Cyberpunk Edgerunners (animated series)

Intro

Cyberpunk Edgerunners is an animated series created by video game developer CD Projekt and production company Studio Trigger, released on September 13th, 2022. The series is based on the video game Cyberpunk 2077 and the cyberpunk board game series created by Mike Pondsmith where Cyberpunk Edgerunners serves as a prequel to the game, taking place approximately one year prior to its start. Cyberpunk Edgerunners explores themes of poverty/social mobility, crime, and doing what you have to to survive in a hyper-advanced futuristic world.

NETFLIX, CD PROJEKT RED, AND STUDIO TRIGGER COME TOGETHER FOR GLOBAL ANIME CYBERPUNK:EDGERUNNERS - About Netflix

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, a Cyberpunk 2077 Anime Announced - IGN Setting

Cyberpunk Edgerunners takes place in Night City, a futuristic megacity located in modern North California after the region has become independent from the United States. It has come to be controlled by competing megacorporations more than the government. As such, Night city is in constant turmoil, with clashing megacorporations on a large scale and a plethora of gangs clashing in the neglected undercity. Every aspect of life is infused with robotics, whether it's transportation, surveillance, public maintenance, or most importantly cybernetic implants and augmentations to the human body to give its inhabitants extraordinary abilities. This leads to amplified violence and addiction to Cyberware for both cosmetic and practical applications.

Corporations - Cyberpunk 2077 Wiki Guide - IGN

Major Characters

David Martinez - Latino American teenager who lives in Santo Domingo (a poor industrial district of night city). David is a top student at Arasaka academy, which is a prestigious school run by the Arasaka megacorporation. David is bullied for being the only student in his class from a poor household and thus finds himself resenting the school, classmates, company, and city as a whole.

Lucy - Lucyna Kushinada is a netrunner (someone augmented and trained to use their consciousness to interact with the internet/network that runs the city) and Davids's romantic interest throughout the series. She introduces him to the world of crime in Night City after tracking down a stolen good David happens to possess. She hates Arasaka for making her a netrunner and dreams of visiting the recently colonized moon.

Maine - Maine is the leader of the gang Lucy belongs to. He accepts David into the gang expecting him to die. Eventually, David proves himself capable and Maine shifts to a mentoring role for him, teaching him about leadership and the underpinnings of Night City

Faraday - Faraday is the corrupt middleman between the Militech megacorporation and gangs, taking jobs and finding the right crew to do the undesirable and often illegal work of the corporations. Through him, we can see that the gang violence and crime rate is largely a proxy war between corporations as they indirectly hire gangs to disrupt and destroy each other.

Minor Characters

Maine/Davids gang (Rebecca, Dorio, Pilar, Kiwi, Falco) - These five characters round out Maines gang (eventually Davids as well). Rebecca and Pilar are siblings and some of the gang's main firepower. Dorio is Maines's girlfriend and second in command. Falco is the gang's getaway driver. Kiwi is the gang's main netrunner

Ripperdoc - The Ripperdocs are undercity doctors specializing in cybernetic enhancement. Before he becomes an edgerunner and cyberpunk, David works for one testing new products for some complimentary income.

Gloria Martinez - Gloria Martinez is Davids mother. She works long hours as a first responder to afford Davids's tuition at Arasaka Academy to help her son have a better life.

Adam Smasher - A living myth and head of Arasaka security, Adam Smasher is a fully cybernetic supersoldier who once terrorized the streets of Night City but has been reigned in by Arasaka and now acts as their secret weapon.

Katsuo - One of Davids's classmates, son of an Arisaka executive and the main perpetrator of David’s bullying

Tanaka - Katuo’s father and Arisaka executive. Tanaka takes great interest in David after seeing his immediate affinity for cyberware and wants him to test Arasaka's extreme and experimental cyber products.

Cyberpunk Edgerunners: What Makes Being a Netrunner Such a Dangerous Job (gamerant.com)

Plot

The show begins with David Martinez attending Arasaka Academy, one of the most prestigious schools in Night City run by the Megacorporation Arasaka to educate and train its future employees and leaders. Despite the near guarantee of upward social mobility, David is contently at odds with the school and his mother because he is ridiculed by classmates for coming from a poor background and by teachers/administration for pirating cyberware updates required by the school. After his pirated cyberware crashes the system, he faces expulsion but Gloria Martinez agrees to pay for the damages, furthering their financial duress. On the way home from the meeting, they are caught in the crossfire of a gang fight on the road and Gloria dies. In her possessions, David discovers a stolen military-grade piece of cyberware called a Sandevistan- a spinal implant that grants inhuman strength, speed, and reflexes for short periods of time. After trying to sell it, David instead asks the local Ripperdoc to install it on him and he exacts revenge on classmate Katsuo for his years of bullying and insulting his mother. He shows an exceptional affinity for using cyberware which catches the eye of Arasaka executive Tanaka who happens to be Katsuo’s father, and David is expelled from Arasaka academy but is offered re-entrance and a scholarship if he agrees to work for Arasaka as an asset to test new cyberware, but David resists. As David wanders aimlessly through the city following his expulsion, a Netrunner named Lucy tries to steal some of his cyberware but gets caught because of his Sandevistan. They agree to team up to pickpocket targets on the subway for the remainder of the day and eventually David collapses from using his cyberware too much and needs medical attention from a Ripperdoc, who prescribes immunosuppressants to keep his body from rejecting the cyberware. Afterward,, David goes back to Lucy’s apartment with her where she shares her dreams of going to the moon in a vision, but it turns out to be a bait to buy time for one of Night City's gangs to show up.