Last night, I sat down with a greasy pizza and a few bottles of beer and braced myself for 10 episodes of heartbreak. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners' second season is out, and it follows in the footsteps of Studio Trigger's beloved, and tragic, debut. My expectations were way off.

Not because it wasn't good: Edgerunners Season 2 is fantastic. Packed with a wonderful cast of troubled characters, their story brought to life with gorgeous and often unorthodox animation. The soundtrack, the voice acting... Quality-wise the bar is as high as the first season. What surprised me was the decision to bring something many may find peculiar given Cyberpunk's dire setting and desperate energy. The show is hopeful. Defiant, even.

In the show's opening episode, we are introduced to characters at rock bottom. King, having suffered from cyberpsychosis, has had his augmentations stripped out of his body, and lost his home. D's in the midst of a lonely journey of revenge, while Talia is rubbing elbows with the Maelstrom gang. Roman, a 12-year-old, is broke and struggling to pursue filmmaking in a world that's left the medium behind. In the pursuit of money, he is nearly diced up.

These characters have all the reason in the world to lose themselves to despair, to burn out. Some almost do. However, as the season progresses, they each find a reason to push on, to live in spite of the odds. By the end of the season, while their problems may not have vanished, those who can choose to push on regardless of what life may throw at them.

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