After watching the first episode of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, it’s refreshing to see how much work and effort was put into this anime to make it come out on top of everyone's radar.
During Studio Trigger’s 10th anniversary panel at Anime Expo this week, Trigger’s Hiromi Wakabayashi and Yoh Yoshinari were joined by CD PROJEKT RED’s Saya Elder and Bartosz Sztybor to take a deep dive into the Netflix anime’s development.
Saya Elder began to explain the evolution of the project and how it began.
“Cyberpunk Edgerunners was always erected on the three main pillars of entertainment. There are games like Cyberpunk: 2020 the TRPG that the video game was based on. There are movies and last but not least anime like Akira and PSYCHO-PASS which are my personal favorites.”
“We ultimately decided to approach Studio Trigger to do this project, because we wanted to see what kind of synergy we could create when combining their bombastic art style and our writing.”
“Cyberpunk was an homage to this last pillar of entertainment and is something we have always wanted to do and we're really excited to do it. We ultimately decided to approach Studio Trigger to do this project, because we wanted to see what kind of synergy we could create when combining their bombastic art style and our writing and I think what we came up with is something super cool and unique that has not been seen in the cyberpunk genre yet.”
Yoh Yoshinari and Saya Elder explain that the development of Cyberpunk: 2077 was actually not completed when the anime began pre-production.
“Our director Hiroyuki Imaishi, has always been a huge fan of the Cyberpunk genre.”
“YY: When we got the offer to work on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners the game was still not complete. All I knew was that the content was very popular. Our director Hiroyuki Imaishi, has always been a big fan of the cyberpunk genre. However, it is very rare that we get an opportunity to work on a project of that nature. You can imagine my surprise when a huge company like CDPR approached us.”
Saya Elder goes on to talk about the anime’s early pre-productions stages.
“SE: When Imaishi came to us about the project, he was very enthusiastic that he played the game once before they began pre-production even before designing the characters and the color pallet. Originally the team at CDPR was slated to start the anime pre-production after the game was out, but due to some very minor delays, we were not able to achieve that.
“CDPR allowed me to take a very early top secret build of the game.”
“YY: During the game's final stages of development, the team at CDPR allowed Hiroyuki Imaishi to take a very early top secret build of the game. It was stored on a laptop in a very secure briefcase. He was so afraid he was going to lose that build and get fired. Studio Trigger provided Imaishi with a locked room so he could play the game whenever he wanted to.”
“SE: Imaishi’s weapon of choice during his playthrough of Cyberpunk: 2077 was a hammer. He played the game all the way up to the final boss, Adam Smasher, and obliterated him with just the hammer.”
Bartosz Sztybor goes on to explain about some of the art directions in the anime.
“BS: You can tell the team at Studio Trigger really spent a lot of time on the scenes in the anime as they match where you go in the actual game. The team at Studio Trigger would ask for snippets of footage for the game including screenshots and video footage right down to the point where they asked for the full build of the game.”
“BS: They wanted to replicate the main protagonist walking around in the actual video game world in the anime when he would go to school. What is cool about that is when you see that in the anime, you can almost replicate it in the game frame by frame. It’s a lot of fine details and I am happy we were able to put this kind of work into the final product.”