An anime model of Nier: Automata appeared like a horrible thought. Unless you’re simply there to gawk on the character designs (tsk tsk), the 2017 motion RPG is sweet as a result of it embraces the advantages and limitations of its medium. It’s a online game that forces selections and experiences – like witnessing the regular collapse of Pascal’s robotic village and having to decide on between becoming a member of or killing your devoted android pal 9S on the finish – onto us which might be extra impactful or significant as a result of we took an lively half of their unfolding. And but, credit score to anime studio A-1 Pictures for braving the potential minefield and delivering a gap spherical of Nier: Automata Ver1.1a that each justified its existence and made sense as a part of the Nier universe’s mix of cool robotic fight and philosophical conversations about sentience. With new episodes making their U.S. debut on Crunchyroll this month, Ver1.1a has began steering a bit of deeper into what made the primary 12 so intriguing.
Like the sport, Nier: Automata Ver1.1a takes place within the distant future, throughout a warfare between the military of “Machine Lifeforms” created by a mysterious alien race and android troopers like protagonists 2B and 9S, who had been constructed by humanity’s final survivors. In episode 12, the anime deployed the sport’s greatest twist: The aliens had been worn out by their very own robotic military a very long time in the past, and the human race is totally extinct. But that “Ver1.1a” within the title is supposed to point that this isn’t a precise retelling of Automata, and there are a variety of curious alterations that trace at one thing extra attention-grabbing occurring. Part 2 of Season 1 additionally makes what may find yourself being a giant change, and there’s a enjoyable shock to the way in which it performs out after it’s teased over the course of “Reckless Bra[V]ery.”
But at this level it’s nonetheless unclear how a lot it issues that characters who had been alive within the sport are useless within the sequence, or that backstories that had been solely vaguely hinted at or addressed in supplementary supplies (of which there are various for Nier: Automata) are made canon. Is there one thing significant behind it, or is it only a manner for Ver1.1a to set itself aside from Automata? Even if it’s the latter, it’s a great way to have interaction skeptical Nier followers. Imagine when you learn A Game of Thrones after which the HBO model didn’t kill Ned Stark. You’d need to tune in simply to see what the heck was going to occur, even when he simply obtained his head reduce off a bit of later than you anticipated.
The first batch of episodes did one thing related, thought not as dramatic, with the reveal that the android resistance on Earth is being led by Lily – a really minor character within the canon – and never acquainted sport character Anemone (who, as seen in flashback episode “[L]one Wolf,” died in an earlier battle). That change appears a bit of arbitrary, however “Reckless Bra[V]ery” goes additional by explicitly exhibiting 2B execute 9S so nobody else learns that the people are useless, which is roofed within the online game however not proven so instantly. Doing it this fashion makes it look like much more of a surprising betrayal: We’re much less inclined to simply accept the reasoning for it just because we’re not controlling 2B. We solely know her because the chilly and closed-off android soldier she presents herself as to 9S.
Plot apart, Ver1.1a nonetheless seems beautiful, principally as a result of the character designs had been all actually good in 2017 and are nonetheless good now. But the sport had form of a washed-out softness that gave its post-apocalyptic settings a little bit of lived-in appeal, and that’s missing within the anime. It’s not a giant deal, and it’s a tough downside to resolve within the shift between one thing playable to one thing solely watchable. But it makes the world of Ver1.1a really feel like extra of a setting than an precise place – which is mildly ironic, for the reason that world is pointedly not very full of life within the sport both, what with all of the annihilation of Earth’s wildlife.
There stays a ton of potential in Nier: Automata Ver1.1a, and that also might be true into the ultimate moments of the ultimate episode (every time that occurs). The sport famously had dozens of endings, with the canonical ones requiring a number of playthroughs – although “it’s important to beat it six occasions!” was all the time little greater than gamer braggadocio, for the reason that sport is totally different in all of these playthroughs. There’s all the time an opportunity that the anime goes to do one thing wild and new at any level, like completely killing off one of many two most important characters or placing us so firmly in 9S’s point-of-view that A2, the shock third protagonist who has been teased just a few occasions within the anime, comes throughout as extra of an outright villain. And if Ver1.1a doesn’t do any of that, then isn’t that simply subverting expectations otherwise?
