Cyberpunk Edgerunners: A 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 Masterpiece

above all the cyberpunk edge Runners gets it it understands and that is truly not something I can say about virtually any media out there I can't tell you how much I appreciate that above all cyberpunk Edge Runners realizes that in the end it's all pointless there's two scenes now actually not even scenes but two singular shots that will forever be burned into my retinas how great a show must be to have two of those two moments when my entire world stops literally everything halts and my brain is filled with nothing but a raw emotion for a second and then forever after I am changed I'm going to discuss these two shots in great detail and I will also be discussing everything built around these two shots that make them so great in essence you could even say that these two images are the point of cyberpunk edge Runners so I will certainly be attempting to pierce right into the pointless heart of this show like I did with Squid game although hopefully people actually decide to watch this one furthermore before I truly dive into cyberpunk I will also be discussing other trigger shows fairly extensively I know you're here for Edge Runners but trust me when I say that to fully get my point across I have to use some of trigger's other works as well as fat Thor I need you to know just how much trigger gets it in order to show you just what exactly trigger is getting it so please bear with me here is a timestamp if you really feel like skipping all of that though before I do that though I warn you of obvious full series spoilers ahead if you came here blind to the show and looking to see if it's actually worth checking out which I'm sure many of you have then just know I give it my full stamp of approval because that means a lot Studio trigger was already the best thing in anime and Edge Runners represents a Monumental shift a new era and what even this animation Juggernaut is able to emotionally portray it so please watch the show you won't regret it now with that out of the way let's get into this there's a fairly common misconception that kill by kill is styled over substance or that while it's awesome in the way that its balls to the wall action is never not entertaining you won't really get much out of it killlock Hill has nothing to say they say it's about nothing now this is an opinion I genuinely have never understood if anything I can't think of a single anime that is more about anything or something then kill that kill even sometimes to its own detriment and while you certainly don't have to appreciate or agree with what it's trying to say or Pal even enjoy the anime at all to say that the substance just isn't there is to me at least an egregious error on the part of the viewer this is to the point where I won't even allow myself to get into it just because of how absolutely thematically dense and even at times suffocating killer kill is there are plenty of videos especially those from Big Studio that talk much more extensively about the topic and even some research papers done affecting the Japanese American cultural introspection at the heart of just one of the show's interpretations so I seriously implore you to go check out that stuff for yourself after this video of course but I say all this today not to talk about killlock Hill specifically but rather about Studio trigger's greatest and also least appreciated attribute that carries almost all of its anime the writing now the extra definition of writing is kind of odd but for this video's purposes we'll be splitting it down into two easily digestible parts the story structure and the dialogue to analyze these two aspects of writing I'm going to take a brief look at two other twin trigger anime before bringing it back to cyberpunk Edge Runners since that is of course what this video is ultimately about don't worry I didn't forget about that oh yeah and full spoilers for the First shows ending up ahead and some minor ones for the second since I actually haven't even finished yet and here I am talking about it SSS grid man is upon First Watch a 7 out of 10. at least in my opinion with rather doll characters and an only semi-interesting plot it held my attention just enough to get me to finish the show but also not care so much about the ending that my crippling OCD won't let me finish watching until the end because I want to wait for the perfect moment to watch it one that sadly never comes SSS grid man is upon a second watch a 9 out of ten at least in my opinion this is because in retrospect the story only ever had one character akane the entire world of grand man at least what we see is more or less an Escapist fantasy she envisioned based on her favorite tokotsatsu films and TV shows her mind creates the world but also seeks to destroy it that rebuild and destroyed they rebuild and Destroy over and over and over and over it's fascinating once I discovered this fact in the finale I almost instantly considered her amongst the best rated villains of all time and it was insane to me that the only actual character in the show wasn't even the protagonist and then something happened in the last sequence of the show everything gets Stripped Away the plot the fictional characters hell even the animation it's gone and what we are left with was probably the entire point a girl alone getting out of bed with the sun gently streaming through the blind she's kept closed for so long finally she's waking up and then it ends with this last image with the title card very intentionally placed right over this this is SSS grid man again we've already stripped everything else away and we finally just see the point in the end perhaps that's what a story needs to be told for what akane had to find in her endless dream and through the plot of the actual anime itself seeing the point I won't say this is the proper way to write a story there is none I certainly won't claim that it's the most entertaining way I'd actually argue that it almost threw away entertainment value in order to reach this point if the characters were ever too engrossing it then the dream would be too real and we would never want to leave we would miss the point however I will say without any doubt in my mind that this story this point was a memorable one I will watch more entertaining stories more engrossing stories more technically brilliant stories hell even stories I love a lot more but when I think about those few moments in art that have stood my test of time that have stopped and shook my entire world SSS grid man has a spot in that select few and I think that at the very least means something special I got the points but only because trigger did first our second show on the list SSS has done a Zen and it is actually much better than gridman I'd rated a 9 out of 10 and consider it one of the top three best anime of 2021. I also haven't finished it due to that dilemma mentioned earlier but what I can say about it why I love it so much is the dialogue is simply next to level this is for two reasons the first which requires me to briefly mention the thing that made the MCU dead to me fat Thor fat Thor is Marvel and that it represents that the MCU just doesn't get it when a character experiences unimaginable trauma and resorts to overeating and most importantly here alcoholism you'll have to take that seriously you can't say have the character's entire motivation for joining back into the fight be based on a joke about said alcoholism not in this kind of film anyway the writers didn't understand the gravity of the situation and I promise you that understanding is so vitally important yet something I literally never see although usually not as egregious as this now I see two counter arguments to this the first being that his reasoning is more nuanced than a cheap joke about getting some beer and okay fine but where is this Nuance certainly not in Thor love and thunder a story that gave up on having a story and yeah there's a better character building in end game yes I won't deny that but it's the fact that such a shallow and haha funny moment was made in the first place that shows such little respect for this character and importantly with no proper meta-justification for the humor after the fact you can make a joke like that in BoJack Horseman because the show is hyper introspective it even comments on such humor end game does not Bojack gets it the second counter argument is that it's a film made primarily for teenagers and well you can't tell the kids show like avatars being one of the best written pieces of Television out there with a nuanced and serious take on genocide and colonization and in the same breath say stuff for kids isn't to be taken seriously alright that about any game too long that wasn't the point when SSS has died as Zen and talks about something like suicide it takes a moment to pause it understands fully that it's talking about suicide it takes it seriously and it executes brilliantly offering up several moments that have Earnest discussions on several such topics without and this is vital feeling the need to fill the dead space in the dialogue with anything it has a singular focus with no room for [ __ ] because it understands the gravity of it all again I don't think taking subject matter seriously has to always result at a serious product it really just depends on the median question I brought up Bojack because it's a show that makes jokes about heavy topics all the time and I don't see it as any less valuable than any of the hard-hitting scenes in sss's dinos in fact I think Bojack is way way better the distinction is that both shows understand the gravity of the situation is never lost on them and me as a viewer I can just so easily pick up on that sadly this is a rare moment it's actually kind of difficult to describe how exactly we pick up on such things but I'll just trust you'll also understand when a show understands secondly Studio trigger dialogue specifically is so goddamn amazing because it also understands the vibe which is reflected beautifully through the voice acting killlock Hill is a completely action-packed so the dialogue is loud and explosive and often grandiose especially for satsukia darling in the Franks is a moody teenage drama and the pilots talk like well Moody teenagers in the midst of some drama But sss's Dinah Xenon is the best example of this concept and is honestly what initially blew me away the characters are quiet soft-spoken even they kind of just talk like real Japanese people and that is something I've quite literally never seen an anime like not even once I love the usual work of say you but sometimes when the vibe fits it I just need some people talking in such a way where the Nuance is incredibly translated to the soft-spoken words of course great voice act it can only go so far as the quality of the script but while I don't think I have to waste any more time saying that I obviously find basically every trigger anime to have some of the most emotionally resonant but also thematically dense dialogue in the biz ranging from Kill I killed a little witch Academia trigger does the impossible task of building fleshed out believable character dramas while centering around world-class plus sitter actually about something if you've watched my Arcane video which you definitely should you know how difficult I think it is to pull this off and now that we know how much trigger just gets it let's take an extensive look at exactly what it is that they understand pointlessness cyberpunk is a genre mainly defined by a sense of pointlessness primarily in the face of capitalistic interest in an advancing sense of technology technology that often continues to create an ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor while also enticing the latter into a world of hyper-controlled non-reality for us this is essentially all the metaverse is really trying to accomplish and what your phone is doing to you right now giving you a sense of partial Consciousness transplantation as I call it which for an actual explanation you're just going to have to watch this video here after this one is over of course for those in the world of cyberpunk 2077 and Edge Runners this comes primarily in the form of cybernetic enhancements or Chrome this stuff is everywhere within the setting this in the case of our main cast leads them into a world of crime another Mainstay of capitalistic cultures to best analyze this let's look at episode 6 and primarily at Main the opening scene of him running in the desert is probably a perfect representation of his hopelessness he lives in a city that constantly talks about dreams in a society that constantly pumps into his brain the endless possibilities that even someone like him can achieve something like brain dance isn't dissimilar to our social media and that it makes us seek joy in the lives of others in a non-reality this dichotomy then as it always seems to do makes us yearn for power in her personal lives so that we may have the freedom to pursue the dreams that we want the dreams that we see the dreams that others are clearly achieving Why Not Us Then if this really is the City of Dreams then why am I so unhappy of course Maine is running through an empty desert with seemingly no end in sight there are no answers here is the radio broadcaster talks about traffic about a difference between regular people and those others perhaps Maine having seemingly been brought up impoverished seize himself in the latter perhaps even he feels disgusted with himself for something that he has no control over he wants that controller and as he stands before a line in the road a distinct separation between the dirty worn down sand and a new side of pure unsoiled sand he thinks about dreams he thinks about being on that other side and how he might be able to get there and just that he hears the lines that may be able to lead him there never fear the risk you'll never make it big and dreaming quiet dreaming small and as I looked at Maine's face strong with such hyper-realistic detailed unique lighting effects that I knew this was a big moment I saw in him a decision to become a night City Legend to dream bacon to try and cross that line it always did confuse me a bit why Maine and then David wouldn't just cut down in the Chrome I mean they surely realized they were going to die or go cyber psycho yet they just kept going why sure if they cut down on the cybernetics and they would be far less effective cyberpunks but does that benefit really outweigh their own lives well I think that answer for me and it will be talking about David Moore in a bit lies entirely in this opening scene a major theme of the anime is that life truly is about more than dreams that the most important thing is living with those you love the tragedy of the story then is that seemingly nobody gets that for them man-made especially that grandiose dream is everything and honestly as frustrating as it is from an outsider's perspective or a really that much different right in your 20s bill in your 30s live in your 40s I've heard that phrase passed around from every faux millionaire Instagram page for years now and while it's so incredibly on the nose that almost everybody is gonna make fun of it we all live in a fairly similar lifestyle usually without even realizing it we all have our dreams some of which are drip fed to us from an early age hearing stories about men like Rockefeller being totally can rise up the right of their own Merit even I someone who believes the situation is much more nuanced than that and honestly kinda hopeless I'm still making this video to be honest I don't even feel like writing this script right now I'd rather go get an egg and cheese at an everything bagel but instead I'm putting the time aside to grind this out while working on my film I sacrificed a ton of time that I could have spent hanging out with friends or actually finishing read Zero season two but I didn't because I have a dream a dream that I've been told I can accomplish despite everything some of us even work ourselves into the ground not even enjoying life at all for years sometimes whole decades just to chase that dream while certainly not as dramatic as something like cyber psychosis we all do this in some form or another now let's look at heavily impoverished neighborhoods part of the reason crime rates are so high is this pursuit of wealth without any of the viable means to achieve it even David who was receiving a proper education was shunned and ostracized made to feel like he didn't belong there he probably did think that honestly while I'm certainly not justifying crime and violence it's obviously the wrong thing to do people have a natural tendency to want power control it and the reason for both of those things freedom I talked about this extensively in my Arcane video but this is also a huge reason why drugs were such an issue in these neighborhoods people are hopeless yet still hopeful they are without means yet still dream drugs and violence can serves with escapism from the situation but seemingly the only vibe a way that people see to escape from those limited means to rise up well then it's Sports which is a whole different Beast than much more qualified people have already discussed in other videos links in the description living in a capitalistic Society almost always means these people won't get the help they need especially when the education system is broken and relies on something like property tax which poor neighborhoods obviously won't have a lot of which makes for a bad education system and leads to little job opportunities which leads to low local property taxes which leads to okay yep this got me ranting and the world with cyberpunk this issue is especially egregious which leads to the extremely high crime rates if even wall-off people already sacrificed part of their lives to pursue dreams then you can only imagine what people with little to no Financial options will do for those like Maine and David the dream quite literally outweighs the value they put on their lives and that's a point we'll be driving home in the next section as Maine said specifically to David keep running it even if it's the end for him this this dream this abstract probably pointless dream can live on through David I'm honestly not sure if it's Freedom or money or overthrowing the elite or just violence I don't think even the characters know honestly I think it all just ends up being the same anyway perhaps it's just something we believe in to keep us sane in this insane world but for me Maine's face here and then here says it all cyberpunk Edge Runners understands this confusion it just simply gets the weight of this emotional turmoil and I'm sure of this because the immaculate Shawn composition for these faces I can't even explain fully what makes them so great but the static look mixed with the hyper realistic facial features just makes everything freeze it's one of those world-ending moments for me it just stands out so drastically from the Aesthetics of the rest of the show as if all the immense weight is bearing down all at a singular tragic yet almost beautifully ethereal moment the dream and the pointlessness of it all is captured in a single shot for Maine specifically we see the start of the journey and then The Bitter End I know that trigger understands this I just do now take everything I just said and crank that up to a million baby as Lucy and David silently Drive in the Thruway reflecting on everything that just happened the sun rises up perhaps the beginning of a new journey and then we see David's face the static look with movement limited to the eyes and we see all we need to the trauma of this moment all crashing into David's mind at once the violence the Bloodshed the Cyber psychosis the literally perfect shot composition portrays all of this in a way that I have never seen before in my life we are left to question with the entire point of all of this was perhaps David is too and as a singular drop of water streams down his face with all the fluidity in the world he remains completely still perhaps symbolizing that through all this confusion he will remain steadfast in the edge were in a pursuit of the stream he will be moved emotionally of course but his life will not he is endlessly stuck in this moment this dream all while life flows down him trigger understands the weight of this [Music] David is special with his inhuman tolerance towards cybernetics perhaps he is destined to be someone truly great and until The Bitter End David holds on to this it being the only real Difference Maker between himself and a life of complete worthlessness in the eyes of society David is also not special in the eyes of the corporate world he is a valuable test rat yes but there will always be more if he doesn't pan out then that just means the company has to be a bit more patient with all the violence he inevitably causes being an acceptable margin in order to properly run these tests this dichotomy is a major defining feature of David's story arc something I feel as if it's really time to fully talk about as it encapsulates the entire point of cyberpunk edge Runners since the very beginning of the story and I'm assuming at the beginning of his life David was always both told and shown more importantly that his life had little of any value even aside from being a smart enough kid to recognize the hopelessness that permeated his entire neighborhood and see how the capitalist system of the city exploits him and his people we can see times where David is explicitly shown that his very life doesn't matter the most obvious is in school where the other kids at best ignore his existence but at worst actively bemoan it or even devalue him through bullying it and yeah David is a rough and tough kid who don't take no [ __ ] from nobody sure but that is very clearly a facade we can see just enough emotional vulnerability from him and more importantly can naturally infer based on his actions that he has taken what they all say to heart he proves time and time again that he truly holds very little regard for his own life and success this is not just shown from his borderline suicidal Mad Dash towards legendary cyberpunk status but even in little things like hardly hesitating to throw away his education to get back at the kid who beat him up now he didn't really have much of an option to stay at the school at the time so throwaway may be the wrong word here but it's important to note that when even given an opportunity at a full ride long before he knew the full reasoning behind that decision was to be an arasaka lab rat he still says no not only that but he didn't really even acknowledge the offer and much at all honestly I think the final straw in terms of his own View and his value was the death of his mother though her death isn't some emotional Outburst rather it's quiet disconnected even David saw with his own two eyes and medical team passed them up leave them to die just because of the insurance they had and then the hospital only stabilized her condition opting to not fully treat her life since they know David can't afford that anyway but hey at least he got a good deal on a cremation package I can Envision a single person let alone a kid experiencing something like that and presumably experiencing much of the same every day and not having little to no value for his own life that's just the kind of [ __ ] you end up eternalizing 99.9 of the time even if you don't realize it and even if you think you're the exact opposite you're not so it's really no wonder why David does what he does and I'm sure this applies to the rest of the crew as well Maine is definitely included in this is when David has a choice a very important choice he can die or he can die now let's give him some time to think about this one the life of an edge Runner is one filled with death I mean they don't have the saying you're not remembered for how you'd live but for how you die for nothing as if David didn't already have zero concern for his life to begin with if you don't die in a fight you will almost certainly succumb to cyber psychosis which of course will resolve in your death anyway this obviously seems like the wrong choice but even when taking out all the psychological aspects that go into choosing that path which we'll get to we're still left with a hopeless situation David is actually kind of lucky here since no normal kid would have gotten that full ride scholarship instead just being left to the streets to probably die in some random shootout like his mama he's lucky until you consider what the process of test running the Cyber skeleton would ultimately do to him simply put being that guinea pig would have given him cyber psychosis like 20 times faster resulting in of course is so while he didn't really know this reality at the time he actually made the choice he honestly probably did make the right decision here well as right as a decision can be when it involves killing countless people and yet despite the choices he made he still ended up in that cyber skeleton anyway because often there are external factors that go beyond our control of Faraday's power-hungry attitude just can't be accounted for in David's plans yes David always could have just walked away and the show is clearly trying to tell us that he should have but to call him stupid for not doing so would be missing the point those external factors beyond their controller they're what shape us in a way we kind of are those factors even Faraday who serves as the final external wrench of David's life and ultimately his Doom is himself a man completely influenced by the external factors around him that are Beyond his control Edge Runners goes out of its way to show how different he is from the actual corpos how his desperate Scramble for wealth and power is compared to the relaxed honestly a different attitude of the corpos who are actually in power they see Faraday as nothing more than a dog just as Faraday sees David if he had been born into different circumstances his entire attitude here would be completely different he also wouldn't even be faradaya in this way Faraday himself is kind of this desperate scramble so again we have to apply the same logic to David he does have a choice yes but any choice he does make almost completely hinges on everything in his life that came before him the dreams of his mom in Maine his disregard for his own life his Anatomy that makes him able to handle cyberware at a high level his love for Lucia and most importantly the place he was born night Cydia there are no Happy Endings here because there were never any happy Beginnings to me that is the biggest tragedy of edge Runners seeing David at the top of our socket Tower shifting in and out of full-blown cyber psychosis smiling and exclaiming to his mind job that he finally made it there to the very top of our Saka he never needed a dream he just needed a path this climb up the corporate ladder had been repeated to him over and over by his mother to the point where it was ingrained into his very Soul he just never realized it until these final moments if he ever really did but this is night City and he's a slump kid the system never had a way for someone like him to make it to the top of that Tower from the inside no perhaps this was the only way perhaps this was the only way he would ever be able to climb this Tower predetermined by his mother's one and dying wish this is the day he was born from the outside it's a beautifully tragic moment but then a question remains one that is perhaps even more tragic what was the point [Music] there's a small sequence during this scene we've been discussing that I think brings home what Edge Runners is trying to tell us or rather the emotions is trying to convey as David laughs rather Maniac least staring up at the sky he suddenly stops and what he sees there I didn't realize until we watched other parts of the show that the absolute weight of this moment bore Down on Me Lucy and David serve as the emotional core of the entire anime and when David looks up and sees the beautiful light streaming by his eyes this is a direct callback to much much earlier in the show when Lucy breaks David out of the ambulance back then he looked up at her this seemingly crazy girl he barely knew and as he took in this site with the light streaming past his eyes in that moment I believe he fell in love a beautiful innocent moment where time stopped and all the other [ __ ] in the city ceased even if just for a split second to me that is when David was truly alive though he mirrored this scene with the one to the last episode when we see those same lights in David's eyes but now that [ __ ] has finally disrupt to the moment he is literally hooked up to a death machine in and out of cyber psychosis there is no coming back from this this juxtaposition to me which is only further driven home with the scene of Lucy getting David back under control mirroring their first kiss spells out the emotion that cyberpunk edge Runners is trying to convey you pointless tragedy dreams are well they're a bit complicated I mean what is a dream but an extension of reality that's perpetually by definition of the word dream out of a reach on the surface Lucy's dream is to go to the moon but it was never actually about that which I think is fairly obvious to the audience rather it's much more abstract Lucy wants Escape night City at self-material similar for the oppression and restriction she feels which in her case is especially bad because of her upbringing if you can even really call it that in this case of course night city is also a literal play she does want to escape from the Moon meanwhile has always historically been emblematic of Freedom so it would make sense why Lucy's dream would be to go there and while she probably does want to literally go there as well the real dream is most certainly to just be free of the oppression she has always experienced true Freedom that is what Lucy actually wants one of the most tragic aspects of cyberpunk edge Runners that is that David never once realizes this a huge motivation behind his dangerous criminal activity honestly maybe even the largest surface reason for it is to save up enough money to pay for them but more especially Lucia to take a trip to the moon and in that Pursuit he loses his life without ever realizing that he had become part of her new dream he was in a way her freedom because as we've discussed the most devastating parts of Oppression are internal believing that your life has no value pursuing goals unconsciously forced upon you by others whole groups of people putting themselves down for committing crime and violent acts even though it was the grander system that instilled this into them to begin with it's much more nuanced than that not to sound like a cliche here but you can leave night City but night City won't leave you not so easily self-eternalized oppression obviously caused by external oppression is much much harder to rid yourself of especially when a lot of it is thought to be the result of intergenerational trauma in many respected groups of thought David toluci was part of this potential solution he was her light maybe even her life and she ultimately lost that because he was pursuing a dream that he thought she wanted ever actually did it all just seems kind of pointless doesn't it this sentiment is directly echoed a few times within the series doc explicitly States this when he says go be a legend or whatever you punks do the way he delivers this line with resignation and a knowingness that David just isn't coming back made me feel like I had already watched this series hundreds of times did I have seen this same scene play out more times that I can count and I can't fully describe to you how abysmally depressing that is within this light with Doc's words here this entire thing when pulled back and analyzed on both a macro and micro level it just seems absolutely pointless so then what does David have in this messed up world what can he possibly hold on to to make himself stay sane he's special he believes himself to be special he has to believe himself to be special when faced with an unsurmountable task you have two options run away from it or run it blindly Maine symbolizes the latter but he was never fast enough David however is he charges right in but the only way one can do so for so long is to believe themselves to be an enigma a special case everyone else failed sure but I am different I'll be not even just the rare but that one in a billion example of doing things right because me I'm special I can't blame David for thinking this because honestly what other hope can he possibly have without a dream of his own what other direction but blindly forward can he go I think this is why when Tanaka brings up what David actually wants out of life he pauses like he really hesitates here because as weird as it sounds he's never even thought of that he's never had to think about it his life has just been a series of coasting and other people's waves like his mother's dream remains Mad Dash he probably subconsciously doesn't even believe himself be worthy of such grandiose desires like happiness or love he has no value after all so when he's finally for the first time questioned about it it makes him shut down and when he doesn't come up with an answer all he has left is to double down that he's special and even arasaka thinks so perhaps this struggle for self-meaning and value wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the violence that David ends up afflicting him after all he is a criminal but the way in which he sees this is honestly quite fascinating he views his life to be almost a war between the cyberpunks versus the corpos and police officials it's not even just his own life that doesn't seem to have value to him but rather this extends to these other groups at least when we see him right after the time Skip it's as if he has developed such a narrow worldview and can't even imagine life outside of this war anymore I mean he's clearly pretty okay with killing what is likely hundreds of people but it's when he kills the secretary that this entire world view comes crashing down he realizes that he's become the exact same thing as what killed his mother a violent trendsetter that not only kills others but inspires other kids to do so and in the process even gets those kids killed indirectly all he's really done here is continue the cycle that got him started on his own path perpetuating A system that does very little but sadly act as corpo dogs as the series drives home again and again this is why the office woman's death hits him like a freight train as he realizes all of this and and even looks back at all the other deaths he's caused he had grown numb to it he says he stopped seeing people as people in this ongoing war and again I have to ask what is the point here [Music] I just got done watching the I really want to stay at your house music video on the sarpunk 2077 YouTube channel is inspiration to get over the hump and finally finish this script this well I'm not sure if this was a good idea as I watched David and Lucy all of their scenes together with the energetic and melancholic song playing behind them I just felt so much love it was pouring out and damn it now I'm depressed because David truly didn't have to die and yet to be David Martinez is to die in this way and that is just abysmally depressing to be honest especially when the love was so beautiful is so beautiful I want to talk about the ending well I don't want to talk about the ending because I don't want to get even more depressed but I feel like I have to because as long as Lucy gets to the Moon which she does then everything is fine right this was all done for something right well no it was pointless now this is certainly left up to personal interpretation I've seen many say this ending was a happy and hopeful one but I've also seen people believe David isn't actually dead because there is no body shown and well I think some people missed the point I also think maybe I did too I certainly hope I did I want Lucy to be happy damn it but I just don't think she is to be as blunt as possible the trip to the moon is one of the most commercialized sequences I have ever seen seriously I am honestly shocked there wasn't a McDonald's on the shuttle there and keep in mind this is all happening after David directly states that he is throwing his life away because he has nothing left but that Lucy still has a dream this dream this trip is quite literally what he sacrificed his life for well at least as far as he believes to him nothing else matters then we have this ads plastered everywhere the same subliminal messaging that kills cyberpunks the first place winner of the world's most depressed looking face an overhead speaker that is most definitely a robot and most definitely has said all of this hundreds maybe even thousands of times more random tourists standing around like goddamn Times Square I mean they aren't even going out into the moon they're just jumping around a crater and then Lucy alone if you were going to tell me you sat down with her unsalted butter popcorn like a heathen and watch this sequence and saw anything but the single most commercialized scene in the entire show well then you're probably a happy person to me congratulations but I just can't get anything else out of it and it seems Lucy can't either here she is on the actual Moon her apparent dream and yet all she can see and think about is her brain dance with David a simulation to her this is preferable because both aren't real the brain dance isn't obviously but this Moon trip this isn't her real dream David was which is why she would prefer a simulation over this hunk of Rock because he was there he was alive damn it he was alive and now he's not the only single time she smiles in this entire scene is when she sees him when he disappears she looks as if she's about to cry and as she looks up with a weaker on her face we see her true feelings under her eyes worn out tired probably from crying and then we get the best shot in the entire show one even better than David's face in episode 6. one that answers the question of the former posed with all this violence and bloodshed oppression and manipulation what's the point this is trigger's best example of its Infamous plot device of going to space because it asks what that Ascension even means we've made it to the moon yet are unhappier than we were before so why I'm going to keep asking over and over again with the point of all of this was all of this [ __ ] was nothing there is no point there are only reasons David had no value for his own life because he was constantly told he didn't have any any dream he could have had would be pointless anyway Gloria was never going to have her son accepted into higher Society in a way that would have retained his identity made was never going across that line in the desert because all he was ever fighting for was the prophet of other Mega corporations constantly changing signs depending on the job every single cyberpunk could become a legend but it would never amount to anything they're dead it doesn't matter anymore he lives for these dreams these worthless dreams but never actually had his own but that's wrong he says outright that getting Lucy to the moon was his dream he would get her there no matter what so David what did it amount to she made it she's here but it was a worthless trip just another way to spend money in a society that values it over human lives David what was the point there needs to be a point right Lucy wants true freedom and yet her identity who Lucy is is tied to her own self-oppression caused by external oppression in such a way that the change that would be to be a different person perhaps that's okay but then that isn't your dream it's ultimately somebody else's someone who doesn't exist a possibility a dream is an extension of reality that by definition is inherently not within reach if it was it would be a goal but night City isn't the place of goals it's the City of Dreams this is what killed David because he remained David Martinez up until The Bitter End I don't want to make it sound like it's impossible for personal Liberation this is just a show after all but that answer that point is not something I can imagine at least not right now so I'm not sure if it's truly possible or not in that reality well it's honestly pretty soul-crusher to think about but I think I think that the key to happiness at least is just having someone else around it's as simple as that this is all something the trigger understands I can tell that last shot to me at least is saying all of this bringing everything into question what is Lucy staring up at if the moon wasn't enough then what about the sun if the moon represents freedom then what does the sun represent Love David or is it the ultimate proclamation of abstraction something you can stare at all day long and never understand does the answer lie there as the sun rays beamed down in her I think of Satsuki and Kill La Killa I think of heaven and its promise of Eternal freedom and happiness despite circumstance I think of an endless Paradise where David and Maine are hanging out and everyone is still happy they're alive there maybe this is Lucy giving up on a dream as she opens her arms wide and accepts the reality that the only time she will ever be happy and free is when she's dead it's such a mythical Paradise even exists in the first place perhaps the answer is only lie in such a fantasy and easy all of the above multiple choice option I don't know I really don't know but what I do know is that this series to its absolute core is cyberpunk what that means that the series was never hopeless because to me hopelessness means the answer or the goal is out of your reach unattainable because of outside circumstances it's there it's visible but it's just an impossible reach cerpunk Edge Runners isn't hopeless worse honestly because the answer isn't there it never was the show doesn't even have some theme or message to share but rather just a singular emotion that in the end it was all just [ __ ] pointless anyway [Music] and as always thank you for watching

Channel: AsukkaTV

Views: 271,011

Keywords: cyberpunk, cyberpunk2077, cyberpunkedgerunners, cyberpunk edgerunners, anime, david, lucy, maine, gloria, review, edgerunners video essay, edgerunners analysis, asukkatv, rebeccea

Id: LSK5bYPBcmw

Length: 43min 55sec (2635 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022