NieR:Automata Ver 1.1a Season 2

Episode 24

This is the part of NieR:Automata that I've been the most anxious to see adapted, mostly because I was wondering just what in the hell A-1 Studios could possibly do to even try to live up to how the game concludes.

To be clear to anyone that is coming into this as an anime-only viewer, I'm not talking about the final conflict between A2 and 9S. That part of the story was handled pretty beautifully, I think. The action was satisfying, cathartic, and tragic in equal measure, and the show's interpretation of game mechanics like 9S' hacking gives the fight an appropriately cinematic flair. I also probably haven't given the show's liberal reuse of Keiichi Okabe's score enough credit, if only because I've become so used to how perfect it is for the material, but man, that new mix of “Weight of the World” hits about as hard as it did the first time I saw it.

Really, the only major “flaw” I could point to about this penultimate story beat is the baked in predictability that comes with this style of Tragedy, which I already talked about at length last week. Nothing about A2 and 9S' final conflict is especially surprising, nor does it explore any ground we haven't already trod before. A2's latecoming desire to atone for her apathy and commit to saving this ruined world is the obvious (but still perfect) foil for 9S' all-consuming rage and despair. There was never any other way this was going to end aside from their mutually assured destruction, which is exactly what comes to pass…until it doesn't.

WARNING: Spoilers for the best parts of the NieR:Automata video game await below! You have been warned! (Also, for the love of Pod 153, play the damned game if you haven't already!)

You see, it's what comes after the ending credits that I was both eager and afraid to see unfold, because the way this finale was executed in the game is maybe my single favorite ever example of a game achieving perfect mechanical, thematic, and narrative synergy. For those of you who don't know, the original game ends with Pods 153 and 042 arriving to obliterate the fourth wall and force the player into making a deeply personal choice that reflects everything they've taken from the NieR:Automata experience. The end credits, you see, take the form of an impossibly challenging bullet-hell shooter mini game, one that is virtually impossible to beat until the avatars of players from across time and around the world come to provide their aid. The player is then asked themselves if they are willing to lend such help to another, even if it means permanently deleting their game save data. This isn't a hypothetical choice, either – if you choose to give the kind of help that you received in turn, despite not knowing who you will be helping or if it will even be noticed or appreciated, you must watch as the game meticulously erases every single memory and accomplishment you've made in your dozens of hours of playtime.

The NieR games have always been about depicting the cycles of violence and self-destruction that occur when people are chained to their selfish desires and cheap prejudices that blind them to the pain of others. At the end of NieR:Automata the player is asked to make an act of literal self-sacrifice in order to commit an act of unconditional empathy for a stranger. It's such a powerful and intimate artistic statement, and one that simply cannot be replicated in a passive medium like television or film. For as good as it has been, I've known since Day 1 that NieR:Automata Ver1.1a was going to have to go a different route, and I've known that it likely wouldn't come close to being as perfect as what the game accomplished.

To the show's credit, though, it came up with an alternative that at least gets at the bare essentials of what this story is trying to say. Given that they are practically the only “living” characters left around, it makes sense that we would return to the Pods and their slowly burgeoning sense of consciousness and “humanity,” and I like the last stand that the story forces the beloved caretakers into in order to save 2B and 9S. As Pod 153 readily admits, resurrecting our Android heroes could very well just result in the two of them betraying and killing each other all over again. However, as Pod 153 also reminds us, there is only one truly human response to facing an overwhelming challenge that is almost certainly doomed to fail: “Suck it.”

That, plus a well-timed space-laser intervention on the part of Pod 042, gives us a properly exciting climax to end this adaptation on. Is it the sublime poetry of the game's ending? No, obviously it is not. Is it good enough for this uncommonly excellent interpretation of a masterpiece video game? Sure, I'll go ahead and say, “Why not!” Also, Yokō Tarō, you son of a bitch, don't think I missed that cameo from Accord at the very end of this thing. Stop jerking us around with all of these side-projects and dead mobile game spinoffs already and just tell us when the next proper NieR game is coming, already! At the very least, can we get a shiny remaster/remake of Drakengard 3? You owe us that much after forcing us to watch these precious Androids and Machines die horribly for the umpteenth time, now…

Rating:

NieR:Automata Ver 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 on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.