Netflix recently released the much-awaitedCyberpunk: Edgerunners anime, which takes us back to the Night City. The animated series from Studio Trigger introduces us to David Martinez and Lucy, who are forced to survive the horrors of the city’s underworld.
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The story kicks off with the introduction of David Martinez, a gifted student at the Arasaka Academy. David’s mother, Gloria, supplies Cyberware to a group of Edgerunners to pay for her son’s fees. She always wished for her son to become successful by working for Arasaka and reaching the top. However, fate had something else planned for David.
WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS for the Cyberpunk Edgerunners anime series.After Gloria’s death, David turns to the dark side and becomes an Edgerunner to come out of the massive debt he has accumulated. During his journey as an Edgerunner, David stumbles upon several powerful Cyberware, including Sandevistan, which is an advanced Cyberware tech that slows down time for its user. However, this great power of Cybernetic implants comes at a hefty price.
Apparently, the overuse of cybernetics causes an incurable mental illness, Cyberpsychosis, and the same disease claimed the life of the previous user of Sandevistan. That’s why the Ripperdoc who installed Sandevistan on David’s body asked him not to use the Cyberware more than three times a day. But, David continued to ignore all warnings and kept using Sandevistan several times a day (sometimes more than ten times). David also saw Maine - a veteran Edgerunner - becoming a victim of Cyberpsychosis because of his implants, but even that wasn’t enough to make David stop.
From the start, David believed that he was special, maybe because that was the last thing his mother said before dying. So, even after witnessing several people losing their minds because of cybernetic implants, David continued exploiting the power of Sandevistan for several years. He thought that, unlike Maine, he was strong enough to endure the side effects of Cyberware, but the devil (In this case, Cyberpsychosis) eventually caught up to him.
Of course, David was somewhat special, so it’s no wonder he didn’t develop Cyberpsychosis for so many years. That’s why Arasaka wanted to use David as a lab rat, and their scientists might have made David the next Adam Smasher. David surely had higher endurance than others, but he wasn’t exactly invincible.
David started showing the signs of Cyberpsychosis even before getting the Cyber Skeleton implant in the final episode. His mind was stable only because of the heavy dose of medication, which, according to the Ripperdoc, would not have lasted for more than ten days. So, instead of going insane and taking a bullet to the head, David decides to use the last of his medication to save Lucy and his team.
David Lost To Adam Smasher, Not Cyberpsychosis
David knew that he would go insane at any moment during their last heist (a trap that Faraday set to capture David), so he asked Rebecca to keep injecting him with the medication. Fortunately, that helped David to snap out of the Cyberpsychosis several times during the fight, and he eventually saved Lucy and Falco. After that, Falco grabs Lucy and escapes the scene, while David decides to fight Adam Smasher.
David was indeed strong with Cyberware like Sandevistan and Cyber Skeleton, but that wasn’t enough to defeat Adam Smasher. In the final moments, Adam Smasher breaks every part of David’s body and eventually kills the boy. David indeed had a stronger will, and that’s why Lucy was able to snap him out of Cyberpsychosis. Even Adam Smasher acknowledged David’s endurance and said that the boy would become a nice Construct (Like Johnny Sillverhand in Cyberpunk 2077). But, of course, David rejects the offer, and we see Smasher taking his final shot at David.
In the end, we don’t see David’s body, so there’s a chance Smasher did save the boy’s consciousness through a Construct. In that case, the creators might decide to bring back David to one of their upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 projects. However, given that Cyberpunk Edgerunners was announced as a standalone story, it’s safe to say that David’s journey has come to an end in the anime TV series.
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