Studio Trigger, the creators of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, dismissed CD Projekt Red's concerns over the character Rebecca. In a livestream, a producer from CDPR admitted that Rebecca's design, which is particularly childlike, caused issues during Edgerunnners' production, but Studio Trigger nevertheless decided to stick to its original image.
According to the CDPR dev, the studio went as far as saying "the loli must stay" when some from the company voted for her to be removed from the anime altogether. Despite this, it appears both teams are on the same page now, with the dev saying that Rebecca is "best girl".
"She's best girl", the dev said during an Edgerunner's watch party, which took place just before the anime hit Netflix. "But I feel a little bit guilty to say it because I was one of the people on the creative team to actually vote Rebecca out of the original cast during pre-production."
Going into further detail, it's revealed why the Cyberpunk 2077 developer was apprehensive about the character. "CD Projekt Red first got the character design for Rebecca and they were like 'She's a loli. Lolis don't exist in Night City. It doesn't fit the Cyberpunk 2077 aesthetic'. But Trigger was like 'No, the loli must stay.'"
Of course, as we can see in the clip, the conversation is very lighthearted, so it's unlikely that this is exactly how the situation went down. However, it does show that some within the company weren't totally comfortable with Rebecca's design during the show's creation, particularly because she look pretty young compared to the rest of the cast.
Admittedly, the show does go out of its way to establish that Rebecca is not a child as soon as she's introduced (or at least, I hope so, considering what she got up to in her first episode...). As many fans have pointed out, she also doesn't sound very childlike in the English dub, and she doesn't become a love interest during the show either. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that her design is noticeably more petite and childlike to those around her.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is ten episodes long, and is available on Netflix now.
