Anime Expo 2026: Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 and Ghost in the Shell Lead Reveals
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 held its world premiere before roughly 6,000 fans at Crypto.com Arena on July 3, the centrepiece of a jam-packed Anime Expo 2026 in Los Angeles that also locked in a July 7 Prime Video launch for the new Ghost in the Shell series. Both franchises used the convention to move from “coming soon” to concrete dates, giving anime and gaming fans two of the year’s biggest cyberpunk releases within days of each other.
Six Thousand Fans Watched Edgerunners 2’s First Episode Without a Single Leak
The world premiere of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 took place Thursday evening, July 3, at Crypto.com Arena — the Los Angeles Lakers’ home venue — before approximately 6,000 attendees. The screening was a one-time-only event: it wasn’t recorded or streamed anywhere, so those seats at the arena were the only way to see it.
What happened next stood out in an industry where convention footage usually leaks within minutes. CD Projekt Red publicly thanked thousands of fans who attended the exclusive premiere after the first episode remained free of major leaks online, with the audience largely respecting the request not to record footage or reveal major story details. Satoru Homma, CD Projekt Red’s Associate Country Director for Japan, wrote on social media: “So far, the first episode streamed at Anime Expo hasn’t leaked. Thank you so much for keeping your promise properly.”
Reactions that did surface focused on tone rather than plot specifics. One review noted the premiere was a more grounded, Martin Scorsese-like depiction of the city that always wins compared with the first season’s flashier style.
Four New Leads Replace David Martinez in Night City’s Second Standalone Story
The panel that followed the screening confirmed the show is a fresh chapter rather than a continuation. CD PROJEKT RED announced a panel dedicated to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 at Anime Expo, offering fans a closer look at the standalone series, which is produced in collaboration between CD PROJEKT RED and TRIGGER and will air on Netflix. The July 3 panel featured showrunner Bartosz Sztybor and executive producer Saya Elder from CD PROJEKT RED alongside director Kai Ikarashi from TRIGGER, hosted by content creator Danny Motta.
David Martinez does not return. Instead, the new series follows four entirely new characters across Night City: Weak Kingsley, voiced by Clancy Brown, a veteran edgerunner living in the shadow of his former glory; D, played by Nazeeh Tarsha, a Netrunner for the Snake Nation nomads; Roman Carax, voiced by Valeria Rodriguez, a young cinephile documenting the city’s dysfunction; and Talia Yang, voiced by Kimoy Lee, a chromed-out woman connected to the Maelstrom gang. Director Kai Ikarashi and writer Masahiko Otsuka return for the standalone 10-episode season, which is confirmed for fall 2026 on Netflix without a firmer release date yet announced.
Read also: Anime Expo 2026: Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 and Ghost in the Shell Lead Reveals
Ghost in the Shell Breaks Production I.G’s 37-Year Grip on the Franchise
While CD Projekt Red and TRIGGER dominated the Night City conversation, Bandai Namco Filmworks used the convention to give Ghost in the Shell its own spotlight. THE GHOST IN THE SHELL made its North American debut at Anime Expo 2026, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 2 to July 5, with a Saturday, July 4 screening of Episodes 1 and 2 followed by an exclusive panel and Q&A session featuring Mokochan, the director, and Shuhei Handa, character designer and executive animation director.
The new adaptation, produced by Science SARU, marks a historic shift for the franchise. The adaptation from the studio behind Devilman Crybaby marks the first Ghost in the Shell anime not animated by Production I.G in the franchise’s 37-year history. The series is set two years earlier than the classic 1995 film’s continuity, following Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg who leads an elite combat unit including fellow cyborg Batou, in a world where cybernetic enhancement has increasingly blurred the distinction between humans and machines, with Daisuke Aramaki of the Ministry of Home Affairs recruiting her team to form Public Security Section 9, an aggressive tactical unit investigating cybercrime and terrorism.
Streaming Windows: Netflix Fall Slot for Edgerunners 2, Prime Video Live Now for Ghost in the Shell in AU/NZ
For fans in Australia and New Zealand, the Ghost in the Shell reboot is already the more immediate watch. The all-new Ghost in the Shell anime, released internationally on July 7, is available to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in most international territories, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and Australia. Anime News Network’s regional coverage confirmed Australia and New Zealand are both included in the day-and-date rollout, with the anime streaming simultaneously on Prime Video in over 240 countries and regions worldwide, excluding mainland China, Russia, and Vietnam. New episodes then continue weekly, with episode 2 releasing July 14 at 7:30 AM Pacific, 10:30 AM Eastern and 3:30 PM BST — times that translate to a late Monday-night slot on the New Zealand and eastern Australian clock.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 fans, by contrast, will need to wait longer, with only a fall 2026 Netflix window confirmed so far and no specific calendar date locked in following the Anime Expo panel. Given Netflix’s history of simultaneous worldwide drops for the first Edgerunners season, Kiwi and Australian viewers should expect the sequel to land on the same day as the rest of the world once a date is finally set.
Taken together, the two premieres underline just how central Anime Expo has become as a launchpad for game-adjacent anime. Both series lean on the same cyberpunk DNA that has powered Cyberpunk 2077 and the broader genre’s crossover appeal, and both now have concrete dates for local audiences to plan around rather than vague “sometime this year” promises.
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