Oh Boy, I know that I will draw Flak for this one, but please bear with me.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners, which is a series that I have watched both subtitled and dubbed, is considered one of the best anime in recent memory. That said, I thought that this show was a mess, let me explain.
Edgerunners has some positives to it and for some people, they might want to watch. With that in mind, a discourage any and all potential viewers. So without further ado, let us speak of the positives.
The best thing about Edgerunners is the art and atmosphere of the series, which, as typical of Trigger,
...
is done to a very high level standard, with a wide vibrant color palette that is both captivating and easy on the eyes. That said, there is one slight criticism (more of a nitpick, really) that I have with the production and that is the (simulated) lens flare.
Lens flare is a technique where a bright light source is pointed towards a camera. This has most famously been used (to the complaint of many) by J.J. Abrams in his controversial Star Trek films. While lens flare is more fitting for something like Edgerunners, it is used for too often to the point where it does not punctuate a scene or add any stylistic benefit. Sometimes it even obfuscates some of the action (that not in the way Demon Slayer does it like masking the scenery over some of the battle scenes).
Also, when compared to its contemporaries, like Demon Slayer, Edgerunners has a better choreography during action sequences.
Now that was the good, now time for the bad that outweighs it.
One of the hardest thing to follow in Edgerunners is the dialogue that they used. As somebody who has no video game console and therefore is unable to play the video game, I had to watch several scenes repeated in order to understand what was being said (especially for the subtitle). I know other people who have had similar complaints, so I am not alone in this. I was hoping that there could be a version with two sets of dialogue as released by Netflix that could have clarified things for some viewers. I understand how only a select few people like edits in subtitles and dubs, but in this case, I believe that it would be justified.
Another issue was the characters and that ultimately most of the characters in the main cast were flat and static save for David Martinez and Lucy. This could be a matter of personal preference, but a lot of other series in the Top 100 have fairly sizeable casts of round and/or dynamic characters, such as Berserk and Cowboy Bebop, even Naruto does this thanks to the shear number of episodes it has. This ultimately leads me to the next point, which is ultimately what cost my enjoyment of the series
The biggest issue that I had with the series was that the production team seemed confused. Some wanted wild antics, some wanted a tragic story line and while the two are not mutually exclusive (as seen in Cowboy Bebop, or even Rurouni Kenshin), there has to be a certain way to blend the two elements together so that they do not clash with each other (again, see how Cowboy Bebop does this over the whole series, since there is a common age demographic here). Edgerunners splices antics and tragedy throughout which clash with each other and it feels that the series ultimately lacks a certain harmony to the production. The ending is to the point and does contain a weighty delivery to it (in other words, weight was carried), but ultimately, given that the series 250 minutes of total runtime (which was close to about 600 minutes of watching for me) and about ten minutes of that was the conclusion, it felt quite sudden, which is ultimately unfortunate.
I think that ultimately the biggest tragedy of Edgerunners is that it was too short for its own good. The series could really have been great if the fleshed out ideas and spent more time on developing the story and less time focusing on hype (which does draw some parallels to the Cyberpunk franchise as a whole). Maybe if they even had just two episodes more, the story would be that much more whole and that much more dramatic. One can only dream, I guess.
Series Title: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Year: 2022
Sub: Yes
Dub: Yes
Better Version: Neither, but dub is slightly easier to watch.
Total Runtime: 250 Minutes
]Score: 4/10
Breakdown:
Art: 6/10
Animation: 7/10
Action: 6/10
Choreography: 6/10
Dialogue: 2/10 (i.e Near incomprehensible)
Characters: 4/10
Premise: 2/10 (Two premises with no balance)
Plot: 3/10 (Confusing)
Pacing: 2/10 (Rushed)
Watch factor (How easy something is to watch based on plot and dialogue): 3/10
Mar 12, 2024
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
(Anime)
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Oh Boy, I know that I will draw Flak for this one, but please bear with me.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners, which is a series that I have watched both subtitled and dubbed, is considered one of the best anime in recent memory. That said, I thought that this show was a mess, let me explain. Edgerunners has some positives to it and for some people, they might want to watch. With that in mind, a discourage any and all potential viewers. So without further ado, let us speak of the positives. The best thing about Edgerunners is the art and atmosphere of the series, which, as typical of Trigger, ... 
Apr 8, 2023
Zen: Grogu to Makkuro Kurosuke
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Kishin Douji Zenki
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I understand the first review people see when looking up this anime is a 3/10, so please bear with me.
Otakus today have grown a recency bias when it comes to anime, it is nobody's fault and hardly anyone is consciously doing it, but it is something that happens, and I feel that taking a look at older shows (1960s-2000s) is a necessary task in order to draw attention to series that would go other wise unnoticed. Here are the stats of this review: Story: 7/10 (Good) Art: 7/10 (Good) Sound: 6/10 (Fair) Character: 7/10 (Good) Enjoyment: 8/10 (Very Good) ... |
