Candice Miller

"Everyone giving this a 1 star review just foams at the mouth at gay representation", well I'm gay as all hell myself and I hated this show. The failed Laserhawk/Alex romance is about the only thing halfway interesting in this entire series next to the interesting stylistic choices with the animation shifts - but we've all seen that done before. Cyberpunk is at its best when its social sci-fi - as in the car exists and is established tech but now what are the consequences of having a world built around cars, people living in suburbs, people's lives dictated by the car, governmental decisions made around them rather than people - that sort of exploration of the tech. This "cyberpunk" has all the fixings - anarchist political dissidents with good points, vr prisons, cybernetic enhancements, a failed united states, ultraviolence, animal-human hybrids but it had none of the soul. No explorations of what it is to be human just a protagonist with such a broody death wish I was hoping it'd come true and I could stop watching early. It was just a hodge podge of Ubisoft IP slapped together so haphazardly that you have Rayman doing cocaine. It was a constant parade of "look at this reference you guys" a genre that was tired as soon as it was created. If the only attraction to this series is supposed to be cyberpunk vibes I can find that elsewhere with deeper characters and more well executed stories. If the attraction is a romantic story of betrayal then they should have pushed that harder and explored deeper. If the attraction was supposed to just be look its an assassin's creed frog. Oh look it's Special Agent Sam Fischer. Oh Look it's Rayman then I guess it works on some level? People are hungry for good cyberpunk content and while I also hated Edgerunners for missing out on some of the most interesting bits of the 2077 universe and completely missing out on the interesting subtext of the possible misdiagnosis of cyberpsychosis in their own universe, for being more music video and sparkles than plot and for just being a story about a mediocre guy who likes a hot crazy girl and winning anime of the year I'd still recommend that over this. At least Edgerunners is coherent. Do yourself a favor and go read Neuromancer, rewatch Blade Runner, replay 2077, explore the different Ghost in the Shell properties, or watch Minority Report. Those, at least, stand as interesting works outside of just their cyberpunk flavor. Hell go read Dracula from the perspective that it's a Victorian techno-thriller and you'll get way more out of it - the gays are less explicitly written but you can't deny the subtext of Bram Stoker.