Edgerunners was really good and did everything super well, however, the short runtime (while making it easy to watch due to each episode being packed with plot development) meant that they neglected giving the story "downtime". In my opinion stories have three general modes they can be in at any one time; "uptime", "downtime", and "filler". "uptime" is when big plot or large character development happens, with stuff like people dying, big decisions, action sequences, dilemmas, etc. happening, while "downtime" is where a lot of stuff happens like character development through interaction with other characters, exposition, information, world building, character nuance, and where the audience can better understand and connect with the characters and the world they inhabit.

The one problem I have with Edgerunners is that the scale of the story being fit into 10 episodes means that it feels like a lot of "downtime" is cut due to the fact that so much has to happen for the plot to conclude, i.e. it gives the impression that they had the start and end goals and then tried to fit everything in between them, leading to way too much "uptime". This means that for me at least some of the emotional moments were a lot less impactful then they could have been, as while they were definitely emotional I was very slightly apathetic to them as I had limited attachments to the characters. An example of this would be [SPOILERS FROM HERE ON] David and Lucy's relationship, which was developed very rapidly and didn't have as much screen time as it should have. I thought this was especially true as by the end I felt like they had only known each other for a few days when the time skip (and therefore their proper relationship) lasted anywhere from a few months to two years. This reduced the emotional impact of the ending for me, which I thought was a shame as it had massive potential to be one of the most emotional shows I have ever watched. When compared to the end of the Chimera Ant Arc in Hunter x Hunter, which actually made me cry (a lot), the major difference is the amount of "downtime" character and relationship growth that mainly Meruem, but also Kokugi, experience while playing Gungi. The more you can relate to characters, watch them grow, and see their complexities, the more they feel like real individuals with their own aspirations and fears.

This brings me back to Edgerunners, as the lack of "downtime" hurts how real the characters feel, and so when something bad happens to a character (like David's mom for example) you just go oh no and move on, because they feel less like real people that could exist and more like a robot that has bad stuff happen to them.

If you made it this far I appreciate it, as I am not saying it is a bad show. I think Edgerunners is a fantastic show which does everything extremely well. My criticism is more of a review of what could have been then what it is, as it is a better show then 95% of other anime out there. I think that with a few more episodes to spread out the "uptime" big shocks and moments and provide more development to the relationships between the characters, I would have been crying buckets instead of feeling a bit sad and emotional on the inside at the ending. I gave it a detailed rating of 8.9 (averaging seven categories each out of ten) and it would have been closer to a ten out of ten if the story had more of a chance to breath and develop at a slower pace. Still really loved it though, studio Trigger did a fantastic job with this one