‘Cyberpunk Edgerunners II’ Is A Thrilling If Unwieldy Return To Night City

Cyberpunk Edgerunners took millions by surprise when it released in 2022. It quickly became one of the most-watched anime on Netflix and a pop culture phenomenon due to its potent blend of hyperviolence and emotional devastation. Any time I come across a TikTok with “I Really Want to Stay At Your House” as the audio, I preemptively prepare to have my heart absolutely shattered. 

Edgerunners renewed interest in Cyberpunk 2077, helped turn around the game’s negative perception after its rocky launch, and is held as one of the greatest video game adaptations of all time. So it’s no exaggeration to say that Edgerunners is an incredibly hard act to follow. While Edgerunners II doesn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessor, it’s still a thrilling and heartbreaking journey in its own right. 

While it acknowledges events from the previous season, Edgerunners II is a stand-alone story with a more fragmented structure. The show initially follows Roman, a 12-year-old boy who’s obsessed with documenting the chaos of Night City with his camera. This obsession puts him in the path of D., a young man on a warpath against Arasaka, and Thalia, a young woman who’s obsessed with cybernetic augments. 

We also meet King, an edgerunner who enters cyberpsychosis during a heist gone wrong that opens the show. King survives the episode, but loses all his cybernetic augments in the process. He’s eventually recruited by Avida, Thalia’s mother and King’s ex, to convince Thalia to stop augmenting herself. Oh, and Kiril, Thalia’s father and an executive at the Kang Tao corporation, is there as well.

Of all the characters, I found D. to have the most compelling arc. This is someone whose life was completely destroyed by the Arasaka corporation. He lost damn near everyone he loved in brutal fashion and couldn’t do anything to stop it. D. is literally haunted by visions of those he lost. Johnny Silverhand’s fight with Arasaka in Cyberpunk 2077 was driven by ideology. David Martinez’s fight was driven by love in the original Edgerunners. D.’s quest for revenge is very clearly framed as a trauma response. The season packs its biggest emotional punches when D. has to confront that grief and the deep well of pain at his core. 

Thalia is the second strongest character, simply because the show takes its time revealing what her whole deal is. Once the show puts all the cards on the table, Thalia easily becomes the most sympathetic character in the back half of the season. 

While I appreciate its narrative ambition, this structure does leave some of the characters feeling shortchanged. Thalia’s parents are fairly one-note, which hampers some of the emotional heft of the finale as they play a major role in how the last three episodes play out. Kiril, in particular, takes on a larger role toward the end, but we never get much insight into why he makes the choices he does beyond being a corpo.

Despite the narrative buckling under the weight of all these characters, Edgerunners II nails the theme at its core. All of these characters are struggling to bear the weight of the dead and the dying. The show is at its best when that theme is at the forefront, with D.’s grief and King’s dedication to Thalia driving home some of the season’s strongest moments. 

While Edgerunners II has a pronounced emotional heft, the show doesn’t spare on the hyperviolence and stylization. While the sandevistan gave a psychedelic bent to the action in season one, the action in Edgerunners II is frequently seen through the lens of Roman’s camera. This gives a unique, analog feel to the action, which I never tired of. Edgerunners II wears its influences on its sleeve, with plenty of Akira parallels, particularly in the finale. Not to mention that Edgerunners II has some of the most brutal kills I’ve seen in an anime since, well, the first season of Edgerunners. 

If the first Edgerunners left me ugly crying throughout the final moments of the finale, Edgerunners II had me shedding a few tears, a couple of sniffles, and saying “Damn. Just, damn,” by the end of it. I think that largely encapsulates the difference between the two. 

Edgerunners had a larger emotional impact due to the love story at the heart of it, but Edgerunners II hurt in a deeper, realer way. The emotions are more complicated, and I can’t help but push back against the idea that this is a “happy ending.” Edgerunners II is still devastating, just in a way that’s more subdued than its predecessor.

Much like its predecessor, Edgerunners II immediately left me wanting to jump back into Night City. Cyberpunk 2077 seemed to know that would be the case, as they dropped a fairly substantial update to the game at the same time Edgerunners II released, and you can bet your butt I’m gonna try and squeeze in as much Cyberpunk as I can before GTA VI drops. 

Edgerunners II might not reach the rhapsodic highs of the first season, but I appreciate that it didn’t simply repeat the formula and instead upped the ambition. Even if it occasionally bites off more than it can chew, Edgerunners II is still a damn fine follow-up. I just hope we don’t have to wait another four years for season three. 

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