Every time I catch myself remembering the good Cyberpunk: Vanguard Runners was, I usually resign myself to doing one of three things: watching the anime againrepeating the game (the anime even helped restore the game’s damaged reputation after his failed launch), or indirectly pick up a vibe by flipping through the pages of No\Name, Unrelated Manga Plus Creators series by creator Rafał Jaki. Fortunately, now I can add a fourth thing to that rotation while I wait for the Second season of the Netflix anime.when you’re ready: reading the Dark Horse prequel manga, Cyberpunk: Edgerunner Madness.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunner Madnesswritten by Bartosz Sztybor of CD Projekt Red and illustrated by Asano (Studio Trigger BNA: New animal), does what most prequels tend to do: expand on fan-favorite characters before we meet them in the original story. Craziness decides to go back in time before meeting David Martínez and focus his story on Edge Runners‘resident gremlin, Rebecca, and her brother, Pilar.
So what were they doing before David came into the picture? They were homeless people who slept on their sides in the driver’s and rear passenger’s seats of their car. The pain of their low-budget reality becomes a little stronger when the manga reveals that their dad was a Night City legend and that they still have nothing to show for it, with the easy platter of being nepo babies. As if drawn by the allure of Night City’s ever-present dark side, the pair finally light a fire under their butts and kick-start their dreams of making it big as Edgerunners.
What follows is a misadventure on par with Shane Black’s. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, as the pair go from one failed job to another, pissing off every mid-level grunt and fool in Night City, and tricking their way into legendary status by turning their comedy of errors into a crazy adventure that begs to be taken seriously.
Holding the money, I was a little uneasy before starting. Craziness. Mainly, I was worried that it would be a threadbare trip down memory lane (as most prequels are), that it wouldn’t offer me anything more than the kind of referential “put it together” fare I’ve seen a dozen times in works like Solo: A Star Wars Story. But Craziness‘The first volume surprised me. It basically reads like a DLC expansion to the anime, telling its own little pocket story that blossoms so well that I’m waiting for its second volume. Of course, when it comes to member berries, the manga is full of them, but never in a way that seems to insult my intelligence or pander to me as a fan of its predecessor without having anything worth showing for its own sake. In any case, the manga reference is great and translates cyberpunkthe story in manga with a harmless and elegant touch.
For starters, the manga perfectly adapts the game’s NPC scanning feature, where players can read short, fun texts about characters they’ve just eliminated or plan to reduce to zero. While the game incorporates this as a button you can tap to get a quick scan of someone, the manga takes advantage of its medium by printing character bios for people Pilar and Becca will likely never see again on a profile page at the end of each chapter. Likewise, the end of the volume goes further by showing all the places Pilar and Becca traverse on a giant map in case readers want. start up 2077 again and see for yourself. And as a fan of cyberpunkis a uniquely energetic, text-message-style dialect, good to have 2077the jargon of spinning around in my head again.
Tangentially, Asano’s artwork is a joy to behold. Asano’s panels are not only sleek, dynamic, and readable when the action requires it, but they’re also hilariously slapstick, selling the gore of bodies exploding into mist and things that don’t explode like a Looney Tunes cartoon. But as an independent manga, what sold me the most Craziness Which is how it adds another interesting wrinkle to the seemingly endless set of stories that can still be told in Night City, a world I honestly thought had dried up after Phantom Freedom.
That wrinkle comes in the form of the third member of Pilar and Becca’s team, a guy whose history of swapping personalities via neural chips has left him fractured. At one point, he’s a really dumb guy or John Wick in his fluid state. He basically has the whole deal with Roger. american dad, except he doesn’t remember his other people: a ricky spanishso to speak. His whole amnesia thing only makes things worse because his deep ties to Night City’s high rollers make him a person of interest to rival gangs who want him dead and edge rushers who need some slicks.
Suffice it to say that I would die for him. It’s not just a fun vehicle for Craziness‘ history; It’s one of the most intriguing shower-thinking cyberpunk scenarios I’ve read in a minute. I was surprised by the initial selling point of reading a manga with more. Becca was quickly supplanted by my desire to see the trio quickly become friends, sharing a brain cell through looney tunes‑like manga gag antics and grindhouse shootouts alike.
While I was reading Craziness waiting for a nostalgic shot of Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2023 Anime of the Year winner, its first volume left me with high hopes for what the second season of Edge Runners and Cyberpunk 2077is appropriately titled (and very much in development) sequel, Cyberpunk 2will bear the witness. If either project is half as fascinating (and fun) as Craziness has been in its first volume, a new journey awaits us.
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