Edgerunners Is the Greatest Sci-FI Anime Ever

While Netflix’s anime offerings might pale in comparison to Crunchyroll’s, the world’s largest streaming service has no shortage of exclusives which have kept the anime community buzzing. From big crowd-pleasers like Delicious in Dungeon or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, to far weirder projects like Devilman: Crybaby, Netflix’s exclusives can’t be ignored.

Though the competition for best science fiction anime on Netflix might be crowded with acclaimed entries like Pluto, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Moonrise, a sleeper hit stands tall above the competition.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the best science fiction anime on Netflix. Though it had the pedigree of Kill La Kill studio Trigger behind it, many fans didn’t know how to feel about the series before it was released. By the end of its short, ten-episode run, however, Edgerunners left anime fans speechless.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a Fascinating Character Study That Keeps Viewers Hooked

Inspired by Mike Pondsmith’s classic Cyberpunk RPG series and made to tie in to the release of CD Project Red’s Cyberpunk: 2077 game, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a science fiction masterpiece.

The series follows a young man named David Martinez who lives in the fictional Night City. After an unspeakable tragedy unravels his life, David joins the titular Edgerunners, a group of mercenaries who carry out odd jobs around Night City.

With the help of the Edgerunners’ leader, Maine, and the group’s resident hacker, Lucy, David slowly climbs his way up the organization.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Is a Heartbreaking Science Fiction Tragedy

At its heart, Edgerunners is about the cost of success. As David’s status with the Edgerunners grows, he gains more and more cybernetic enhancements. Far from the simple power-ups they are in Cyberpunk: 2077, the various machines David augments himself with eat away at his humanity and his sense of self.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners opens with a man going “cyber-psycho,” a term referring to those whose sanity slips due to the mental strain of their cybernetic upgrades. Long before any character questions David’s obsession with becoming stronger through augments, the anime makes it clear that its power system comes with consequences.

Though Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is just as bloody and sleazy as many would expect from Studio Trigger, it is an anime series that feels right at home next to the greats of cyberpunk literature like Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and William Gibson’s Neuromancer. The result is one of the greatest cyberpunk anime ever.

Part of this literary edge is the series’ keen interest in the psychology of its cast. Though David’s actions by the end of the series are, by any objective metric, completely unforgivable, they are always properly motivated, coming from a place of vulnerability so earnest that they’re heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, David’s not the only one whose morality is questionable at best. Edgerunners doesn’t hesitate to remind viewers that its protagonists are not the good guys. Even the villains, despicable as they are, are less malicious actors and more agents for larger entities.

The true villains of Edgerunners are corporate forces so vast, powerful, and unknowable that they’re more like eldritch gods than actual businesses.

As unfortunate as David’s choices are, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is clear that the rot is in the heart of Night City, not its cast. True to the genre that gives the series its name, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is about a failing system forcing people to trade humanity for power. David is certainly not blameless for his actions, but he is not the sole arbiter of his fate either.

Netflix Hasn’t Been Able To Reach The Stratospheric Heights of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Since

Though Netflix has released a laundry list of great anime since the 2022 release of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, nothing has quite approached the unrivaled impact of Edgerunners.

Exclusive Netflix anime like Pluto or Orb: On the Movements of the Earth are masterpieces in their own right, with lavish animation, engrossing writing, and themes that warrant deep inspection, yet lack the emotional gut-punch Cyberpunk: Edgerunners leaves viewers with.

Few anime tackle failure and tragedy quite like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. While anime like Devilman: Crybaby, End of Evangelion, and Wolf’s Rain do end in tragedy, each anime’s ending is apocalyptic in scope. The result is something so horrific that it’s difficult for the viewer to comprehend or quantify.

In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, though, the tragedies are small enough to be devastating. While the specifics of every character’s misfortune might be tied to the series’ signature future tech, the broad strokes are identifiable even at a cursory glance.

One doesn’t have to look hard to find real-world examples of people feeding themselves through a meat grinder in pursuit of questionable goals. While many anime series, even grim ones, offer an escape from the reality of modern life, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners refuses to let viewers off so easily. It’s less an anime and more like a raw nerve, exposed and wracked with pain, yet defiant to the end.

Though conventional wisdom says that escapism is at the heart of anime’s continued success, Edgerunners was a massive hit for Netflix. The outpouring of support ensured that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is returning for a season 2, and the anime’s return might well be Netflix’s only chance of matching the stratospheric heights of season 1.

Netflix Has the Chance To Repeat Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ Unreasonable Success

It shouldn’t be controversial to say that Netflix’s track record with follow-ups is spotty at best. Unparalleled hits like Stranger Things and Squid Game came out the gate swinging with truly impressive first seasons that set too high a mark, leaving subsequent seasons forgettable at best or outright disappointing at worst.

Fortunately, fans of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners shouldn’t worry. Studio Trigger is one of the most reliable anime studios working in Japan. The makers of Kill La Kill and Delicious in Dungeon have literally never produced a bad anime during their time at Trigger, so it would be surprising for them to drop the ball with a title as hyped as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2.

Bolstering hopes of another Trigger hit is that Edgerunners 2 is completely disconnected from the first season’s story. So, even if the follow-up doesn’t quite match the original, nothing will really be lost.

Netflix is truly an incredible service for anime fans. Though it features many remarkable exclusives, no anime produced by the streaming giant has come close being on the same level as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. While all eyes look to season 2, nothing can assail the legacy of that perfect first season.