Meet Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ quirky cast of characters in this new trailer

Netflix introduces us to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ six title characters — David, Maine, Dorio, Kiwi, Pilar, and Rebecca — in a chaotic new trailer. The anime, which isn’t expected until September, expands on the Cyberpunk universe in a new standalone story that takes place in Night City.

While I don’t set my expectations particularly high for anime involving Netflix, Edgerunners is different. It comes from Studio Trigger, the studio behind Kill la Kill, and whose co-founder created Gurren Lagann. These are two of some of the most popular and well-known anime series (and two of my personal favorites).

In the trailer, you can clearly see Studio Trigger’s bold and vibrant art style shine through, and I’m hoping it can provide a more creative spin on CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 universe, which my colleague Adi Robertson describes as “too big to get truly weird.” (After all, this is the same studio that thought up talking, superpower-inducing clothing.)

Netflix offers a brief synopsis of Edgerunners, describing it as a show that follows “a street kid trying to survive in Night City” who “stays alive by becoming an edgerunner — a mercenary outlaw also known as a cyberpunk.”

But a behind-the-scenes look at the show from the minds of Studio Trigger sheds some more light on the series’ storyline. Studio Trigger CEO and co-founder Masahiko Otsuka describes a dystopic world where gangs face off against “corpos,” with strong themes of social inequality and violence. It begins with David, a teen with low-socioeconomic standing, as he attends a school meant for higher-class citizens, but not much else is revealed plot-wise.

The series will consist of 10 episodes, each 30 minutes long — a bit disappointing if the series is as binge-worthy as it looks. A Cyberpunk anime builds upon Netflix’s growing library of animated series adapted from games, like Castlevania, Dota: Dragon’s Blood, the League of Legends-inspired Arcane, The Cuphead Show, and the upcoming Tekken: Bloodline.