AWTY 207 - Robones (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)

So you guys are cyberpunks, aren't ya? What's it to you? Hello and welcome to our weeps area. An exploration and it didn't work.

We can't work.

Crash and failed immediately.

Never smile back in the hole. Never. Never expose yourself to vulnerable ever again.

Okay, take two. Smile even bigger. Hello and welcome to our we've there yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I am an anime expert, dee hollander gonzalez.

And I'm Brendan. Your anime illegal keanu reeves, sex mod. Oh yeah.

Illegal.

Technically, yes.

How thrilling, right?

But I got to know which era. Which era of Keanu are you going to put in the 31st century.

Whoa. Future Keanu. Which technically is present Keanu and past Keanu. He doesn't age.

When is fair?

That's not even when the video game takes place.

I feel like I should have known that.

Totally. We knew what year that took place.

The tip of my tongue.

How do centuries work?

Never knew. Never want to know.

Never care too. Who needs them? They're all bad. What are we here for?

Well, what do we have going on?

What was my dumb segway about it's?

Sadly, keanu's not in this. But you may have heard a video game called Cyberpunk 2077. It came out, people were pretty mad that it was unfinished.

It came out of before mad.

Anyway. But then an anime came out and we're going to watch that anime which is called Cyberpunk Edge Runners. It is fairly recent.

Yeah, I think this came out this summer.

Yeah, something like that.

I'm reflecting on the past year and it is hurting my soul and brain.

I probably should have looked up exactly when it came out. I know it came out this year within the last like six months. Very recent.

Yeah. That will damage my brain too much if I look at it. So I'm just going to say summer hit. Blockbuster.

Yeah, summer hit. Don't correct us.

Paul watched this again because of time. What is it? I don't know if he watched it right when it came out or he waited a little bit, but he really liked it. Paul's my husband. I don't know if you guys knew that.

Hashtag humble brag.

Hashtag I'm married. hashtag paul's my husband now.

Hashtag I wish you would put a disclaimer at the top of the show. At least changed or something.

At least for the next month. I'm going to remind people, but yeah. Have either of you heard of this program?

At least your disclaimer at the top of the show is actual factual and mine is just incoherent nonsense trying to tie it into what show we're watching. Yes, I've heard about it. I too was waiting on this because I'm like, hey, that game didn't do so hot. Maybe the show won't do so hot. So I waited and I haven't heard people tearing it apart. So I guess it was good.

Yeah. I've also heard good things about this series, the Game. We're not so much well covered. We can talk about twitter's downfall now and have the same amount of fun. But, yeah, this is something I keep hearing is good, and it kind of makes me a little bit mad because it's associated with this very scammy game that came out.

It I'm conflicted because cd projekt Red is the game studio that did Cyberpunk 2077 and they did all the witcher games, which I fucking love. The witcher Series. The games. The games. Fantastic.

Yeah.

Even the show's. Good first two seasons of the show. Great third season. Brian, did you hear?

Henry cavill's not coming back and neither am I.

That show is dead to me now.

Yeah, I learned there's two other seasons.

But yeah. So I followed the development of The Game because I was like, hey, this studio does great stuff. And then they didn't for various reasons. You can't just point one finger. A lot of them are to blame. Mostly the executives, always all the time. Speaking of bad executives, cyberpunk. So, yeah, the fact that I haven't heard raining Hell Fire from the weebs about this show means, like, it must be pretty decent. If not, people aren't riding in the streets.

Yeah, and I talked about this on our discord when I was picking a show for this week, usually on the My anime List website. Shows that are, like, good or like, average usually have, like, seven point something. And this has an 8.68, which is.

To me, high that's up there.

I feel like the highest rated anime on that website is, like, 8.9 or something. Like, it's not even a nine, so God forbid weebs are the weebs have very discerning tastes, which is not true. I said that sentence and then immediately realized it was a lie.

That's what we lied to you. We lie to you all the time.

I'm actually not strong taste, but strong opinion.

Yes. So I'm excited to watch it.

Yeah. If anything, it's due to your trigger, so it's gonna be pretty as hell.

Oh, yeah.

Got to absorb all that beautiful artwork. We're going to watch the first three episodes.

Turn on my robot eyes, jack me into the mainframe.

Click clack, click clack, click, clack, clack, clack, click. I'm in hacker. We're back. I almost broke the recording doing the fake typing on my keyboard, so I wasn't going to risk it again.

That was really good poly work. I think you should consider it as a career.

Thank you. If you need me for any soundscapes, hit me up on my soundcloud. It's just that it's just me going, clack clack, clack, clack clack. papa, papa, papa.

It's it's great work.

That was yeah.

Watch out, Dave Poly, we're coming for your ass. He doesn't too fold it.

That was way better than mine.

You got to cut it out. Sorry.

I was going to say brendan's working.

All right, if you have a budget project, come hit me up. You got all that money to burn on that shit.

If you got like a few cans of soda and some extra caffeine in like 2 hours to kill, hit me up. I got nothing going on.

And that's not even for the foley work.

I'm just forced.

Anyway, so in the anime, episode one, we open on a cool city, a cyberpunk city, one might say. We see an older looking, like cyberman standing in the rain. He's very large. And a bunch of police cars are gathered. And some cops are complaining about their job. What else is new?

That's a living.

That's a living. I hate my wife, all that stuff. And then the older looking cyberman approaches one of these cops in his cars and just shoots him. Other cops approach and shoot at the cyberman, but they can't hit him. He's like bulletproof. And he starts shooting back and mowing them down. Bad news. He's also got blades and a bloody showdown. ensues. This show is pretty bloody. I feel like there hasn't been that much in these episodes, but I think it gets worse.

I mean, it starts off with this, so they're really setting the tone.

Yeah, literal stains are a plot point for days.

His spine lights up and it allows him to move super fast. And the animation effect is pretty cool. I dig it. More cops are approaching in a flying machine. It's like a helicopter but like future. They come down and he seems weakened by their hits. But I think I couldn't tell if there was like some kind of magnetic field or something they put out. But he's weak now. And he falls to his knees and a cop comes closer and shoots him in the head. And then we see a younger guy laying on a couch. He's talking to a ripper Dock, which is apparently not even this guy's name. It is a profession. That's what Paul told me.

Good to know.

Yeah.

This confused me, I'll be honest.

Yeah. So ripper Dock knows a guy who got this younger guy whose name is David, this, like, recording. And Paul told me that it's called a brain dance, which is like experiencing something through someone else's eyes. So like it's a VR.

Okay?

So somehow they're watching like this guy, the older cyber guy, this thing. David was watching it through that guy's eyes, basically memories. David was pretty hyped about it. ripper doc tells him to calm down and that cyber psychosis is a very real thing, and he just experienced it virtually. So he needs to take a deep breath. Later, David is sitting and watching his laundry and the machine stops due to insufficient funds. He wakes up his mom on the couch. Her name is gloria. And they talk a bit just to show the conversation. Just shows that they're having some money troubles. She's like, no, we're fine. I just got my paycheck. We're good. There's a news report that some lieutenant was gunned down, and David points his mom out on the TV. So we learned that she's, like, an emt. He's off to school. He walks through an alley with a bunch of low lights and jumps into a pile of garbage bags and watches. Bags. He he just passes a whole bunch of nerdy Wells to show that he lives on the bad side of town.

Wait, that's the bad guys? I think I live on the bad side of town.

There are guys fucking flashlights in your alley.

Yeah, that guy's me.

No, I have to hang up the call.

Brendan, that's a crime.

It's my alley. I got to do what I want.

He's on a transport to school. They pass a building that looks like it had an explosion or a fire or something. Night City is not doing well anywhere, I suppose.

Not great.

No bad time. He's, like, outside of the school, he looks up into the sky when he's distracted by someone with a fancy hairstyle with fancy colors, and he runs up to some stairs to see who they are, but they're gone by the time he gets up there. He makes it to school. In the classroom, they're, like, all kind of laying down in weird chairs, and they're taught by a hologram because it's the future.

Future?

Yeah. The hologram teacher comments on him not wearing the right clothes because of the whole laundry situation. Some kid talks to him through their tech. They're all wearing, like, headsets. And Davis is much less advanced, calls him a street rat, riff rats. Street rat. And they call his tech Fossil Tech, and he couldn't get the newest one because it costs a lot of money. So he updated it himself to make it compatible with the school. And all these kids don't like him because he's poor. The teacher says it's time for meditation, and when they enter this virtual meditation space, david's tech causes this huge glitch that messes up all the kids headset thingies. So David's mom is brought to the school to meet with the principal, and she apologizes for the inconvenience and says that she'll pay for the repairs, which is crazy because we know they don't have any money. The principal says it's clear that they're not financially stable based on the way he upgraded his headset. And the principal kind of implies that he doesn't belong in the school. He says, like, this is a good time for David to move to a place that's better for him and tries to make it sound positive, but he's just being classified.

That's the series. That's the whole show.

It's the whole thing.

That's the universe, the franchise, even the genre.

Driving home, his mom says that she thought he bought the right tech, but someone gave him a bad headset, so he tried to fix it himself, but now it's all fucked up, and they argue about whether they have enough money. He suggests that he drops out and tries to find work instead because he doesn't want to be there anyway because he's not a corpo, so he doesn't fit in this show. And the video game too, has a lot of jargon like corpo that's self explanatory they call money. eddie's tomb is just like dumb. Like, it's just like, hey, friend.

They shut up just a little bit.

I could tell it was an insult or like dude, but future version of dude.

I think it's like both. It's mostly said kind of in a sarcastic way.

I did have to watch with the subtitle. I watched the Dumb, but I did have to watch with subtitles on because I'm like I don't know half these words.

Yeah. Paul was like, do you want me to make you like a chart? And I was like, no. So his mom gets upset, saying that everything she does, she does it for him, and she just wants to give him a chance for a good life. And that's why she's working herself so hard. And she starts crying, but she knows he can do it. Just then a car pulls up on their left. They pull out with a big old gun and they start shooting. And they're aiming for the car to the right of David and his mom. But obviously they get caught in the crossfire and their car gets fucked up. And the car with the gun pulls ahead of them and launches a bomb at another car. That car flips and David and his mom's car crash into it. So David wakes up. There's flames all around them. He's still in the car, but his mom is laying in the street. aways. Away. Luckily, the trauma team arrives, but leaves when they see that neither of them have insurance. They just drive away.

Which is a very comforting show to be watching.

I know. Well, you know, in America, they would still take you and then charge you for it.

That's true. At least this cyber healthcape is at least considerate of your wallet.

We know they can't afford that. Leave them. 2077 is not far away.

So jump ahead. Doctor is telling David that the surgery went well and his mom will be fine. They're in like, a dilapidated hospital and the surgeon isn't wearing a shirt. I had quality service.

Yeah, why? That's not futurist. Why is this happening?

Just shows that he's nasty.

I guess it worked.

Yeah, well, we saw the laundry machines will just stop mid thing. So he's like, sorry, I had surgery scheduled, but I ran out of one.

He was wearing an apron. At least.

I think it also perpetuates the vibe of, like, butcher, kind of.

Yeah, that's true.

Or hack surgeon rather than organize an official. But still it's like, why dude?

Why?

That part naked?

But David asks if he can see his mom and the surgeon says that isn't included in their package. And the surgeon says he has to pay within the next few days. So David goes home, but there's a notice outside saying that their rent is past due. So he climbs in through the events. He goes on their computer and checks their finances. And he sees that they have enough for his mom's surgery but not enough for rent. And again, there are parts on the show that just kind of get jumbled up for me, but so he finds a spine, a tech spine with his mom's stuff. And so he talks to the ripper doc about it. And he's like, how much do you think I can get for that? And based on his reaction to what the ripper doc says, it's not worth much. So he goes on the computer again and can't find anything about it. So it's clearly not a legal piece of tech. The next day, David goes back to school. The rich kids bully him. The main one, his name is katsuo. He says that he doesn't bully him because he's poor. He bullies him because he bullies him because he has a bad attitude.

Because I mean, in a shitty rich.

Kid, yeah, it is because you're poor, but I'm not going to say it.

Is, but then he says, live within your means. So it is because he's poor.

Yeah, he says, you're just a trash person. I don't like you. And then the rich kid starts talking shit about David's mom, implying that she's a sex worker because how else could she afford to get him into this school? Which there's nothing wrong with being a sex worker. This kid just fucking sucks.

Everything this kid says is wrong.

Yeah. So David tells him to fuck off and katsuo shoves him. David tries to throw a punch, but katsuo has some crazy tech in his body. He has some downloaded shit that makes him a crazy fighter. And he punches David to the ground. He leaves him in the alley. And David gets a call from the doctor about his mom. So he goes to the hospital again, and we just find out she took a bad turn and she's passed away, which I feel like I should have seen coming. But at the same time, this was like kind of a shock to me and how fast it happened. I was like, oh, shit. I'm like sad.

Yeah. In the car when she's talking about how hard she works and just wants the best for him because she thinks he is the best and could succeed, I was like, hard working single mother trying her absolute best and having no bad qualities whatsoever. That's not an anime death flag at all. And then they get to the hospital. Shake, she's alive. I was like, oh, I'm genuinely surprised by that. And then 5 seconds later, it was like, she's dead. I was like, there it is.

Gosh dang it.

Yeah.

Give us the fake out first, just to be like, we're killing the mom. Just kidding.

Just kidding.

No, you went to a different seat, and now she's dead.

We got you. So the surgeon gives him some info about burial options. David gets her cremated and walks home with her remains. He gets contacted from the principal about how much money they owe the school. And we hear, like, a bunch of phone calls. They're just past due on a bunch of stuff. Again. He returns home, has to break in. He tries to talk to someone about getting rid of an implant in his head for ten K eddies, but now they're only offering six. katsuo contacts him and says more snarky shit about his mom and her death. And David has just had it. He looks like he's about to absolutely lose his shit. So David goes to the ripper doc, who was in the middle of getting some virtual bitches. Hell yeah. How dare you interrupt that, David.

There was a sock on the doorknob.

He has the spine. He's just holding it in a plastic baggie, and he wants the ripper dock to put that spine in him, and he says it's time for him to chrome the fuck up. So that's episode one.

Yeah. We got a few hints throughout the episodes that David is mostly organic or more than other people.

He's pretty much just got shit in his brain, but no robot bones or anything like that. Rabones rabones, if you will.

We also see the shot of his mom's Earn a few times, and there was something just incredibly disrespectful and dehumanizing about having a printed label sticker on and Earn that felt just I think it was just like, here's gloria. But something about it just felt so much more macabre for me that it was just, like, printed out and on a sticker. Like, God, that sucks.

Like, almost a shipping label.

Here's the technical. It's the same as a pair of socks.

She's got to put her in a nicer container.

Yeah. So we go to episode two. Starts off right where you'd expect where episode one ended, how these things usually work, and the doc is trying to dissuade David from dealing with the surgery because he's like, this is big, illegal military trade tech. You can't handle this, you got nothing. We see. Even the doc himself has, like, different mechanical limbs and stuff, so he's really chromed out as well. So he's, like, dissuading David from it, and then he's like, you know what? No, screw it. I'll put it in you anyway. I can rephrase that better. I'll put the spot.

No, you got it in one output.

Takes a hard way to get to turn.

Got you. It's a boy. Love. Serious with the doctor and David, but he's like, no, I'll give you the tech on one condition. When you eventually give up and or die, I get it back for free. It's like, you know what, it's not a bad deal considering what the tech is. And we get quick shots of him doing the surgery and it looks like he's doing it with no anesthetic or anything. So David's just biting onto a metal bar as he's cutting into a spine.

There was something about the removal of his spine while he's awake that made me feel really bad. Just thinking about feeling bones leave your body with no local anesthetic. You're not asleep.

We're going to temporarily reclassify you as an invertebrate.

No.

You're wondering what it felt like to be a jellyfish. What just mortal kombat fatalities is spine out of them.

Yes.

And then now we get the actual opening because it's episode two and very flashy. Lot of yellow, a lot of flashing images. But I was surprised because it doesn't just give us the entire season and like a minute and a half, like a lot of other enemies do.

Yeah.

Like it doesn't just show you the whole story and all the characters that we're going to see eventually.

It's pretty low key.

Yeah. And then we come back to David walking into school. He's wearing his mom's, like, big yellow coat. It's kind of his look for the rest of the series. And we can see just the blood still pulling out the back because he just had his spine fully ripped out like 20 minutes ago.

Crazy.

And he gets into class and everyone's reclining in their chairs and he just walks up and kicks the rich kid out of his rich kids like, what the hell are you doing? We're in class. There's cameras everywhere. They're recording us. He's like, you want to fight? Let's go right now. He's like, oh, okay. And he's rich kid starts doing his crazy martial arts that he has programmed into him. And as he's going through it and showing off, david just sidesteps. It goes I just called it light dashing because that's what it felt like because he's going like supersonic speed. And he just like fully dances around the rich kid like a few times. And it gets to the side of them while the rich kid's still in slomo. And David just slams into his face and just launches the kid through like a full wall of monitors in the room. And the rich kid says he fully broke his nose. Good.

He deserves it.

Yeah, fair play. And we see the bully says while he's on this ground, he says his dad is on the academy board for the school. I've wrote his name down somewhere. We'll get to it later when I feel like finding it.

Tanaka.

Rich tanaka, I think. Yeah, taka. There it is.

Or tanaka is the company. Either way.

Either way. His dad's incorporate high up money and involved at the school directly. And David leaves and he's just walking back to his apartment laughing because he feels good about himself. He's got to just lay out. The bully king said, yeah. And we cut to the bully's dad in his office reviewing the classroom footage of the fight, and he's learning about David. And honestly, he doesn't seem that interested that his son just got fully laid out. He's kind of like, yeah, he probably deserved it. But his assistant is, like, feeding all the information about what happened. And he points out that in the footage, they were able to scan David's tech and everything that he has on them, and they found out that David has the spine, the military grade spine that the guy had in his psychosis episode. In the previous episode. They give it a name and I refuse to learn it, but they say that David's interesting because he's clearly using it in the classroom to fight, but shows no sign of psychosis at all. So his dad is very interested in that. He wants to meet with this David fella. And then we come back to David, who gets a call from the principal saying like, hey, good news. We're going to wipe clean that fight. You're going to be cool, maybe apologize to the bully you laid out, but his dad wants to talk to you before the principal can even finish it, David hangs up.

Apologize? No.

Hell no. And we get shots. David walk around the city. They're the same shots we saw of David walking to class the previous day. But now it's just David, like, sitting at all those spots again. The guy with the flashlight, I guess that's his thing. He's there every day working nine to 524 hours straight.

It's honestly impressive.

It's revolting, but inspiring. So we see David just, like, walking around the city, clearly killing time. And when he's on the train, he sees the woman again, the woman with the special hair that caught his attention the previous day. And this time she's on the train and he sees her just walking behind people with their backs turned to her, and she's just popping out like microchips from their necks. And they don't even seem to realize it. She walks by David and sure enough, she pickpockets his microchip, like, pops right.

Out of the I'm sorry. They do call it picsocketing.

Yes, they do call it pic.

Socketing, maybe. Sex the show's lingo.

Come on. I refuse to that one.

Really? I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? Some of those things, like, so obvious. It's like, of course.

Oh, my God, maybe it's me. If I had just microchip slots in the back of my neck, I put a bandaid over them or something.

Scarf, maybe.

Yeah, even if people aren't pick socketing. I don't know, like a fucking bird could fly in there. Or like a leaf. Yeah, something. Computers. Got covers for those sockets.

Sorry, I'm freezing up. Can you blow into my neck hole? snes.

Disgusting. So she goes to pick socket David, but he dashes around her and catches her and as soon as she sees that, she pulls him off to the side being like, hey, but that was your deal. What are you doing? How dare you stop me from robbing you. And yes, what finance called pick socketing. And as they're talking, she starts, like, feeling them up, making her move, and it slams them against the side of the train car while she has his arm pinned behind them. She scans them. And apparently you can just scan people and learn all of their tech super easily. And she's able to see all that he has, which is pretty much not too much going on, but the crazy spine. And she says she was just stealing from arasaka suits and she pinned him for one because he's got, like the metadata on his ID is for the school, which is a very high end fancy school. So she thought he was a kid corp. And David says he's like, you know what? If you're just dealing with Marasaka, fuck down. Fuck the corpse. I went in. She's like, all right, if you want in on this, we'll split it 80 20. He's like, what? No, I'm grabbing the tissue. Like, I'm going to be in this. Like, even split it's like 570 30, and introduces herself as Lucy.

Yeah, I asked Paul, watch this with me. And I was like, why does she dress like that? Because nobody else really dresses the way she does. Which just seems inconvenient. Her outfit is just extremely inconvenient.

After knowing, like, people who cosplay a lot, I can't imagine wearing any of these outfits on a day to day basis. I struggle to wear full length pants. I'm not putting on this crazy strappy jumpsuit thing with buckles God knows wear.

For me, it's that the jumpsuit is over the booty shorts. So it is like writing up her butt crack. And I'm like, what about your vagina? Also, what about when you have to use the bathroom? This is bad.

She's got a mod for that. It goes out her heel.

Oh, good, I forgot this is cyberpunk. She doesn't have to go to the bathroom. Women don't go to the bathroom.

Women canonically don't fart in cyberpunk. healeys are so disgusting in the future.

They're not what you think they are.

They're much worse with the guy in the alley.

Anyway.

I was going to jump to the ending. We do see Lucy fully naked in the ending. So like, I don't know. She does pee. I don't know what's happening down there.

No, I don't remember that.

Yeah, you see her fully naked in the ending. Anyway, she introduces herself as Lucy. They start pick socketing the rest of the train. We got a little montage. Lucy is down at the end of the cart and hacking into everyone, popping the chips out, and David Light dashes around, collecting them before they even know what's happening. cocky. He's like, yeah, let's get more. Let's get bigger. Fish. All right. Bigger it is. And you just see a colossal, like, twelve foot, sumo looking dude. He's like, that's a corp. He's hired muscle. He's a bodyguard. But yeah, he works for him. So sure enough, they pick him too. And as soon as they do, they hop off the train once they're counting their earnings. Yeah, we did pretty good. It was a nice haul. Maybe we'll hop on another train, get another cart. And while they're talking about it, davy just starts bleeding out of the nose and fully passes out. Hey, good. I'm sure that's fine. Cut to him waking up in an ambulance, and we hear, like, an emt looking him over, checking his vitals, saying like, oh, he's got, like, new tech in him. He's still bleeding out his freaking spine. Is he on any amino bloggers stuff? And she's like, not that I know of. And as he's waking up, she's like, hey, what pills are you on? He's like pills. And she's like, oh, God. She laughs at him. But in the comic goal, like, what do you mean you're not on this? The tech will reject your body if you're not supplementing it with, like, amino block groups, apparently, and believing that's why it backfired like it did. And once the emt scans them fully and figures out what the tech it is, she pulls a gun on them. Because apparently everyone's got fucking guns in this city. She says, hey, we're going to rip the spine out of them and sell it on the black market like he was trying to do earlier because it's worth a lot. And Lucy looks in and goes, hey, hate to bring it to you. We're back to that 80 20 deal. He's like, what? And she kicks the emt, knocks the gun out of hand, they kicks open the back of the ambulance, hops on david's gurney, and then rides the gurney out of the ambulance, back through traffic. And she's surfing on the gurney, like, through traffic. And here we get a shot from david's point of view with all the lights of like, they're in, like, a tunnel and all the lights in the tunnel flying above them. And she's like, laughing and riding backwards. And this is when he falls in love. He's got a manic pixie drink.

Paul said this is just like perks of being a wall flower. In that moment where we were cyberpunk.

I was thinking of 500 Days of sovereign. Oh, God, it's set in Pennsylvania, so we wouldn't have expected that for Cyberpunk. And then as they get out of the tunnel, they pull off to the side. Get off the kerny. I think we're doing good. We got out of there. How are you holding up, David? And he's just fully vomited on himself and, like, seizing. And he's like, take me to my doctor. It's like, okay, that makes sense. You're not holding up well after what just happened. And they go to ripper docks clinic again. And the doc's like, looking him over, scanning him. He's like, how many times did you use this spine thingy? Once? Twice? david's like, oh, like, eight times. Doctors like, Holy good God, you should be dead. You should use it twice a day, maybe three times if you're really pushing it. No more than that. So the fact that he's done it eight times is a miracle he's still alive. And Lucy says the doctor is an idiot for not giving them blockers and ends up selling some of the chips they stole earlier to buy David some. And she buys them some for like two days or something, like, not a ton. But the doctor says david's either. David must be a true masochist for using it eight times a day and putting himself through that. But, yeah, three times at most. So david's got the crazy superpower and we got the hard limit on it that he will push through and overcome and hurt himself doing it, as is the protagonist way.

Spell slots.

Thank you. Yes. And even afterwards, Lucy says that he can't use that tech unless he has no other option. So even Lucy's warning him, like, hey, go easy on that. david's like, no, we can keep going. Let's keep pick pocketing. Sorry, pick socketing. And she's like, no, we'll do it tomorrow. He's like, until then, come back with me. So he follows her to Lucy's place. They have some beers and David like, oh, is this carbonated? I don't think Google carbonated her stuff for, like, smoky stuff as she's smoking and drinking beer. And she's like she's teasing him, like, oh, was this your first time again? He is a high schooler, so yes.

But also just to be like, bubbles a little tough for me. Hey, mercenaries.

Yeah, that's the weird part. It wasn't like, ooh, beer is nasty, which is my excuse. It's carbonation.

You hurt my tummy.

I don't feel spicy on my tom. Spicy water.

Do you have any mods for tots the apple juice with less sugar? Not sponsors.

It could be, though.

I will take his finest cyber milk.

I don't know what that is. I hate it, though. I don't want a milk computer milk.

With a bunch of computer chips in.

It, some milk bottle with a USB port in it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. What is this?

Yeah, the nipple of a bottle is just a USB port.

Oh, it's a USB three. I only got USB two. Fucking so she starts seizing them for that because he's still like, high school, I'm guessing 16. And she takes his jacket and tries it on and he's like, hey, careful with that. And she puts, like, a Led display on the jacket and it says Edge runners on the back. And she's like, this is what you're trying to be, right? Another word for cyberpunk. And david's like, yeah. He says, I love jk's series edge runners. I'm guessing it's a thing in this universe.

I don't know.

He said it so candidly that I'm like, sure. I don't know what the words are.

We just have to accept it.

Yeah, most of this lore with the game is set on the original cyberpunk table stuff, so I assume it's like in universe thing there.

And he says, like, yeah, I'm a fan of it. What about it could be worse? It could be something like that over there. Any place to Lucy's, like, poster of, like, inner cellar, like, what's the word? colonizing, but specifically for planet.

I think it's just on the moon.

Terraforming. Oh, is it the moon?

Yeah, I think it's just the moon.

Okay. I thought it was like Mars. Don't quote me, but yeah, it's like a space sort of poster, like glorifying, like, hey, come out to space. It's great. He's like, It could be worse. It could be that thing. And Lucy gets very serious all of a sudden. He had a nerve, and he says, they sold it. All the advertisement sold it as if it was like a paradise. But it essentially ended up being like a prison camp almost, where you go there and you just work for the rest of your life because it's terraforming a planet. It's not easy. He says he learned about it in school and she's like, yeah, you would. You a rich kid going to a fancy school, door cats. She's like, Why did you even go to school? Anyway? So I got my mom wanted me to go to be better, and she wanted me to work my way up and be a big corporate corner office. She's like, well, she's gone, so you can't be living her dream for her. And david's like, no, I could, that's fine, which I was very surprised by. He seemed to be fine with he was fine with the idea of living his mom's dream, but he refused to do it himself, which is weird, but he said he stayed there mostly because of her, but now that she's gone, he doesn't have a reason to. And Lucy says he needs to find his own dream, and hers is she brings it back to the moon and saying, well, he said it was kind of like a prison colony or prison camp. Kind of how I feel about the city. It's my dreams to get out of here one. And then they lay down for a bit, and I said, they share a VR experience, but I guess the right word is brain dance.

Yeah.

So they share a brain dance and they have yeah, basically it's just a VR experience on the moon, but it has, like, low gravity and stuff. And David feels the song, he feels the warmth of the sun and stuff, so it's actual sensational experience. And we just get a little montage of them having a fun little date on the moon with low gravity and stealing a moon rover.

I like the songs in this show. soundtrack is pretty good.

Soundtracks are great. They share a drink. The straw that went in her mouth went in david's mouth. But it's bubbles, it's carbonated. And then Lucy says it's the first time she's shown this to anyone, and David asked why. She goes, I don't know. I get a good feeling for me, David. I think we'd make a good team. You're in love.

It's all happening so fast.

It's literally, like, been 6 hours. And then suddenly, while he's in there, text appears in front of him saying, you fell over the edge, punk. And as David is roughly woken up by a gang wanting to implant that he stole, and while they're shaking him down, punch him in the face, lucy's just standing by, smoking, not doing or saying anything in particular. That's episode two. Yeah, we get the ending. It's like a montage of Lucy. It's all very moody, slow, pink, and she's naked and yeah, I don't know what's happening down there. I don't know how wedgie's work in the future.

Hey, she doesn't owe us an explanation. I know. I was really thinking about it earlier.

But, hey, it's Cyberpunk. A lot of people are thinking about it. You are mad.

And when you make your character in Cyberpunk 2077, you can literally choose to not have genitals.

And in Cyberpunk 2077, you can choose to have genitals. And sometimes they'll glitch out of your clothes and just flop all around outside. It's a good game. It's a good game.

So we start episode three. david's getting shaken down for the Cyber parts, and Lucy apparently sold them out. So there's a giant muscle man whose name I never got.

Did Maine like a main coon?

Yeah.

I was so confused. I thought you said Maine, the way we say Maine to being the main character. I was like, Maine? Wait, no, not David, the other guy.

Maine with an E, like the state.

All right, thank you. So Maine just a giant muscle man and a couple of other goons. They're like, hey, mane said that he specifically bought that part that David installed, but his parts dealer ghosted him a couple of days ago after he paid for it, so it's rightfully his. And when they asked who the butt or who the seller was, it was gloria Martinez, david's mom.

She didn't even use a pseudonym.

Yeah, that's bad.

Yeah, real sloppy. So David ids them as cyberpunks, and I clipped it for the top of this episode. You have to hear it's just so good where it's hey, are you guys cyberpunks? Five literal seconds of silence, and then maine's like, what's it to you? It's like, that was your moment, to be like, yeah, we are. Yeah, badass. We owned it. And he's like, who told you?

Where do you know that word from?

But david's like, oh, sorry, it was mixed up. Didn't mean to steal your part because I didn't know who you were until this exact moment. But if you let me keep it, I'll work it off. I'll pay you back for it. And Lucy is like, hey, that's not a bad idea. He can handle himself. He used that piece of chrome a couple of different times and only passed out the once. And they're all like, oh, amazing. Incredible. And then he turns it on to snatch main's cigarette to just prove how fast he is. And then they're like, all right, we'll give you a test run, but we're putting a tracer in you so you can't leave us. And then they go for the night.

I was like appreciative of how compassionate they were to like him, being like, Actually, my mom is dead. And they're like, oh, fuck. Oh, shit. I'm so sorry. Yeah, you can keep that.

Yeah, because it seemed like they did deal with gloria a fair bit, so they're like, oh, also, someone we knew died. So you're the son we kept hearing about. Where are she already shaking you down. Sorry. Okay.

Sorry about Cold cogging you in the face while you were in VR.

So the gang leaves and it's just Lucy and David. And he's like, all right, this was a set up the whole time. And she's like, well, yeah, I did ID your modifications immediately. When I scanned your modifications immediately upon meeting, yes, I knew this stuff you stole existed. So we cut to the next day. He got his chance, but he gets a phone call from the principal again offering him an academic scholarship. The boy's dad is being so nice. If you apologize, of course we'll get you back in the school. You won't be demoted. Is not expelled to his demerit permanent record. Yes, demerit is removed. That check was anyway, but he's like, fuck you. I'm still not apologizing. I'm a cyberpunk now. So we're introduced to some of the gang. We meet Kiwi, pilar and dorio, and they get their briefing so they're real quick.

I love when he's introducing everyone. And then Davidson goes, My name's David, and it may just slaps him. He goes, who asked? That really caught me.

I was going, thank you for bringing that up. That was a beautiful moment. All right, kid, time to meet the team. Oh, hey, let me reciprocate, shauna, not.

You.

But they're going after a corporate bodyguard driver named maxim. They need to take the limos navigation data. Nothing else, just the data. So they're going out and they're going to rig a fight because this driver bets on the same boxer every night. So they're going to make her lose so he can go sad drink and steal the data while he's passed out. So they pickpocket him. But immediately, as they're transferring the data over to their side, the Maximum gets a phone call. He's got to go pick up his boss. Oh, no. But they have the keys in their hands. So they call in for help and someone else in the bar spills a drink on him. A pretty girl who's all flirty about it.

I love her. And Paul told me that she is more relevant in the last half of the series, season series. I really like her.

Yeah, we don't see a ton of her in this episode, but I see nothing but fan art of her. So I assume she's pretty prominent.

Yeah, she's very subtly introduced where in this moment, oh, they just had someone in the bar. And then she's actually introduced as a character at the end. But they're like, okay, we got the data. All right, we just got to get in the car. We just got to go in there. We're running out of time. So they go inside. Lucy and David go in. David is admiring it because this is the nicest car he's ever seen. It's just so fancy and what money buys you when you have it weird. So they get the NAV data, but not before the guy steps out of the bar and sees them in the car. So he starts shooting at the windows, trying to get them to come out. And David got behind the driver's seat, so he has to drive away. But he doesn't know how to drive a car, so he's going to learn. And they're going to aldo's place to hide out there, whatever. So they take the car. They're fleeing.

They I will say the absolute comedy shit like this gets me every time of him turning on the car, accidentally crashing into something behind him, and then immediately accidentally crashing into something in front of him before driving away. Yeah, that gets me every time.

See, that also gets me every time until half a second later when we get some of the bullshit we see. So pretty immediately, Maximum puts out bounty. So two bikers immediately start chasing them. They get on the highway, but as they're about to hit traffic, david flashes back to the car wreck where his mom dies. He's like, no, I'm not going out the same way. So he activates his chrome and just fully looney tune jumps in the car. It might as well pull out a pogo stick and bounce to the other side of this barrier. Not even like, laws of physics. It was like the laws of animation were broken to make this car gracefully.

Escape this understand how his spine that makes him go super fast is relevant at all for driving. I don't know how that helps.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I was like, I guess it's the speed with which he's turning the wheel. But that also doesn't mean the car would cooperate.

Yeah, you just snap the steering wheel off really fast.

But it's anime. We just have to be like, well, okay.

Got to do some cool shit. He starts driving on the other side of the highway going the wrong way. Naturally, he's unnatural at driving for the first time right now because science. But he loses the bikers. One of them crashes.

Cool.

So they get to their hideout. They're like, okay, cool. We're going to scope it out, make sure no one's here. And oh, no, someone's here. One of the bikers immediately catches up to them to the point where it's like, okay, we lost one of the bikers in that car chase. Do we need to fully lose the second one if he was immediately going to come back? All right. But the rest of the gang arrives and they easily take care of that guy.

The fighter brought a knife leg to a fist gunfight.

Yeah. Maine has just like a cannon and just scatter shots him across the parking lot. Very gnarly, very gory. But yeah, later that night, they are celebrating because they got the navs at Cool. And Maine is like, all right, welcome to the crew. You passed your initiation. But let me give you the advice. You can't trust anyone but yourself. So don't get too reliant on us for jobs. You got to take care of yourself and saying don't rely on anyone else. anyways, here's a month of immunoblockers and.

Also money along your cut.

So it's like immediately more money than david's ever seen. And Maine is like, all right, you should probably start adding more chrome to yourself to handle the upgrade because you're an all jelly kid. And then a corpo and a limo pulls up and comes out of the limo and talks to Maine. And he's like, hey, dip shit, you did a shitty job with the job that you did. And Maine is like, but we got you the NAV data. That's what you specified. And he's like, yeah, but you also stole his car. So it's pretty clear something is up and someone is after this guy. So you completely compromise the mission.

Go to hell.

But he's like, all right, we're going to try it again. Whatever. And he's introduced as faraday the fixer.

Who is played by John carlo esposito.

Yes. I couldn't tell if it was actually him or someone just doing their best impression to be like, yes, this is what we know a crime lord to be now.

Yeah, they actually got him for an anime.

Netflix big budget.

Yeah, well, it depends for this.

Seems like it.

Seems like it.

But they go back to partying. Maine is like, whatever, we got paid. And then we're introduced to Rebecca all the fan art is about and gives David another fizzy drink that he doesn't like. And then the principal calls one more time and David actually tells him, hey, you can kiss my ass, and says, like, outright, I reject the offer. Go to hell. If that kid wants to get revenge, tell him to come fight me. That's where we end up. So three.

Yeah.

I like how that kind of solidifies David into the life of cyberpunk, of, like, righteous crime, and then he takes a sip from we don't even know what it is. It's a carbonated drink.

Diet dr. Pepper.

I'm a hardcore. I drink carbonation now.

So how do we feel?

How do weeb feel? Are we there yet? Legally?

Obviated. Thank you for getting the catchphrase out monetize this episode. Yeah, I will say cyberpunk in general is not my favorite genre, especially in terms of, like, this level of cyberpunk to, like, going back to the original creation of cyberpunk, where it is very clearly okay, yeah, this is designed clearly in the 80s by people being badasses in the when futurism and stuff builds upon that cool. But when it's just this, like, yeah, I'm badass because I drive a cyber motorcycle. I'm not super into it just because that is usually the reliance on franchises that do stuff like it. But this was really well done, I think, for being an adaptation, essentially, of a video game adaptation of a role.

Playing game, adaptation of a book. It was franchise.

So, like, that level, they could have I mean, look at the game. They could have gone like, yeah, just shit something out. But they did, and it was good, and I liked it, and it was really pretty. But yeah, they're just very jargon heavy. I did enjoy this, but I don't know, it kind of felt like they were at, especially at the end of the last episode when they're like, all right, you passed the tutorial here's. Here's your month of munitions and up. You got to go find your side quest by yourself. I was like, okay, it's getting a touch video gamey. I want to see what, like, the overarching plot is since we already resolved the oh, gangsters are after my body mod stuff. Yeah, I am a fan, but we'll see.

I liked it a lot. It's only ten episodes, so, like, I'll keep watching it, and I think, third, Paul would probably want to keep watching it too. I also think this is tapping into a trope that I really like. A little bit of kid is getting experimented on and it gets pushed past their limits kind of thing. So even though he's the one who chose to have the spine on him, I think as the series goes on, he's probably going to get more chrome stuff and the whole introduction. They don't talk about it a lot in these episodes, but, like, cyberpsychosis, that's a real danger for him with the spine. And I'm interested in seeing where that goes because I love that trope because my brain is bad.

It's a very specific trope.

Yeah.

No one here has a good brain. Why would we do this part otherwise?

I said things earlier in this episode that don't need repeating. But yeah, there's a prime example of not a good brain but yeah, I really liked it.

And I actually really like John carlo esposito's character. Was it faraday?

Yeah.

I like his three eyes. I think it's such a simple thing, a simple character design thing. But there's something about it's like the opposite of an eyepatch, but it gives like the same vibe. Like, oh, he's bad. This is a bad dude.

It's three eyes on the one side of his face and they're just stacked on top of each other. And I got to wonder what's the cybernetic benefit to that? As opposed to all the eyes in one eye. Like, why that?

I was thinking about it. My phone has three cameras and I was just like, it feels like the same thing. What's the purpose?

We couldn't cram them all into one eyeball, so we just spread them out and frame them in the same spot.

So sorry. I know you asked us to replace your one eye. We only have three smaller eyes. Is that cool if we just jam them in there?

Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to look sick as fuck.

You do how bugs look at stuff with compound eyes. congrats. You're a bug now. Definitely gives the air of this guy's good and will never betray you or do anything bad later in the series.

Triple wink.

Yeah, I enjoyed it. I've seen the art style stuff already, so I knew going into it what it was going to look like. Studio Trigger phenomenal animation and artwork and color. So I was expecting that going into it. Another benefit. The main story or crux or the general plot not done by Studio Trigger. Also a benefit because boy, howdy are they real hit or miss sometimes we're not doing darting and frank's. We're just not doing it. I can't be bothered there. I was excited to watch this. I figured we would watch it for the show eventually. So I held off. I enjoyed it. I definitely see dugan's point with some of the stuff being video gaming of like, yeah, you only got so many amino oppressors. You can only use this superpower three times a day, like limiting them. But it is also a story beat that we see in other stuff besides video games. We see them much more in video games because we have to keep track of it. But there is limitations put on characters all the time and then they overextend themselves. Either hurt themselves or exceed those expectations and, you know, adapt to it and become better. allah, deku and my hero. academia.

Yeah.

So, you know, a chance for growth is by putting those limitations on it. But it does feel kind of video game, I guess, because there is a video game. So that's where our mind goes to the cyberpunk stuff. I saw it in the games, but like in this show, that so many crazy modifications. People are unrecognizable human anymore. Like, Rebecca is fully, like grayish green with red eyes. Like, I thought she was a zombie before I knew she was from the show. And we see the tiger claws gang that attack them on the road. Fully modded. At Maine, is the size of a truck. The people's bodies are sane in this. That's cool to see, but also, how do you function in a world like this? This is deranged, but yeah, it's pretty cool. It's story. I got an idea of where it's going to go, so I'm not going to be surprised if it follows the trajectory I expect. But like we said, ten episodes, we're already a third of the way done. I'm going to keep watching it.

Yeah.

If there's a show you would like us to watch a third of and then hopefully continue, you can send them those recommendations to our email. Are we there yet@gmail.com? Or you can reach out to us on Twitter. Instagram, maybe. Not that first one anymore. Instagram and TikTok at. Are we there yet? On both? Sure. All three for now.

Yeah. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at honey, period D. Or if you really want to follow me on tumblr, you can. It's Honey. D all one word. I don't do a lot of anime there. I mostly reblog stuff. But yeah, honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You.

Can find me places that are crumbling as we speak. I'm also on tumblr. You'll never fucking find me there.

Yeah.

Also witcher. The games are fucking great. If you want to skip ahead, if you want to skip the first one because it's not so great, start with two and three or just play three. You don't really need context, just they're great games.

Thank you to camille ruley for artwork, and thank you to Louisong for themesong, stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong Vancamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Maybe it's called cyberpunk because so many men are having cyber sex.

We're already there. VR chats a thing.

Oh, yeah.