"CYBERPUNK: EDGE RUNNERS" (anime series)
Review by Dennis D. McDonald
The story elements are familiar to sci-fi or cyberpunk fans. These include future gang crime, body augmentation, high-tech corporate warfare, severely tested loyalties, double crosses, and guns lots of guns.
These elements are all tightly and expertly connected via strong character development, excellent artwork and animation, amazingly (and imaginatively) choreographed gravity-defying action sequences, and some of the tightest editing I’ve seen.
Studio Trigger, responsible for the animation, really comes through with a total package. Individual characters are unique with shape and physique well-matched with recognizable personalities. Effects representing wordless “phone conversations,” psychotic episodes brought on by excessive drug use, and confusion from slipping back and forth between the physical world and electronic “realities” are all convincingly rendered. Japanese voice acting is top-notch as is the overall sound design. This show is LOUD.
If I have any complaints it’s the underlying and overused theme of warring high-tech corporations. Imagine two Tyrell Corporations duking it out above ground and behind the scenes with heavy reliance on cyberpunk gangs—the “edegerunners”—as the front line troops. But the main character’s rags-to-riches story and all the surrounding characters are so well delineated such qualms fade into the background. Recommended.
Review copyright (c) 2023 by Dennis D. McDonald
