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TheDag  Per Aspera ad Astra  1yr ago (text post)   1676 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 11, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I recently watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and can concur with the other reports herein(I'm sure there were, if my memory's not playing tricks on me) that it's excellent and worth watching.

Strong recommend to everyone apart from

-people suffering from epilepsy due to flashing lights. I think there's even a warning.

-people who are likely to suffer unduly from a significant emotional event. (if you're depressed or always kinda fragile)

-people who are notably squeamish. The show really doesn't pull its punches when it comes to violence. It's not that frequent but it's there and it is very memorable.

The show's mostly a fairly straightforward tragedy/romance story set in a cyberpunk brazilified California which doesn't have as many homeless schizos as the real one but South African crime levels and also apparently in 2077 degens now use some cyber-fleshlights in public and cops don't care if it's not in a rich area.

The story is solid, the characters relatable, the environmental design & aesthetics excellent. The outcome is basically preordained from the start due to hubris

and setting. The ending is the subject of many memes which are really kinda true. I've a hard time imagining a person who could finish it and not shed at least a solitary tear.

It's also notable how on twitter people liked it and there is no seeming political category that doesn't have people liking it. If something is beloved both by trans they/them socialists and e.g. hard right Pinochet appreciators, it is kind of special.

EDIT:

Finally found someone who hates it. My dad refused to watch more than three episodes. Said something along the lines "it's too violent, the animation is bad and cyberpunk is cringe BS". I suspect it's partly bc he's notably squeamish about violence, and partly bc he's a pussy -he loses his nerve very easily in even mildly dramatic situations.

Mind you, he watches weird anime all the time and has watched entire series of such BS as e.g. Lucifer.

I watched it today without any prior context of the Cyberpunk games and yeah, it's a decent show.

The characters and visual aesthetics are clearly the strong point here for me - David as a main character is incredibly likeable and it's very hard not to root for him, which is a task that most modern writers seem to completely fail at. The plot is quite basic and exists almost solely to serve the world and characters, but it does that job well. It benefits from being fairly short and fast-paced for a TV show too. I do feel the soundtrack didn't fit well with the cyberpunk aesthetic, but that might just be my personal preference in music bleeding through.

I didn't shed tears at the end, maybe because I saw it coming a mile away considering all the foreshadowing beforehand, and/or maybe because it simply takes a lot to get an emotional reaction out of me compared to other people. I don't feel like this show was particularly gritty or dark either, I think that despite the fact that the show is portraying a dystopia they keep a streak of hope a mile wide going through it (though this might be because I'm extremely inured to bleakness in my entertainment).

Anyway, it was fun and a good way to spend my weekend.

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