Let You Down by Dawid Podsiadło (2024)

Before: Ah this looks like a fun action packed "turn your brain off" anime to watch after work

After: How tf can fictional animated characters make me so emotional 😭😭😭😭😭

I don't think I've ever felt this emotional and stirred up after fictional content like a game, movie, show whatever... it's an incredible feeling that they made this hir so hard but so sad... classic example of wishing I never watched this masterpiece...
Amazing show, one of the best anime ever made, this is an experience not to be missed. This one really stuck with me all the time and the song is so bitter sweet and romantic man... CD and Trigger nailed this one perfectly. I love how they portrayed Night City as incredibly dangerous and you can just get your head blown off at any minute and life is so fragile and people just *poof, and they're gone...

And it's amazing that they stayed true to the Cyberpunk lore as well with UI, text font, aesthetic, places, guns, people/gangs, cyberware etc etc... You can tell so much love and passion was put into the show to show these details. 10/10!

I loved all the characters in the gang but to be honest David was starting to act like an a$$hole to the end of the show and even though he's got everyone telling him to stop pushing the limits of his body or he'll go cyberpsycho he still does it anyway to fulfil his egotistical pride and deadpan mindset, and things turned out tragic.

He's a likeable character but he really doesn't deserve Lucy honestly since she basically begged for him to stop to save his life and he not only doesn't understand but threatens to break up which hurts Lucy... What a a$$hole! Lucy really did love him and he's probably the only thing that ever really mattered to her. It was very sweet yo see them living together in the luxury apartment, it was so wholesome, Lucy seemed like she just wanted a simple life with David but David chose otherwise...

I think the reason Lucy fancied David in the first place is because he was a very innocent, natural and "organic" person and wholesome, amidst all the cyber chaos, corpo scheming, gang wars and nasty business, David was a person she could feel easy with. But later on she realised that David has embarked on a forsaken cyber route and yet still loves him, that's what makes her a keeper. I think despite this being a bunch of fictional characters and only 10 episodes, it deeply explores the human condition. Very impressive honestly.

He also doesn't deserve Rebecca too lol. I think this show does a great job showing the downfall of a person who strives to hard for power and abandons his humanity and what matters to him, and no one could stop him in place in ruining himself... He's a heroic idiot who witnessed how bad going insane is with all these modifications but still couldn't resist his spiral down, it's quite a tragic story since the developers are really good at making feel attached to characters and then ripping them away painfully...😣🤨

Anyways the show really did made you FEEL so many emotions by the end. Sadness, melancholy, emptiness etc etc... 😫
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@@mingyuhuang8944 David was driven by his good nature and his desire to make it big, something that Night City instills in people on a very basic level. The wish is always there, it's even a promise the city makes to you. You CAN make it big... the price is just very very high.

David got lost on his journey, he lost sight of what mattered to him in the beginning. His mother, his friends, his good nature. He fought for his beliefs until he too was corrupted by Night City. Towards the end we see him struggle with it. He recognizes what he has become and it torments him but he can't stop. He hasn't "won" yet. He hasn't yet made it big *enough*.

Lucy on the other hand did exactly as you said, she fell in love with David for his innocence and positive outlook on life. She saw in him what she never saw in other people, a good-hearted, innocent person that just wanted to live their life. Lucy was trapped in her life of crime and David looked like a way out. A way to reclaim some normalcy.

Sadly their paths diverted towards the end. They both had something to finish, something to do, some middle finger to give to the corporations and gangs that hounded them their entire life. It broke both of them but it broke David the most. He went psycho over it.

My personal theory is that cyberpsychosis doesn't actually exist. It's just psychosis. Most cyberpsychos have a LOT of emotional trauma that never gets processed. Instead, it keeps piling on because of their lifestyle. That, paired with the sense of superiority and "loss of reality" inherent to massive cyber-augmentation leads to them losing track of who they really are and what's really important in life. They become weapons, aiming themselves at whatever they think is a danger to them and their goals. We see this in David. Random people sprouting weapons out of their bodies, aimed at him. He feels constantly threatened, even by those who pose no danger to him. He's completely lost in his life of violence. There is no more life without violence for him.

So when he, at the very end of his journey, reclaims what little humanity he had left and fights the only fight worth fighting, the fight for his friends and his family, he can die with a smile. Sane. Himself. Leaving Lucy behind, who had no means to drag him out of the swamp he walked into. Yet it isn't his fault entirely. Many people fucked up on the way, Lucy too. She was the one who introduced him to the cyberpunk lifestyle in the first place. She tolerated his steady corruption. She withdrew herself when he needed her the most.

There is no blame game to play with this series. Everyone fucked up. Noone is innocent. Noone is without fault. That's the core concept of the modern Cyberpunk setting, the world's gone downhill too much for people like David and Lucy to have a happy ending.

There are so many appreciative comments about the Edgerunner series (rightfully so), but can we talk about how beautifully animated and directed this MV is? It tells us the story of Sasha, Maine's netrunner before Kiwi and Lucy. She had lost her mother presumably due to illness and, like David, was sucked into the life of a Cyberpunk.

She had lived her life peering through the kaleidoscope of Night City, captivated by its glamor and promises; but try as she might to create her own happiness amid its shimmer (2:42) she could never shake the anguish of losing her kin. During a Biotechnica gig, she learns the truth about the "Securicine" painkillers her mother took while serving the military. It killed her through "gradual neurodegeneration" - a side effect undisclosed to the public to keep profits flowing. Sasha determines to leak this information at the cost of her life, holding valiantly against the security bots until the upload was complete.

Did her tip truly make a difference? Hardly. Biotechnica remains a monolithic mega enterprise, ever-present in both game and anime. And so the life of an evidently vibrant, vivacious girl burns away, and her dream of bringing down the system along with it. Just like David, just like Johnny Silverhand, and countless others in Night City. But it gave her some closure at least (3:56) You can see her older self comforting her younger self as she flatlines with a smile on her face. She was finally free.

Forgive me for letting you down
Forgive me for letting you down again
I guess I'm not strong enough
Right now

They will finally feel the flames
Flames that run down through my veins
I will make the city burn
We're not planning to return

PSA: You can now listen to the new song by Dawid Podsiadło & P.T. Adamczyk, “Phantom Liberty”, on:

🎶 YouTube: https://youtu.be/u15tEo0wsQI
🎶 Spotify and other streaming services: https://dawidpodsiadlo.lnk.to/PhantomLiberty