u/Reemys

The problem is that this happens once, and never brought up again. D. spends his time in rage and confusion, but not showing any kind of clear message just what Capri is to him. The lighting show they had when first slotted is a good starting point, but it's also the only point — the next one being the finale when he just says "I need you Capri" without any in-between emotional adventure.

Worse than that, what the first encounter set as the tone for their relationship, a semi-romantic longing, is destroyed by D. saying that he wants Capri for the power and can't let her go, in the middle of the story. then proceeds to not anyhow outwardly depict his feelings for her. It gives the viewership a very mixed signal as to what we are supposed to expect from D., and I cannot call this as anything except a rushed/weak writing, where the authors knew they had plot issues and didn't lean either side out of fear of making it look just all over the place. Leaving the adventure from 0 to 1 vague (and even the 1 is vague, as you say, we don't know if they fused or not as the technology is supposed to do, but it's all magic by the finale) is a damage control technique in writing.

It's problematic, he should care. The collective shock of losing Amida and learning that Amida lied to him, and he doesn't actually have a biological daughter (as much as it matters in Cyberpunk) should have had more outcome in the form of his mental state depiction. More outcome than the literal nothing we got.

Beautiful phrasing is beyond the point, the authors didn't work enough with his psychology and that isn't something that can be defended.

There is clearly a reason why it is so much different from the original. I will outline them, but I am not necessarily saying SAC is better than the original. It's different, for a different audience and with different goals in mind, but I understand why for a film and the TV series they changed so much.

One key point being that the original is un-developed when it comes to concepts. For a general audience, it wouldn't be easy to invest themselves in it, also evident in how almost every episode people complained (or just mentioned) here that the technobabble is just too much. There wasn't much to work with for anyone, just as intended by the author. Maybe he had an extremely elaborate vision of how the world and everything would work, but he only showed the end-result. We don't that, but the decision to change some of the foundation to also make room for more elaborate storytelling and concepts than just off-hand mentioning them like the original does, is, if anything, understadanble. Also from an author-perspective, I.G. production writers had something to work with and elaborate on on their own, not just copy the original concepts.

The other key point being how the world of the original is too dirty and glorifying violence to the extent it's Borderlands, but in Japan. It's extremely hard to make such characters likeable to a generic Japanese viewer, who prefers (or at least back then preferred) a complex, intricate human psychology. The original lacked that, for the better or the worse. Most characters were matter-of-a-fact shooting everyone. Togusa was more bloodthirsty than the Major in the first episode, and forever a butt monkey. You don't really have likeable characters around there. Aramaki is willing to abuse his power, when he feels like he has a just cause. Same reason why the Live Action adaptation was an absolute disaster and Aramaki wasn't a bit likeable in the same way Aramaki is in SAC, he would execute an unarmed criminal instead of taking him into custody.

Obviously not.

Dokonce i ruští botové mají větší inteligenci než Vy, který nemůže ověřit základní fakta.

Yare yare daze?

But there was no depiction of what exactly went within him to make him obsess with Carpicorn that much. After that smile, she caused a ton of trouble and even tried to escape from D. Like I say, a spark of logic is there, this is not a total nonsense, but there is 99% of the way missing. Were they afraid it will look like a massive stretch if they tried depicting his inner feelings properly for her? Either way, we are just supposed to believe that he is experiencing something unique.

I/we definitely suspend our belief where the capabilities of a digital being reach beyond that which is possible technology-wise, as positioned by the contemporary science-fiction boundaries.

I disagree that this was salvageable. The foundation is great, sure. If they couldn't make it work in 10 or even 6 or 3 episodes, this won't be the run-time issue. It's always the writing (and directing) skill lacking in the team. Roman ends up being the same as he started, a blank state kid who just wanted to "shoot films" with no existential innui ever showing in him. They had no idea how or where to take his character, but he was an amazing, super-useful vehicle plot.

You think given another season they would have worked something out? But why didn't they work it out full-well knowing they don't have two seasons to work with?

I agree Edgerunners 1 was simple in its plot, but it was the execution that set it aside. Even if we ignore the plot issues in ER 2, the execution is just... OK. On par with random good series. But this is not something you wait several years for from one of the most successful franchises on the planet, and one of the most established animation studios as well.

So much power which exceeds the all reasonable physical expectations from material matter that generates the magnetism? Yes, I call it fantasy.

Okay, good. And Capri is a digital being, or is supposed to be. She cannot overcome the rules of material world, no matter how fast her "clock" might be running in the digital form, she interacts through a medium with the material world.

Jaj čecháčcí alert, v jiném příspěvku si všichni stěžují, že z politiky odchází slušnost a důstojné chování. Najednou když je to vulgární gesto které se líbí přímo vám, tak je to normální... kdy už vynálezou léky proti kognitivní disonance??

Rajchl je lidský odpad, ovšem lidský odpad také může mít pravdu, a tenkrát má.

It doesn't have any moments, alas, not even its own. It has "THE F" moments when Capri's powers go a dimension higher, a few times.

Shame this doesn't make any sense with the fact no one ever mentioned that army vs supernatural metal man in Cyberpunk 2077. They probably had to tie both stories in as a requirement from the rights owner, but what a lackluster result...

There is nothing brilliant. Underwhelming is what it is. Underwritten too.

They did not subvert your expectations consciously. They just wrote a weak story.

I mean, right? The whole film angle was heavily underused. Remember Maine's breakdown in Edgerunners or maybe Evangelion 3+1 the final sequence, or the ZomBucket final episode?? Literally absolute cinema. Here, despite all the themes, it just ends in a stupid montage of D. exploding stuff? No morale? No symbolism? They applied the filter and thought *THAT'S THE THEME*? It's insulting.

Roman makes zero sense as well, First agency in the story he has is him saying that Maelstrom are all snuff videos and violence is an insult to cinema. He never once tries to openly come in terms he is filming violence, and doesn't stop from doing so the first time he actually has to. He had so much potential even as an insert, and did nothing to increase the value of the narrative, just an accessory to the "cool" main characters and a convenient plot vehicle.

In the first series you can easily attribute it to the "rule of cool" style that Imaishi built his whole career on. The thing is, his RoC doesn't just break all of your suspension of disbelief.

In here, the cars are just convenient props. In most scenes they try to make sense, in others they can't because the writers weren't good enough to write the scenes in a way that it would make sense. And they stopped trying, and went with "cars are props" angle.

Add to this how Kyoko knows what Capri is capable of, and doesn't take any adequate precaution... and the only convenient one she pulls out of her weird hair gets immediately disarmed by Capricorn once she is slotted in Talia.

I absolutely despise it when authors dumb the characters down to utter incompetence just for the sake of plot.

I agree that the bar is insanely high, but I disagree that it matters. In a vacuum, this is a messy, amateurish story that uses Cyberpunk's premise the same way as Nolan uses Oddysey's premise. They tell a disjointed story not utilising the best parts of the setting they are borrowing. All in all a waste of potential, and production money.

Well, I guess the best part here is that the money went to the Japanese. Someone else has made an imbecilic hollywood-esque Cyberpunk action flick, out there, in another universe.

Yes, yes and yes on all points, and especially the final one. They just backrolled it because... I guess they wanted Talia to have a bitter-sweet ending, not a logical and tech-implied ending? Weak writing.

Imaishi is not very liked, some reasons are valid, other reasons are humiliating. He and his ideas are too advanced for an average viewer, and blow the minds of people in power entirely. Especially the Western execs who are trying to make money out of Cyberpunk. He was hard to work with during the 1st season and it's not a surprise they dropped him. Not a surprise they dropped the animated series into the drain either.

Nothing about it is natural, but there is a spark of logic there. Alas, not anyhow depicted in a clear or even unclear artistic way, just not depicted.

Moreover, there was a ton of drama potential to set Avida as a manipulator who used her apparently just crazy-about-her ex-boyfriend Weak as means to help her daughter. Dirty, but understandable.

What does Weak do? Nothing, he sucks it up, never questions it and does absolutely nothing in the finale, just being the "dad" figure. That's dumb. How dare they think someone will eat this...

They had terrible conveniences and utter lack of motivation for a 3rd of the characters. One of the characters was the cliche Japanese crazy grandma who is *just* crazy. No amount of extra running time would help justify the foundation of the writing here. This isn't cyberpunk. This is all cyberpsychosis after King went haywire...

The 2nd season is fine if they didn't use Cyberpunk next to its name. As a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, after the original, it's a disappointment.

K A I I K A R A S H I

the last time across the whole screen.

Let me outline my concerns with this "Nolan's Cyberpunk".

1. The world is less grounded in the daily life of night city now. The Night City itself exists in the background, creating the floor for the character drama. The spirit of Cyberpunk is, alas, totally lost here. We get a common Japanese story. The environment around the characters is empty and is done "matter of fact"-style, it exists just to justify the scenes, cycled through as necessary. No amount of UI/environment inserts from the previous media gives it any life.

2. Didn't make me cry like the first series did. Except for one moment, where they tarnished the mother's dreams for saving her daughter. We will be back to the mother. There is no grand finale with grand morale, just a random "I'm in a weird situationship with a rogue construct and we are going... to space!". Just for the sake of it, they apparently massacre an army of Militech. Are we rooting for the actually non-morally grey insane bad guys here? This isn't even Gainax/Trigger ending, those are spectacular, if anything...

3. They turned this into a fantasy, and a cheap one. The power of Capricon slowly overcame the borders of science-fiction and went straight into fantasy, namely telekinesis. One thing is when objects with movement capabilities do move at the behest of the construct. A very another one is when a mounted display with nothing but a cable behind it flies into a soldier. I'm writing this as of watching the 9th episode and I hope I don't have to update this "power scale". Ah, okay, she can also generate shockwaves. Took me 5 seconds to update it. Oh, they turned into a scrap Godzilla. Mmhm, Capri melted/welded parts of Talia's body to D. in under 3 seconds. We don't need the scale anymore.

"This", all of this really shouldn't have been approved. The fine balance between this Western media being handled by tremendously talented Japanese authors needed meticulous tuning. It worked with the first film due to Imaishi insisting on studio's style against the demands of the production committee. I don't believe I am saying this, but the committee should have demanded more here.

1. Drama is extremely weak and dumbed down, there is no "Maine psychosis"-kind of moments. They don't even try to generate tension or strong symbolism that Imaishi and Trigger overall is known for. The turned this into a very simple, too simple story and didn't even try to unlock the potential for drama. Like Weak Kingsley having a breakdown due to the fact Avida entirely used him to protect her daughter. The whole of Weaksley is really "weak". Came into picture as a cyberpsycho who dreamed of his... still alive ex-girlfriend. That's not the level of drama that is supposed to take people to cyberpsychosis. What they've done is cyberpsychosis for the sake of cyberpsychosis, and that's cheap. Disrespectful even, maybe.

2. Let's list the conveniences and sheer nonsense which happened throughout the series, as far as I can still remember. Not chronologically.

a) King, a long time veteran runner who has already lost his team at least once... let's his beloved ex-wife break into a corp secret hideout. Definitely didn't happen just so she could be shot. Definitely nonsense. This super-cheap move of finishing off one character who had the most reason and the most noble intentions through a plot convenience will never be classy.

b) Kung-Tao launching cruise missiles against a target inside the Night City. Just like that. Not a single mention of a federal army, at least in the form of Militech or anyone approving this. The world of Cyberpunk is sterilised and functions as far as is necessary for the convenience of the story flow, which is weak writing, naturally.

c) Roman is a terrible plot vehicle, everyone is committing gruesome warcrimes against each other and only this kid just gets slightly pushed aside and talked to amicably by everyone. His plot armour is just insanely obvious. Moreover, he is dumb. He needs to be excruciatingly dumb and gullible for everyone around to use him to further the plot. Roman has zero agency throughout the series other than wanting to film, and telling everyone how they are not the same and should stop shooting each other. Pure plot vehicle insert, does not fit the world of cyberpunk not one bit.

d) That girl, Omi, looks like a Danganronpa character. What is she doing in here and what her value is except being an another plot vehicle insert in titanium plot armour that protects D. as necessary... No, she is doing just that. Turns out the Snakes had one more survivor than originally announced. Apparently they went separate ways with the camp raid, and she never made an attempt to find D. and help him... until randomly stumbling upon him recently. Convenient, if anything.

e) Talking about randomly stumbling, Roman makes it to the scene of the final confrontation faster than the Kung-Tao spec-ops. Over.

f) In a purely science-fiction series, to date and based on original material, they let D. maintain some kind of supernatural connection to the chip's power... just because? I can understand if the programming was left on the chip and was still active for D. to use while he still had it, but letting him be a weaker cyber-wizard because of "residual power" as a result of a possession? They mixed the genres up, badly.

g) there are more but I am just not in a mood to even list them. I don't want my time back, but I want the possibility of Edgerunners 2 back.

Needless to say, I am disappointed. It wasn't bad (except the science-magic part, that was an atrocity and humiliating for whoever was lore-checking that) it was just not nearly as good as the first series. Telling Imaishi off, removing him from the actual story production was a major mistake. I hope they learn it, the hard way through numbers, and when the third one happens they still give it to Trigger, but under Imaishi. One more time.