Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

⭐ 5.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

Why why why do I keep thinking I might like an anime? I'll tell you why I tried this one: because it's based on a Westen IP and also because everyone is saying it's incredible and the greatest thing ever. And again, everyone is wrong and I am right to think it's bad.

Like a lot of anime, there are a lot of really cool ideas here. It starts out with this guy losing literally everything and despairing, and as a result he puts on a machine that basically gives him super powers but essentially fries his brain. You can totally empathize with him and understand that decision and it really does hurt your soul when you see him using it way too much and see the toll it's taking.

While we're on the subject of positives, I also thought that the finale was somewhat moving. At that point I was pretty committed to hating the show, so the fact that I felt a positive emotion speaks to the combination of emotional music, themes of love and sacrifice, and a nice scene with the sexy love interest. And yes, the animation is often impressive, the music is pretty consistently good (though sometimes awful) and the universe itself is still really cool.

But yeah, it's anime. Everyone in this show is extremely annoying, especially Rebecca who might very well be the most insufferable character of all time. Everything is super edgy, especially the violence. It's over the top with emotion and deaths and stuff to the point where nothing means anything. The good guy probably kills 1000 people in 10 episodes, and I always find it hilarious how committed cops are to their jobs when hundreds around them have been murdered.

So yeah, just tons of unserious anime stuff that no adult should enjoy outside of pervy weirdos. I want to like anime because I used to love it as a child, but the thing about children is that they are stupid and have bad taste. So yeah, that's it for today until I make this same mistake in a month or so.