© SQUARE ENIX/HUMAN COMMITTEE
This is one of the many interesting paradoxes Yoko Taro Project: These stories are notorious for their painful twists and turns and the gratuitous suffering their characters are often forced to endure. While conventional wisdom holds that such materials are bound to lead to diminishing returns, the overwhelming desperation and devastation expected at the economy’s peak moments can be expected. Drakengard and Neil Games only make fans enjoy these stories more. Even though it was my first time playing ” NieR: AutomataI don’t remember it was surprise When Pascal and his villagers meet a terrible fate, or when the logic virus inevitably consumes the last remnants of the resistance. After watching the show nearly two dozen times, I can’t imagine even anime-only fans being so shocked to see the world around A2 and 9S crumble into a scattered pile of Androids and machine shards.
However, despite this, it still ends up being a very effective story. A large part of it is NieR: Automata Confronted directly from the start, it’s unable to escape the classic tropes and story beats of a war drama. We’ve seen time and time again how robots and machines can imitate human mistakes, to the point where we seem destined to fall victim to even the most self-destructive tendencies. Pascal wanted his villagers to be fearful enough to give them a sense of self-preservation, but he never considered how far people would be pushed when they were backed into a corner with no hope of escape. Lily wanted to be the kind of leader who could bring hope to her allies while showing mercy to the weak, and now, one act of kindness destroyed what centuries of sustained attacks could not.
A tragedy in the most classic sense, our heroes and villains are in conflict with their destiny from the start, and no force on earth (or moon) can keep these figureheads from playing their part. You can criticize”[N]”Human Village” spends a lot of its time and animation budget depicting a series of deeply sad and senseless deaths that we all see coming from a mile away. never ends well village or Romeo and Juliet For more than four hundred years, people have been recalling these stories. Shakespeare’s play also doesn’t feature any sexy robot maid soldiers.
Seriously, this is a great series NieR: Automata Version 1.1a. The way it changed some of the events in the game kept me on my toes, just enough to make the whole thing feel new again. Pascal and the villagers’ approach might work better than the events in the game, as the lack of any player agency would make Pascal’s choose-your-own despair ending meaningless in animated form. I also couldn’t help but chuckle when I realized that making Lily the leader of the resistance always ensured that this part of the story would hurt A2 in some way Even. Great, Mr. Taro, you bastard.
Most importantly, though, is how effectively this episode captures the mixture of melancholy, despair, and absurdly naive hope that this story has always thrived on. Fear and love have driven people like A2, 2B, and 9S from the beginning, and fear and love will become their shackles until the end. How appropriate, how humane.
grade:
NieR: Automata version 1.1a Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which can also be found in twitterhis blog and his podcast.
