You Should Check Out City Of God

Four years after dragging Cyberpunk 2077’s damaged reputation out of the muck of its infamously disastrous launch, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is returning with a second season this fall on Netflix. And what better way to celebrate the arrival of its new quartet of anime characters–whom we’ll undoubtedly white-knuckle alongside as they meet their neo-film noir end in Night City in novel, heartbreaking ways–than by priming ourselves with a certified classic piece of cinema that inspired the hero fans hypothesize is destined to die the hardest. 

Ever since Studio Trigger and CD Projekt Red showed off silhouettes of its new characters in the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 teaser trailer and its new quartet of heroes in July 2025—which wasted no time reminding folks that David Martinez is cadaveriffic—I clocked something about the little kid with a camcorder, but kept my mouth shut. Now that those silhouettes have finally stepped into the light with four distinct, brilliant, retro character designs by Kanno Ichigo, I felt confident enough to flee to social media and do what any journalist would: I asked a question. 

My question was pointed at returning writer (and Dark Horse spin-off manga author) Bartosz Sztybor. In a post on X/Twitter revealing Edgerunner’s aforementioned new crewmate, Roman Carax, Sztybor revealed that the aspiring journalist was he and director Kai Ikarashi’s “love letter to cinema.” Being something of a cinephile myself, I asked Sztybor the question that’s been sitting in the back of my mind for nearly a year:

“City of God, yeah?”

Sztybor responded with a GIF from the very same film, confirming my suspicion: Cyberpunk Edgerunners: 2 would be inspired by one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen. Oh, and that little boy might be even more cooked than David was.

City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, is a 2002 crime drama set in Rio de Janeiro. It's also a political/gangster film based on a true story. But mostly, it’s a coming-of-age tale that follows Rocket, an aspiring photojournalist. Rocket also happens to be in the good graces of City of God’s reigning drug lord, Li’l Ze. That relationship is strained, since Li’l Ze used to run with Rocket’s older brother as part of the Robin Hood-esque Tender Trio before the former shot the latter after a job went south and pocketed the money for himself. Their whirlwind relationship is made all the more debilitating when Rocket goes from taking aura-farming photos of his gang and other matters of their criminal monopoly to giving those photos to reporters for publication in newspapers. All the while, gang warfare rises like the summer heat off a car’s dashboard, as cops take bribes to look the other way, egos get bruised with dire consequences, and love blossoms between Rocket and the very taken Angélica. 

In what I’ve gone on record arguing but bears repeating, City of God does what Alex Garland’s A24 (lol) political drama Civil War doesn’t. It's a visceral, on-the-ground psychological drama about corruption in all its systemic palettes. And unlike that story, told through the whitest lens of journalism and giving the same sanctimonious self-importance as The Newsroom, City of God sticks the landing with its hard-earned depiction of Rocket’s struggle to decide whether to document the ugly truths he sees through his camera lens and how it affects those closest to him. Translation: it actually hits on the moral quandary of photojournalist Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph The Vulture and the Little Girl.

To film bros, City of God is mostly known for its stand-off between rival gangs, with Rocket, his camera, and a wayward chicken (whom I still believe was a paid actor) caught in the crossfire. If you love the dreamy-meets-grimy cinematography of Wong Kar-Wai, Michael Mann, and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo, rest assured knowing City of God moves within the same frequency. But for our purposes, City of God is a masterwork that deserves eternal homage and serves as the perfect blueprint for Trigger and CD Projekt Red to weave a new tale in the FUBAR Night City.

As we see in the teaser trailer, much of the anime will reject the modernity of snuff film-equse Braindance chips and embrace the tradition of Roman recording “the truth” of all the horrors that take place in Night City, with all the grotesque gravitas of a LiveLeak video. Great, I can’t wait to see how not Team 7 gets their way out of that jam. I love a “the city always wins” theme and look forward to crying for Roman the moment whatever semblance of faith he has left in humanity is dashed against the rocks and captured in 720p. 

For those needing something a little more concrete to hold onto until Cyberpunk: Edgerunner 2’s release, here’s a link to Anime Corner’s excellent interview with Sztybor, some stills, as well as the show’s logline:

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 presents a new standalone 10-episode story from the world of Cyberpunk 2077— a raw chronicle of redemption and revenge. In a city that thrives in the spotlight of violence, one question remains: when the world is blinded by spectacle, what extremes do you have to go to make your story matter?

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 hits Netflix this fall. 

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