio and Lucy hold him at gunpoint, Kurosaki surrenders. Only for his two bulletproof drones to come after his attackers.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: He surrenders "for real" once his drones are disabled, knowing mercs aren't inclined to show mercy to a hostage who doesn't do as he's told. It doesn't stop him from giving David a Hannibal Lecture as they're waiting for Tanaka Sr. to fall into their trap.
• Mad Artist: It's clear Kurosaki loves his work as a XBD editor and views himself as some kind of twisted artist as shown by his enthusiasm at driving David insane and capturing the carnage he'll unleash for his next work.
• Nerves of Steel: Kurosaki never drops his casual, sarcastically friendly demeanor even when he's being used as a human shield or has a gun pressed against his temple. Even when he's bleeding out and choking on his own blood from a flechette to the throat, Kurosaki uses his last moments to look at David and laugh. Provided it wasn't just David's hallucination.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Kurosaki loves his work as an XBD editor, is enraptured by the carnage of cyberpsycho attacks, and looks forward to what damage David will do once he uses his XBDs to drive him insane.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He appears in only one episode, yet arguably sets the second half of the series in motion by using his EMP on Maine. The latter's cyberpsychosis noticeably worsens after this encounter, causing him to botch a crucial hacking operation and get himself killed. This would create a chain of events that forces Faraday, the crew's fixer, to betray them in a bid to save his own career after their repeated failures. Things might have turned out very differently for the crew indeed if Kiwi had gotten her hands on the data before getting rudely interrupted by Maine, and Faraday had remained working for Militech instead of Arasaka.
• Snuff Film: Along with his above-board dances he scrolls XBDs of extreme violence and murder, including the cyberpsycho attack from the very start of the series. Tanaka Sr. is one of his clients, leading the crew to go after Jimmy to get him.
• Uncertain Doom: Sure, he dies at the end of the episode, but Trauma Team shows up and they have been known to be able to resuscitate people.

Arasaka Corporation

Tanaka Sr.

Tanaka Sr.

"Arasaka sees in you a valuable asset."

Voiced by: Tetsuo Komura (Japanese), Paul Nakauchi (English), Sebastián Llapur (Latin American Spanish)

The father of David's bully and a high-ranking executive at Arasaka with some information Faraday wants for himself.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He openly begs David to let him go, appealing to his naivete claiming Maine will kill him after he's no longer useful, as well as promising a cushy position at Arasaka.
• Bad Samaritan: Offers to forgive David for assaulting his son and even pressures the academy to re-enroll him with a scholarship. Of course, all of this goodwill is bait to lure in David and abduct him for the Cyberskeleton program, after he sees his extreme tolerance for cyberware.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: It's practically a job requirement for being an executive at a MegaCorp like Arasaka. After finding out David has an extremely high tolerance for cyberware, Tanaka Sr. tries to lure him back to Arasaka Academy just so he can turn him into a human lab rat to test out his Cyberskeleton project.
• Covert Pervert: Downplayed. He employs Delamain's taxi services to secretly buy Jimmy Kurosaki's XBDs tuned specifically for him. This fact allows the crew to get the drop on him. However, Kiwi notes Tanaka prefers gore over porn in his XBDs.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Tanaka Sr. is the target for Maine's crew, who've been ordered to steal data from him, and he's the one trying to lure David back to Arasaka Academy as part of a mysterious plot. He's killed by Lucy in episode 6 of 10 after she finds out he planned to use David as a test subject for his Cyberskeleton project.
• Evil Counterpart: To Gloria Martinez, David's mother. They're both parents of Arasaka students, possibly both single parents (David is confirmed to have no father whereas we just never see or hear about Katsuo's mother) but that's basically where the similarities between the two end. Where Gloria is a lower class, hard working mother who greatly cares for her son and puts in intense effort into getting her son into Arasaka Academy, Tanaka Sr. is a high class, high-ranking member of the academy board who doesn't seem to care that much for his son, clearly mostly sending Katsuo there because of his position, even ignoring him being discharged from the hospital to pick up an XBD. From their different parenting styles it becomes clear why David and Katsuo turned out the way they did and why David is as decent a person as he is. They also both take note of David's potential, but whereas Gloria was from the perspective of a proud mother knowing her son could accomplish great things and seeing his academic potential, Tanaka Sr. was only interested in David's physical potential to take Cyberware with little ill effects and sees David as little more than a guinea pig for the "product." They even heavily contrast in their deaths. Where Gloria died as collateral damage in a gang drive-by on the highway and from being neglected by the Trauma Team due to not being a client, Tanaka Sr. dies due to being directly targeted by Maine's gang, and, ironically enough, his slim chance of making it out might've been dashed because he was a Trauma Team client, as them suddenly coming in and swarming the place causes the already slipping Maine to completely break down into cyberpsychosis, slaughtering the cops and Trauma as a result and brutally killing and mutilating Tanaka's body.
• Exact Words: When he finally meets David face-to-face while begging for mercy, he tries to manipulate David by telling him that Arasaka views him as a "valuable asset." While this is technically true, it's not because the company recognizes his value as a person, the company views him as a lab rat they can use to help develop their products.
• Flechette Storm: Has launchers in his hands that send out a huge blast of flechettes.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He is the reason the crew is working for Faraday to begin with and as director of the Cyberskeleton program he has ties to nearly every tragedy David suffers after installing the Sandevistan.
• He Knows Too Much: Lucy kills him and deletes the data in his head noting David as a prime test subject for his Cyberskeleton project. Though he's briefly resuscitated by Maine, he doesn't regain consciousness and dies permanently a little later. Because he over-consolidated the information on the project, Arasaka hires netrunners to reconstruct the lost data, resulting in Lucy hunting them down too.
• Human Shield: Maine and Dorio use him as one against Trauma Team because he's technically still alive, just unconscious, by the time the paramedics come to get him.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: The crew works him over both physically and mentally to get at the info Faraday wants.
• Jerkass: His first scene is him not caring that his (admittedly also very dickish) son got viciously beaten by David. He doesn’t treat others any better.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: The crew did not expect the pudgy corporate executive to be mounting heavy combat cyberware, and he puts up a decent fight before Maine puts him down for the count.
• Nightmare Fetishist: It turns out he's into XBDs, ones that feature more gore than porn according to Kiwi. Maine is left reflecting that the rich really are freaks.
• Off with His Head!: While he was likely already dead from Lucy short-circuiting him, an enraged Maine rips off his head and hurls it at the Trauma Team and NCPD hit squad sent to rescue him.
• Parental Neglect: The few glimpses of his attitude towards his son doesn't exactly depict him as a loving father. He watches the video of David beating Katsuo with a look of annoyance rather than concern, he tells a subordinate concerned about Katsuo's feelings that it's time his son learns to serve the company's best interests when he orders David to be offered a full-scholarship at Arasaka Academy albeit for sinister reasons, and he postpones seeing his son being discharged from the hospital to pick up an XBD for his own pleasure instead.
• Perpetual Frowner: He's always seen sporting an annoyed scowl, the only exception being when he's tortured by Maine's crew and begging with David for his life.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Like his son, he beats his opponents with fast punches and chrome hands.
• Rasputinian Death: He's tortured via Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique by Maine's crew, gets his brain fried by Lucy, then resuscitated by Maine when Trauma Team shows up to save him, only for his unconscious body to be used as a Human Shield, ultimately dying when Maine rips his head off and throws it at Tanaka's would be rescuers.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The elder Tanaka, while has substantially more presence than his son, is only a plot device for three episodes before he's killed off, but his actions—or more specifically his knowledge is what sends Lucy over the edge in her Violently Protective Girlfriend tendencies with David as she finds out he's targeted to be a lab rat for Arasaka due to his tolerance to cybernetics, leading to her botching the job deliberately (which gets Maine and Dorio killed due to Trauma Team being called) and eventually to David's death as well after she gets caught trying to cover their tracks and David goes out of his way to save her.
• Spanner in the Works: Maine's plan to nab the navigational data off of Maxim in Episode 3 with no one the wiser would have gone off without a hitch if Tanaka hadn't suddenly called Maxim with orders to pick him up. Maine had even planned the heist on Maxim's day off just to guard against this scenario, but clearly Tanaka doesn't have much respect for his underling's personal time. This forces the crew into an Indy Ploy that ends with them having to steal the limo outright, which ends up making Tanaka paranoid and abandoning his usual routes, thus making the job All for Nothing.
• Villains Want Mercy: He's left begging for mercy from the very person he intended to use as an Arasaka lab rat.

Maxim Kuznetsov

Maxim Kuznetsov

Voiced by: Takanori Hoshino (Japanese), Raul Solo (Latin American Spanish)

An Arasaka driver and bodyguard for Tanaka, and the victim of David's first job with Maine's crew.

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• And Your Little Dog, Too!: While angrily shouting at David to get out of his car, Maxim can be heard threatening that he'll hurt David's friends and family too.
• Cool Car: He drives a black Villefort Alvarado V4F 570 Delegate, a car that's designed to show off its owner's luxury and wealth.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Maxim doesn't catch on that a strange woman randomly giving him a handjob out of nowhere was really just a diversion until after he realizes his data shard's been stolen.
• The Driver: Serves as Tanaka Sr.'s driver and bodyguard, though he's never seen actually on the job. The crew targets him only to gather intel on where he's been driving his boss.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After his bet on The Butcher goes sideways thanks to Dorio providing her opponent with the tools for a fatal takedown, Maxim goes to his favorite bar to get shit-faced. This in turn leaves him too distracted to notice his data shard getting pick-pocketed by the crew so they can steal the navigation data.
• Dumb Muscle: Maxim's built like a brickhouse, but he easily falls for Maine's simple yet effective ploy to klep his navigation data that he only catches onto thanks to his boss's unexpected call. Then there's him trying to shoot out the window of his own car with a pistol to try and get at David, a corpo car he should be aware is intentionally armored to be able to handle such firearms.
• Husky Russkie: Maxim's a huge man with a Slavic name. The English dub even gives him a faint Russian accent.
• Oh, Crap!: He has a minor one when he finally notices his shard has been klepped and quickly runs out to his car, but he gets a bigger one when David starts the car, crashes it a bit, and then takes off, all while Maxim can only scream at him to stop and fire away fruitlessly.

Arasaka Counterintelligence

Arasaka Counterintelligence

Voiced by: Rachel Robinson (Kate, English), Bill Butts (Douglas, English), Erica Edwards (Kate, Latin American Spanish), Juan Carlos Tinoco (Douglas, Latin American Spanish)

Kate

Douglas

The Arasaka employees who run the Counterintelligence of the Night City division.

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• Always a Bigger Fish: They don't get much screentime, but it's made very clear from the beginning that Arasaka Intelligence is much more far reaching and resourceful than the Edgerunners can hope to compete with. They make Faraday look like a no-name stooge and have direct authority over Adam Smasher putting them far above any other antagonist in the show.
• All There in the Script: They're never verbally addressed by name in the show, but the credits and the handles on their calls reveal their names as Kate and Douglas.
• Bad Boss: Both of them send out a convoy of Arasaka security as canon fodder for David's crew to wipe out just so they can lure David into a situation where he's forced to field-test the Cyberskeleton. When the situation spirals out of control, Kate pins all the blame for the screwup on Douglas.
• Greater-Scope Villain: They're higher up in the corporate ladder, and possess power and influence that Faraday can only dream of, but only enable his scheme to force David to don the Cyberskeleton. Once it's clear David is more trouble than he's worth, they call Adam Smasher to clean up Faraday's mess and wash their hands of the whole affair, without ever facing the protagonists.
• Gunboat Diplomacy: Since Faraday works for Arasaka's rival, Militech, they engage in some corporate warfare by putting out a hit on Faraday, using one of Night City's gangs to threaten the fixer into turning traitor and work for Arasaka instead.
• Karma Houdini: Kate and Douglas's scheming results in the deaths of a lot of people, including Rebecca and David, but when their plan blows up in their faces, not only does Kate survive, but she offers up Douglas as a scapegoat to the higher-ups.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When Faraday's plan ends up causing a lot of death and destruction in Night City, Kate and Douglas don't turn on Faraday out of morals, but because they're worried about how the devastation will impact Arasaka's PR.
• The Scapegoat: Kate winds up pinning Douglas to be this for the Cyberskeleton affair, as someone had to take the fall for enlisting Faraday.
• Secret Police: A corporate variant for Arasaka, which, as one of the world's most powerful MegaCorps, has more power than most governments. They covertly gather information on threats to the company and are more than willing to drop bodies to protect corporate secrets.
• Small Role, Big Impact: They only debut in the last three episodes and their appearances are scant, but their actions in the latter half of the series are instrumental. They stage an assassination attempt on Faraday, which leads him to turn to Arasaka when Militech bails on him. Their enabling of Faraday is what leads to his capture of Lucy, as well as the ambush that forces David to don the Cyberskeleton. When the situation spirals out of their control, they let Adam Smasher off the leash, resulting in Rebecca and David's deaths. It's safe to say much of the worse events in the latter half of the series wouldn't have happened without their influence.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • After Faraday's plan ends up causing enough death and destruction to be a PR clusterfuck for Arasaka, Kate tells Douglas to make sure Faraday doesn't take a single step past the docking bay.
  • Douglas is also a victim of this, albeit a non-lethal variant as Kate pins the failure of the entire situation on him and likely gets him demoted.

Final Boss - Warning: Walking Spoiler

Adam Smasher

"All the same meat to me. I'll slaughter each and every one of you."

Voiced by: Yukihiro Misono (Japanese), Alec Newman (English), Idzi Dutkiewicz (Latin American Spanish)

Arasaka's chief of security and personal attack dog. He comes in the final episode to resolve the crisis with the Cyberskeleton.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed as he's not winning any beauty awards anytime soon but the anime's stylization causes his face to lose some of the more grotesque features; His game depiction's face can be summed up as rotting human flesh stretched over half a robotic head. Here, his remaining human skin has merely gone pale with no signs of decay and has enough stylization that it could pass off for a Cool Mask.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Downplayed in relation to his canon characteristics. While his physical feats are 100% in line with his actual power scale, he is able to outright No-Sell hacks from Lucy. Smasher should have had a far more difficult time ignoring them, given how vulnerable he is to being hacked compared to most (both in the game and on the tabletop), especially since it's the fastest and easiest way for him to be taken down in a straight fight.^note In fact, in the tabletop, hacking him is practically the only way to stand even a slim chance against him, given that his remaining stats are otherwise through the roof. A Netrunner of Lucy's caliber should've been able to take him apart. Of course, it has been 50-something years since his statline in 2020...
  • He's definitely buffed compared to his game counterpart, however. In the game a properly specced V can kill him in minutes, while here he's truly a Lightning Bruiser that easily shrugs off hits far more severe than the bullets and grenades that a player can easily kill him with and has Super-Speed thanks to a Sandevistan. Although, this is finally patched in the 2.1 update of the game, which brings him up to line with anime and tabletop counterparts in terms of power scale.
  • All that aside, according to Mike Pondsmith, the reason V is capable of chipping enough chrome to go toe-to-toe with Smasher and walk away alive is because Johnny's psyche reinforces V's, granting them an extreme level of resistance to cyberpsychosis that even David couldn't achieve.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the tabletop, Smasher's intelligence score was quite low. Even in the base game, he didn't come across particularly intelligent. Here, he is able to deduce the weakness of David's Cyberskeleton instantly^note The Cyberskeleton was originally meant for Adam, so it is expected he would have some familiarity with the specs. suggesting that he can think strategically and doesn't rely solely on brute force. He also makes some very astute observations about David's personality and motivations. That he No-Sells Lucy's hacking actively (rather than relying on passive ICE) when the tabletop version was highly vulnerable to hacking also suggests he is a lot sharper here than other portrayals.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A very minor example. His portrayal in Edgerunners lacks the game version's notorious misogyny and has a less vulgar mouth, especially when it comes to his treatment of women. This version of Smasher is far more emotionally detached and is almost polite to David after defeating him. The game's version basically had the personality of an overgrown schoolyard bully who took every challenge to his power as a personal insult, whereas in the anime, he has all the emotional involvement of a guy playing games on his phone at the bus stop while waiting for his ride to arrive.
• Adaptational Personality Change: In the game, his speech is generally crude and vulgar, he's more prone to rage, and he's unapologetically misogynistic. He's much more composed in the series and swears much less with no indication of his misogynistic tendencies.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Is this to David. Despite David's high tolerance for cybernetics enabling him to use the Cyberskeleton, Adam Smasher is vastly more powerful, skilled, and fully capable of ripping him apart with his bare hands. Symbolized in the square-up before the fight proper. Even encased in a Mini-Mecha about as tall as Smasher and much broader, the position of his torso means David has to crane his neck up to look Smasher in the eye.
• Ax-Crazy: Just like in the tabletop and 2077, Smasher revels in the carnage and bloodshed that ensues whenever his employers take him off the leash, and he's functionally always been like this. The rumour goes that Smasher is immune to cyberpsychosis no matter how he chromes up because he was already a sadistic killing machine.
• BFG: His primary handheld weapon is a heavy machine gun of the type usually mounted on security turrets. The fact that he's able to effortlessly carry and fire it one-handed is yet another testament to his superhuman strength.
• Bishounen Line: Compared to the boxy Mini-Mecha David becomes after donning the Cyberskeleton. Adam’s cybernetic chassis is far more humanoid and compact, and it far outperforms the skeleton during Smasher and David’s climatic fight.
• Blood Knight: He wouldn't be Adam Smasher if he wasn't obsessed with mass carnage or collateral damage for the shits and giggles of it. In fact, if it wasn't for David attacking him and wounding his ego enough to refocus on him, he'd have killed Lucy and Falco too simply because they tried to escape.
  Adam Smasher: None leave the slaughterhouse! Not alive!
• Boring, but Practical: Compared to David in the final showdown, as Smasher's extensive chrome is nothing flashy compared to the cyberskeleton and its powerful grav and mag abilities. The practical part shows up when David's showy tech can't put a scratch on him through the entire fight even as Smasher takes him to pieces.
• Cold Ham: Evil Is Hammy example. He's not as loud and vitriolic as his game counterpart, but he's no less short of bloodthirsty boasts.
• Combat Pragmatist: Shoots David in the gut as punishment for him getting distracted by a Trauma Team attempting to rescue Faraday. He also targets David's antigravity supports to immediately end his threat rather than draw it out once David insults his pride.
• Consummate Professional: His only mode of operation is to be chucked at a problem, and to deal with it with extreme prejudice, and refuses to do anything for anyone else before or after, but it becomes subverted once he's actually set loose as he becomes a complete sociopathic Blood Knight who lives for the carnage and mayhem he causes all around him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: To call what Smasher did to David and his crew a fight is pure hyperbole. Despite all their efforts, Smasher goes through the remnants of the Edgerunners like a vibroblade through butter.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Averted. In fact, this is what makes him so frightening as it is argued that Adam Smasher never had really much of a soul to begin with and couldn't undergo cyberpsychosis from borging himself like most people because he was already crazy to begin with, which means he can operate at full capacity — unlike David whose mind is breaking from the cyberskeleton.
• Diabolus ex Machina: A quite literal example; He is a downright demonic Full-borg and his involvement in the final episode pretty much seals the deal that there's no way for David to come out alive.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Though Arasaka's deadliest weapon and corporate attack dog, Smasher is a far more dangerous and direct threat to the protagonists than the corpos he works for, with the series' climax being against him, and the actual Big Bad who caused the whole mess being unceremoniously defenestrated.
• The Dreaded: He's hyped up as a Night City Legend and a boogeyman for edgerunners. By the finale, David and friends learn the very hard way that this reputation might actually be an Understatement.
• Dub Personality Change: Unlike the English dub, the Japanese version drops his habit of referring to others as meatbags that need to be slaughtered.
• Dumbass No More: Unlike his less than cunning 2020 self, this Smasher is not nearly vulnerable to being hacked and brought down that way, and by how it works, it's implied to be atleast semi-active on his part, rather than just an overpowered cutting edge black-ICE he has installed.
• Evil Counterpart: Just like David, Adam was expelled from a prestigious institution (the US military according to the original tabletop’s lore) for misbehaviour, went on to achieve a lucrative criminal career thanks to his abnormal tolerance for cybernetics before biting off more then he could chew, and on death’s door received a chance of survival from an Arasaka agent if they agreed to throw away their humanity and become fully mechanical: Adam by going "full-Borg", David through the Soulkiller. While Smasher jumped at the chance for freedom as a monster and never once looked back, David's descent into cyberpsychosis was fuelled by the desire to keep the woman he loved safe; and once that was accomplished, accepted death gladly rather then serve the corporation responsible for her suffering. Also, while David's tolerance for cybernetics comes from his mental and emotional stability, Smasher's tolerance comes from being so naturally unstable that he is capable of ignoring any mental damage that cyberpsychosis can inflict on him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He exchanges some banter with David when they first meet and commends him for putting up a fight as David lays dying, even stating he’d make an interesting Construct. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s an Ax-Crazy monster who lives to kill everything he’s pointed at.
• Final Boss: Much like the game, he is the very last opponent faced by David as he makes his march on Arasaka headquarters to retrieve Lucy. But since Smasher is both The Dreaded and still alive by 2077, David's chances of success were pretty much dashed against the stones.
• Genius Bruiser: Despite his appearance Smasher is far from a mindless thug. Upon being given his mission briefing he immediately deduces that the Cyberskeleton's anti-grav emitters are its key weakness. He also has enough hacking knowledge to completely No-Sell Lucy's attempts to attack him from cyberspace. Could count as Adaptational Intelligence, as in CP2020 his intelligence stat is only 4, which doesn't make him the sharpest tool in the shed, or him taking the time in the intervening decades to deal with his biggest vulnerability.
• The Giant: Smasher is literally so huge that he takes up an entire couch in the Arasaka Tower as the security agents are discussing his deployment, and despite being in a Cyberskeleton, David still has to crane his neck uncomfortably upwards to look Smasher in the eye.
• Godzilla Threshold: Arasaka is generally not keen to deploy Adam Smasher due to his violent tendencies, and keep him in reserve for only the most serious of threats, such as when David steals their Cyberskeleton and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge with it.
• Goomba Stomp: The nicest possible way you can describe what he did to Rebecca. Poor girl was left in many pieces as a result, not one of them alive.
• Hate Sink: Smasher here is just as cruel and bloodthirsty as he is in the game. The fact he ruins David's reunion with Lucy before smashing Rebecca on the floor and killing David all serve to reinforce his willingness to embrace his own brutality and irredeemable qualities.
• Hero Killer: Kills Rebecca by smashing her into a fine paste with barely any effort, and brutally kills David not too long after to establish exactly why he's so feared.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Due to being both his well-deserved reputation as the boogeyman of Night City and needing to still be alive by the events of the game, there was no chance David was going to actually do anything meaningful against Smasher.
• Implacable Man: When Arasaka sets Smasher loose on someone, nothing is stopping him until either he or his target is dead, and until V came along, it was always the target.
  • When Rebecca fires into the air as he plummets towards the gang, he casually ignores all her shots before landing right on top of her.
  • David's new Gravity Master ability in the finale slows him down but only for a bit. Adam is quick to walk towards him and disassemble David's stolen suit even as massive gravitational weight is being exerted upon his frame.
• Insanity Immunity: It's heavily implied the reason Cybernetics Eat Your Soul is because excessive chroming up aggravates emotional trauma and feelings of alienation inherent to Night City, until the cyborg is completely unable to tell between memories and reality. Because Smasher was an already Ax-Crazy Psycho for Hire who was completely at peace with the Wretched Hive around him, he's more or less immune to it.
• It's Personal: Sort of. He couldn't care less about David as an individual during their encounter, but as explained by the Arasaka suits, the Cyberskeleton was meant as an additional upgrade for Adam Smasher's already chromed out body, but as David takes it on a joyride far longer than Arasaka intended, they let Adam Smasher off the leash against him because he'd be extremely frustrated over his "new toy" being taken from him and be sure to bring down the person who had stolen it. They were right.
• Jerkass: Adam is not only a violent killer, but he’s also a massive prick. This is seen best as he verbally tears David a new one while physically tearing him apart.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He makes some very astute observations about David's motivations, and accurately points out that even with top-shelf tech, David is hopelessly outmatched, way in over his head, and is literally falling apart. Even his chiding of David for getting distracted mid-battle isn't completely wrong.
• The Juggernaut: Adam Smasher is a force to be reckoned with and simply shrugs off everything thrown at him.
• Karma Houdini: As far as the show is concerned, at least. He kills David plus Rebecca and ends up none the worse for wear. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before V ends up fighting him.
• Kick the Dog: Kills Rebecca, and attempts to do the same to Lucy and Falco, for no reason while pursuing David because, as he says himself, "they are all the same meat" to him and will kill everyone just because he can.
• Knight of Cerebus: Not the show was very light-hearted to begin with, but the second Adam Smasher shows up is when things go from bad to downright hopeless for our protagonists, and pretty much spoils that David and Lucy’s story is not going to have a happy ending.
• Laser-Guided Karma: This is possible in the game if you kill Smasher with Rebecca's signature shotgun Guts, thus avenging her death at his hands.
• Leitmotif: His eponymous theme from 2077 plays just as his beatdown of the protagonists commences.
• Lightning Bruiser: Adam Smasher has a very strong body that can shrug off most attacks, rips David's Cyberskeleton to pieces in a matter of seconds and moves at supersonic speeds thanks to his Sandevistan.
• Moment Killer: He literally smashes on the heartfelt reunion after David saves Lucy and rendezvous with the gang, something Rebecca exclaims before being Squashed Flat by him. Given the tragic outcome of his cockblocking, this example is not Played for Laughs.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: As in the games' lore, "Smasher" is a fitting name for a monster who enjoys smashing people to death for his sheer sadism.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: If Adam Smasher wants a piece of you, you and your fellow Runners might as well just pack it in. Aside from some deceptively friendly chit-chat with David, he doesn't fuck around in battle, and relentlessly chases down and attacks his targets until they're dead by his hands. He kills Rebecca instantly with a Goomba Stomp and rips apart and executes David within a matter of minutes. Smasher even shoots David in the gut while he's distracted at one point.
  Adam Smasher: Can you really afford distractions now?
• No-Sell:
  • Not only does he shrug off everything David's Cyberskeleton throws at him, and flat out ignore David's Super-Speed with his own; Smasher isn't even fazed by Lucy's attempt to hack him and nearly fries her brain instead midst the fight.
  • David manages to catch Smasher off guard and hold him down with the Cyberskeleton's Gravity Master capabilities (which was shown to be powerful enough to crush Militech soldiers into a paste), but this only serves to piss him off as he quickly goes to tear off the antigravity supports in the skeleton's shoulders.
• Offhand Backhand: When Falco tries to attack him after Rebecca's death, Smasher doesn't even break his stride as he casually swats Falco away hard enough to sever his cybernetic arm.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He slides into the final battle with just enough time to protect a single Arasaka employee from David's bullets and actually bothers to do so. Though it could’ve been pragmatic, as the employee he saved was meant to be the fall guy.
  • In addition to admitting that he actually had some fun fighting David, he also offered him the chance to become a construct (which is well within the means of Arasaka, and who are able to do so even with a corpse), and when David refuses, Adam Smasher summarily kills him by destroying his brain (the organ that's crucial for turning someone into an engram). In his own twisted way, Adam seemed to respect David enough to both offer him a chance at immortality and honor his rejection thereof, to the point of deliberately finishing him off in a way that would prevent Arasaka from posthumously turning him into an engram against his will.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: After David turns down his offer to become a construct to save his life, Adam simply sighs, "Ah, well." before blowing David's head off.
• Pretender Diss: As seen under "Reason You Suck" Speech, Smasher is downright insulted that David thinks his affinity for cyberware makes them equal.
  Smasher: You're packing some pretty heavy artillery for your size, boy. I'm surprised you could string two words together.
  David: Likewise, choom. Heard you went no-ganic full-borg, so I gotta ask: any brain left in that chrome dome of yours?
  Smasher: You could say I'm...special.
  David: Well, so the fuck am I!
  Smasher: That a joke?
• Psycho for Hire: As in the source material, he is a bloodthirsty and sadistic psychopath on the payroll of the Arasaka Corporation.
• Rage Breaking Point: Being looked down on by David grinds his gears so much that he forgoes his typical Blood Knight tendencies of Leave No Survivors and purely focuses on killing him instead, which David was counting on to ensure Lucy and Falco escaped.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Has an absolutely vicious one towards David as he begins pummels him to death during his Heroic Sacrifice after pushing him to his Rage Breaking Point.
  Adam Smasher: You! Who are you to challenge me when you can't even stand without your antigrav crutches?! You think you're special 'cause you're scrappy? Don't make me laugh!
• Reconstruction: He's the Final Boss of 2077, but prior to update 2.1 he was surprisingly underpowered against a properly-specced V, who is effectively on their last legs thanks to the Relic killing them internally. Here, he's such an absurdly lethal force of nature that he serves as a One-Man Army and shrugs off a fully kitted-out David inside a cyberskeleton, retaining a much more lore-accurate depiction of his character in that there was one fundamental rule with him in the tabletop game: you didn't fight Adam Smasher unless you wanted to die.
• Red Baron: “The NC Boogeyman”, though his name "Smasher" also fits this trope well.
• Sadist: Much like in the game, he revels in causing others agony as much as he loves killing them. He could have very easily killed David on the spot of their meeting, but draws it out not only to size the kid up but for his own twisted amusement as he hounds him down into the city streets and tears him down.
• Saved by Canon: Since none of the characters are Morgan Blackhand or V, none of them have any chance of putting him down and Smasher won't meet his fate until V defeats him at Arasaka Tower.
• Stealthy Colossus: He’s actually present in the room with the two Arasaka agents, but his black color scheme and uncharacteristic silence mean he blends into the shadows surprisingly well. The male agent is even surprised by his presence.
• Strong and Skilled: Contrasting David, Smasher has had decades of being a full borg and shows it. Nothing David can do leaves so much as a scratch on him.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only exists as an actual character for around five minutes altogether in the final episode, but Adam Smasher appearing alone turns things into an outright Sudden Downer Ending if it wasn't for David's Heroic Sacrifice allowing Lucy and Falco to escape.
• The Sociopath: A textbook example, as Smasher is extremely self-centered and completely uncaring of everyone and everything around him except whether or not he can get excited smashing it to bits with extreme prejudice, regardless if they are the target he's after or not. In fact, his lifelong sociopathy is probably the sole reason why he hasn't succumbed to cyberpsychosis despite how chromed he is, because it's doubtful he can experience a level of emotion necessary for trauma to affect him when he is gleefully the traumatic event for others.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Despite his appearance, turns out to be this and is perfectly calm throughout the battle with David, at least until David insults his pride.
• Super-Persistent Predator: The moment he has David in his sights, Adam Smasher is absolutely relentless in pursuing him, even far outside of Arasaka headquarters and down into Night City, and is completely uncaring of the collateral damage or lives lost that gets between him and David.
• Super-Speed: Just to drive home how screwed David is, Adam shows that he has a Sandevistan of his own, negating the former's advantage. Just to twist the knife, Adam casually refers to it as a "rudimentary implant" — the augment that David placed so much of his personal value on is just an easily acquirable gimmick for the big leaguers.
• Taking the Bullet: Non-fatal example upon his entrance, and surprising for someone as sociopathic as him, as Smasher blocks several of the bullets meant for one of the Arasaka counterintelligence agents with his body effortlessly and no worse for the wear after the fact. That said, given how the agent's intended to be the fall guy for his compatriot for the whole mess after it's resolved and Smasher was in on said conversation the entire time, letting the guy get zeroed before he is forced to face the higher brass of Arasaka is presumably to Smasher nowhere near as fun as seeing him sweat bullets trying to hopelessly defend himself later.
• Villain Respect: Despite looking down on David and barely working up a sweat, he does admit that the kid had given him a bit of fun before putting him down like a dog, even offering to use Soulkiller on him before he does so. And he respect's David's refusal, as well.
• Walking Spoiler: While foreshadowed earlier by Ripperdoc mentioning him to an unknowing David, his appearance in the final episode to deal with David's rampage against Arasaka affirms he isn't making it out of the series alive.
• Wrecked Weapon: Implied. An instant before their collision, it's shown that Rebecca and Smasher fired on one another at point blank range, barrel-to-barrel, which is immediately followed by an explosion that's a bit too fiery and sizable even for an immensely-large cyborg slamming into the ground after falling several stories. Afterwards, his rifle is nowhere to be seen, giving the impression that the little Solo managed to take out his main weapon with her last moment alive.
• World's Best Warrior: With decades of combat experience, the best cyberware Arasaka has to offer, and having taken on the likes of Morgan Blackhand and Johnny Silverhand and lived, Smasher is, to put it bluntly, the deadliest killing machine on the planet. David and friends simply never stood a chance as soon as Smasher got involved.
• Worthy Opponent: Subverted. Adam Smasher doesn't see David as any sort of threat, and both before and during their fight he constantly talks down and belittles the idea of seriously facing him, and sure enough, despite packing some serious heat, David is barely a fart to him. That said, when he looks back in hindsight just before he kills him, he does admit that David was actually fun to fight and even offers the opportunity to have the Soulkiller used on him, but the moment David blows him off, he follows through without hesitation and kills David on the spot.
• You Don't Look Like You: In a weird way, as despite his cameo appearance prior, he is spot-on design-wise to his game appearance. Adam Smasher's appearance in the final episode, while superficially similar, has a lot of details that are different enough to be noticeable. Namely: his Electronic Eyes are standard Glowing Mechanical Eyes instead of the weird multi-lensed camera ones, his jaw doesn't move when he speaks, and he's far more top-heavy at times than his freakishly huge body already was. Possibly justified as Word of God states that Adam's status as a full-borg allows him to pilot different bodies, so it's possible that he's literally in a different body than when we later see him in 2077.

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