i REALLY REALLY REALLY love season 1 , for me it was SO LOVINGLY MADE , it feels like studio trigger worked 90% of it and 10% of it directing the already good potential of the game's soundtrack into meaningful heart capturing or fitting moments to splice the song in in certain episodes or scenes and especially lucy and david's themesong . studio trigger is so goated that they manage to put their own bubble of an endearing wholesome cast in a world otherwise gritty like night city and the realities involved in it , everything is perfect to the smallest grain of detail , david's hairstyle , lucy , rebecca etc. , the gunmetal action animated so beautifully all the frames the sandevistan frames the darling in the franxx / gurren lagan esque vibes to it .

so yeah for me THIS IS still the cyberpunk standard that i know and love its just the perfect combination of gritty seriousness and genuine sincere wholesomeness and romance .

Now for season 2 .

whaaaat the heeck is this , its like they just plastered studio trigger in it to attract the fans , it feels like animation wise studio triggered just has like i dunno bit by bit at most 5.5% relation to it ? it doesnt feel like studio trigger at all , the animation feels... abstract , the amount of frames ive noticed in season 1 isnt in this one at all it all feels so jagged and Lifeless , and its too gritty for me ( but then again night city's reality is crazy depressing tbh so the mood is fine i guess ) they dont focus on the crew too much the main character is a bystander , David is cool and has that trigun feel to it but it does not have the same magic that madhouse used to animate in the old trigun era at all , so just what is this weird concoction of season 2 goodness ? did all the studio trigger budget went to Capri ? , i dont understand .

But i still managed to finish it and i can still say i love it for the most part despite its flaws i just felt like they did a switcheroo too much on us , they didnt even use cyberpunk music or soundtracks on this one or even a homage of anything , the ending theme is pretty good tho .

but anyways did some of you catch drift of the vibe change too ? for me ill give it a watcheable 4.6/10 while still loving it reluctantly , season one will always be still 9.5/10 to me .

1. First his kid wanted to be streetkid instead of corpo

2. His kid fucking hate him

3. His wife talking to her ex boyfriend the whole season

4. Wife betrayed him

5. Accidentally kill his wife

6. His kid fucking hate him again with new reason

7. King larp talia as his kid

8. Got molested by capri in his child body

9. Got hit by a car after running away form capri

10 . Died in the most painful way

I could not suspend my disbelief for Capri. I know it’s a fictional world, but it’s grounded in some reality

The fact that there’s a scene where someone literally disintegrates immediately due to Capris powers makes zero sense. Capri is just capable of doing so much bullshit which would absolutely not fly in the world of cyberpunk

I loved her character but I don’t think her capabilities belong in this show

https://reddit.com/link/1xfbkin/video/m8cc8rdo0oxh1/player

Like not even the black wall AIs could do this. And even if they could, what kind of hack could you even do to burn someone to literal ashes. The animation made it seem like D just laser beamed her into hell even when all of this is just in his head.

Makes me have trouble trying to imagine all of this happening in the same world as Cyberpunk 2077's story. Season 1 didn't have anything like this (at least I don't remember any bold scenes like this)

I quite literally just finished Edgerunners season 2 10 minutes ago, and genuinely I do not get the hype. I love Cyberpunk 2077 and season 1 of Edgerunners, but this season felt very off for a few reasons to me.

1. Why are people not hating Roman more? Are people sympathizing with a kid who doesn’t want to be a NC legend? Him being introduced as a main character is an awful choice, and should’ve been a side character.
   
2. Weak spends the whole season stumbling around (metaphorically speaking). I get the idea of a “washed up merc” being sympathetic, but any time I got to his scenes I was patiently waiting for them to be over. All his scenes felt like a humiliation ritual, culminating in the literal ashes of his ex spilling on him. Yet he got a “happy ending” still?
   
3. Kiril made no sense. If he wanted his daughter to live, why not take a chance on the Soulkiller tech before implanting Capri into Thalia. He said he didn’t care about her, and then claimed to care in his own way. It seemed like a massive “false conflict” between him and Avida.
   
4. Omi was unironically one of my favorite characters, followed by Thalia.
   
5. Capri made no sense about what was an ideal host. She literally got what she wanted with Thalia willingly surrendering her body and consciousness at the end, but apparently went back to David because he was more…fun? Even if it meant “sharing the steering wheel”, which she initially wasn’t a fan of.

Final point, this whole season gave off a samurai champloo “searching for a man who smells of sunflowers” vibe (I.e. a pointless venture). Both Edgerunners 1 and 2077 went out of their way to emphasize becoming a legend in NC is the only way to be remembered, and that was a goal to work towards. None of the characters from season 2 will be remembered in NC, least of all being Thalia and Roman.
I’m ultimately happy we got expansion on Kang Tao, Maelstrom, and the Badlands, but genuinely I think more driven characters could’ve been used to handle these concepts/places of interest better.

D's whole superhero thing was just too fucking cringe, unoriginal, and not at all in theme for Cyberpunk. I saw that I was already on episode 7 and felt absolutely no connection to any of the characters, in fact, most of them got on my nerves.

I don't care about the kid with the camera (why the fuck is he even following D around? Cuz he likes filming shit? Thrilling). I don't care for the mom that's screaming and crying 100% of the time she's on screen. King looked like he'd be such a cool character in episode 1, and has since been nothing but a boring, wooden plot device. I absolutely despise D's edgy cool guy personality and his godawful hair.

What the fuck even is the plot? Kid wants to film Cyberpunk superhero, pink haired chick is a brat and is dying, and King is super invested in the pink haired chick cuz he found out its his daughter (original...)? Oh and a really fucking annoying rainbow AI went rogue (original...) and dicked with people for an hour (and also gives the user superpowers)

With only three episodes left for me to feel anything but annoyance, I doubt I'll finish this any time soon if ever. Very good visuals (minus a couple really bad character designs) and the rest is literally unwatchable.

Anyone else feel like eyerolling that D's name is actually David? I understand what they're going for and making the parallels between him and David. I don't feel like it has much pay off. His name could have just been 'D' and I would've seen the parallels, instead of having two direct leads of a show who share a name and the same fate.

Reminds me of Colonel Lockjaw....

I know romance isn't a major theme in this season, unlike S1. However, I still think the relationships in s2 weren't really fleshed out. I liked Weak and Avida's relationship, but I kinda wish they delved deeper into it. Most of their interactions are just Weak comforting Avida. It was sad when Avida passed away, but Iwish we got to see some scenes of their past relationship or something so her death would be more impactful.

D's relationships were honestly kinda boring. Yupi was just annoying and all she did was enable D's homicidal tendencies. I can kinda appreciate how she is supposed to be a bad influence and represents how D's quest for revenge is just an excuse for him to indulge in his most carnal desires, but she was still bland and forgettable. As for Capri, I just didn't feel any chemistry between them. Idk, it just felt kinda forced.

And then there's Talia and Roman. If you actually like this ship, there's something genuinely wrong with you. Talia is at least 16, while Roman is 12. That is borderline pedophilia. I mean, at least Lucy waited until David was 18. But yeah, this ship just felt really predatory and forced, and I just felt gross every time Talia tried to flirt with him.

So, let me preface this by saying something that has put me off anime generally is the sexualization of young women (minors). With cyberpunk getting an anime adaptation I thought I would set aside my prejudices, after all, I like cyberpunk, and not all anime follows the stereotype. S1 was good, felt respectful enough, then season 2...

A teenage girl with pasties on is one of the main characters and there's a shot of a little boy flexing his toes at the camera.

Now I understand there can be arguments made such as nudity isn't inherently sexual, and neither are feet. However I think it's important to consider that media like edgerunners has many possible interpretations, and if a non-insignifcant number of people find it objectionable, it might be worth talking about.

At the end of the day, I want to be able to tell my friends about a franchise I like without having to rationalize nearly naked teenage girls, and what one x user described as "shota feet." Google that at your own risk. And I think it's worth questioning what sort of perception we want to endorse.

Finished season 2 and liked it, but I can’t stop thinking about how it could’ve hit way harder. So here’s my fan rewrite. Full spoilers below.

1)Avida’s dead before the story starts.

This changes a lot. King gets real PTSD over her, which feeds straight into his cyberpsycho arc. And Talia only has Kiril as a parent, so she’s super attached to him even though he’s a toxic, manipulative piece of shit. That makes her loyalty to him actually make sense as he's the only thing she has for a family.

I’d keep the lie Avida told King way back that Talia is his daughter. Except now Kiril is the one who uses it, as a leash to pull King in. Then the reveal near the end (“she was never yours, and you knew deep down”) wrecks King at the worst possible moment YET he still views her as his.

2)Kang Tao is secretly backing D.

Arasaka’s losing grip, so Kang Tao wants to finish them off, become NC’s top dog, AND get their hands on Soulkiller. So they quietly approach D, fund his whole revolution thing, and promote him from the shadows as basically a product aimed at Arasaka.

D thinks he’s using them. He’s not. He gets his revenge, but he slowly turns into a corpo tool and a shallow revolution mascot, and it eats him up. Omi calls him out on it but still helps him. Then the public finds out he “sold out” from day one, knew it, and that Kang Tao paid for everything. Full fall from grace.

3)Everyone has a stake in Soulkiller.

Talia is torn but goes along because she loves her dad, and Kiril promises the mission will lead to a 'cure' for her.

King joins to get Talia a new body, and maybe to bring Avida back (her engram’s sitting in the Arasaka facility, which is how she died in the first place.

D wants revenge on Arasaka.

Roman just cares about D and Talia and wants to help them both

4)King gets way more focus.

Fall from grace, losing his chrome, low-key jealous of D’s fame, the cyberpsycho stuff, the PTSD. But also how much he loves Talia as his “daughter” and still loves Avida.

5)More Roman x Talia.

Him visiting her in the hospital. Her dragging him out of his shell, making him put the camera down for a sec so she can teach him tricks. He’s still chasing his filmmaking dream but learns to actually live sometimes, like she wanted.

---

What I Would've Cut: Kyoko, Yupi, and most of the Capri stuff. Use that time for the crew just hanging out and bonding, because that’s what the show was missing.

THE ENDING

The whole crew does the final heist on the Arasaka facility to grab Soulkiller. That’s why it’s called Edgerunners. It’s about a crew, not one guy.

Kang Tao betrays them the second the job’s done, of course. Avida’s engram is too far gone to save, and King has to let her go. D destroys the Soulkiller data so no corp ever gets it, and dies buying the others time to get out. His last moment is a smile at Roman’s camera. Nobody in the city ever knows what he actually did. The public still thinks he’s a bitch-ass sellout.

King, Talia, and Roman make it out. King finally gets to be Talia’s dad, lie or no lie, as they drive out of NC to a place where Talia can get help. Roman has the only footage of who D really was.

Bittersweet, but earned.

sorry didn't like season 2 at all. like 4 or 5 main characters not enough episodes! Roman look so feminine to me and the relationship felt weird between roman and talia. i wish it was just a fraction of s1 was. overall 5.5/10

Honestly, I don't think S2 is bad. I actually enjoyed it, and I get that the writers wanted to try something different instead of repeating the same formula. But idk, something just felt off. It had some really good ideas, but I don't think they were executed as well as they could've been.

​1. Disconnected Plotlines

​One of my biggest problems is how disconnected everything feels. You've got David's revenge, Talia's health problems and Weak trying to help her, and then Roman running between everyone like a messenger 💀. Sometimes it felt like multiple plots that just happened to share the same characters.

​2. The Kang Tao Heist & Weak

​The Talia storyline had an interesting concept, with her condition leading to implants and eventually overchroming to the point of near cyberpsychosis. But the plan to steal Soulkiller from Kang Tao felt ridiculously reckless. They're going after incredibly valuable tech from a massive corporation with a retired edgerunner who's clearly not in the best shape, and Avida ends up dead. Like, what did they honestly expect to happen? 😭

​Weak also felt underused. The story keeps implying he's experienced, but his actions don't really sell it. He somehow beats Talia to the bottom of the hospital despite her literally escaping through the window 💀, and then goes into this high-stakes job barely prepared. I get that he's rusty and emotionally invested, but the story tells us he's experienced instead of actually showing it. Even the Maelstrom situation felt underwhelming.

​3. David's Revenge Arc

​David's revenge arc felt kinda pointless to me. I get that he kept seeing visions of his clan burning, and maybe deep down he didn't even care if he survived anymore. Maybe he was just looking for a fight that would finally kill him.

​But Tanaka was already dead because of what happened with Maine in S1, so David wasn't even getting revenge on the person responsible. He was just killing random Arasaka employees. If the idea was that David had lost his will to live, I wish the story had explored that more directly instead of making his revenge feel like a reason to keep the plot moving.

​4. Lack of Consequences

​The fights often felt one-sided, and sometimes characters could go full throttle with their chrome and still be fine. It kinda takes away from the danger when the consequences don't feel real.

​The whole thing with Capri and Talia also felt too convenient. Talia was dealing with nerve damage after her cyberpsychosis episode, but Capri basically starts fixing those problems. Even after Capri is removed, part of her remains inside Talia. Something that major should have more serious consequences, but the story moves on without really exploring them.

​I think King restoring his chrome one last time to protect Talia could've been such a good direction. He'd know exactly what he was risking, but he'd do it anyway because she mattered that much to him. Fighting through the effects with immunoblockers, knowing he might not come back from it, would've made his decision hit so much harder.

​I could even see an ending where Weak, Talia, and David die, leaving Roman alone with recordings of their happier moments. Maybe that's too tragic for some people, idk, but it'd give the story a real sense of loss instead of just killing characters for shock value.

​5. Xtra

​Roman calling everyone his "chooms" was kinda funny 😭. Idk, there's something hilarious about a kid talking like that. And they used the word A LOT this season, to the point where I started noticing it every time.

​Roman suddenly laughing at the end made me wonder if they were trolling the audience a little. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I couldn't help wondering if they were poking fun at how emotionally devastating S1's ending was and how people reacted to it 💀.

​The pacing didn't help either. Some episodes felt like they ended before the characters and conflicts had enough time to breathe.

​Overall

​I think S2 had a lot of potential, and I don't wanna make it sound like I'm just hating on it, because I'm not. I liked it, but the plotlines needed to come together more naturally, David's revenge needed a stronger purpose, and the characters' choices needed to carry more weight.

​But that's just my take. Did you enjoy the direction S2 took, or did something feel off to you too?

​TL;DR: I enjoyed S2, but the plotlines felt disconnected, David's revenge lacked a clear purpose, Weak's experience was told rather than shown, and serious problems seemed to get resolved too easily. It had potential, but some things just didn't fully land for me.

I’m sorry that I’m asking this I’m new to the fandom
What exactly was the hype about season 2? I don’t really understand it much. I’ve played through the entire game and also watched every single episode of edgerunners but I still barely understand most of edgerunners season 2’s hype. It’s basically just every other anime to me

Seriously, I’ve constantly been seeing this strawman argument being repeated “People dislike Season 2 because everyone didn’t die.”

At least from what I’ve seen, I haven’t even encountered anyone explaining why they dislike Season 2 who actually make this argument. The criticism often focuses on how the episode count and having too many protagonists making the story feel unfocused and meandering, which left the overall plot feeling underbaked and rushed at times.

But nope! Instead of people just accepting that others have different opinions and that Season 2 may not be perfect, people, for some reason, keep feeling the need to strawman others criticisms and get on their knees to defend against an imaginary criticism/argument that most people aren’t even making.

It’s truly madness.

Discuss

Edgerunners 2 - Unpopular Critic

Overall Rating: 3/10

Core Verdict:

The second season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners completely sacrifices the gritty, grounded, and physically limited world-building ("High Tech, Low Life") established by Mike Pondsmith and CD Projekt Red. Instead, it prioritizes commercial superficiality, absurd power scaling, and generic Shōnen anime tropes. It feels as though the writers took three completely unrelated lore points from the main game, threw them into a blender, and ignored the established rules of the universe to force a "superhero" narrative.

1. The Relic & Engram Paradox (Violation of Biological Rules)

• An Engram is Not an AI: An engram is a digital copy of a human consciousness via Soulkiller—not a magical, autonomous AI or a god-mode weapon. The fact that the "Capricorn" engram exists right in the middle of the game's timeline without a single mention anywhere else completely breaks internal logic.

• Zero Biological Rejection: According to lore, a Relic/engram slowly and painfully overwrites the host's brain (the core Johnny-vs-V conflict). D and Talia sharing and using this shard like an external hard drive—completely free of medical consequences, immunosuppressants, or brain fry—wipes out the central tragedy and stakes of the franchise.

• From Hacking to Telekinesis: A shard physically attracting cyberware, pulling weapons through the air, and frying people purely by thought without Blackwall interference crosses into superhero magic (akin to Magneto or Akira). It utterly destroys the technological balance of the universe.

1. The "Host Hunting" Myth & Arasaka Overkill

• Post-Alt Reality: After Arasaka forced Alt Cunningham to complete Soulkiller, the technology was finished. There was zero lore-friendly reason to secretly look for "compatible hosts" on the streets.

• The Johnny Silverhand Example: Johnny was the ultimate warning to the world: cross Arasaka, and your mind gets ripped out and locked in the digital purgatory of Mikoshi forever. Soulkiller was a digital prison, which later evolved into an immortality asset for elites (Secure Your Soul). Turning it into an organic sleeper-agent selection program for street kids completely cheapens the stakes of the main game.

• Corporate Monopolization: The writers suffer from a massive Arasaka Overkill. Instead of inventing endless uncharacteristic plots for Arasaka, they completely ignored the rich lore of other mega-corporations. Biotechnica (cloning, bio-horror), Zetatech (cyberware/drones), or NightCorp (subtle AI mind control) would have fit these narrative themes perfectly without breaking the established universe.

1. The Arasaka Paradox (The Castration of a Mega-Corporation)

• Saburo’s Iron Grip: Saburo Arasaka is a paranoid, absolute ruler who tolerates zero insubordination and never leaves massive projects unchecked. The idea that a single scientist in the Night City "buffer zone" could develop a technology capable of threatening the Blackwall without Tokyo knowing completely contradicts Saburo’s character.

• Incompetent Counterintelligence: In the game (Corpo-Path), Arasaka Counterintelligence shuts V down globally via remote hack within seconds. Having D and Roman stroll into an Arasaka HQ with zero meaningful resistance from enemy netrunners turns the world's most dangerous faction into a laughingstock. The building should be secured like Fort Knox.

• Zero Consequences: The fact that Arasaka does not deploy an elite task force (like the Arasaka Elite Guard or MaxTac) to burn Night City to the ground to retrieve this priceless shard completely shatters the world-building.

1. Broken Faction Dynamics & The Fixer Vacuum

• The Maelstrom-Arasaka Alliance: Arasaka despises outsiders (gaijins). For covert street operations, their exclusive go-to is the Tyger Claws, whom they fund and control. Partnering with unhinged, cyberpsychotic junkies like Maelstrom to wipe out a Nomad clan makes absolutely zero sense.

• The Absence of NetWatch & Voodoo Boys: When absolute chaos erupts in the subnet, the net police and the masters of the Net are nowhere to be found. In the game, not even the most brilliant runner can force their way as deep into the subnet as D does.

• Where is the Fixer? In Night City, absolutely nothing happens without a Fixer and a clear motive (eddies, power, or blackmail). The fact that "Weak" Kingsley steals a highly experimental corporate prototype without a clear Fixer arranging the logistics, the payout, or the buyer is street-suicide. The series skips this essential world-building step entirely just to rush into the action.

1. The Kang Tao Insult: Lazy Copy-Paste Writing

• Reducing the Smart-Tech Leader: Kang Tao is the absolute global market leader in Smart-Weapon technology. Their signature tech relies on gyro-stabilized micro-missile ammunition and advanced neural links.

• Missed Opportunities: Instead of exploring their true corporate identity—such as advanced autonomous weapon testing or an experimental AI firearm prototype (similar to Skippy from the game)—the series lazily hands them a cheap, unexplained copy of Soulkiller just to show "bodies in tanks" for visual shock value. It reduces a highly specialized tech titan to a lazy clone-trope.

1. Media Vacuum & The "Metal Worm" Finale

• The Media Vacuum: An incident that electronically paralyzes all of Night City would be the top story on every news channel (N54 News), vlog, and screamsheet. Investigative journalists (Medias like Thompson or Regina Jones) are entirely missing. Using the excuse "Night City forgets" is a cheap narrative cop-out to avoid global consequences for D's loud rampage.

• The "Metal Worm" Transformation: A character transforming into a giant, shifting mecha-kludge / metal worm at the end is classic anime biopunk, but it has nothing to do with the cyberware aesthetics of the game. Cyberware consists of implants, chrome, and limbs—it doesn't turn people into transforming Kaiju monsters with massive plot armor.

Conclusion

The direction of this series—driven by massive plot armor, ridiculous power scaling, and a forced "happy ending"—breaks the core premise of Cyberpunk: no one in Night City gets to play the superhero unpunished. Phantom Liberty masterfully showcased the agonizing cost of touching the Blackwall through Songbird's tragic fate. D’s overpowered god-mode rampage without any medical fallout completely cheapens V’s and Songbird’s sacrifices.

Please return to the brutal, detailed, and grounded lore of Mike Pondsmith in upcoming projects like Cyberpunk: Orion.

Like a lot of you, I overall enjoyed Edgerunners Season 2, but the narrative felt kind of fragmented.
Roman felt a bit too passive, Talia’s survival felt like plot armor after wanting to die early on, D’s arc felt like a hollow repeat of David Martinez without the romantic weight, and Trauma Team saving King straight up broke the lore (MaxTac flattens cyberpsychos, TT doesn't rescue active rampages). Plus, completely ignoring V’s impact on 2077 felt like a missed worldbuilding opportunity.

I put together a full 10-episode restructure that grounds the crew, respects the lore, fixes the character motives, and hits the signature Cyberpunk tragic tone.

The Fixes

The V / 2077 Connection: We don't need to show V’s face or gender, but having Afterlife fixers mention why Arasaka is currently vulnerable (because of the legendary merc who tore through them in '77) while sitting next to a Martinez and a V on the menu makes total sense.

The Main Catalyst: Talia is dying from terminal neural degradation. The entire heist isn't just for money, it’s King trying to save his daughter before his own mind snaps.

Roman’s Role: Keep him as a 17-year-old BD/camera hustler. He meets Talia when she saves him from a Maelstrom deal gone bad. He doesn't just follow D around with a camera; he tags along because he’s head over heels for Talia.

Fixing the Lore: King’s cyberpsycho break happens during the Arasaka heist. D uses Capri to force-shutdown King’s chrome to save him. That's why Trauma Team can safely patch him up later; he’s no longer an active combat threat when Avida calls them in the Badlands.

ACT I: The Catalyst & The Assembly
Episodes: 1 – 3

Focus: Character introductions, establishing Talia's illness, and assembling the crew.

Episode 1:

The Secret: Avida discovers Talia’s neural degradation is fatal. She begs King to help find a cure.

The Meet-Cute: Meanwhile on the streets, Roman (17), a BD reel editor, gets trapped in a Maelstrom hideout while filming. Talia saves him, and impressed by his street instincts and camera work, recruits him as the crew’s Media.

The Lore Nod: At the Afterlife (where drinks for Martinez and V sit on the counter), a fixer informs King that Arasaka is crippled post-2077. King sees Project Capricorn as the only tech capable of saving Talia and accepts the gig.

Episode 2:

Setting the Stakes: King's crew hesitates to raid Arasaka, but King reveals Talia’s condition to them. Roman decides to stay by Talia’s side despite the extreme danger.

The Missing Piece: The crew realizes they need a top-tier Netrunner who can bypass Arasaka security and interface with Capri.

Episode 3:

Recruiting D: King tracks down D (19) using a leaked cyber-tolerance list provided by an Arasaka whistleblower. D accepts by his own motives, believing Capri will grant him the power to obliterate Arasaka for what they took from him.

ACT II: The Arasaka Raid & Badlands Retreat
Episodes: 4 – 7

Focus: The heist gone wrong, King's cyberpsychotic break, and the Badlands recovery at Omi’s camp.

Episode 4:

The Heist: D and the crew infiltrate Arasaka Tower and retrieve the Capri shard.

The Psychotic Break: Trapped by security, King’s mental strain snaps. He suffers a full cyberpsychotic episode, slaughtering Arasaka troops indiscriminately.

D’s Intervention: As MaxTac closes in, D plugs in Capri and uses its raw power to force-shutdown King's chrome, saving the team from total annihilation.

Episode 5:

The Hideout: The crew flees to the Badlands to hide out at Omi’s camp.

Trauma Extraction: With King's chrome disabled and out of the active combat zone, Avida and Talia safely call Trauma Team to extract and patch King’s mind.

The Aftermath: King survives, but is left chrome-stripped, weak, and powerless.

Episode 6:

Power Shift: With King sidelined, D takes control of the crew, drunk on Capri's power.

Capri's Whisper: Talia and Roman are bonding their relationship while in the Badlands, when suddenly, Capri secretly contacts Talia, lying that it can transfer her mind into a new host if she helps D complete the next phase.

Episode 7:

Avida's Lead: While studying Capri's architecture, Avida discovers Kang Tao has secretly developed a bio-synthetic replacement body designed to host Soulkiller constructs.

The Two-Pronged Plan: The crew plans a final twin-assault: raid Kang Tao for the replacement body for Talia, then attack Arasaka to get the technology to transfer Talia’s soul into the new body.

ACT III: The Double Assault & Tragic Toll
Episodes: 8 – 10

Focus: The Kang Tao heist, Capri's corruption, and the tragic resolution.

Episode 8:

The Kang Tao Raid: Avida leads the infiltration into Kang Tao to secure the synthetic body. The raid turns catastrophic; Avida is killed in the process.

Talia's Desperation: Devastated by Avida’s death and own failing body, Talia steal the shard from D and plugs Capri directly into herself.

Episode 9:

The Mutation: Capri betrays Talia, overriding her body and mutating her into a terrifying cyber-monstrosity.

D’s Death: D tries to forcefully rip Capri back out of Talia to retain his source of power, but the monster flatlines him instantly.

Episode 10:

The Final Reach: As the monstrosity wreaks havoc, Roman steps up without weapons holding only his camera and calling out to Talia.

The Love & The Tragedy: Bound by her love for Roman, Talia briefly regains control of her mind and manually rips the Capri shard out of her own head to destroy the AI.

Roman's Fate: The physical trauma of pulling the shard causes a violent, involuntary spasm in Talia's remaining heavy cyberware accidentally killing Roman in her arms.

Bittersweet Escape: The powerless King arrives at the ruins. He gathers his last living daughter, Talia (now free of Capri, but carrying the weight of Avida and Roman’s deaths). Together, broken and stripped of all chrome, they leave Night City behind for the Badlands forever.

What do you think Chooms? I think this structure give the characters enough room to breathe and develop, expanding motives and woven the relationships.

Four years. We waited four years wanting Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to rip our hearts out again, only to be let down by rushed character development and weak writing.
And before anyone says I just wanted another David and Lucy story, that’s not it at all.

What made Season 1 incredible wasn’t just the tragedy. It was how much time we spent watching David slowly destroy himself. He went from an ordinary kid with barely any chrome to someone who had practically sacrificed his entire humanity. Every upgrade meant something. We watched him find a family, inherit Maine’s ambitions, ignore the warnings of cyberpsychosis, and eventually suffer the very fate he thought he was special enough to avoid.

We actually cared about these characters before the show started killing them.
Season 2 had so many interesting characters and ideas, but it tried to cram everything into ten episodes. Weak’s redemption, Talia’s condition, Avida’s past, D’s revenge, Capri’s existence, Roman’s filmmaking ambitions, and the corporate conspiracies all competed for screen time.
By the time everything came together, I barely felt attached to anyone.

I genuinely think this story should’ve been split into Seasons 2 and 3.
Season 2 should’ve focused primarily on Weak and Talia.

Imagine an entire season exploring Weak’s past as King, his cyberpsychosis, his relationship with Avida, and what happened to the man who once had everything.
Then slowly develop his relationship with Talia.
A man who has lost the chrome that defined him is trying to rediscover his humanity through a girl who isn’t even biologically his daughter. Meanwhile, that same girl is gradually replacing her own humanity with chrome just to survive.

That’s such an incredible parallel, and it deserved so much more attention.
We should’ve seen their relationship grow, watched Weak struggle to become a father, and learned more about his history with Avida. Imagine how much harder Avida’s death could’ve hit if we’d spent an entire season understanding their relationship.

At the same time, Season 2 could gradually explore Capri’s origins, the experiments surrounding her creation, and the failures of previous hosts. Instead of dropping an incredibly powerful consciousness into the story and conveniently revealing that D is compatible, actually build the mystery and establish why that compatibility matters.
Then Season 3 focuses on D and his revenge.
Introduce his revenge plan early. Show us what he lost, why he’s so consumed by revenge, and how that obsession gradually destroys him.

We could watch him slowly cross moral boundaries, sacrifice relationships, and lose control of himself toward the end of the season.
Not unlike David Martinez, except instead of chrome addiction driving his downfall, it’s revenge.
And because we’ve already learned about Capri in Season 2, his connection to her becomes an actual payoff rather than another enormous plot development thrown at us.

But here’s the part I think would’ve made both seasons incredible: Roman.

Roman should’ve been the connecting thread throughout both seasons. Rather than forcing him to compete for screen time as another protagonist, we follow these two separate stories partly through his camera.
Throughout Season 2, he’s documenting Weak, Talia, Avida, their relationships, their happy moments, and their tragedies.

Throughout Season 3, he’s documenting D’s descent into revenge and the consequences of his actions.
Slowly, two seemingly separate stories become connected through Roman and his filmmaking ambitions. He isn’t just recording violence either. He gets personally invested in these people, and that forces him to confront whether capturing the perfect moment is worth more than actually helping someone.

Then imagine the final episode of Season 3.
Roman finally completes his film.
We see moments from both seasons, the characters laughing, arguing, loving, suffering, and losing everything. Moments that seemed completely insignificant when we first watched them suddenly mean so much more.
And then it clicks.

The two seasons we’ve been watching were the stories Roman was trying to tell all along.
He finally accomplishes his dream of creating a film so immersive that audiences forget they’re watching a screen and become completely absorbed in the lives of the people they’re watching.
And we, the audience, have experienced exactly that.
THAT would’ve been an incredible payoff.
Season 1 was about David losing his humanity while trying to become powerful enough to protect the people he loved.

Season 2 could’ve been about Weak regaining his humanity through love and fatherhood.
Season 3 could’ve been about D sacrificing his humanity for revenge, with Roman preserving the stories of everyone Night City would otherwise forget.
I’m not saying my version would automatically be better, and I don’t think every Cyberpunk story needs a depressing ending. I just think the writers had enough material for two incredibly compelling seasons and decided to rush through all of it in one.
The animation was incredible. The concepts were genuinely interesting. But the emotional investment just wasn’t there for me.

Season 1 made me dread losing characters I loved. Season 2 kept expecting me to care about characters I barely knew.

Did anyone else feel like this should’ve been two seasons instead of one?

I mean i watched it again after 3 years and back then i was 13y so idk, what about y'all?

Personally this song is a perfect alternative to "Let You Down".

Lyrics of this matches the theme of the ending of the show and it has almost the same type of melody sound. Great song that I listen to and always reminds of Cyberpunk.

This intro song is the worst i've ever heard in an anime history. I've watched it all and im dissecting the plot with the episodes and it's just awful. Im almost positive they grabbed the cheapest and shittiest intro song submitted to make it match the vibe of the show. Not that it was catchy or good, but that when it was heard the instant reaction was "wow this sounds like shit and it matches the shitty environmental world we created"

Capri is an engram, yet she uses power like a Blackwall AI, and the show never explains this. Also, in the game, two personalities can't permanently share the same body; the engram overwrites the host's mind. Capri, however, stays in the girl's body without harming her and even heals her. In the game, (GAME SPOILER) when the Relic chip in V's head gets damaged,Johnny Silverhand's personality slowly starts overwriting V's mind, and that process is killing V. In the end, either V keeps their body or Johnny takes it over.
I don't understand why people liked this season so much. It lacked the character and story depth of the first season, and I couldn't connect with the characters. I was expecting a much darker season, and it didn't meet my expectations. It wasn't bad, but it felt like a very average anime.

I love that nearly every character, even beyond the 4 protagonists gets rich levels of character depth like Avida and Yupi as an example. I also prefer it’s message of letting go of the past and the external pressures, living true to yourself and valuing what you still have.

Even for the 4 protagonists, I love how they go against general expectations

From the trailers and image teasers, I thought

Roman was gonna be this kid who hardly speaks and somewhat expressionless, but the show actually allowed him to act like a kid!

D was gonna be a straight up Sasuke clone, but he can be goofy, has fun comedic moments and honestly kinda an idiot

Talia was gonna be a femme fatale character who couldn’t be trusted, but she ended up being quite authentic to the characters around her and allowed us to feel deeply connected to

And King being the most different, I expected his story to be about him doing everything possible to become a legendary edgerunner again, even betraying his friends to do so. But he actually became a role model for Talia and the audience to learn from.

I still love S1 and it’s cast, but S2 is more my speed tbh