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Kiwi is a netrunner and both a major character and later antagonist in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Appearance[]
Kiwi is an extremely tall and slender woman robed in a long, red jacket. Her most notable feature is a red mask that covers her lower face and jaw, which is entirely missing underneath. She has a light blonde bob cut and angular, feline eyes. Her body, which seems to be heavily modified with cyberware, is covered in a spiderweb motif tattoo and her nipples and pubic area are blue.
Biography[]
Kiwi was born to two unnamed parents whom sold her off to a corporate factory while she was still a toddler, where she worked alongside other children. In this factory she would prove useful in the production of implant subassemblies due to her small hands.[3]
After the factory's foreman took an interest in her, her living conditions improved. Eventually, the foreman insisted she'd marry her as a way to repay him. Kiwi, opposing his demands, was promptly sold off to a brothel. After becoming a joytoy against her will, she used the technical know-how she attained from working at the factory to engineer a device to cut her off from any emotions and sensations while with a client.[3]
After spending around two years at the brothel, one of her clients brutally assaulted her and tore away part of her jaw with their Gorilla Arms. She left her job at the brothel to recover from the incident and learn about Netrunning. She used the newly acquired skills to burn down both the brothel and the factory with their owners inside by causing circuit failures. Having dealt with her past, she moved to Night City and started working small gigs where she met Rebecca, who recruited her into Maine's crew.[3]
A member of Maine's crew of mercenaries, Kiwi is an enigmatic and snarky netrunner with a detachable cybernetic jaw mask who acts as a mentor to Lucy.[4] She acts as a replacement for Sasha, who is killed on an infiltration mission an unknown amount of time before the events of Edgerunners. Maine reveals to David that Lucy joined the crew about a year prior to the events of Edgerunners, so Kiwi has likely been in the crew much longer than a year. She is generally distant, as her personal philosophy is to "never trust a soul in Night City," though she favors Lucy over others and can be seen communicating with her on a more intimate level. As a netrunner, she mostly plays an intel role, and is therefore usually off-screen. However, once Maine's crew begins their investigation into Tanaka under Faraday's orders, she is more actively involved. While diving, she discovers that Tanaka was a fan of Jimmy Kurosaki's braindances, which are edited snuff sequences from the final moments of various cyberpsychos. David, who is both a fan of JK's work and used to sell his XBDs on Arasaka campus as a hustle, informs her of his process, which allows them to hatch a scheme to capture Tanaka.
This plan first involves ambushing Jimmy, which backfires when he activates a powerful EMP that causes Kiwi to vomit uncontrollably. She is not seen until the Jimmy situation is resolved and they successfully use him to bait Tanaka into being kidnapped. It is then her job to dive into Tanaka's memory and access secret Arasaka data requested by Faraday. However, she struggles to bypass Tanaka's dense ICE. In a cyberpsychotic rage, Maine pulls her from the ice bath and unknowingly beats her while she's unconscious, after which she is unable to perform the job, prompting Lucy to take her place.
The next time Kiwi is seen is after the timeskip, helping David, Rebecca, and Julio perform a mission for Wakako. At the mission after party, David asks her about Lucy's past, which she admits she knows nothing about. Lucy, who has been absent from running with the crew since Maine and Dorio passed, calls Kiwi to check up on David. Kiwi responds by telling her David is mopey and anxious without Lucy around. After the call ends, Faraday is seen visiting Kiwi. Kiwi and Faraday are aware of the strange occurrences around the Tanaka mission, notably data that went missing after Lucy subbed in as deep diver. Faraday has been hired by Arasaka to retrieve said data, so he bribes Kiwi to betray her crew.
Kiwi introduces David directly to Faraday for the first time at the Afterlife, as part of a plot to capture Lucy and get David involved in testing an Arasaka superweapon. Meanwhile, she and Faraday manage to capture Lucy, who has been killing Arasaka's netrunners to keep the data that went missing a secret. Kiwi, by diving into Lucy's memories, recovers both the missing data and learns of her past for the first time.
She accompanies David, Rebecca and Falco on their mission to intercept an Arasaka convoy carrying the cyberskeleton, where David is forced to install it due to overwhelming Militech presence and Kiwi and Faraday's scheming. After it's installed, Kiwi incapacitates Falco with a quickhack and rides away on her motorcycle, planning to flee the city. However, at the last minute, Faraday demands a meeting with her, telling her it's the only way she'll get her reward money. Despite knowing better, she obliges and is shot in the chest by Faraday, as she knows too much. While bleeding out, she makes one last call to Falco, informing them of the location of Faraday's aerodyne and, consequently, Lucy. She is shot dead by Faraday's hired hands, though she manages to explode one of their heads with a hack before dying.
Lucy wrote "You taught me to never trust anyone in NC" on Kiwi's niche in Night City's Columbarium.
Equipment[]
| Cyberware | Jaw mask,[5][3] Neuroport (Cyberdeck Port (Cyberdeck chip), multiple Personal Links, subdermal neural processor[6]), Sensation and Emotion Dampening Implant, Spider Web Light Tattoo, Spider Silk Producing Breast Implant[7] |
| Weaponry | Unity |
| Miscellaneous | Handheld Cyberdeck[8] |
| Vehicles | ARCH Nazaré |
Trivia[]
- During Edgerunners's production, Kiwi had a range of different clothes, including a blue coat with a hat. She also had a cyber-dog companion. None of them appeared in the final anime.[9]
- Kiwi is director Hiroyuki Imaishi's favorite character.[10]
References[]
- ↑ Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Twitter 1
- ↑ CD Projekt RED Japan on Twitter
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit - Edgerunner's Handbook. Kenmore, WA, R. Talsorian Games, 2024. (p.37)
- ↑ Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Twitter 2
- ↑ Mask Image
- ↑ Mike Pondsmith on Reddit
- ↑ Hiroyuki Imaishi on Reddit
- ↑ STUDIO TRIGGER. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - Humanity. Netflix/CD Projekt RED, 2022.
- ↑ TRIGGER Inc. on Twitter
- ↑ Hiroyuki Imaishi on Reddit 2
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