It's full of intricate storylines, metanarrative games, and terrifying revelations.
Last year was a good one for A-1 Pictures, with hits like Solo Leveling, Too Many Losing Heroines, and the second season of Mashle: Magic and Muscles.
In such a list, Nier: Automata Ver1.1a, an adaptation of Yoko Taro's video game, could easily get lost in the shuffle.
What Is Nier: Automata Ver1.1a About?
The year is 11,945. Humans have abandoned Earth, which has been occupied by aggressive aliens. They use machines as weapons, so androids become humanity's countermeasure. However, for several millennia, no one has been able to determine a winner.
The Earthlings rely on the YoRHa, a unique unit of new-generation models that are much more powerful than their predecessors.
Two of them, 2B and 9S, are sent to Earth, where they continue their mission, but what they see makes them question the mission – and even themselves.
NieR Creator Focuses on Painful Experiences, Cranking Up Emotions to the Max
For Yoko Taro, emotion has a special place in every story. He values painful experiences above all else, so all of his stories are full of mental and physical suffering, monstrous discoveries, and heartbreaking twists.
For example, the original NieR, whose events precede Automata by a few thousand years, showed how unbridled fanaticism can lead to monstrous consequences.
Taro's demonstration was terribly clear: the first playthrough seems very logical and correct, but after the second, a horrible truth is revealed.
In Drakengard, an even earlier prequel, the game designer focused on madness to create an equally traumatic experience. Automata is no exception in this regard, except that it radically alters perception not once, but three times.
The Anime Inherits the Twisted Plot and Emotional Intensity of the Original
The final part, completed in the second season, is a rollercoaster of emotions that is simply impossible to talk about without spoilers. And it's not worth it: it's better to experience it yourself.
The show manages to convey all the pain, desperation, and fear of the characters you know. In some moments, the story differs slightly from the game version: this concerns some locations, characters and fates.
At the same time, the scriptwriters carefully approach the general structure: the usual "alternate endings" disappear near the climax of the whole story, giving way to the interaction of support bots, and then the "finales" of the episodes disappear altogether - in accordance with the deteriorating internal and external state of the protagonists.
Where to Watch Nier: Automata Ver1.1a?
Nier: Automata Ver1.1a is available to stream on Crunchyroll.