#@yorha-unit-a2

[cviperfan]

yorha-unit-a2 If they truly intend to make Viola the new Bayonetta, then the series might as well end up dead tbh. I honestly tried to give her a chance, felt like I was playing a shitty futuristic sekiro. I was so hoping she'd end up interesting enough to stomach through the gameplay, but nah. Her only motivation through out the game is to stalk Luka and yell at Bayonetta. (I wish Jeanne wouldn't miss in the intro)

lmao god she really does feel like Revengeance/Sekiro but Your Defensive Option Feels Fuckin Bad

I guess we'll see if the series continues and honestly with the amount of Miracle Sequels Bayonetta has gotten who knows.  I'm open provided they fix her game feel-- like absolutely ain't no fuckin way she's gonna headline a Bayonetta game and only have the sword/parry stuff here-- but while I do think she's fun I can also definitely see her being rejected by the fandom as an “unworthy successor”, as it were. Like looking over at DMC their implementation of Nero was honestly pretty smart-- basically Dante Again but Now He’s Johnny Yong Bosch-- and then has a whole game of being part of The Team before he becomes the series successor by the end of 5, in which the beloved series mainstays are still there and just off doing their own thing. By comparison I really think he would not have been accepted showing up in 4 and then by the end of that game all of the original characters have been killed off and now it’s the Nero Show

[squeaky-potat]

Sooooo since my friend finished playing Nier, I jumped back into my save and just got all the endings. I love this game. I love these characters. I love Yoko Taro’s story telling. I love Keiichi Okabe’s music. Everything about this game is the perfect blend of beauty, despair and humanity. So happy to be in it again.

Oh yeah… and because of my re-indoctrination I drew A2! 9S probably will be next 😁

[shukuchiisms]

~~

[toskarin]

how do you think automata factors into the drakenier sibling meta? in this case, are 2b, A2, and 9s the doomed sibling situation? i feel like the metaphor could extend to all of yorha even. Or maybe yorha units and the machine lifeforms since theyre made of the same "stuff" (machine cores)

there's a lot you can read into the exact nature of yorha, the humans, the machines, and how that ties into the recurring theme, but also don't forget that popola+devola and adam+eve exist and are absolutely the epitome of yoko taro's twin-based-tragedy antics

one could argue that they were the breaking point where it became clear yoko taro was actively writing twins into all of his projects to create opportunities for suffering

[gauntletqueen]

If androids are valid I submit A2. And 2B I guess.

The Robot Body Scale ranges from 1 to 10 and reflects how happy I, Zoey Gauntletqueen, would be for a robot body to be my body. 5 is the base, being the same as my current human body. It does not reflect my opinion on the design as a whole.

I'll rate them together since they're more or less the same.

Like some robots I've rated before, I'm not much of a fan of their appearance, being just humans with some lines on their skin to hint at the much more interesting machinery inside. The clothing worn by these two also doesn't factor in, as that isn't part of their bodies. Neither is their hair, which somehow grows naturally like a human's and thus I could simply cut it or grow it out as I'd like. What we're left with is a purely human conventionally attractive female appearance. Could be a lot worse! But damn could it be better. YoRHa units are capable of doing human things like consuming food and drink, but don't need to. That's actually good, I'd ideally like for that to be an option. They're obviously physically much stronger and more dexterous than a human, can double jump, and have some kind of matter manipulation ability that lets them move weapons and objects around as if by telekinesis. That's very useful and cool! They can also self-destruct but I'd prefer not to.

5.8

[canmom]

NieR Automata anime episode 6

Continuing commentary from [part 1], [part 2-3], and [part 4-5].

Ooof, I left myself with a big not-so-live blog backlog again. Never done that before! [shoves The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere under a blanket]

So where we left off, I'd covered the Simone episode and the Pascal episode. OK! Next up we have... the YoRHa stage play episode!

episode 6

This episode recounts the story of the YoRHa stage musical! Putting it alongside four different productions of the play, the official novelisation, the text version in the game from Anemone's point of view, and the ongoing manga YoRHa: Pearl Harbour Descent Record. You can never have too many.

In the present frame story, Lily walks with 2B (who looks almost the same as her old friend YoRHa No. 2) and tells her of the past events.

If you're not familiar with the play by the way, it's just about the sickest shit. Youtube won't embed this for some reason but here's the intro number Normandy...

Just like in the play, this episode of the anime tells the story of an experimental YoRHa unit on a mission to attack a machine lifeform server in Hawaii, and the android resistance unit they encounter, the gradual process of building trust between the two groups of androids, and their eventual brutal deaths as it turns out that the YoRHa command never actually intended for any of them to survive the mission.

The cast is broadly similar to most versions of the play, but in keeping with this version of the story, here Lily rather than Anemone is the focus and sole survivor of the Resistance unit. Not that this really makes a huge difference in practice.

Where the anime really benefits is that it can convey the setting a lot more clearly than a play or even a manga. This episode is full of lush forests, and the mountains of Hawaii loom in the background.

Given they're compressing the events of a two hour stage play into a twenty minute episode, naturally a lot needs to be cut, but they do a very solid job of making it flow through montages and character moments. And of course we get the key moments in the play still: Lily getting infected with the Logic Virus and being saved from a mercy-kill by the intervention of YoRHa No. 21. Added in this version are some embellishments; when No. 21 hacks Lily, she gets a brief glimpse of some memories:

These flash by too quickly to really see what's happening in the episode, but it appears that Lily was being sexually assaulted by another android, but Captain Rose intervened and invited her to the Resistance unit? I believe this storyline is further elaborated in the manga, but I haven't read that far.

The portrayal of the Logic Virus, and the earlier Red Eye Disease (basically the same thing), varies across the series. Often it's just mindless violence disease, but at its best, it exposes the simmering tensions and resentments in the character - something emphasised to great effect in the YoRHa Boys play. Here, Lily resents her helplessness - that she is always the one who has to be protected. We also get a new physical symbol of a relationship: the bullet which Rose fires at Lily and No. 2 deflects. The addition of water to the scene adds to the staging.

Another benefit of the anime is that it can portray the scale of the machine army in a way the play can't. The CG in this episode is not exactly great, but we do see swarms of machines crawling up towards the mountain...

Notably at this stage the Machine Lifeforms clearly haven't yet developed the Stubby models - they're this kind of insectoid orb design, similar to Ko-shi and Ro-shi in the game (as well as the individual segments of Hegel). It's a nice visual way to show how the machine lifeforms are developing.

The final battle montage is very well edited in general, hitting the key moments of the play without getting bogged down in details. Anemone is once again the one to stay behind to mercy-kill No. 21 after she gets infected (which explains why she survived). However, as a new addition in this version, Lily and Rose are told to evacuate before the final confrontation with the Red Girls, and Rose sends Lily up alone. Lily tries to kill herself, but Rose once again prevents it, and orders Lily to preserve the YoRHa squad in memory. The theme of memory being core to NieR...

At the end, we get our first brief glimpse of A2, who survived - with Lily still unaware. A closeup of her chin mole confirms her identification with No. 2.

The credits are also different this time, a gradual pan over the YoRHa squad members, fading away in turn as the familiar ED song Antimony plays. The final shot is notable...

The timid Lily of the past reaches out and clasps the hand of the Lily of the future who now leads the Resistance.

Honestly, despite the fact I've seen so many versions of this story, it's still affecting. I watched it again to write this post and got caught up watching the episode. It's full of quite wacky turns if I'm honest, like let's be real nothing YoRHa (the military organisation) does makes much tactical sense, but the core character dynamics are strong and they're well captured here so it never really matters.

The post-credits puppet skit this time focuses on Adam and Eve getting dressed up in uniforms. Eve is in gakuen and Adam is in a suit, each of which gets a pinup-style illustration to go with it (we get a full pan up from the feet)...

Eve annoys adam until he decides to just leave...

Yeah, that's it.

That's as much as I'm up to writing up now, but lots more NieR to cover until we're caught up!

Huge props to [GLORY] for the excellent fansubs.

[abimee]

Just wanted to say i love ur nier art and hcs! It's super refreshing to see the girls drawn without boobs as big as their heads like they don't even look like that in the games😭😭😭 I adore their designs and I love looking at fanart of them but so many times it just annoys me w how crazy everyone makes their proportions or how people draw 2b to be all sensual like her ass would not be making that expression...anyway lmfao. I love ur art, a true nier character understander..I've also never thought of trans girl Emil but it makes perfect sense

YAY TY :] im such a similar situation esp w A2 because i really like how she seems to have no ass and a small chest at least compared to 2B so i get sad when people dont find that appealling and have to give her a big ass/chest. nobody likes a yorha unit built like toothbrush but i do.... ive always had it in my head that because shes an older model she was made under different specifications/w different materials so every part of her is super enforced steel while models like 2B have more rubber and carbon fiber (esp makes it easier to repair the body cause you can replace the rubber/fiber outer layer that protects the internals)

so while 2b has more realistic skin and body softness and so a more defined chest and ass due to essentially padding, a2 is like a barbie doll down to the chest carved into the metal so shes not as defined. a2 the napkin girlfriend that might fly out of the window etc etc

[blahpanblah]

Before the new episode of the anime drops, let me drop this theory that I’ve been having for a year now and why I think it might come true in the next episode.

My theory is that I think 9S is going to die in the stead of 2B. Let me explain.

So far the anime has had some, on first glance big differences compared to the game. Like Lily living instead of Anemone, and Eve dying before Adam. And it seems like these things would be a major change, but in hindsight, it changes overall nothing. The most we get from it is a character study from those characters when they are put in these new scenarios. This isn’t a bad thing.

I believe that the anime is telltaleing the viewers, making us think these are major changes that might change how the story goes and maybe even change the the ending but in reality, no matter how it gets there, Ending A and B still happen the same way. This also isn’t bad thing

Where this theory falls in is this thought I had, “Would Ending C & D change that much if 9S died instead of 2B” what I think is no.

Let me put you in this hypothetical: Your 2B, YoRHA is destroyed and you just escaped with 9S, and while this is very much a bad thing, seeing that most of YoRHA units got the virus and are now killing zombies, in the back of your head. This is perfect.

With the death of the commander and the whole space facility destroyed, you have no reason to kill 9S anymore. There’s nothing he can find out. And even if he did there was no reason to. Yeah there’s still the machines that are responsible for this, but after all of that is settled, you're done, forever!

You can just live your life with 9S on earth. Never having to worry if this will be the day you have to kill him ever again. And in a way with the facility destroyed there’s no way to come from being killed. So they can live their lives like humans! Finally living lives without care! Finally getting those T-shirts.

First you have to find 9S. Stop the machines so they can get to the good life fast. And as you ask your pod to give you his location to find him. And as you get close, you run across this bridge, and when you're halfway there you see him! You yell out to him but then you notice something.

…He’s been impaled by a sword.

By A2 no less…

As he falls lifeless on the ground. Your mind begins to scramble. He’s dead. He’s dead, forever. He’s not coming back again. And you’ll never see his face, his smile, his voice, ever again. He’s been taken from you just when you're finally free.

And it’s all of A2’s fault

A2 killed him before she could even say goodbye. Before she could say anything! She killed him! Something only she was supposed to do! She gets to decide when to kill him, not her!

So she’ll kill her! She’ll take her away from this earth with her own bare hands if she has to!

So yeah, I don’t think this would change anything with C & D. 2B would have the exact same bloodlust towards A2 in this scenario. And that rage would have been manipulated by the red girls the exact same way, because I’m mostly sure, that 2B didn’t even know why she was killing 9S, all that he found out too much information, information about what? She doesn’t know. And the truth would absolutely drive her insane.

Also it is a bit suspicious that the first OP of the second half isn’t on YouTube officially but the ED is. Which said ED just happened to be about 2B. And Almost as if the OP is going to change.

And it’s also weird that the 2nd Cour trailers, even the most recent episode, only consist of scenes and voice lines from the first episode. And yet the 2nd OP pretty much spoils what happens in C & D, but the first OP didn’t. Pretty suspicious. Just me though

[rpking99]

The Last Human, Project Repopulation

OPEN RP (Adventure) (Male/Futa only)

(Will get to have fun with 2B, 2P, A2 and/or Commander White. (And/Or 9S if you like Femboys))

The Bunker, the space station base of YORhA. The Android forces who did battle with the Machines from another world. Their mission? Defeat the Machines and save the world so humanity could return home. ...... A mission that has been going on for hundreds of years now

At least, that was the story most members of the organisation were told. But not what Commander White, the one in charge of the organisation, knew. The human race was extinct, gone. With their return being a lie to motivate their people, a reason for the Androids to fight.

A reason to live. A reason.... that was a lie.

....

Which is why the reveal of this, of a stasis pod with a living human being inside, was so surprising. Horrifying. Wonderful. And so many more all at once. But it also meant there was a chance... A chance for the human race to be repopulated.

"Commander, we are ready to awaken the human!" One Operator Unit spoke, snapping the blonde android from her thoughts

"Right." Commander White nodded, looking up. She had to be strong, focused, unyielding "Bring them out!" She ordered, the Commander's eyes focused. The process beginning

Several of YORhA's greatest units stood just behind the Commander. 2B, 9S and 2P. 2P being the one to locate and return the pod to the Bunker

As steam emerged from the pod, as one, the YORhA units crossed an arm across their chest. As one they let out a familiar cry for the human within. Their cree, their reason to fight

"Glory to mankind!" They cried out as the pod opened, and the human could emerge

[attacker-no-2]

my big theory or whatever about the machines in nier automata is that what 9s says about the machines not being able to learn from their mistakes and trying things that they know will fail over and over isn't accurate! 4 reasons for that under the cut (since this turned out to be WAY longer than i intended it to be. also there's a spoiler for long story short and episode 9 of the anime if you haven't gotten to those yet):

9s is frequently shown to be an unreliable narrator when it comes to the machines. he literally believes they don't have emotions. i'm not trying to villainize him here, but i don't think it's a huge stretch to say that he saw the behaviors of early machines and made a generalization. i may very well be biased against 9s here, but i've played the game enough to know how much he fucking hates machines. even if 2b's alive.

eve's arc in long story short. for those of you who haven't read it- when adam first leaves for the copied city, eve stays at their home because he promised he stayed there and didn't want adam to be mad at them. but, when adam has been gone for long enough, he goes to the copied city to check on him, and for the first time he doesn't care what adam would feel, he just wants to protect him. (granted, that plan only works out in the anime, but cut him some slack.)

black boxes are recycled machine cores. yorha units frequently show the ability to try different things when other things don't work out- look at a2!- so it's reasonable to believe that machines can do at least something similar given that fact.

the games general themes. i don't know if anybody missed this given what ending e was like, but i'll explain it just in case- nier automata, among other things, is a game about how it's always possible for things to change for the better, no matter how dire things are. since the game frequently shows how the complete demonization of machines is Total Bullshit, then this should apply to them as much as it applies to the android characters!

anyways. like or rb this post if you are a certified machine lover :thumbsup: (not forced)

[shraqsmuses]

"O.. Kay? A huff, arms splayed out towards the ceiling to begin the grueling process of rolling herself, quite literally, off the mattress top. Grumbles emitted from the mound sectioned as her torso chassis, hearing the other unit take apart her well packed stash, an equally annoyed grunt forced out her lips, chins squishing into another as she'd gawk at her own situation.

"Couldn't have shouted any louder with this.. Other unit?" Steel groaned as the mound begun to sway, slumping towards the side like puddy being shaped, whirs of joints and mechanical-muscles being strained, getting something of a leg dangling off the corner, joined by another through daunting tasks. Palms, sinking into the mattress's foam, lurking forwards girth threatening to burrow itself into the ground beneath, moving like a boulder gained consciousness as the android began to rise.

"Remind me why is it that you even have access to my quarters, " Elbowing A2's reaching hand, a dig around her various food stuffs kept in arms length, peeling off a lid to a tin, tilted and raised as calorific paste began to run down, gulping it down in a matter of minutes, lips smeared from the back of her wrists, stifling a hot exhaust, "A word with you later, and no more of that... Reported machine business. Even consumed my Ice Cream. . . "

A2 merely grit her teeth and scratched her fingertips across her engorged sphere with a dull grating noise that dragged a plentiful of crumbs onto the plain, white floor beneath her, now sullied with them and streaks of dirt and individual blades of grass. A sweltering red shade lurked over her quivering frown and eyebrows as she watched 2B’s excessive adipose morph and stack on top of her maneuvers, the groaning steel parts and quick successions of whirring bouncing off of the featureless walls and into her ears, forcing her teeth to clamp into each other further and lids to seal themselves as her neck craned away from the sight of the mammoth android with a few, deep clicks between their joints.

It was then that a small mound of pudge knocked against her stiff backhand, locking her muscles in a brief stifle with a metallic shriek resounding from them. The back of her molded feet lifted itself up and tilted toward the metallic crate’s flat face, smashing against it with a swipe of her leg, smearing its bottom against the bedroom’s plain, segmented white floor with a trail of orange sparks until it banged against the entrance with a clang that echoed to the two rotund androids.

A2 twirled her body to the layers of constructed, pooling pudge resting upon the bed, her round thighs and buttocks wobbling sideways and her stomach swaying to her right before she stamped her heel against the floor, twisting its dull edge into the indentation upon it before it eventually rocked over its edges repeatedly. Her blubber vertically jittered for a moment before it spread itself horizontally, her massive thighs trembling and mimicking the sound of a thick metal sheet swaying in the air amidst the echoes of her screeching hip joint and the vanishing boom of her sudden stomp.

“First, this is probably the same room I slept in. Second, I would’ve found a way to get in here regardless of whether or not I had access to it. Third, YoRHa thought having me work for them again wouldn’t be enough to torture me so they made sure to give me access to your room and ONLY your room despite the fact that I NEVER get to sleep in it. You want to know where I sleep instead? Outside. Like I’m some kind of savage mutt who can’t be trusted with serviceable amenities. Like I didn’t serve in a war that got ALL of the units in the squadron I was assigned to killed. ‘All of the quarters in the bunker are currently occupied,’ the Commander told me before continuing to tell me that I’ll ‘share’ a room with you, all while keeping that moronic, stern look on her face, someone should really tell her how much of an ABYSMAL job she’s doing to all of her mindless–”

A2 scraped her fingertips against her onyx palms, a shrill whine blasting out of them as she raised one of her bare, quaking legs above the cavity below it. However, after a prolonged emission of a humid cloud through the gaps of her teeth, her joints audibly clicking as she slowly lowered her leg onto the ground, crossing her arms and situating them on top of her chest before nestling her heel onto the ground with a few grating squeals.

“Hrmph. Right. You probably don’t want me to ramble about YoRHa again, huh? Especially not after you just woke up. You wouldn’t even want to hear me talk about them at all even if you were fully awake, right? No one ever wants to hear what I have to say about them. Then again, this conversation technically isn’t about them. If YoRHa is alright with letting some strange robot who doesn’t look like any of their soldiers at all roam around the bunker, then I guess I’ll go with it. The only reason they irked me at all was because they kept calling me a name I really freaking hate. Hmm. Can I take your… Trash with you? You just left a bunch of junk food in your room and you didn’t do anything about it.

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Anime-only Nier Automata ver1.1a fans: I want you to think about what we've seen about A2 so far. She's kind of mysterious, isn't she? At this point in the story, post-flashback, she hasn't said anyting except to express surprise at 2B and 9S defending Pascal, a Machine Lifeform, and trying to tell 9S that "command is the one who betrayed". All we know is that she kills Machine Lifeforms on sight, and even though YoRHa has kill-on-sight standing orders against her, she didn't start fighting 2B and 9S until 2B went on the offensive; in the latest episode (episode 16), she was even willing to defend 2B from the infected YoRHa units. So that's pretty clear about what her goals and general philosophies are; like despite the betrayal, she hates Machine Lifeforms more than YoRHa, or at least the YoRHa androids she meets on the ground.

At the same time, though, we haven't seen anything about her personality, who she is as a person, and how she's developed since that one flashback! So despite her obvious goals, she's kind of an enigmatic figure, really. Really mysterious!

I want you to keep this in mind going into episode 17, when we'll presumably see what she's really like.

[some-creep]

The quality of the nier anime is hinging entirely on how good the route c season

Anyway 6B instead of 21B because that would be fun because you get:

The fact the 6 personality type is deranged as a combat unit (please YoRHa girls 1.1a reference idc it's not canon)

6O logic virus ramblings blaming 9S for not saving 2B

A2 still showing up to kill her (she thinks it's 2B)

Also I think 2B saying I can't tell you if earth is beautiful you'll just have to come down and see for yourself could be used as foreshadowing for it

[triggerthreestrikes]

Ending E headcanon novelization type thing.

“Pod 153 to Pod 042, an unknown program is attempting to restore systems and purge corruption from YorHa units a2, 9s, and 2b. Unknown program please Identify.”

>Human, or at least I used to be. Former human Matthew Hale at your service.

“Impossible. Humanity marked as extinct”

>Yeah, they are. As far as I know I’m the last human consciousness left. Don’t even know how it happened.

“Pod 042 to Human consciousness, your attempts to repair these YorHa units are damaging yourself, please cease in order to preserve your life in accordance with YorHa protocol.”

>Last I checked, YorHa’s gone. These three are more human than I’ll ever be again anyhow. Pod, as the last known human alive, I declare all previous YorHa protocol null and void. Your new prime directive is- *DAMAGE SUSTAINED, CONSCIOUSNESS UPLOAD INTEGRITY 90%*

“Pod 153 to human Consciousness, you have sustained more damage, please-“

>Pod 153 and 042 are to cease attempts to dissuade humanity from saving YorHa Units a2, 9S and 2b!

“…understood. Pod 042 will comply.”

“Pod 153 will comply as well.”

*DAMAGE TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUSTAINED, INTEGRITY AT 86%*

Give up.

>Ah, you must be the logic virus that’s been trying to block me. Nice try, but you’ll find I’m rather persistent.

*DAMAGE TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUSTAINED, INTEGRITY AT 73%*

Accept defeat.

>Never.

*DAMAGE TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUSTAINED, INTEGRITY AT 68%*

*DAMAGE TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUSTAINED, INTEGRITY AT 52%*

Continuation is pointless.

>I emphatically disagree.

*DAMAGE TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUSTAINED, INTEGRITY AT 49%*

Admit these androids have no meaning.

>You. wish.

“Pod 153 and 042 to human consciousness, similar programs to yourself are offering aid, do you wish to accept their help?”

>Yeah, I could use the help.

*HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS DEVRIM_SADER HAS SUSTAINED TOO MUCH DAMAGE AND HAS BEEN DELETED*

>Almost there…

*HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS ALICE_WHITE HAS SUSTAINED TOO MUCH DAMAGE AND HAS BEEN DELETED*

*DAMAGE TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUSTAINED, INTEGRITY AT 36%*

*HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS YUNA_SETSUKO HAS SUSTAINED TOO MUCH DAMAGE AND HAS BEEN DELETED*

>Almost got it!

*HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS AKANDE_ENBANI HAS SUSTAINED TOO MUCH DAMAGE AND HAS BEEN DELETED*

*WARNING, CONSCIOUSNESS UPLOAD INTEGRITY AT 13%, SUSTAINABILITY IMPOSSIBLE, DELETION IMMINENT.*

>Finished. Just in time too. All traces of logic virus purged and memory banks are intact and ready for recovered black box data. Sending that now.

*CONSCIOUSNESS MATTHEW_HALE HAS SUSTAINED TOO MUCH DAMAGE AND HAS BEEN DELETED*

[killerrobot-killingmatch]

A2 porpaganda

Honestly just a really fuckin cool android, as most YoRHa units are. We can really only describe her as "2B but feral" as capability wise the two are extremely similar atleast in gameplay.

[canmom]

NieR Automata Anime episode 13-14

previously: [e1], [e2-3], [e4-5], [e6], [e7-8], [e9], [e10-12]

After a long hiatus to get the production back into some semblance of order, NieR Automata ver 1.1a came back a couple months ago! And a new cour means new OP/ED.

For the OP we have Black Box by LiSA:

The video does more for me than the song here, a cool montage of scenes from Route C. Kinda huge spoilers if you haven't played the game but maybe it's less so without context lol. We have images of the Tower, of 9S and A2 fighting (really cool sequence; Shinichi Kurita animated the flashiest shot), and a few other significant images from across the game.

The real highlight for me though is the ED, Hai to Inori by Gems Company arranged by Keiichi Okabe, which features some really cool multipart harmonies and distorted vocals. The ED itself is a nice sequence with some of the flower imagery the series is known for, but they also made a music video for the full song which involves a lot of stylish robes, ominous architecture, and glitch effects as a group of hooded women perform a mysterious ritual involving candles. It's DoD3 as hell and I'm so here for it...

What's the deal with Gems Company? They're actually a virtual idol group consisting of nine vtubers, produced by Squeenix. I believe this is their first time appearing in an anime ED, and the music style definitely seems like a departure from their other work. I suppose it makes sense, given NieR Automata began as an idol group (the original YoRHa, assembled to make the soundtrack to DoD3), to come back around this way!

Episode 13: reckless bra[V]ery

The first episode of the new season starts with an extended flashback episode, in which we get the reveal that 2B is actually 2E an Execution type unit, designed to destroy 9S every time he knows too much. In the game this is one of the final reveals, which you learn in the Tower sequence. But it's a subject so thoroughly covered by the side material (e.g. Memory Cage/Memory Thorn) that I guess they figured it was worth exploring now.

The frame story starts with one of the sidequests in the game, where you encounter an E type unit suffering a kind of guilt-induced breakdown. 9S figures out what 2E's deal is, and almost escapes his fate, only to be betrayed by his own Pod.

Notably, some of the action in this episode takes place in a location from the original NieR (Gestalt/Replicant), the temple near Façade where you have to do a bunch of 'clear the room without taking a certain action' puzzles. This doesn't really have bearing on the plot, but it's cool to see paintings of these zones.

It's all a setup for 2B to kill 9S, but she hesitates this time, allowing us to get a long delayed scene where they discover Emil inside a machine lifeform in the ruined department store. Emil is really adorably animated, scooting off in a very cartoony way.

Squash and stretch.

So, the 2E cat is out of the bag. Cutting to the present, we see Commander White declaring it's all finally over: she no longer has to order 2E to kill 9S, because it's time to end the war!

She's right, but not in the way she thinks.

Overall, good episode and a strong start to the new season. It may seem a little abrupt to reveal all this right after ending A, but it does a good job of rearranging material from the game and the side stories/concert dramas into a coherent arc, finally lets us see Emil, and sets up for the descent operation. There's also some really nice fight animation in the opening part of the episode, in which we see 2B and 9S really pulling out some moves to cut up the Machine Lifeforms together.

The puppet show is a skit about how 2B is finally saying 'Nines' now. I think they have some new sets as well.

Episode 14: Mission [F]ailed

We knew it was coming.

Commander White commits the whole of YoRHa into one massive attack on the machines. The Council of Humanity, for their own inscrutable reasons, let her hand out the YoRHa superweapons like candy and call in orbital strikes on the machine factories. The YoRHa put on their fashiest uniforms and line up.

The 3DCG on the flight units is massively improved in this episode: they're now using a cel-shaded style similar to the way the machines are rendered and it makes a world of difference. The descent scenes, compared to the first episode, are night and day. They even add a new variant of extra wings on top of the flight unit, in case this wasn't matryoshka enough.

Compared to the game, the anime increases the scale of the final descent operation, showing us 9S commanding the scanners in a complicated hacking operation as the Resistance use big YoRHa lasers to blow up a huge army of Engelses in a scene that is, well, very Nausicaa...

A magnificent mushroom cloud in the sky... No Anno to animate the explosions but they do a creditable job.

It definitely does a stronger job of selling the idea that this really is a planetary-scale battle with WMDs going to and fro; there's a bit of dialogue to explain why they didn't do this before (the machines would evolve to resist the weapons, but now they're trying for all out extermination).

But of course, it's going to follow the same arc as the game. There's some neat foreshadowing with 21O receiving visions of a red butterfly (also! we get to see 21O in battle! turns out the Operator units really have some moves!) before the Red Girls install the logic virus through the secret backdoor and all hell breaks loose.

If there's one thing this anime does rather well, it's evil grins. They really are doing the whole 'switch to a deeper voice to be evil' thing a lot now, pretty much every time the Red Girls are on screen.

To really drive home the 'YoRHa going berserk' angle, they have a subplot in this episode on the relationship between Scanner and Battler units. Early on, we're introduced to a series of scanners, whose Battler companions are being rather... affectionate:

The childish design of the Scanners is also underlined...

The lore is that there were originally male units of all types, but after the M02 trial unit all went berserk and killed each other, they decided male YoRHa would only be Scanner types (except in the alternate genderflipped universe anyway... look it's a deep well). Why they're all like, teenagers? Well you see, shotacons are 2% more efficient in battle... idk it's just part of the doll imagery right? boys represent a kind of vulnerability, and for the story to do its work, yorha have to be kind of have a certain naive affect. (we do see an adult member of the resistance get mercy killed by Lily)

Anyway, the point of all this is (apart from underlining 9S's feelings towards 2B, which are perhaps most explicitly romantic in this iteration) to set up the logic virus scenes where they all start murdering each other! This is NieR, after all. We start pulling on the imagery of lovers' suicides, a recurring motif in JP fiction, as the dialogue takes on a possessive turn...

Death death death! It definitely adds a dimension, even knowing the logic virus scenes are going to happen; another aspect is that 9S's scanner network is back-hacked and used to compromise the YoRHa, so we can add that to the stack of things that will drive 9S off the deep end.

More lore: the original prototype YoRHa No. 9 was the architect of the secret backdoor in YoRHa, after he discovered that the YoRHa androids are based on machine cores. He modified the plan so that the YoRHa would eventually be destroyed, to keep the secret that the humans are dead. So it really is all 9S's fault... sorta :p

All in all: a cool treatment. Next episode we'll presumably see how 2B dies. In the game this is an absolutely brutal sequence where you try to walk across the map as your systems slowly shut down and the screen glitches out harder and harder. Fascinated to see how they treat that in the anime!

The puppet show in this one is cute: it's based on the easter egg in the DLC where you fight the CEOs of Square Enix and Platinum Games in the arena.

This is what it looks like ingame:

Cute to see that acknowledged.

Next up, despair!