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Meta Runner

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Meta Runner
Also known asMeta Runner: The Final Season (season 3)
Genre
Created by
  • Kevin Lerdwichagul
  • Luke Lerdwichagul
Written by
  • Kevin Lerdwichagul (S1)
  • Jasmine Yang
Directed byLuke Lerdwichagul (S2)
Creative directorLuke Lerdwichagul (S1)
Voices of
  • Celeste Notley-Smith
  • Jessica Fallico
  • Robyn Barry-Cotter
  • David J.G. Doyle
  • Brendan Barry-Cotter
  • Hayley Nelson
  • Anthony Sardinha
  • Elsie Lovelock
  • Jason Marnocha
  • Amber Lee Connors
Theme music composerAJ DiSpirito
Opening theme"Always Running" (performed by Matthew Guerra, S1)
"Only Up" (performed by Lizz Robinett, S2)
Ending theme"Breeze" (performed by KIMI, S1)
"Steady" (performed by Matthew Guerra, S2)
"Trade" (performed by Matthew Guerra and Lizz Robinett, S3)
"BlueJay" (performed by Lizz Robinett, S3E08)
ComposerAJ DiSpirito
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes28
Production
Executive producers
  • Kevin Lerdwichagul (S3)
  • Luke Lerdwichagul (S3)
  • Jasmine Yang (S3E08)
ProducerKevin Lerdwichagul
Running time12–23 minutes
Production companyGlitch Productions
Original release
NetworkYouTube
Release25 July 2019 (2019-07-25) –
9 September 2022 (2022-09-09)
Related
  • Ultra Jump Mania
  • SMG4

Meta Runner (known as Meta Runner: The Final Season during its third and final season) is an Australian independent-animated web series created by Kevin and Luke Lerdwichagul. Produced by Glitch Productions, with funding support from Screen Australia, Crunchyroll, AMD, and Epic Games,[2][3][4][5] it premiered on YouTube on July 25, 2019, with season 2 premiering on the channel GLITCH on October 16, 2020. The third and final season premiered on July 22, 2022.

The series takes place in a futuristic society where entertainment and lifestyle are based around video games and esports. The best of the best gamers in this society replace one of their arms with a cybernetic arm in order to optimize their gameplay performance, and are known as "Meta Runners". The series focuses on an amnesiac girl named Tari, who discovers that she has the ability to warp inside video games, and comes across and helps an undercover group called MD-5 in their mission to expose the corrupt company TAS Corp.

A pilot for a spin-off show titled Ultra Jump Mania, based on the fictional video game of the same name in the show, was released on 4 September 2020, but it was not picked up for a full season.

Synopsis

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In Silica City, all media and entertainment are mostly based around video games, not just serving as entertainment, but also jobs in live streaming and lifestyle. Among members of society are Meta Runners, individuals who have replaced their limbs with cybernetic arms that allow them to boost their gaming performance.

The series tells the story of Tari, a Meta Runner who was the subject of an experiment called Project Blue, led by Dr. Sheridan, a TAS Corp scientist. After waking up in safehouse in the alleys of Silica City, Tari finds herself in the city with amnesia. The last thing Tari can remember is a sudden accident causing an explosion in the lab that seemingly kills Sheridan and his test subject, Lucinia Porter.

Voice cast and characters

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Main characters

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  • Celeste Notley-Smith as Tari, the main protagonist of the entire series. She is a shy and insecure Meta Runner who has the ability to warp into the video games she plays and has Meta Runner vision, a program that gives her the best strategies, it can even work in real life, as she used it to make a car fly over Lucks to escape him. At the end of season 2, she discovers she is an AI made by Dr. Sheridan that was going to enhance video game performance but in testing, he pushed a setting too hard which caused an explosion, The fragments of Lucinia's (who was warped in with Tari) was merged with Tari after she helped Lucinia get to TAS Corp's servers. At the end of the show, she sacrificed herself to revive Lucinia from her comatose state. She salvaged parts of Sheridan's server and revived Theo after Evelyn destroyed him. They now reside in cyberspace.
  • Robyn Barry-Cotter (born Moore) as Theo, the goofy yet determined protagonist of the game Ultra Jump Mania, where he encounters Tari after she stumbles into his world. He gets transported to the real world via Tari's abilities. At the penultimate episode of the show, Evelyn disintegrates Theo out of existence, but it was revealed his data was scattered around cyberspace, which Tari used to revive him. They both now reside in cyberspace
  • Hayley Nelson as Sofia Porter, a cheerful and upbeat girl who is one of Tari's friends. She is not known to play video games, but still helps MD-5 via her hacking skills.
  • Anthony Sardinha as
    • Lamar Williams, an easygoing otaku with a unique cybernetic arm and is a friend of Tari's.
    • Dr. James Sheridan, the overarching antagonist of the series and the main antagonist of season 3. He is an ex-TAS Corp scientist who created the Meta Runner Arm and was behind Project Blue to try to prevent Lucks from firing him. He is presumed missing alongside Lucinia after an explosion while developing Project Blue.
  • Brendan Barry-Cotter as Masa Shimamoto, a calm, composed, and serious friend of Tari but is a former team captain for TAS Corp. He was decommissioned after trying to hack into Lucks’ private server to prove his theory that Lucks killed Lucinia.
  • Jessica Fallico as Belle Fontiere, the secondary antagonist of season 1, an anti-heroine of season 2 and 3 a rival of Tari. She is also a representative of TASCorp and their most celebrated Meta Runner. She is Lucinia's girlfriend, but after finding out about her apparent death, she begins to disobey her boss and act on her own accord.
  • David J.G. Doyle as Derek Lucks, the main antagonist of the show, and the arch-nemesis of Masa. He was the CEO of TAS Corp who was obsessed with Tari, due to her unexpected ability to warp into video games. He tried to capture Tari in order to discover the cause of her ability and give it to his other Meta Runners so that TAS Corp surpasses their competition. He was fatally shot at the end of season 2 after Sheridan hacked Masa's cybernetic arm. An AI version of Lucks appears as a recurring character in the 3rd season.
  • Elsie Lovelock as Evelyn Claythorne, the secondary antagonist of the show and a Meta Runner at TAS Corp., is shown to be extremely snobby, selfish, and whiny throughout her appearances in the show. She is also forced to be Tari's show match partner, even though she heavily resents Tari for stealing her spotlight.
  • Amber Lee Connors as Lucinia Porter, the overarching protagonist of the entire series. She was a Meta Runner at TAS Corp, and was the human test subject for Dr. Sheridan's "Project Blue". She was presumed missing after the final phase of "Project Blue" which ended with an explosion. It is revealed in the finale of season 2 that Lucinia survived the explosion but her mind was fragmented, parts of it were lost in the server whilst the others fused with the T.A.R.I. program, meaning she has been a part of Tari the entire time. At the start of the final season, Sheridan warps Tari into his server and tries to revive Lucinia by drilling into Tari, but Theo intervened, leaving the surgery incomplete. But with the fragments she had, Lucinia had little consciousness, only being able to respond to Evelyn and Sheridan's orders. After battling with each other, Lucinia and Tari land in Sheridan's virtual lab where Tari sacrifices herself and revives Lucinia. She is now reunited with her friends. She is the sister of Sofia Porter, the A.I. fragment of Tari, and the girlfriend of Belle Fontiere.

Minor characters

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  • Jason Marnocha as Marco, a host of underground gaming tournaments in the slums of Silica City. He collects Meta Runner arms and uses two of them as additional limbs.
  • Elsie Lovelock as Bo, a minor character who serves as the mascot of TAS Corp. She only appears on Silica City billboards.
  • Kevin and Luke Lerdwichagul as the Bot-boys, common robots found across Silica City, usually with a job or function. One is also shown to be in the game Ultra Jump Mania.
  • David J.G. Doyle as Elder Tomato, a character in the video game Ultra Jump Mania. His purpose in the game is to give the player expositionary information and advice. He is also a supporting character of the spinoff series Ultra Jump Mania.
  • Amber Lee Connors as Satsuki-chan, a character from the dating simulation game Nova Explorers. She appears in the handheld dating simulation game Pocket Gakusei due to a crossover between the two games.
  • Brendan Blaber as Petey, an NPC and a tutorial guide from Skybreakers.

Guest stars

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History and production

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As revealed in a video titled "The Making of Tari" uploaded by Luke and Kevin Lerdwichagul on 14 February 2019 on the YouTube channel SMG4, the concept of Tari's character started when Kevin and Luke asked their younger sister, Tish, who was drawing in her sketchbook, if she had any ideas for a new character to add to their channel's titular machinima series; she drew a "gamer girl" character who would become Tari. The first early design of Tari was for her to be a robot instead of a cyborg, an antenna on top of her head, headphones, a simple jacket with a love heart stitched onto it and a d-pad for her right eye.

Eventually, Tari was redesigned as a human cyborg with a white vest with the Meta Runner emblem, which was based on the blue jay’s wing. She was also given a blue hoodie with blue jay wing patterns on each shoulder starting from "Sequence Break" (episode 4).

Meta Runner was first teased at the end of the SMG4 episode, "War of the Fat Italians 2018", depicting the character Theo and the date 5 December 2018. The months following had similar teasers of different Meta Runner arms before the official trailer for Meta Runner was uploaded on 5 December 2018.

On 18 March 2019, it was announced that Meta Runner was one of many projects to receive funding from a $500,000 grant from Unreal Engine.[6] On 25 June 2019, it was announced that Meta Runner would be funded by Screen Australia,[7] Epic Games and AMD. On 20 July 2019, Glitch Productions announced that they had partnered with Crunchyroll to produce the series.[8] On 20 April 2020, Screen Australia announced the funding of Meta Runner season 2.[9][10] The second season aired from 16 October to 18 December 2020.

A third season was announced by the creator Luke Lerdwichagul a few weeks before season 2 was completed, before being formally announced on November 29, 2021. A teaser trailer was released on May 6, 2022. The teaser confirmed that the third season will be the final season and will be released the summer of the same year.

On June 24, 2022, the official trailer for season 3 was released, confirming it would begin on July 22, 2022. It ended on September 9, 2022.

Although the series has concluded, it has been referenced in the primary SMG4 series, with the recurring leitmotif being heard in the SMG4 Movie "Western Spaghetti". The SMG4 counterpart of Tari was also redesigned to resemble her Meta Runner equivalent.

Comic

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After the finale on September 9, 2022, a comic series, entitled "Meta Runner: Source" was announced, appearing to go through the backstory of Lucinia Porter. It was also promoted through a pre-video announcement for the third episode of SMG4's "Lawsuit Arc", "SMG4: If Mario Was In... Splatoon 3", released on September 10. A trailer dedicated to the comic was released on September 11 on the GLITCH channel.

Episodes

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SeriesEpisodesOriginally released
First releasedLast released
11025 July 2019 (2019-07-25)10 October 2019 (2019-10-10)
21016 October 2020 (2020-10-16)18 December 2020 (2020-12-18)
3822 July 2022 (2022-07-22)9 September 2022 (2022-09-09)

Season 1 (2019)

[edit]

All episodes were written by Kevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang, and Luke Lerdwichagul served as creative director.

No.
overall		No. in
season		TitleCreative Direction byWritten byOriginal release date
11"Wrong Warp"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang25 July 2019 (2019-07-25)
An amnesiac woman named Tari wakes up in a lab and finds herself in Silica City. She discovers she has a cybernetic arm and learns that she is a Meta Runner, people who replace their limbs with cybernetic enhancements to improve their video game performance. Tari walks into a TASCorp store and finds a speedrunning arena in a back room. There, she sees a Meta Runner, Belle Fontiere, attempting to set the world record for the game Ultra Jump Mania by executing a glitch. Belle performs the glitch correctly but misses the goal pole, thus losing the record. Once everyone leaves, Tari picks up Belle's controller and starts playing. Belle belittles Tari at first, but soon begins to question who she is and where she learned to play the game. Tari's rapid finger movements cause her to suddenly lose consciousness. When she wakes up, she finds herself on an island. She is then attacked by Theo, the protagonist of Ultra Jump Mania, and Tari learns she has been transported into the game. Meanwhile, Belle calls in her boss, Lucks, to investigate. He begins to berate Belle for her failure in the speedrun, but he soon becomes intrigued by Tari. After seeing that she is in the game, Lucks urgently calls in his TASCorp scientists.
22"Out of Bounds"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang1 August 2019 (2019-08-01)
Inside Ultra Jump Mania, Tari manages to convince Theo that she isn't an enemy. Theo tells Tari that she is on Simpleflip Island and then proceeds to leave her behind. Tari catches up to him and follows him on a platforming adventure. On the way, Tari discovers her Meta Runner vision, which gives her data and shows her how to pass obstacles. The duo eventually comes across a horde of palm tree monsters known as Facepalms. Theo gives Tari a pineapple hammer and the two engage the enemies. Back in the real world, Lucks and his scientists continue to investigate Tari. Belle is unimpressed, but Lucks says that Tari's ability could be the future of gaming and that he could give her ability to everyone, pointing out that he invented the influential Meta Runner arm. In the game, Tari and Theo defeat the enemies. Lucks arrives in the game, speaking through a version of Theo. Lucks asks Tari about her abilities, and the TASCorp scientists begin drilling into her arm, causing her agonizing pain. With a burst of energy, Tari returns to the real world and is shocked to discover that Theo came back into reality with her.
33"Bad Split"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang8 August 2019 (2019-08-08)
Tari and Theo are confronted by Lucks, who attempts to convince Tari to work for him at TASCorp. Tari refuses and, with help from Theo, manages to escape the speedrunning arena. Belle tries to chase after her, but Lucks stops her, saying they can't be seen chasing a civilian in public. They take what they have and Lucks promises to deal with Tari. Meanwhile, Tari and Theo hide in an alleyway in Silica City, with Tari saying they are in real danger and Theo's video game abilities don't work in the real world. They hide inside a streaming pod, where Tari has a flashback of a mysterious scientist and Theo inadvertently gives up their location to Belle by starting a live stream. Tari is confronted by Belle and is eventually captured, while Theo fights off the TASCorp scientists and escapes. Theo then sees Tari getting loaded into the back of a TASCorp van and begins to cry. However, a mysterious Meta Runner approaches Theo and tells him not to worry.
44"Sequence Break"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang15 August 2019 (2019-08-15)
Inside the back of the TASCorp van, Belle tries to calm Tari down, telling her they only plan to extract her abilities to give them to other TASCorp Meta Runners and saying that she herself has been through worse. As Tari begins to wonder what will happen to Theo, the van is hit by a car. Tari escapes the van and sees Theo in the car. She gets in and it drives off, with Lucks and Belle in pursuit in the van. Inside the car, Theo introduces Tari to Lamar Williams, a Meta Runner who is driving the car with a game controller. He gives Tari a hoodie that causes signal interference, believing Lucks put a tracking device in her arm. After a car chase through the city, the trio eventually comes up against a closed barrier set up by Lucks. Tari uses her Meta Runner vision to analyse the situation and takes the controller from Lamar; she escapes by using a fallen billboard to propel the car over the barrier. Lamar promises to take Tari and Theo to a safe place. Meanwhile, Lucks tells Belle that he no longer just wants Tari's powers, but wants her, which Belle calls creepy. Elsewhere, Lamar brings Tari and Theo to a secret hideout in a ramen shop. There, Tari and Theo meet Lamar's friends: Sofia Porter and the Meta Runner Masa Shimamoto.
55"Aimbot"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang22 August 2019 (2019-08-22)
A flashback shows a spy camera watching Belle at the speedrunning area before Tari shows up. In the present, Lamar explains that he and his crew were using the camera to gather some intel on Lucks and TASCorp on the day of the speedrunning incident, but changed their plans when they saw what happened with Tari. Sofia tells Tari and Theo that their group, MD-5, are trying to take down TASCorp for all the horrible things they have done. Tari is hesitant to join the group, claiming she wants nothing to do with TASCorp at all, but Theo convinces her to help MD-5 since they gave them shelter. However, Masa refuses to let Tari and Theo join unless the former can prove herself via a first-person shooter game called Battle Blaze, to see how well she can handle a human opponent. Tari is easily beaten by Masa several times before Sofia inspects Tari's Meta Runner arm and causes her to warp into the game. Meanwhile, at TASCorp, Lucks has Belle search a research facility for info after noticing a strange emblem on Tari's outfit, and he investigates the corrupted copy of Ultra Jump Mania that Theo came out of in the meantime. Belle then wanders into a messy and abandoned lab. Back at MD-5, Tari begins to improve; seeing her potential, Masa gives Tari some advice on how to beat him by clearing her mind. After narrowly losing to him, she is assisted by Theo, who entered the game as well, discovering that he can use his game abilities as long as he is in a game. Sofia brings them out, and Masa tells Tari that, while she has a lot to learn, they have a place on the team for her. Theo then begins to glitch out due to being out of his game for too long, and Masa urges them to return him to an Ultra Jump Mania cartridge. Back at TASCorp, Belle comes up empty and begins to give up, until she finds a memory card containing video logs about "Project Blue".
66"Game Plan"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang29 August 2019 (2019-08-29)
Tari gets Theo into MD-5's Ultra Jump Mania cartridge, but the presence of another Theo causes the game to glitch and boot the two out. Sofia deduces that Theo needs to return to his own cartridge, prompting Masa to suggest "Operation Silent Demon" to get the cartridge from TASCorp. Inside the destroyed facility at TASCorp, Belle watches a video log from the crazed Dr. Sheridan on Project Blue, an AI system he is working on capable of beating any video game once it is implemented into a human host. The final log shows an accident with the test run, causing an explosion that presumably kills Sheridan and his unseen assistant. After hearing the assistant's voice, Belle is distraught. At MD-5, Sofia and Masa explain their scheme to hack into TASCorp's servers to obtain and release their private records and files to the public, damaging Lucks's image. To do this, they would enter an underground competition hosted on TASCorp's servers; Tari would enter the game and crash it by executing a glitch, which would give Sofia time to hack into the servers and download the data, as well as place an order for Theo's cartridge. Lamar is skeptical about the plan, but concedes after Tari agrees to it. Back at TASCorp, Belle shows Lucks sees the footage from Dr. Sheridan, explaining that the Meta Runner that Sheridan experimented on was her best friend Lucinia, who they had thought went missing. Examining the footage's details, Lucks notices Sheridan execute a cheat code on a controller. Lucks inputs the same code, causing the corrupted Ultra Jump Mania game to show the emblem for Project Blue.
77"No Clip"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang19 September 2019 (2019-09-19)
In Tempest (the magic-focused battle royale game for TASCorp's underground competition), Tari, Theo, Lamar, and Masa begin training for the competition. They teach Tari how to collect spells to use attacks and teach her what the glitch is, which is going through the floor by falling into it at 55 km/h at a 36 degree angle, thus crashing the game. Tari learns that to pull the glitch off, she needs to jump off the top of a mountain in the game and use a wind spell to propel herself downward to gain enough momentum. Tari continuously tries to pull it off, to no avail. In a flashback, Belle is struggling to pull off a newly discovered glitch in Ultra Jump Mania when she is visited by her friend Lucinia, who gives her encouragement. Back in the present, Belle questions the connection between Project Blue, Tari, and Lucinia's apparent death. When Lucks's search provides no answers, he suggests that Belle obtain answers from Tari herself. Back at MD-5, Tari grows discouraged over her repeated failures. Theo and Masa give Tari some words of encouragement, and Tari is finally successful in pulling off the glitch. Masa tells them that, now that they know how to pull the glitch off, they need to be trained in physical combat, because in the competition, they'll have people attacking them.
88"One Shot"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang26 September 2019 (2019-09-26)
About a week later, the day has come for the Tempest tournament. Tari, Lamar, and Masa sneak Theo and themselves into the competition. Tari starts to have second thoughts, but Masa and Lamar tell her that this is their best chance at pulling this off. As the game starts, Tari warps into the game, but is pulled into a void where she sees Lucinia. After she recovers, she wakes up on the raging battlefield. MD-5 starts gathering spells, using Lamar's forcefield and Masa's kunai. The group is then confronted by an elite team, which forces them to take a defensive stance. Lamar uses a teleport spell to get them to safety on a cliff. Lamar questions whether Tari is alright given she unexpectedly passed out at the start of the game, but she insists she is fine and Masa suggests they focus on performing the glitch. Their discussion is interrupted when they are attacked by the elite team from before, who knock Tari off of the cliff. Tari falls into a collapsed building and is attacked by the enemy team. Before they can finish her off, the rest of MD-5 arrives to assist her, and they go on the offensive.
99"The Run"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang3 October 2019 (2019-10-03)
MD-5 prepares to take on the enemy team, with Masa taking the lead and the others flanking the support members. They take out three of the enemies, but Theo is taken out after sacrificing himself to protect Tari, and the leader escapes. In the real world, it is revealed that the leader is Belle, who recognises Masa. Lucks, on a call with Belle, reminds her that the goal is to take out Tari. MD-5 gets to the top of the mountain. Tari prepares herself for the glitch, but the group is attacked by Belle, who takes out Lamar. MD-5 then realizes that TASCorp is onto them. Masa attempts to convince Belle to back down, but she refuses and reveals to Tari that Masa was once a team captain for TASCorp, but was decommissioned a year ago for hacking into Lucks's private server to prove his theory that Lucks killed Lucinia. Masa and Tari engage Belle and almost gain the upper hand, but Belle restrains Tari under a building and makes Masa overload his Meta Runner arm trying to defend Tari. Belle takes out Masa and Lucks tells her to finish off Tari, but she disables communications with him so she can privately interrogate Tari.
1010"Shutdown"Luke LerdwichagulKevin Lerdwichagul and Jasmine Yang10 October 2019 (2019-10-10)

Tari tells Belle she doesn't know how her abilities work, but Belle reveals she no longer cares about Tari's abilities and angrily interrogates her about Lucinia, thinking she killed her despite Tari's objections. Belle begins torturing Tari and Lamar considers giving up, but after encouragement from Theo, Tari agrees to tell Belle everything she knows to get her to stop, only to evade her and execute the glitch despite Belle's efforts to stop her. Back in the real world, Masa and Theo commend Tari, while Lamar urges everyone to evacuate the arena. The group tries to escape, but they are cornered by a furious Lucks and the TASCorp security personnel, who subdue Tari, Lamar, and Theo. Lucks yells for Sofia to show herself, shooting off Masa's cybernetic arm and threatening to shoot him in the head, but a tearful Sofia arrives just in time despite Masa encouraging her not to. Lucks takes her tablet containing the server data and has his scientists clear it and destroy any backups. When Sofia says she just wanted to know what happened with her sister, Lucinia, Belle reveals the footage of the explosion, against Lucks's orders. Sofia breaks down and asks why Lucinia was with Sheridan, and Belle says to ask Tari, pointing out that the Project Blue logo is also Tari's logo. Masa's trust in Tari diminishes, but she insists she knows nothing. Lucks prepares to imprison MD-5 for life, but Tari offers to join TASCorp on the condition that Lucks lets everyone else go. Lucks reveals that he discovered MD-5's plan by using Theo as a spy camera via the corrupted Ultra Jump Mania cartridge. After Lucks traps Theo in a frozen state in a memory card, he threatens to destroy him if MD-5 causes trouble again or Tari starts to show signs of disloyalty. Lucks lets MD-5 go and leaves with Tari, who promises that she'll be fine.

In a post-credits scene, Belle discovers Sofia's phone in a bin, which has a backup of the data from Sofia's tablet, and she makes eye contact with Sofia, who is being escorted out. As Belle leaves, Lucks asks for a subject update on an earpiece. Health statistics are listed and a woman whose condition is stated to be stable is shown in a cryogenic freezer.

Season 2 (2020)

[edit]

All episodes were written by Jasmine Yang and directed by Luke Lerdwichagul.

No.
overall		No. in
season		TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal release date
111"Hard Reset"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang16 October 2020 (2020-10-16)
Six months after the events of Season 1, Belle and Tari are playing a match in a video game. After their win, the two are driven back to TASCorp by Lucks, who talks to an interviewer about Tari's imminent addition to TASCorp's main Meta Runner lineup in two weeks. After the interview, Lucks warns Tari to perform better at her debut match. Back at TASCorp, Tari is escorted back to her room while she views the harsh treatment of TASCorp employees. Back in her room, Tari demands Lucks to allow her to see Theo to make sure he is still safe. Lucks shows her Theo on a screen, who is trapped in a featureless room. While talking to Theo, Tari promises him that they'll see MD-5 again, and Lucks hastily ends the call. Meanwhile, in the "low tier" of Silica City, Lamar and Sofia walk through an alleyway to find Masa, who had abandoned MD-5 after the events of Season 1. Masa brushes them aside at first, but Sofia reveals that she saved a backup of the TASCorp server data onto her phone. However, her phone is at TASCorp with Belle, who unsuccessfully attempts to hack into it. Fellow TASCorp Meta Runner Evelyn Claythorne bursts into Belle's room to complain that Tari is getting exhibition matches instead of her. Evelyn then angers Belle by insinuating that Lucinia abandoned TASCorp. Belle promises to Lucinia and Tari promises to Theo that they'll figure something out.
122"Firewall"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang23 October 2020 (2020-10-23)
Lucks talks to Theo, who is annoyed at him for trapping him. Lucks tells Theo they are working on a way to allow him to leave safely and gives him a chair, but Theo uses the chair to clip out of the room and lands in the TASCorp server. Lucks tries to stop him by deploying a data partition and quarantine programme, both of which Theo avoids, though the latter causes him to fall into an unknown file. Meanwhile, Tari and Evelyn are practicing a game called Hidden Heroes, with Belle overseeing them. Evelyn gets the edge over Tari and finishes her off. When Belle looks at the results of their match, the screen glitches and Theo lands on the screen, asking where he is, to Belle's shock. However, the quarantine programme catches Theo and drags him away. Back in Theo's prison, Theo asks Lucks if the deal to get him out is still available, but Lucks turns the screen off. Lucks reprimands his scientists and orders them to monitor Theo closely. Meanwhile, Evelyn openly complains that she has to share her debut match with Tari. The two bump into a TASCorp scientist, who is playing an anime dating simulator game called Pocket Gakusei. Evelyn mocks him and confiscates the game, but Tari gets an idea to contact Lamar (who is an otaku) via the game. In Masa's rundown house, Masa, Sofia, and Lamar discuss how to access the server backup on Sofia's phone, which Sofia thinks Belle is trying to get into. Glad that Belle finally came to her senses, Masa asks if they can just send her the encryption key, but Sofia explains that TASCorp has a stronger firewall, and if they send anything to Belle, Lucks will get tipped off about the phone. Lamar brings up that Tari and Theo are also trapped at TASCorp, but Masa angrily dismisses them as Theo was a spy camera and Tari was involved with Project Blue. Lamar and Sofia are able to convince Masa to help save Tari and Theo when they remind him of their promise to keep the two safe, but Masa says he needs a new Meta Runner arm since his previous one was shot off by Lucks. Sofia tells Masa they are too poor to buy one but can win one instead.
133"Unreal Engines"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang30 October 2020 (2020-10-30)
Masa, Lamar, and Sofia return to the low tier of Silica City to win a new Meta Runner arm. They enter a tournament hosted by Marco, an old friend of Sofia's who resents Masa for his former career at TASCorp. Marco challenges Lamar and Masa to a game of Turbo Crash 9; if Marco wins, Lamar must give up his Meta Runner arm, but if Lamar and Masa win, they get a new arm for Masa. At TASCorp, Tari searches Evelyn's room for Pocket Gakusei and finds it, but Evelyn catches Tari before she can leave. Belle arrives and discreetly allows Tari to use the game as long as she doesn't tell anyone. Back with MD-5, Lamar controls the team's vehicle while Masa handles weapons. Marco eventually gets the upper hand, but Masa and Lamar defeat him in the end when his arms begin to malfunction and they win the match, much to Marco's anger as he accuses Masa of cheating. They get the arm and drive back to Masa's place; in the car, Masa acts dismissive when Lamar asks if he cheated, but he is holding the control bug device that he used to make Marco's arms malfunction.
144"Transfer Student"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang6 November 2020 (2020-11-06)
Tari enters Pocket Gakusei in search of Lamar, but the search ends up being harder than she thought. Meanwhile, Belle visits Sheridan's abandoned lab and contacts Theo, asking him if he can obtain information about Project Blue from TASCorp's servers in exchange for helping him reunite with Tari. Theo agrees, and Belle takes control of him using a game controller to clip back into the server. In Pocket Gakusei, Tari's search comes up empty until she remembers that Lamar likes a character called Satsuki-chan, who she finds in the game. The character remains silent, and Tari learns she needs to fill up a relationship meter with her in order to talk to her. Back at TASCorp, Lucks catches Theo running around in the server again. Theo finds a Project Blue file thanks to a strange purple glow and begins downloading it for Belle, but he is attacked by Lucks's quarantine programme. Belle controls Theo to fight off the quarantine programme and defend the file. Belle inadvertently gives up her location in celebration of obtaining the file, forcing her to leave Theo behind before anyone finds her. Theo is caught again and Lucks puts him back in the corrupted Ultra Jump Mania cartridge, leaving him alone with enemies that he can't fight off due to the game's glitching.
155"Heart to Heart"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang13 November 2020 (2020-11-13)
In Pocket Gakusei, after sufficiently dating Satsuki-chan, Tari is able to get Lamar's profile from her. Tari sends Lamar a friend request, making contact with MD-5. Tari apologizes to Masa, saying she herself has a lot of questions like he must have, but Masa tells her they can sort that out after she's safe. Masa reveals they will help Tari escape during her upcoming show match. At TASCorp, Belle accesses the Project Blue file and sees footage of Lucks searching the abandoned lab shortly after the explosion, realising that Lucks knew what happened to Lucinia all along and was hiding it from everyone. Belle angrily leaves, swearing to avenge Lucinia. Tari is visited by Belle, who offers to help her and MD-5 expose Lucks. Sofia gives Belle the benefit of the doubt, but Lamar and Masa are not so keen on the idea, the latter saying Belle has let him down twice before and he cannot handle a third time. Tari convinces Masa to give Belle a chance; Masa agrees, but tells Belle that if she is on his team, she is to follow his orders. Belle reluctantly agrees to this as Masa begins to explain their plan for TASCorp's show match.
166"Hack and Slash"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang20 November 2020 (2020-11-20)
Lucks introduces Tari and Evelyn at the beginning of the show match, and Evelyn gives a long self-centered speech about how she never got the attention she deserved as the youngest child in her apparently famous family. Sofia causes a power outage and Lamar covertly replaces TASCorp’s Hidden Heroes cartridge with MD-5's cartridge, which will download the server data from the phone as long as the game lasts for at least twenty minutes. Meanwhile, Belle returns to the lab to play the corrupted Ultra Jump Mania, where Theo is still trying to escape the monsters. Theo is initially annoyed at Belle for abandoning him, but she tells him if she can beat the game, it will reset, ending the glitching and allowing Theo to get out of the cartridge and escape TASCorp via a link on Sofia’s phone. Theo reluctantly allows Belle to control him to beat the game. Back at the show match, Lucks explains Hidden Heroes usually pits two heroes against ten minions, but for the show match, Tari and Evelyn will face fifty minions. Lamar and Masa enter as two of the minions, intending to stall the game for as long as possible. Evelyn continuously complains about Tari’s tactics while Lamar and Masa take out several of their teammates. Tari asks why Evelyn hates her so much, and Evelyn explains that she trained for years only for Tari to show up and “ruin” it for her. Tari angrily expresses her wish for Evelyn and TASCorp to leave her alone, and Evelyn immediately abandons Tari, who has to face several enemies on her own.
177"Friendly Fire"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang27 November 2020 (2020-11-27)
Tari is able to take out all the enemies with Masa's assistance. They notice Evelyn watching them, and Evelyn calls Lucks to tell him that Tari is conspiring with the enemy team. Meanwhile, Belle tries to complete the glitched Ultra Jump Mania game but is stuck on a level due to the server download amplifying the corruption. Theo then sees the purple glow from before going through the level and copies its movement to make it to the flag area by clipping through a wall. Back with Evelyn, she says Tari cheating explains the power outage, Tari's weird tactics, and the friendly fire on the enemy team. Lucks then realizes MD-5 is at the match. Lucks attempts to activate security measures to stop MD-5, but is stopped by Sofia, who passes herself off as tech support at first. This does not faze Lucks, but Sofia threatens to make TASCorp go bankrupt by exposing their secrets, aided by the rumors already swirling about them. Lucks makes hand signals to Evelyn in her pod to defeat Tari in the game. Evelyn hits Tari from behind with her sword and engages her in one-on-one combat. Masa and Lamar deal with the rest of the players since Tari is sticking to the plan of keeping Evelyn busy. Tari tries to convince Evelyn to back down, but Evelyn instead targets everyone else on the enemy team to end the game sooner, eliminating Masa in the process. Tari rescues Lamar, who asks Masa what he's going to do next; Masa says he is getting ready for when this is all over.
188"Soft Lock"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang4 December 2020 (2020-12-04)
Evelyn covers the arena with fog, wipes out the other enemies, stuns Lamar, and tries to take out Tari. However, Tari manages to defeat Evelyn with help from the same purple glow that helped Theo. Just as Evelyn is defeated, Sofia's download of the server data finishes. Sofia gets on the intercom and starts an emergency evacuation, while Masa tells Lamar to get Tari to safety while he causes a distraction. Masa tackles Lucks, while an enraged Evelyn physically fights Tari, who pushes Evelyn into her pod, locking her in with Sofia's help. Tari gets the cartridge and leaves with Lamar, despite her concern about Theo not being there, while Masa is subdued by TASCorp scientists. Masa wakes up in a TASCorp holding van with Lucks and Belle, who was found by TASCorp. Belle calls out Lucks for lying to her about Lucinia for a year and a half, but Lucks says that everything he did was to protect the company. Belle apologises to Masa for not believing him when he first turned on Lucks, and they have a flashback to the night before Lucinia's disappearance, in which Lucinia expresses doubt in her abilities since the attention at the time was on Masa (the leader) and Belle (the new hotshot). Meanwhile, Lamar takes Tari to Sofia for a reunion, and Tari and Lamar explain they cannot release the server data since Theo and Masa did not make it out. Tari then comes up with a plan in which they either win big or lose everything, to which Lamar and Sofia agree.
199"Nightmare Mode"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang11 December 2020 (2020-12-11)
Sofia calls Lucks to threaten that she will release the server data; Lucks tracks her location and intercepts her. Lucks scans the Hidden Heroes cartridge and finds no abnormalities, realising it was the cartridge Lamar stole from the show match being used as a decoy, but discovers that Tari has used the other cartridge to warp into the server and get Theo out herself. Lucks takes Sofia into the van with Masa and Belle and begins driving back to TASCorp to reboot the server and stop Tari. Meanwhile, Tari and Theo traverse Ultra Jump Mania's final level, trying to use the glitches to their advantage and reach the end before Lucks reboots the server. Lucks calls Evelyn (still trapped in her pod) to offer a rematch. Tari and Theo see the final flag to complete the game, but are stopped by Evelyn, who takes the form of a massive monster known as the Glitchemoth and puts the flag out of their reach. She activates an infinite lives cheat and takes out Tari and Theo repeatedly until they each only have one life left. Tari comes up with a plan and uses the glitches to obtain a pineapple hammer like the one she used previously (see 1x02 “Out of Bounds”), resuming her battle with Evelyn.
2010"Fatal Error"Luke LerdwichagulJasmine Yang18 December 2020 (2020-12-18)

By exploiting the game's glitches and working together, Tari and Theo eventually manage to incapacitate Evelyn and reach the flag, thus beating the game. Theo escapes the cartridge, but Tari is visited by the purple glow, which reveals itself to be Lucinia, and she tells Tari about her past. Back in the real world, with both Tari and Theo in Lamar's car, Lamar rams into the side of TASCorp's van, but is less successful than the last time he did so as they have upgraded their vans. Lucks holds Masa at gunpoint and demands that Tari give him the cartridge, but the data has already been released to the public with the news spreading quickly through the city, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Lucks. Masa fights Lucks and takes his gun, saying everyone will now know that Lucks is responsible for Lucinia's death. However, Lucks reveals that Lucinia is still alive, the explosion having only injured her. He explains that she entered a coma and was unable to recover due to parts of her consciousness being missing, having been lost to the server or merged into the AI that Sheridan was developing. He reveals that Tari herself is that AI in an artificial body, which she confirms, having learned this from the remnants of Lucinia that were in the server. Thus, the only way to revive Lucinia would be for Tari to sacrifice herself. However, the group still blames Lucks for everything he has done and tell Tari they value who she is now. After Masa considers shooting Lucks, the others convince him not to, but his Meta Runner arm suddenly starts malfunctioning and shoots Lucks anyway, killing him. Belle stays with Masa and urges the others to run, but they are offered a ride by Marco.

In a post-credits scene, Evelyn is returning home in a car when she receives a call from a man offering her Tari's abilities and an opportunity for revenge. When Evelyn questions the man, he responds that it is easy to hack into Meta Runner arms if one knows what they are doing, having hacked Masa's arm earlier, and reveals himself to be Sheridan, having survived the explosion in the lab.

Season 3 (2022)

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No.
overall		No. in
season		TitleArt direction byWritten byOriginal release date
211"Power Down"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang22 July 2022 (2022-07-22)
A week after the events of Season 2, Tari, Lamar, Sofia, and Theo are being held captive by Marco and his crew. Still bitter about Masa cheating him out of a Meta Runner arm, Marco challenges the group to a fair and honest match of Turbo Crash 9, and if they win, they can go free. Meanwhile, Dr. Sheridan kidnaps Masa and Belle while they're en route to jail and warps their minds into his personal server, where he has an AI version of Lucks as a minion. Sheridan reveals to Masa that he hijacked his Meta Runner arm to kill Lucks, to Masa's fury. Sheridan asks them to be a part of his new Meta Runner team, but they refuse, angering Sheridan. In Marco's hideout, Tari tries to warp into the match, but Evelyn, under Sheridan's orders, intercepts her warp and forces her into a digital lab where Lucinia lies unconscious. Sheridan reveals that, now that Lucks is dead, Tari has served her purpose, and he begins performing surgery on Tari to get the data fragments of Lucinia's consciousness out and revive Lucinia, while Masa and Belle are forced to watch.
222"Testing Room"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang29 July 2022 (2022-07-29)
Theo is warped into Sheridan's server and makes his way to Tari, being spotted by Masa and Belle. Masa and Belle try and communicate with Theo, but he is unable to hear them due to Sheridan placing them in a soundproof room. Sheridan catches them talking, so Masa and Belle distract him by telling him they want to join his Meta Runner team. Theo manages to escape with Tari, but Sheridan has Evelyn chase Tari down and gives her a knife that will collect data fragments from Tari to complete the surgery. In Marco's hideout, Marco stops his match with MD-5 due to Tari and Theo's absence. Hesitantly, Marco allows Sofia to try and find them. Tari and Theo fight Evelyn in a room full of motionless 3D models of Meta Runners, including Lamar. Sofia is able to open a gateway for Tari and Theo to escape through. Though Tari throws Theo to safety, some of her data is extracted by Evelyn, and she falls out of the gateway and gets warped into an MMO game called Skybreakers, where a pirate character called Petey introduces her to Shipwreck Swamp, the starting area. Due to Evelyn stabbing her and extracting data, Tari passes out. Moments later, Evelyn arrives in Skybreakers too in a mechanical suit.
233"Skybreakers"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang5 August 2022 (2022-08-05)
Tari wakes up to find that Petey has bandaged her up. He forces her to complete his tutorial for the game, but her skill is impaired due to her lost data. Evelyn confronts Tari at the end of the tutorial, but Tari defeats her with help from Petey, followed by help from Lamar, Theo, and Marco (though Marco is only helping because the others told him he could get revenge on Masa), with Sofia assisting from outside the game. Meanwhile, Sheridan trains Masa and Belle by having them play Battle Blaze against an emotionless Lucinia, who is awake thanks to Tari's data transfer but brainwashed. Belle's emotions over missing Lucinia, as well as Masa's anger over what Sheridan is doing to her, get the better of the two. Sheridan prepares for his master plan, which involves a control bug.
244"Dead On Arrival"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang12 August 2022 (2022-08-12)
Tari continues to struggle in Skybreakers and is annoyed by Marco's patronising attitude towards her. The group arrives at the hub city of Vagabonds Landing, where players are unable to attack each other, in order to get better gear. Evelyn re-enters the game with Lucinia, using hacks that allows them to attack the other players while in the city. Lucinia battles Tari, but she briefly stops upon recognizing Sofia's voice, allowing Tari to take her knife and use it to get back the data fragments. Tari and her friends end up escaping on a stolen ship. Marco, seeing Tari's true skill, names her the captain of their ship, which Tari calls "the Bluejay". Meanwhile, Sheridan has used the bug to take control of Belle and Masa's minds, and he ominously asks which of them wants to go through their employee induction first as members of SherCorp.
255"Death Warp"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang19 August 2022 (2022-08-19)
Tari and her friends discover a way to reach Sheridan's server through a virtual backdoor and they explore the dungeon Scrapbeard's Fortress in search of it. Meanwhile, Sheridan uses control bugs to brainwash Masa and Belle to serve him after showing the former mental images reminding him of his guilt and trauma. Tari's group encounters a boss and must perform a death warp exploit in which they die at the exact same moment the boss does to go out of bounds. Meanwhile, Lamar goes back to fight Evelyn and keep her busy. During their battle, Evelyn taunts Lamar over not being able to make it in the big leagues, but Lamar admits he never wanted to, knowing what TASCorp did to runners when they no longer saw them as useful. Tari, Theo, and Marco pull off the exploit successfully, but Evelyn defeats Lamar and warps him into Sheridan's server. He ends up in the room where his model was being kept along with many other Meta Runners that Evelyn and Lucinia had defeated in Skybreakers. Sheridan appears with Masa and Belle, who are completely under his control.
266"Global Testfire"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang26 August 2022 (2022-08-26)
Sheridan introduces his dangerous remote warping technology to warp Meta Runners into his server against their will. He intends to test it by forcing the Meta Runners already there to attack each other with an assortment of video game items. Tari and Theo search for the gateway to the server in a largely empty beta level in Skybreakers, and Theo tries to hide that his still unsolved glitching problem is getting worse. The brainwashed Masa and Belle enter Skybreakers to join Evelyn and Lucinia, but Lamar covertly follows them. Sheridan activates his global warp technology, warping every Meta Runner in the world into his server (except Marco, who is unaffected due to having built his arms from scratch without any corporate tech). Sheridan also reveals that he was the true inventor of the Meta Runner arm and Lucks took the credit for his creation. After Theo sails through a storm to reach the gateway to the server, Tari realises he is glitching again, much to her concern, and Theo admits he didn't tell anyone because he wanted to have fun with his friends and not have them worry about him. Evelyn's team catches up to them, but Lamar reveals himself and the two teams destroy each other's respawn points, ready for a final battle.
277"Overload"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang2 September 2022 (2022-09-02)

Tari and her friends face off against Evelyn and the brainwashed Lucinia, Masa, and Belle. Marco is sidetracked trying to get revenge on Masa, and after getting eliminated, he sets out to destroy Sheridan’s server to ensure the safety of the warped Meta Runners. Meanwhile, Theo confronts Evelyn by himself to buy time for his friends. Evelyn makes Theo disintegrate by essentially squeezing him to death and gloats to a distraught Tari about it, but this brings Masa’s mind back. He strangles Sheridan in the lab, who breaks free and stabs him in the neck with a screwdriver before Masa’s arm explodes, causing the device hooked to Belle to stop working. Belle helps Tari defeat Evelyn once and for all, and Sofia urges Tari to revive Lucinia before Marco destroys the server. Tari jumps through the gateway with Lucinia in pursuit.

In a post-credits scene, Lamar gets enjoyment out of throwing rocks at Evelyn’s armor after respawning back in Shipwreck Swamp.
288"The End"Matthew PeckhamJasmine Yang9 September 2022 (2022-09-09)

Sheridan recovers and is about to stab Masa with a knife when he realises Tari has made it into his server. Tari is forced to fight Lucinia as she attempts to bring her back to Sheridan's virtual lab. Sheridan and Sofia fight for control over the server, assisting Lucinia and Tari respectively by providing various video game items for them to use. Though Sheridan seemingly gets the upper hand, Tari manages to reach the lab with the help of Sofia. Sheridan tries to freeze Tari in place, but Sofia reveals she has tracked Sheridan's location and given it to Marco, who is arriving now, forcing Sheridan's attention away. Tari decides to use the machine in the lab to sacrifice herself and restore Lucinia's consciousness, bidding a final goodbye to Sofia. Marco bursts into Sheridan's hideout and hooks Sheridan's own control bugs to his body, electrocuting Sheridan to death and destroying his server, thus freeing the Meta Runners. Sheridan's Lucks AI hints to Tari that she might be able to restore Theo before being deleted with the server, and after telling Lucinia to say thanks and goodbye to her friends, Tari performs the surgery just in time before the server is fully destroyed. Belle, Masa, and Lucinia all wake up and are happily reunited, with Lucinia and Belle sharing a kiss. Marco forgives Masa for his debt, as Masa has already lost his Meta Runner arm again, and the group leaves.

Evelyn is arrested for her crimes and the murder charge against Masa is dropped. Marco’s workers repair Masa’s Meta Runner arm, and Marco holds onto it for safekeeping, looking forward to a true rematch with Masa in the future. Sofia, Lamar, Masa, Belle, and Lucinia all return to the MD-5 hideout, where they mourn the losses of Tari and Theo. Masa places a picture of Tari and Theo, as well as Tari's hoodie and Theo's newly acquired cartridge courtesy of Belle, in the hideout, praising Tari for keeping MD-5 together. Sofia then eagerly takes Belle and Lucinia to their “initiation” into MD-5, to Belle’s annoyance and the others' amusement.

Tari and Theo are preserved in fragments of the old server, and Tari has taken everything she could from the server so that she and Theo can live happily and in peace together within, as they are too unstable to exist in the real world anymore. The series ends with Tari thanking her old friends for the adventure before she and Theo run off to play video games together.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Inside The Mario House That SMG4 Built". Kotaku. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  2. ^ "Meta Runner is an anime funded by Screen Australia, Epic, AMD". Stevivor. 25 June 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  3. ^ "SCREEN AUSTRALIA ANNOUNCES $8.5M FOR TEN PROJECTS". TV Blackbox. 20 April 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  4. ^ "The world of film and TV is changing rapidly. Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason explains how the funding body keeps up". Business Insider. 21 February 2020. Archived from the original on 18 July 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  5. ^ "Epic Games awards $500,000 in final Unreal Dev Grants". VentureBeat. 18 March 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  6. ^ "Epic Games awards $500,000 in final Unreal Dev Grants". VentureBeat. 18 March 2019.
  7. ^ "Screen Australia announces $8.5 million of production funding". If.com.au. 20 April 2020.
  8. ^ "The Government Has Funded An Aussie Esports Anime". Kotaku Australia. 25 June 2019. Archived from the original on 30 June 2019. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  9. ^ "Screen Australia Funds Second Series For Aussie Esports Drama Meta Runner". Kotaku. 20 April 2020. Archived from the original on 24 April 2020.
  10. ^ "Screen Australia Announces $8.5M for Ten Projects". TV Blackbox. 20 April 2020.
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