Crypto.com Arena hosted one of the most closely guarded screenings of Anime Expo 2026 on Friday night: the world premiere of CYBERPUNK EDGERUNNERS 2 episode 1, shown in its English dub.
No recording was permitted, and Netflix, CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger made sure of it. What played out on that arena screen justified the secrecy. This is a season that knows exactly what it inherited from its predecessor and is not interested in coasting on it.
Staff also used the panel to confirm the season’s music lineup. The opening theme is “10:15 Saturday Night” by The Cure, and the ending theme comes from Watson. Rapper Rico Nasty wrote and performed “You Can’t Run From Me”, which already appeared in the second teaser trailer and looks likely to show up in the season proper.
CYBERPUNK EDGERUNNERS 2 is a standalone story. There is no David Martinez, no returning crew, and no narrative thread pulling this season back to season one. That was true on paper before the premiere, but watching episode 1 makes it true in practice.
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The new cast, cinephile Roman Carax (Momoka Terasawa in Japanese, Valeria Rodriguez in English), corpo transplant Talia Yang (Akari Kitō/Kimoy Lee), Snake Nation netrunner D (Kōki Uchiyama/Nazeeh Tarsha), and worn-down veteran Weak Kingsley (Kentarō Tone/Clancy Brown), gets introduced with a bluntness that borders on hostile toward the audience’s instinct to attach.
Characters are given just enough definition to matter and just enough distance to remind viewers that Night City has never made any promises about who survives. That tension, between wanting to root for someone and knowing the show will not protect them for your sake, is baked into the writing from the cold open.
Credit goes to scriptwriter Masahiko Otsuka, back from the original series, for pulling off that balancing act in a runtime this short. Fleshing out four new characters with distinct voices and motivations in roughly 20 minutes, while still delivering a fully realized action sequence, is not a small trick. Director Kai Ikarashi, stepping into his first series lead role after handling storyboards and animation direction on season one’s “Girl on Fire”, clearly learned the right lessons from that episode. He knows how to let a fight sequence carry emotional weight instead of just spectacle.
The most immediate surprise is the visual approach. Where season one leaned into Studio TRIGGER’s signature hyperkinetic, almost glitch-art style, episode 1 of the sequel pulls from a distinctly 90s well. Character linework, shading choices and even some of the transition effects recall the OVA era of cyberpunk anime that inspired the genre in the first place. It is a deliberate choice rather than a budget concession, and it gives the new cast a visual identity separate from David and his crew without abandoning the franchise’s DNA.
The action itself does not ease viewers in. The episode opens swinging, and the choreography carries real consequence. Every exchange has stakes attached to it, and the animation team does not shy away from letting violence look like it costs something.
Returning fans will feel at home the moment the score kicks in. Composer Tsuneo Imahori, stepping in for Akira Yamaoka, does not try to replicate what came before. Instead, the music finds its own identity while still capturing the specific menace and neon-lit melancholy that made Night City feel alive in the first place. The sound design and city work in tandem with the new visual style to reinforce that this is still unmistakably Night City, just viewed through a different lens.
The voice acting across the new cast is genuinely excellent. Every performance carries the specific exhaustion and desperation that defines an edgerunner’s life, without leaning on the mannerisms of the original cast. Nothing here feels like an imitation of David’s crew. This is a new set of people carving out space in a city that does not care whether they succeed.
If there is one thing “Edgerunners” has always done well, it is making Night City feel inhabited rather than staged. That holds true here. Background details, ambient noise and the way characters move through space all reinforce a city with history and texture, not just a backdrop for action. It is the kind of world-building that rewards a rewatch, and episode 1 does not waste its runtime on exposition dumps to get there.
Twenty minutes is a limited window to judge a full season, but it is enough to say that CYBERPUNK EDGERUNNERS 2 understands the assignment. It respects what made the first season a phenomenon while refusing to simply repeat it. Fall cannot come soon enough.
Unlike the first season, CYBERPUNK EDGERUNNERS 2 will tell a brand-new standalone story with a new cast of characters. The series returns to the dangerous streets of Night City, exploring its darkest corners with a more brutal and gritty story. The anime series will premiere in Fall 2026 on Netflix!
Stay tuned to AnimeTV チェーン (@animetv_jp) for the latest information on CYBERPUNK EDGERUNNERS 2 as it is revealed.
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