Nier: Automata Ver1.1a is the sleeper hit of the anime season

After feeling disappointed in the first episode of Nier: Automata Ver1.1a, an adaptation of Yoko Taro and PlatinumGames’ outstanding video game, I didn’t think I’d come back to it again. It played out as a cynic would expect: an almost one-to-one recreation, but with uglier 3D animation; it felt like something was missing. It didn’t have much of a chance of holding its own; Despite some promise, the first half of the show was plagued with problems several Delays. But now, just over a year later, the show leaves me with a feeling of disappointment thanks to the game’s astute treatment of the game’s intersecting tragedies – but this time in a good way.

Like the game, the anime is set in the distant future. Earth has been abandoned by humanity and now lives on the moon. The Council of Humanity sends android soldiers to fight in their place in a war against machine lifeforms sent by alien masters. The androids look human (and scary in their beauty), the machines look like rusty wind-up toys. The story revolves around 2B (Yui Ishikawa / Kira Buckland, reprising their roles) and 9S (Natsuki Hanae / Kyle McCarley, also), special forces androids who work for the rather menacing organization YoRHa, which operates from a space station – her agents are all dressed in doll-like finery.

From the diverse lives of the YoRHa androids to these cycles of endless wars to the multiple playthroughs required to complete the game, Nier is all about iteration and repetition – which is one of the reasons an anime retelling immediately makes a certain sense. It was already a multimedia project; It has been proven that history can work when taken out of its original context. There are novels and a play, both of which are canon, that use these other media to gain a new perspective on Nier’s ongoing heartbreak.

But anime adaptations of games can be a tricky business. Of course, when it comes to anime adaptations of manga, each medium has its own drawbacks, but the former uses voice performances and music as well as animated acting to (ideally) add a unique interpretation where the reader’s imagination would fill the spaces between panels. Games already work with this toolkit and are shifting to the more passive medium of television removed Player agency.

So what has been added for people who have already played the game? Some series get around this by using the game’s world as a springboard for new stories in far-flung corners, giving the directors, writers and designers a bit more leeway (take, for example Cyberpunk: Edgerunners or Arcane). Nier: Automata is a tricky case in that it is one of the most video game-focused video games in recent memory, as the player’s input and the language of the video game are inextricably linked to the narrative. The best example is the end of the game, a direct confrontation with the player that, in vague terms, asks them to rank their gaming experience on a scale. It remains to be seen how this moment will play out; There are still some awkward bumps in the transition from game to episode. One plot point in the second half stands out for being very close to a video game goal (“Go collect these three things”), but the gruesome drudgery and action in response to it still make it stand out.

While some frustrations remain, Ver.1.1a

made a name for itself when it began to exploit this medium’s new possibilities over what it could reproduce. Some of the best elements from the start are the end credits stingers, which were created with puppets – using that silly, whimsical animation to both address smaller parts of the world-building as well as reenact the game’s silly alternate endings, which included things like 2B, who died from eating mackerel.

Another one of those things is pretty simple: how editing changes the presentation of that narrative. One of the most poignant examples is “broken.” [W]ings.” It begins with a small montage of 2B’s memories of encounters with 9S, interrupted by intertitles of words that 2B associates with each of these occasions. Author Yusuke Watanabe and episode director/storyboarder Satsuki Takahashi (no strangers to war stories of their time). 86) then flip this into a mirror sequence from 9S’s perspective, condensing their relationship into a powerful, painful summary that puts their viewpoints in direct contrast to one another. Thinking back to the beginning, this episode felt like a realization of the series’ real potential: it used the shift in media to find new ways into the characters’ subjective perspectives and tease out the nuances of relationships that were, to say the least, incredible are thorny.

Ver.1.1aThe interest in exploring the multimedia sprawl that Nier has become, rather than just a pure adaptation of the games, also keeps things fresh. The show can be zoomed out and paint a more detailed picture of the supporting cast. This was true of previous episodes before the (very long) delay cut them short: an encounter with the disembodied head of Emil, a character from the first Nier game (since re-released as). Nier: replicant),

then triggers a flashback to characters from that story. The Episodes “[L]a wolf” and “bad [J]udgement” adapts the YoRHa stage play, which itself is an expansion of the game’s Pearl Harbor Descent story entry, a tragedy about a failed mission that influences both A2 and Lily’s backstories. Written lore contexts scattered throughout the game are also dragged to the surface: “Only y[O]You and Me” begins with a live-action shot of a picture book, a summary of the story Dragongardthe prequel series of Yoko Taro Nier. The sequence then draws the boundary from here Replicant. These connections existed vending machines the game if you were looking for it. But the elaboration makes the show feel special and expansive, even if you can’t control what is explored and when.

It’s an approach that I kind of like The Last of Us had capitalized more on making it less of a simple narrative remake of the game. Especially considering how many small written side stories from the game the series left behind except for the most critically acclaimed episode. Regardless of its shortcomings, Version 1.1aThe best quirks come to light when there’s clear thought about how to differentiate yourself from your source material seemed like a goal by Yoko Taro and series director Ryôji Masuyama from the beginning. The best parts of Automata Ver 1.1a didn’t land right away. And now that the series has had the chance to air as an uninterrupted series, these qualities have become increasingly apparent in the story’s more dramatic second act – one that made it one of my highlights of this anime season.