YMMV / Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

• And You Thought It Would Fail: With the controversy surrounding Cyberpunk 2077's infamous launch and the generally... less-than-ideal reputation of video game adaptations, there were questions within the gaming and anime fandoms alike on whether Edgerunners could amount to anything special. Furthermore, when Rafal Jaki intially pitched it to several anime studios during the conception stages, most of them were skeptical and uninterested (outside of TRIGGER), as they found it to be too "crazy" and "unsuitable" for animation, feeling it was better suited for live action. However, since the series' premiere, critics and viewers concur that Studio TRIGGER nailed it, with the series scoring a 8.7 IMDb score and a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The anime's success has also helped the game rebound in player counts and sales, with the game hitting 136,724 in daily peak concurrent players on Steam in September 2022, a 7x increase compared to the previous month.
• Awesome Ego: Adam Smasher is a literal sociopathic killing machine who is convinced that he's the World's Strongest Man and no one can ever top him. Given everything he does in the final episode, it's very hard to say this isn't justified.
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening theme is the rocking "This Fffire" by Franz Ferdinand, which goes wonderfully with the opening animation.
  • Meanwhile, the ending theme is "Let You Down" by Dawid Podsiadło, a melancholic ballad that goes well with the moody visuals of the end credits.
  • The NSFW trailer is scored to an amazing techno-dubstep remix of "Ode to Joy" that highlights the hectic nature of the trailer by being absolutely insane.
  • Already positively received, licensed music from the game such as "Friday Night Firefight" and "Who's Ready for Tomorrow" are used to incredible effect throughout the show.
  • "I Really Want to Stay at Your House", also a licensed track from the game, is beautifully repurposed to serve as the Love Theme for David and Lucy. It has since become the series' Signature Song, with the track topping Spotify's viral charts and breaking into the Top 100 in the UK, Australia, and Canada. Eventually an official music video was made of the song consisting of scenes with David and Lucy.
  • Dawid Podsiadło's "Little Stranger", an English translation of his Polish song "Nieznajomy", is used beautifully in Episode 4 when David and Lucy become an Official Couple. On top of the wondrous instrumentation, the lyrics reflect Lucy's guilt for tricking David in Episode 2 and her wish to have a second chance to build a bond with him.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • David’s beatdown of Katsuo in episode 2 upon getting the Sandevistan installed. After spending the first episode alternating between belittling David for his working-class background, using his combat implants to beat David to a pulp, and cruelly mocking Gloria’s death to David by saying it was “karma” for him daring to climb up the social ladder and that he should drop out of Arasaka Academy to avoid shaming her memory, seeing Katsuo whimper before David like the cowardly bully he is is nothing short of satisfying.
  • The numerous deaths of Trauma Team, while hilarious, are also satisfying, seeing that they essentially left David and his mother for dead after a brutal car crash, just because they weren't clients.
  • Faraday's prolonged and humiliating death. Given that he's been nothing but a backstabbing Smug Snake whose attempts to climb from fixer to hotshot corpo contributes the most to the show's tragic ending, seeing him humbled by Smasher, mutilated by David, then thrown from Arasaka tower to splatter like a bug on the pavement is one of the few bright spots in a Bittersweet Ending with heavy emphasis on the bitter.
• Character Rerailment: In Cyberpunk 2077, Adam Smasher's One-Man Army and/or The Dreaded status in the lore came off as an Informed Attribute to most due to Worf Had the Flu and functionally being an Anti-Climax Boss. That is not the case here, if the hopelessly one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle with David is any indication.
• Complete Monster: Adam Smasher was a thuggish murderer and rapist who willingly chose to throw away his humanity for a chance at power. A mighty cyborg, Adam is a dark legend who is known and feared for the massive amount of people he has murdered. Serving corporations for the carnage it affords him, Adam Smasher savors the deaths of as many innocent bystanders as possible. Having been the one to kill Johnny Silverhand, Adam Smasher returns to resolve the Cyberskeleton crisis through brutally killing Rebecca; finishes off David Martinez when he refuses to join the Arasaka Corporation; and later works for Arasaka in the Fourth Corporate War to kill as many as possible.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: While it could just be a nervous tic of his, David constantly taps his foot, which fans view could be a way of him stimming and a sign of ADHD.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • For a side character whom the execs initially didn't even want to include in the plot, Rebecca has become rather popular with the audiences, between her being a spunky and fun character to follow, her Hidden Depths revealed through her unrequited, yet stoic infatuation with David, and her unnecessary brutal and sudden death while attempting to protect him.
  • Like his little sister, Pilar is extremely memorable and quite popular for his weird design and over-the-top antics despite, or maybe because of, the fact that he dies in incredibly gruesome fashion shockingly early.
  • Despite only having a major role in the last few episodes, everyone in the fanbase loves Falco for reasons covered under Memetic Badass, not to mention his unflinching loyalty to David and the crew, including fulfilling David's promise to save Lucy and being the only other member of the crew besides her to survive the series.
• Evil Is Cool: The show goes a long way in rehabilitating Adam Smasher’s lackluster reputation as an Anti-Climax Boss in Cyberpunk 2077, here by having him mop the floor with David in the final episode, showcasing why he is one of the most feared and deadliest characters in the source material’s lore.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, a very common fanfic plot is for David to somehow become acquainted with Cyberpunk 2077's V, usually setting up a Fix Fic.
  • David will also often end up crossing paths with Viktor Vektor from the game, with a stark contrast made between him and Doc, as a result of Cyber Symbiosis and Group Chat both using this plot point around the same time and being very influential.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The reveal that Gloria was a member of Maine's gang has inspired a decent amount of fanmade content that features her interacting with other characters in the series. After all, the first half of the series takes place over a fairly short timeframe, so anyone we meet, such as Rebecca, Falco and even Lucy was already around while she was working with them.
  • The fact that David is one of the few people that Adam Smasher is shown treating with any form of civility outside of the Arasaka Family has led to fanfics where the two meet on less antagonistic terms.
• Fanon:
  • It's very popular for fanfic writers to give the Martinezs history with Jackie Welles on account of their shared Latino heritage and the how close Heywood and Santo Domingo are.
  • Given Maine's obvious respect for Gloria and how quickly he takes to her son, it's another common assumption that the two were romantically involved, making Maine's role as David's Parental Substitute even more apparent.
  • It's invariably assumed in post-canon fanfiction that Lucy and Falco, as the only two members of the crew to survive the series, regularly keep tabs with each other, Falco regularly checks in on her for her emotional and mental health or even have them moving in together in a surrogate Family of Choice (and a gender-flipped version of Gloria and David's dynamic from the beginning of the series), just to make the ending at least slightly less depressing. Many also have him joining her for her trip to the moon to make the ending less lonely.
  • By contrast, writers who prefer an even more depressing or Peggy Sue plotline frequently portray Lucy committing suicide by removing her helmet on the Moon.
• Foe Yay Shipping: A few fans (or Trolls) sometimes like to ship Rebecca with Adam Smasher despite the latter causing the former's death. Fans of Rebecca understandably, aren't too keen on that prospect.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Arcane as both shows are noted to be excellent video game adaptations based on somewhat disappointing or mediocre video games.
  • Also with Blade Runner 2049 as both are critically acclaimed pieces of cyberpunk media, with many finding K's tragedy similar to that of David, which lead to crossover memes.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: One of the biggest criticism people have had towards the anime is just how short it was, being only 10 episodes long, when many felt it should've a few more to even out the pacing (as some feel it goes a bit too fast due to the short length) and to explore the cast and story in greater detail.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Quite a few reasons for people to be interested in just one part of the show. Some fans are purely interested due to the fact that Akira Yamaoka, an acclaimed composer mainly known for his work on the Silent Hill franchise, is producing the original score, some are interested solely because it's based on Cyberpunk 2077, some are interested purely for the animation and action provided by TRIGGER, it goes on.
• Love to Hate: Adam Smasher only gets involved in the plot in the last few minutes of the final episode, but he leaves a hell of a lasting emotional impact by brutally murdering Rebecca and David in an utterly one-sided massacre that shows precisely why he's feared as Night City's boogeyman. In fact, the anime caused the original game to see a massive player bump from fans who personally want to make the bastard pay for his actions in this spin-off.
• Memetic Badass: Falco is starting to develop this reputation online especially among the game and anime's devoted subreddit, for being a badass futuristic cowboy voiced by Matthew Mercer who, despite only having a major role in the last few episodes, has quite a litany of impressive feats like knocking out Maine with one punch, outrunning entire convoys of Militech, Arasaka, and Max Tac vehicles, and being the only character in the entire series to survive a physical fight with Adam Smasher.
• Memetic Molester: Lucy is jokingly treated as this for dating a 17-year old (which is above the age of consent in Japan and Poland but not in (parts of) the US) while being around 20 years old herself. This led to quite a few jokes about her being arrested or confronted by Chris Hansen.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Pilarposting ^note  A variant of Chrisposting where Pilar repeatedly begs David to have sex with Rebeca because his sister won't give him a moment's peace without going on about how much she wants David.
  • "Before and After Edgerunners".^note A common video format that contrasts a player's emotional reactions to Cyberpunk 2077's sights and sounds before and after their viewing of the Edgerunners anime. The most common subject is the song "I Really Want to Stay at Your House": where before it was seen as just another piece of background music, fans now treat it as the theme song of David and Lucy's tragically doomed romance.
    • The David Martinez Stare◊^note A still of David at the end of Episode 6 giving a Thousand-Yard Stare, used to sum up most people's experiences watching Edgerunners., often compared to the "Live." meme from Fire Punch.
    • Keanu Reeves crying while having a drink at the Afterlife.^note Already a Memetic Mutation when the film came out, a scene from Always Be My Maybe in which Keanu Reeves cries while wearing headphones and having a glass of wine has increased in popularity through its use as the typical fan reaction in "After Edgerunners" meme videos, oftentimes representing what it feels like to listen to "I Really Wanna Stay At Your House." To make it better, some fans have edited the background of the scene to resemble the Afterlife nightclub from the game and show. Some even go so far as to state that it is actually Johnny Silverhand, Reeves' in-game character, who's mourning the end of the show, and the drink he's having is actually the David Martinez.
  • Sandevastated ^note  A common joke referring to the average fan's depression after finishing the show.
  • "Lucy, You Look Lonely". ^note Somewhat related to the above meme, but this time starring Lucy instead of David. This is a crossover meme with Blade Runner 2049's You Look Lonely holographic meme, in which K suffered an existential crisis and ends with a Thousand-Yard Stare. Given Lucy's equally depressing finale, fans has cropped K with Lucy instead as shown in this example◊.
  • The ending has led to people replaying 2077 in order to avenge the protagonists (particularly Rebecca) by killing Adam Smasher with the characters' gear (Rebecca's weaponry such as Guts, and David's Jacket).
  • Related to the above, many memes full of Black Comedy have been made over Rebecca's death due to how over-the-top and how it comes essentially out of nowhere. Amongst these include pastiches of Adam as "Thicc Omni-Man" (jokingly referencing how he killed her with a Goomba Stomp) to montages of her hiding in fear of Adam as he searches for her.
  • Adam Smashed Her^note Another related meme to the above Goomba Stomp meme, this time referencing how Adam Smasher essentially lived up to his name.
  • Describing Rebecca's body type by saying that she's "flat in more ways than one."
  • Rebecca Coping ^note Another related meme to the above meme. But due to her beloved status and heartbreak on her death, may Rebecca fans begin drawing fanart on her somehow surviving Adam's Goomba Stomp, to her going full Johnny Silverhand and uploading her consciousness, somehow being loaded enough to afford a Trauma Team package, to even isekai'ing into another world.
  • Pilar's design (extremely tall and skinny with Creepily Long Arms), general wackiness and extremely poor luck has led to many fans nicknaming him "Cyberpunk Waluigi."
  • "The loli stays."^note Supposedly a reference to Studio TRIGGER's blunt response to CD Projekt Red's request to cut Rebecca from the production out of fear that her Non-Standard Character Design would be too jarring of an inclusion. In reality, they initially didn't want a character added to an already nearly completed script, but her unique design is what lead to her inclusion anyway. This has become a Discredited Meme in the fanbase, due to both Jaki's tweet refuting the original story and the general Flame Bait nature of "loli" discourse.
  • DEIBIDO ^note  The way Aoi Yūki pronounces David's name in the subbed version quickly caught on with the fandom due to how often we hear it.
  • "The only thing the Chinita fears is the chancla."^note Speculation about what Lucy's interactions with David's mother Gloria would have been like have grown increasingly popular. It is commonly assumed that Gloria would not have approved of Lucy dating her son given their age difference and that she would have chased Lucy (the "chinita" in question) around with flip-flops (the "chancla").
  • Kiwi's nipples ^note Kiwi's nipples are shown to be blue in her nude scenes, with the show offering no real explanation for this, which has caused something of a snowballing meme to form around the subject. Group Chat made this a bigger meme by establishing that they dispense fruity sports drinks as a Running Gag, prompting its author to directly ask Hiroyuki Imaishi in a Reddit AMA if Kiwi lactates Gatorade. Imaishi responded in the negative... but then clarified that, instead, they shoot spider silk.
    • Blueberries ^note A common fan euphemism for Kiwi's aforementioned blue nipples.
  • "Who had the better Gaslighting campaign?" ^note When this show and Arcane were both nominated for Best Adaptation at The Game Awards their Friendly Fandoms would ask this, given that they're both highly acclaimed adaptations of not very well thought of games... though the release of Phantom Liberty and 2.0 seems to be changing public opinion on Cyberpunk 2077 for the better, so truly YMMV.
  • Edgerunners has the same plot as The LEGO Movie^note A popular online joke about the various similarities between the two works, since both center around an everyman living in a dystopic corporatocracy, who gets a powerful item stuck to his back and subsequently falls in love with a punk street hacker named Lucy with multicolored hair for whom he eventually sacrifices himself.
• More Popular Spin-Off: The reception for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has extended beyond the game's fanbase, enjoying more unanimous praise by fans and critics alike.
• Narm:
  • The timejump between episodes 6-7 sees David chip up his torso as well as put on a ludicrous amount of muscle, but there are certain frames and scenes after where the proportions look a bit off, resulting in his head looking comically too small for his massive new body.
  • During Maine's Heroic Sacrifice, David lets out a silent scream of anguish. However, the sudden Art Shift and the sheer goofiness of his expression can make what would otherwise be a sad moment into a chuckle fest.
• One-Scene Wonder: More like "One-Episode Wonder", but still. As detailed several places on this page, Adam Smasher. He may only appear in the final episode, but damn is he memorable.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Pilar's death comes out of absolutely nowhere and comes on the heels of an incredibly lighthearted moment with the crew. It's truly the moment the show cements the fact that Anyone Can Die.
  • Rebecca's death. Not only for being incredibly brutal without shying away from the details, but also for the fact that she had been such a lighthearted and fun character to follow. Such a brutal, abrupt death made quite a few fans so angry that they replayed Cyberpunk 2077 just to kill Adam Smasher and avenge her. As an added bonus you can use her shotgun from the 1.6 update for the finishing blow.
• Signature Scene: David's rescue of Lucy and fight against Adam Smasher, touchingly set to the haunting "I Really Want to Stay at Your House".
• Superlative Dubbing: The show has been praised for its high-quality English dub, with particular regard towards Zach Aguilar and Emi Lo as the two leads of David and Lucy, Alex Cazares for her manic performance as Rebecca, and Giancarlo Esposito's chilling performance as Faraday. In addition, the English dub uses all the in-game slang (Like "preem", "choom", "gangoon", etc).
• Tainted by the Preview: While the anime has been met with anticipation by fans, some are a bit wary of the anime simply due to the fact that it's based off Cyberpunk 2077, which had attracted a great deal of controversy before and after its disastrous launch. This weariness would quickly die down after the anime premiered.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Pilar really doesn't get much time to shine in the anime. Despite a memorable and striking design, a larger-than-life personality and some hints that he's more than just a crass, belligerent weirdo when he appears to warmly welcome David into the crew, he gets his brains blown out by a random cyberpsycho in only the second episode he appears in and his death is barely acknowledged afterwards, even by his own sister. Shockingly abrupt and brutal as it is, his death would likely hit even harder if we'd actually gotten to know and like him outside of a brief montage of him running errands with David.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Given it's by Studio TRIGGER, it should come to no surprise that the anime looks absolutely incredible just from the bits of pre-release footage shown and does a great job capturing the dystopian feel of Night City.
• Win Back the Crowd: Prior to the anime airing, many fans were skeptical of or had sworn off the Cyberpunk franchise due in no small part to how badly Cyberpunk 2077 suffered due to being rushed out. After airing, the anime's high quality won many fans' interest back in the franchise and setting, to the point that several people jumped back into 2077 and gave it a noticeable player bump.

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