Cyberpunk 2077 was an incredibly hyped up CDProjektRed game that came out not too long
ago, and while it got it’s fair share of complaints about it’s launch, it’s definitely
a game that has it’s fans.
And recently, something in the Cyberpunk universe was dropped almost unannounced.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is an anime series set in Night City and full of blood, gore
and violence.
This ten episode anime has all kinds of characters, from Corpos to Drifters to everything in between.
Plus, with the new Cyberpunk 2077 DLC just announced, we felt it was time to tackle this
action adventure anime.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Good to Evil
One major caveat, massive spoiler warnings, for both Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077 alike.
With the spoiler warning out of the way we can talk about the best characters, and in
a show about criminals that may not be easy, these are The Good
The very obvious earner of the gold medal of good is Gloria Martinez.
Gloria is an EMT and the mother of main character David.
She only appears in the first episode but cements herself as the best person in the
show by far in that short time.
She helps clean up all of the messes that are left by cyberpsychos and help those around
her.
Despite this, she has severe money issues and barely makes ends meet.
Despite her best efforts she ends up dying due to a car crash, but still inspires David
long after.
Gloria did everything she could to give David a good life, but the universe decided to take
that away.
Speaking of, David Martinez earns our silver medal of good.
David is the main protagonist of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and a very sad story.
David grew up in a poor family as evidenced by how we talked about Gloria.
After her death he ended up becoming a Mercenary, better known as an Edgerunner.
He starts off as a punk kid, stealing the Sandevistan implant and getting it put in
him, leading him down the dangerous road that is edgerunning and cyberpsychosis.
David’s fatal flaw is that not only does he only seem to care about other people’s
dreams and not his own, but he is a criminal, no matter how good of a guy he is.
David does his best to help those around him and after joining Maine’s crew while he
does criminal acts they’re mostly for the greater good.
Sure, he gets manipulated and eventually killed by Arasaka, but in his time alive he does
everything he can to help Lucy, Rebecca, Maine and everyone else, even after losing so many
people.
David definitely deserves to be in the upper echelon despite his criminal acts.
The next character on our list and earning the bronze medal of good is Lucy.
Lucy is one of the Edgerunners in Maine’s crew, specifically being a “netrunner”
which is essentially a hacker, being brought on by Kiwi who we’ll talk about later.
Lucy starts off the series as a thief who steals from Arasaka goons and making quick
friends with David.
Lucy does trick David into meeting Maine and nearly getting killed, but she does care deeply
about him and the rest of the crew.
She shows genuine concern when David starts going cyberpsycho and he is the first one
she tells about her dream of the moon.
Lucy is interesting because despite her alleged betrayal at the beginning of the series, she
still proves to be a very good person, at least for the cricles she runs in.
Lucy has a dark past with Arasaka and has some intense PTSD after the whole Tanaka deal,
but despite this, she still tries her best to save David and stop him from using the
cyberskeleton.
Lucy is a good person, but that doesn’t stop her
from falling lower than her boyfriend.
Up next on our list is everyone’s favorite wheelman Falco.
Falco appears in the latter half of the season and sort of comes out of nowhere, being a
member of Maine’s crew and later David’s.
Falco is the wheelman, driving those in the crew to their jobs, this includes the final
job we see in the show.
Falco seems to be a man of high standards as he leaves with Kiwi after Maine punches
her hard enough to knock her jaw off.
Falco cares about the people around him and whilst he does criminal acts, he seems to
see it as part of the greater good.
Falco also makes an appearance in Cyberpunk 2077, through text and mentions.
Falco is one of the only surviving members of David’s crew and he became a recluse
after his run-in with Adam Smasher.
However, he seems to respect not only David but V as well as he sends V David’s jacket.
Falco is a good guy, and only falls low because of a lack of screen time.
The next character landing on our list is Dorio.
Dorio is one of the first three Edgerunners that David meets, and is Maine’s lover.
She spends most of her time with Maine and David, trying to make sure that Maine stays
sane and David becomes a good leader and edgerunner.
Dorio shows intense care for her team, and even ends up trying to research Arasaka and
Tanaka when she has a bad feeling about what he would do.
Dorio is sadly killed by the NCPD and Trauma Team and this leads to Maine’s further cyberpsychosis.
Dorio tried her hardest and while she wasn’t the best person, she did try her best to be
the best member of the Edgerunners.
Rounding out the good section of our list is Rebecca.
Rebecca is another member of the Edgerunners and a fan-favorite throughout the fanbase.
Becca makes a pretty strong entrance, distracting their target with sexual favors, even if it
doesn’t last very long.
She is the sister of Pilar and a surprisingly powerful and helpful ally for David, although
it’s worth noting that she seems to be in love with David.
Becca ends up as one of the final members of Maine’s original crew, alongside Falco,
Kiwi and Lucy, however, much like Kiwi and David she doesn’t survive the encounter
with Adam Smasher.
Despite this, she tries her hardest not only to help David but the rest of the crew, even
listening to Kiwi despite her betrayal.
Becca is even the one who is in charge of injecting David with his suppresants, showing
intense trust.
Sadly, Rebecca dies, but she goes out in a blaze of glory, helping her friends and her
crush, and she manages to stay out of the gray.
Due to the nature of the show it’s no surprise that we’ve got a few bad eggs to go through,
but first, have the morally middling, these are The Gray
Starting off the gray area of our list is Maine.
Maine is the leader of the Edgerunners that David joins and an old friend of David’s
mother Gloria.
Maine’s backstory is hinted at but not fully known, what we do know is that he used to
be a skinny kid who decided to upgrade through the use of cybernetics, becoming the huge
leader we know.
We learn pretty quickly that the Sandevistan that David obtained was supposed to go to
Maine.
Initially, Maine is hesitant to have David in his crew, but eventually comes around to
liking him.
The problem with Maine however is that he very quickly falls into cyberpsychosis, and
late in the season he fully falls to it, killing dozens after the death of Dorio.
Maine does however, recognize David and informs him that he needs to leave if he wants to
survive, and it’s obvious he cared for David and his mother.
Maine was quick to anger but even that doesn’t make him that bad, however, he still has to
land in the Gray.
Whilst not an edgerunner, the next character on the list is Doc.
Doc, as his name implies is a Ripperdoc that works in Santo Domingo, being David’s personal
ripperdoc for the most part.
He is the one who gives David all of his upgrades, including the initial Sandevistan.
However, Doc was fully aware of how dangerous the Sandevistan was and intiially refused
to do the surgery until it benefited him.
He’s also known to be greedy and doesn’t care what he does if he gets paid for it.
This does hinder him because at the end of the series he does give David his final batch
of suppresants and knows that David won’t be coming back, referring to him as a cautionary
tale.
Doc’s worst crime is selling XBDs to children, or well, high schools anyway, which are still
underage.
Jumping into the next spot on our list is Pilar.
Pilar is a sort of crazy, erratic character and one of the initial three Edgerunners that
David meets during the show.
He is the one who seems the most dumbfounded by David’s use of the Sandevistan and takes
a quick liking to the boy.
Sure, he’s very annoying and rude, but he makes a good impression early on in the show.
However, to show that Edgerunners isn’t some regular anime or show, Pilar does get
the short end of the stick.
The boomstick that is, after messing with a cyberpsycho he gets his head blown off in
a gory display that taught us early on not to get attached, even if we did.
Pilar’s worst crime is being annoying, however he’s also an Edgerunner and likely committed
much much worse.
Ranking next on the list is none other than Katsuo Tanaka.
Katsuo is the rich kid bully that we meet specifically in the first two episodes of
the show, being the son of one of the major antagonists of the show.
Being a minor antagonist, he has a decent amount of screen time, constantly trying to
get David kicked out of the Arasaka school.
This even leads to him beating David up outside of school and implying that his mother was
a lady of the night to piss him off.
Katsuo does have some skills but his bark is stronger than his bite, as he cowers pretty
easily and has very few morals he sticks by.
Rounding out the gray area of our list is cyberslueth and netrunner Kiwi.
Kiwi is the premier netrunner in the crew, being the one who helps Maine and later David
with multiple issues.
She is the one who deep dives into Tanaka’s head to try and obtain the info needed for
Faraday and it’s hinted that she has some sort of past with Faraday.
She’s among the only remaining members of the crew after David takes over, and alongside
Falco and Rebecca is usually amongst his crew on missions.
Kiwi is also the one who brought Lucy into Maine’s crew which one could see as a good
thing, although she was unaware of Lucy’s past.
Kiwi does have one major issue, and that’s the betrayal she does pretty late on in the
series, where it turns out she was working with Faraday, leading to them kidnapping Lucy
and tricking David into using the cyberskeleton.
The only reason she doesn’t fall into the bad to evil category is the fact that she
does try to make amends on her deathbed, informing David and Falco about where Faraday was, but
this doesn’t save her.
Despite being a show about criminals, there are always bigger fish, we need to talk about
the Bad to Evil
Starting off the bad section of our list is Mr. Tanaka.
Tanaka is a minor antagonist in the show, being the main target for one of Maine’s
major missions for Faraday.
He is a higher-up at Arasaka who knows some information about the cyberskeleton that Faraday
and Militiech are looking for.
Tanaka is a man who is very into the XBDs, Extreme Braindances, usually sexual or full
of blood and gore, and he’s really into Kurosaki’s.
These ones are edited specifically to make the pleasure and pain ten times stronger,
which obviously is good for some people.
Tanaka appears and is kidnapped by Maine and crew where they try and dive deep.
He’s the father of Katsuo and either doesn’t care about or actively allows Katsuo’s bullying,
but despite this does try to keep David in school, specifically to have Arasaka experiment
on him.
Tanaka is killed by Maine after the deep dive but his time alive showed him to be a true
villain and deserving of this categorization.
Right outside of the bottom three is Jimmy Kurosaki.
Jimmy is the creator of a very famous line of XBDs, specifically the “Edgerunner Series”,
which seems to be his pride and joy.
He is known to be the best editor of BDs because he can make it to the specifications of the
person who is wearing the BD.
Jimmy makes a strong impression when he kidnaps David and starts to essentially torture him
by making him experience a version of his own death in the form of another cyberpsycho
BD he had made specifically for David.
He then attempts to kill Dorio and Lucy with some drones and only decides to help after
everything else fails.
Jimmy tricks Tanaka into coming to his editiing den so he can be kidnapped by Maine and crew,
however this leads to his death at Tanaka’s hands accidentally.
Jimmy is bad because he seems to have a severe lack of morals, however he’s not as bad
as the bottom three.
But, the brutal borg Adam Smasher bags our beautiful bronze medal of evil.
Adam is a Night City Legend, full of power, strength and known for the slaughter of hundreds.
Now, specifically speaking on the show, and not including info from the game, Adam is
a mercenary who works for Arasaka.
He is sent by Arasaka to deal with David when he tries to go after Faraday and Arasaka for
taking Lucy.
Adam kills both Rebecca and David during his time on screen and causes a lot of destruction
as well.
Adam is working mostly under Arasaka orders and that’s why he doesn’t fall lower.
He even seems to want to extend an olive branch to David for him to join his team, but David
refuses and Adam slays him.
Adam does kill the main characters but he’s still not the worst.
Snatching the silver medal of evil is the freaky felonious fixer Faraday.
Faraday is the middleman fixer that gives jobs relating to Arasaka and Militech to Maine
and later David.
He feels high and mighty because of his status as a corporate fixer and tries to prove he
is smarter and more important than not only David but all of the Edgerunners.
He sees them as lesser than him and finds them to be nothing but dirty mercenaries that
are only there to obey orders.
This is very obvious at the end when this man decides to switch sides and betray David
with the help of Kiwi.
Faraday, voiced by Giancarlo Esposito, proves to be a massive threat, tricking David into
using the cyberskeleton and kidnapping Lucy and using her name against her will to have
David follow orders.
Faraday is intensely smart but is very cowardly as well, as he tries to run away with trauma
team after being injured by David.
He even sees Adam Smasher as nothing but a merc and therefore below him, despite Adam
being much stronger and much more important.
Speaking of Arasaka, the gold medal of evil goes to Douglas and Kate.
Douglas and Kate are members of the Arasaka Counter-Intelligence crew who are trying not
only to defend their cyberskeleton but find and test it.
The two of them are the ones who nearly kill Faraday and convince him to join their side.
Now, they are members of a giant corporate board that is full of dangerous people and
are the ones behind not only Faraday’s deception but the release of Adam Smasher and killing
of David.
Kate even throws Douglas under the bus since she knew he would have to take the fall.
They don’t appear long but they are undoubtedly the worst of the worst.
But, don’t leave yet, we have some our favorite things to hand out, the Sinner Medals.
Our Darwin Medal goes to Pilar who died because he was messing with a cyberpsycho for fun.
The Greed Medal belongs to Doc, this ripperdoc is well known for being greedy, even David
points it out.
In fact, Doc also takes our Lust Medal, because he is often seen watching and selling sexual
XBDs
Taking the Pride Medal is Faraday, who thinks he and all corporate bootlickers are above
the mercenaries
The Wrath Medal goes to Maine who is shown to be very angry throughout the entire series
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking.
And tell us what we should cover next.
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