Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season Two once again sees Studio Trigger handle animation duties, and this time, the anime powerhouse has gotten even wilder with its depiction of Night City and its residents. While the first season was bold in its visual direction, director Kai Ikarashi has pushed it even further, using more abstract shapes and experimental animation techniques to capture the look and feel of a cutting-edge dystopia.
What does that lead to? A new season that showrunner Bartosz Sztybor calls a shift from Michael Bay-directed movies to Martin Scorsese-inspired (absolute) cinema.
"I think the difference for me is—and I think I once made this reference—visually, the first season was very Michael Bay, while this second season is more like Martin Scorsese," Sztybor said to GameSpot. "He uses shapes and light differently. Even if the backgrounds are the same real places from the game, and Studio Trigger was sometimes using the same assets, the way he recreates them is different. It fits the vibe of the story, which is also very different. It's not this huge emotional thing, but rather something indie, more punkish, and more realistic. For example, the violence in season two feels more striking and real to me personally—more shocking, even if it's not as over-the-top as in season one."
Ikarashi and Studio Trigger's visual direction for this new season allows for a range of Cyberpunk topics. From cyber-psychosis (where heavily augmented people violently lose their grip on reality) to an all-powerful AI program sharing space with your mind, the result is a series that doesn't look like a stereotypical anime series. Ikarashi has made a name for himself as a key animator on several anime series that have reflected his abstract tastes, like the critically acclaimed Bocchi the Rock, Mob Psycho 100, and Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, so if you're familiar with his work, you'll have an idea of what to expect in the new Edgerunners series.
This theme of experimentation also extends to the character Roman, a young cinephile who serves as the point-of-view character in Edgerunners. Always armed with an analogue camera, a large chunk of the show is seen through the low-resolution 4:3 lens of his device. Sztybor added that Roman became a pivotal part of the story after he discovered that both he and Ikarashi were cinephiles.
"It was super funny because when I was pitching the story to Studio Trigger, Roman wasn't in the story," Sztybor explained. "While working on the storyline and getting to know Kai Ikarashi better, we discovered that we are both cinephiles and love cinema. We had so many characters and realized we needed a POV character through whom we could see all the others—a connection between them. We thought, 'Okay, we love cinema; let me create a cinephile this season.' Going back to that constant dialogue between two seasons as a mirror: one of the themes of season one was losing innocence. We thought Roman could reference this theme by being a glimpse of innocence in a terrible city. That's why he loves retro things and is against braindances—he wants to maintain that innocence as long as he can."
Roman isn't the only cinephile in Night City, as eagle-eyed fans can also spot Hideo Kojima making a cameo in the series. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2 consists of 10 episodes, and it'll be available starting October 20.