The second teaser trailer for this fall’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 has been released.
The 90-second preview shows off the upcoming anime’s lead cast, as well as its general visual style under the series direction of Kai Ikarashi (Cyberpunk Edgerunners Episode 6 storyboard artist and animation director et al., Tengoku Daimakyo Episode 10 storyboard artist and director et al.), with plentiful violence and chaotic destruction. One of the four main characters, the “young cinephile” Roman Carax, is notably an observer of the chaos of Night City who is seen recording events with their camera, instead of being a more direct participant like the others.
The lead characters were revealed recently in collaboration with various individuals, before a visual gathered them together for a group shot. Aside from Roman, who is “in search of real stories in a city that abandoned cinema for braindances” and “Obsessed with documenting the truth and following the lives of other people,” Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will follow the corporate-raised Maelstrom ganger Talia Yang, the revenge-seeking netrunner and sole Snake Nation survivor D, and the veteran Edgerunner Weak Kingsley who “now lives in the shadow of his former glory.”
Aside from Ikarashi, the staff of the TRIGGER production includes Ichigo Kanno (Metallic Child animation trailer director) as lead character designer and Bartosz Sztybor (Cyberpunk Edgerunners narrative director) as showrunner, story writer, and producer. TRIGGER CEO Masahiko Otsuka (Cyberpunk Edgerunners assistant director and co-scriptwriter, Promare and Gurren Lagann assistant director) is also participating in this “raw, realistic take on the most dangerous city of the dark future.”
Netflix says that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will have 10 episodes, the same episode count as the first series.
The first Cyberpunk: Edgerunners series, directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi (Promare, Kill la Kill, Gurren Lagann) with Yoh Yoshinari (BNA: Brand New Animal and Little Witch Academia director) and Yuuto Kaneko (BNA: Brand New Animal animation director) as character designers, was released on Netflix on September 13, 2022. Its story followed the rise and fall of street kid David (KENN) who joins a group of cyberpunks after a certain incident and an encounter with the netrunner Lucy (Aoi Yuki). The anime is inspired by the 2020 sci-fi open world RPG Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Projekt Red, which is in turn based on the tabletop RPG by Mike Pondsmith.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has inspired a prequel spin-off manga and video game collaborations with GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- and Wuthering Waves. An artbook, titled The Art of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, ended pre-orders earlier this month and will go on sale in late July.
Source: Cyberpunk 2077 YouTube channel
