I got the chance to ask Bartosz Sztybor, the showrunner, writer, and producer for Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2, all of my burning questions about the anime's latest season — particularly about one central character’s backstory (or lack thereof).
Warning: Major spoilers for Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 below!
Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 follows a totally different cast of characters from the show’s first season. One of these characters is named Roman, a young boy who loves all things retro and has a special affinity for old-school cinema. In fact, he loves traditional films so much that he carries around an old-school camcorder, which he uses to record the events around him in favor of the straight-to-your-cranium braindances (BDs).
Although we get a good glimpse at the tragedies that made our other main characters the way they are (Weak Kingsley, D, Talia Yang), Roman’s backstory is notably absent from the mix. And while he’s so young that it could be argued the events of this season basically serve as his backstory, there’s something that nagged at me the entire time I was watching: Why was his dad so permissive?
Maybe it’s my strict upbringing talking, but I was surprised to see how freely Roman’s father let him roam around Night City (even letting him bring D to his house on a few occasions). When asked about this, Sztybor revealed that, surprisingly, this wasn’t always the plan for Roman and his dad.
“He has things to do! He’s a barber and he trusts his boy,” he said of Roman’s father. “That was an artistic choice, not to explain too much. Roman is this glimpse of innocence in this weird, violent city, and walking happiness and trust and all that. I think that if you were to show his background… In our first draft of scripts, his dad had more dialogue with Roman, but we saw that it gave too much backstory to him. Then you start interpreting things, ‘Why is he this way?’
“I think it should be something for the audience that they just feel, ‘Okay, he’s that guy.’ You can, of course, start thinking and start creating his story and background, which is fine. I would say that telling too much about himself, his past, his family would destroy the feelings of who he is. This is the promise that I’m making, never in the Cyberpunk franchise will we show his backstory. It will be kept secret.”
I brought up my feeling that Roman was the lens through which we, the audience, watch the events of Edgerunners 2 unfold — and Sztybor acknowledged this take, while also revealing how he came to the conclusion of having a cinephile-type character being the central connecting thread to all of the other players in the story.
“The first pitch for Studio Trigger was, ‘I want to do an homage to the pop culture of the 90s. I want a pulp fiction kind of story with several characters that, at one point, connect.’ Working with Kai Igarashi, we discovered we are both cinephiles and we love cinema. We needed something, someone that connected all the characters, and if we were already doing an homage to pop culture of the 80s and the 90s — not just at the story level, but the visual level — then a cinephile kid would be a perfect choice. We thought this one innocent guy who loves retro, who is this glimpse of hope, and suddenly he’s the connection between all those flawed characters, would be an amazing choice.”
Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 is out now exclusively on Netflix. You can read our review here, where we scored it a 9 out of 10, saying it “delivers the gory, action-packed goods, even if it doesn’t quite hit the highs of its predecessor.”
Returning to Cyberpunk 2077 or playing it for the first time? We’ve got a new and improved Cyberpunk interactive map to help you find every mission, Iconic item, and collectible in the game. Plus, we’ve also got a full walkthrough for the base game, a Phantom Liberty walkthrough, and an overview of all the Cyberpunk 2077 endings so you don’t make a choice you regret. And we can’t ignore the various romance options you can smooch, which also impact how V’s story concludes.