Studio Trigger, the anime production company made up of former members of the legendary studio Gainax, is producing a Cyberpunk 2077 anime for Netflix set to premiere in 2022. Called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the anime will be a standalone story set in the world of developer CD Projekt Red’s upcoming open-world action roleplaying game.
Here’s how CD Projekt Red describes it:
CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS tells a standalone, 10-episode story about a street kid trying to survive in a technology and body modification-obsessed city of the future. Having everything to lose, he chooses to stay alive by becoming an edgerunner—a mercenary outlaw also known as a cyberpunk.
Trigger, besides being founded by members that worked on seminal anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, is best known for its highly stylistic, experimental art styles and over-the-top narratives. Its best-known works include Kill la Kill, Darling in the Franxx, and more recently, the hugely successful anime film Promare.
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Image: CD Projekt Red
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners will have the studio’s top talent steering the ship: Hiroyuki Imaishi — who worked on Gainax’s Gurren Lagann, as well as Kill la Kill and Promare — is directing along with assistant director Masahiko Otsuka, creative director Hiromi Wakabayashi, and character designers Yoh Yoshinari and Yuto Kaneko (Yoshinari and Kaneko are known best for Little Witch Academia). The screenplay is adapted by Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Otsuka, longtime veterans of Trigger who worked on Promare and other projects. The original score will be composed by Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame.
Cyberpunk 2077 launches this November for all major platforms, following another delay announced earlier this month to give CD Projekt Red ample time to polish the experience and fix bugs ahead of release.
When it does launch, it’s likely going to be one of the biggest gaming events of the decade, coinciding with next-gen console launches from both Microsoft and Sony. So it’s nice to see that the Cyberpunk 2077 universe is going to keep expanding well into the future, and a new standalone series from a studio as esteemed as Trigger should be extremely exciting news for anime fans everywhere.
