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Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the latest anime from studio Trigger, and is a tie in anime to Cyberpunk franchise, more specifically, a tie in to Cyberpunk 2077. To be honest, I had very little faith in this anime when it was first announced. Video game tie ins don't tend to be very good, and this anime was also tying into a video game that ended up being disappointing to me personally. To my surprise though, the anime ended up being very enjoyable, to the point where I personally enjoyed it more than the story of Cyberpunk 2077.

I do have some issues with it though. The ... pacing feels a bit off at times, dialog can also feel very stiff at certain points, and some of the relationships in the show feel a bit undeveloped. That being said, I don't think any of these issues I had with the show are enough to not recommend. You don't really need any knowledge of the Cyberpunk franchise to watch the anime so I think it is very accessible for anybody who isn't familiar with the setting, and there a lot of Easter eggs and cameos for people who have played Cyberpunk 2077. There really is a bit of everything for people here, so I'm going to give this show a big recommendation.

Fate Apocrypha Review for episodes 1-16

Fate Apocrypha is an entry into the long running Fate franchise that seems to keep getting dumber and dumber as the series goes on. The Fate franchise went from its humble begging’s as an adult visual novel to an oversaturated mess that doesn’t even try anymore, Fate Apocrypha continues the downward spiral of quality of the Fate franchise and at every point of its run time assaults the viewer’s intelligence.

Story and Characters:

The story of Apocrypha is its first major sin. The plot takes around five episodes to set up the plot and even longer to give the main cast ... their motivations for partaking in Holy Grail war. Compare this to Fate Zero which set up the basic premise of the Grail War, sets up motivation for the story’s central charters, and ends with the summoning of the servants. This all takes place in a single episode in comparison to Apocrypha where I couldn’t find myself to care or even remember the names of most the characters after the plot got set up. Pretty much after the plot is set up its almost nonstop action with very little room to give any of the characters any interesting development, and the action isn’t even that good but more of that later.

In regards about the characters, they are mostly just generic architypes that you can find in the majority of crappy anime/manga/light novels. You have the uninteresting and generic looking protagonist which for whatever reason people bend over backwards just to help, generic psycho loli, a rebellious girl who just wants to fight and has daddy (mommy) issues, seasonal trap character, and the list continues. Really none of the characters have any defining trait outside of their given architypes, and the character designs for these characters range from generic fantasy anime characters to overdesigned and downright idiotic looking.

Fate/Stay Night and Fate Zero has some of the coolest and most visually interesting characters I have ever seen. Characters such as Gilgamesh and Saber have iconic and really sleek designs in comparison to Apocrypha. Joan of Arc design makes little to no sense. Her armour only covers her abdomen and not her chest and has what appears to be a horse shoe on her head which makes me wonder how it stays on. Siegfried is just a Frankenstein’s monster of bad character design, his body has glowing lights and his armour makes no sense. You could put him in the most generic looking fantasy anime and he wouldn’t look out of place.

Animation, Direction and Sound:

The animation in Fate Apocrypha is average at best. It isn’t the worst animated anime I’ve seen, pretty much most of my problems in this regard is how the action scenes are done. The actions scenes have too many quick shots so it’s hard to process what’s going on screen, it isn’t always clear where the characters are in position of the world, and the sound design is almost as bad as the clang sound from Berserk 2016/17. This is honestly some of the worst action I have ever seen in my life. I feel like the director purposefully did this to trick viewers into thinking that this is well animated action, and for the most part, I think it has fooled a good amount of people, but I hope the majority of people aren’t fooled by this.

Closing Thoughts:

In conclusion, there really isn’t anything I like about Apocrypha, and I have no idea why continue to punish myself by watching this dribble each week. This is honestly one of the worst shows I have ever watched in my life and it continues to baffle me as to how people can legitimately enjoy this.

I give Fate Apocrypha a score of 1/10 as MAL won’t let me give a negative score. Do yourself a favor and skip this show.

My mean score - 1.7/10