After feeling deflated by the first episode of Nier: Automata Ver1.1a, an adaptation of the outstanding video game by Yoko Taro and PlatinumGames, I didn't think I'd do it again. It played like what a cynic would expect: an almost one-to-one recreation but with uglier 3D animation; It seemed like something was missing. He did not have much opportunity to plead his case; Even with its promising sparks, the first half of the show was plagued by multiple delays. But now, thanks to its precise handling of the game's overlapping tragedies, more than a year later, the show leaves me feeling deflated, but this time in a good way.
Like the game, the anime is set in the distant future. The Earth has been abandoned by humanity, who now lives on the moon. The Council of Humanity sends android soldiers to fight in their stead in a war against mechanical life forms, sent by alien masters. The androids look human (and creepy in their beauty), the machines look like rusty wind-up toys. The story follows 2B (Yui Ishikawa/Kira Buckland, reprising their roles) and 9S (Natsuki Hanae/Kyle McCarley, likewise), special forces androids working for the sinister organization YoRHa, which operates from a space station; His agents are all dressed. with doll finery.
From the multiple lives of the YoRHa androids to these cycles of endless war to the multiple playthroughs required to complete the game, Nier is all about iteration and repetition, which is part of why retelling an anime It immediately makes some sense. It was already a multimedia project; It has been shown that history can work if it is taken out of its original context. There are novels and a play that are canon, and they use those other mediums to gain a new perspective on Nier's constant angst.
But game adaptations to anime can be a complicated prospect. With manga to anime adaptations, obviously each medium has its own drawbacks, but the former uses voice acting and music as well as animated acting to (ideally) add a unique interpretation where the reader's imagination would fill the spaces between the panels. Games are already working with that set of tools and migrating to the more passive medium of television. eliminate player agency.
Image: SQUARE ENIX/Humanity Council
So what's added for people who already played? Some shows get around this by using the game world as a springboard to new stories in its furthest corners, leaving directors, writers, and designers a little more room to play (take, for example, Cyberpunk: Vanguard Runners either Arcane). Nier: Automata It is a complicated case because it is one of the most video game-like video games of recent times, since the player's contribution and the language of the video game are intrinsically linked to its narrative. The best example is the end of the game, a direct confrontation with the player that, loosely speaking, asks you to place your gaming experience on a scale. It remains to be seen how that moment will translate; There are still some awkward hurdles when moving from game to episode. One story in the second half stands out for how close it feels to being a video game goal (“go pick up these three things”), but the cruel monotony and acting in response to that sell it anyway.
While some frustrations remain, Ver.1.1a fought back once it started capitalizing on the new things this medium can do over what it can replicate. Some of the best elements early on are the puppet end-credits stingers, which use that silly, whimsical animation to address minor pieces of world-building and recreate the game's silly alternate endings, which included things like 2B dying for eating mackerel. .
Another one of those things is pretty simple: how editing changes the presentation of this narrative. One of the most poignant examples is “broken [W]things.” It begins with a short montage of 2B's memories of encounters with 9S, divided by interspersed titles of words that 2B associates with each of those occasions. Writer Yusuke Watanabe and episode director/writer Satsuki Takahashi (no strangers to war stories with their time in 86) then changes this to a mirrored sequence from 9S's perspective, compressing their relationship into a surprising and distressing sum that puts their points of view in direct contrast to each other. Thinking back to how it started, this episode felt like a realization of the show's real potential: using shifting media to find new routes into the characters' subjective perspectives, delving into the nuances of relationships that are, to say the least, incredibly prickly.
Ver.1.1aThe interest in exploring the multimedia expansion that Nier has become, rather than simply a direct adaptation of the games, also keeps things fresh. The show can zoom out and paint a more detailed picture of the supporting cast. This was true in previous episodes before the (long) delay interrupted them: 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 of the characters in that story. The episodes”[L]a wolf” and “bad [J]udgement” adapts the YoRHa stage play, which is itself an expansion of the game's Pearl Harbor Descent story, a tragedy about a failed mission that informs A2 and Lily's backstories. The written historical connections hidden in the game also come to the surface: “only you[O]You and I” begins with a live shot of a storybook, a summary of the story of Drakengardwhich is the precursor series to Yoko Taro nier. The sequence then draws the line from this to Replicant. These connections existed in Automata the game, if you looked for them. But the crafting makes the show feel special and expansive, even though you can't control what gets explored and when.