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Some shows are virtually inseparable from the narratives surrounding their creation, and for 2023’s NieR: Automata Ver1.1a, it had two narratives that it needed to reconcile. The most-obvious of the two was its troubled production life, subjected to delays that finally led to a months-long hiatus before at last returning to remind the anime community that it was, indeed, still a thing. Wondering whether it was actually Covid, or if that was just a convenient excuse to make up for the lack of time, is ultimately not the point. What does matter is that it was plagued with much woe, leaving all involved in the ruins of a production to salvage; the long separation equated to something akin to a Game Over, needing to restart from the last save point and do some level grinding before it finally could set itself back on the course to the end.

The other was pertaining to its original source material. Leaving the thematic content aside, NieR: Automata is an oddity among hack-and-slash, as its elements are more than simply in the service of telling a story. They have a habit of encroaching themselves on the relation between the player and the game; the game’s menu itself becomes susceptible to manipulation and corruption and the UI tinkers with both space and gameplay, leaving things to unfold in ways that defy common video game convention. Since the whole was envisioned as a game first with this form of presentation inherent to the experience, any adaptation would need to wrestle with trying to transfer these qualities into television format, or revoke them altogether and buckle down purely on television presentation principles instead. Honestly, it’s an undertaking as vast as the environment’s scope and as thick as the plot. It has to find its own mettle and forge a justification to argue why it’s a worthwhile addition to the dystopic science-fiction universe.

As an entity, NieR: Automata Ver1.1a could best be thought of as a story that underwent its own character arc over the span of its twelve episodes, and in juxtaposing where it was to where it finished, I cannot help but be pleasantly surprised at the change that resulted. Watching the first episode felt like an insult, a carbon copy of the game both in image and dialogue. Whether it was directly lifting the iconography of the tutorial or using the original game’s soundtrack, it had no blood. Flying down an empty corridor is far more thrilling as a gamer trying to dodge pipes than as a passive observer watching. At the most cynical, it felt as though NieR: Automata Ver1.1a was doomed to be an adaptational zombie, simply executing the pre-programmed motions of the whole via autopilot and not having anything to call its own. This was to say nothing of the end of the episode, which took 2B’s famously existential soliloquy and had to transform it into something romance-laden to make it more relatable. Perhaps the series was inadvertently utilizing one of the central concepts of the story – the supposition of human culture to fill the lack of culture for machines. All you’d need to do is replace a couple of words in that last sentence and you’d be all set.

(The first episode commits the cardinal sin of video game adaptation, which is a near complete copy-paste of the source in uncreative ways. So much of the premiere is lifted straight from the game tutorial, hampered further by the inability to interact with the environment that is native to games but not television)

Yet little by little, the show found a new foundation to lay itself upon. It seemed that, in the interim between episodes one and two, writer-director Masuyama Ryouji remembered that the world of NieR: Automata has too many riches and should not take the shorter approach by casually retelling the story that fans already knew. A new adaptation meant new opportunities, and the anime found them. It comes in the form of both entire plot threads within episodes, or in tiny peppering throughout that add a splash of spice or color to the story the adaptation is naturally obligated to tell. It does not need to be a slave to following 2B and 9S every minute, at times [drawing influence from other sources of the NieR-verse]( https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/YoRHa_(Stage_Play) within the dramaturgy; it affords itself the opportunity to digress away and focus on something else within the narrative that the game simply wasn’t able to do because of the inherent restrictions of its mechanics or otherwise. To perhaps phrase it another way, when NieR: Automata Ver1.1a moves past the specter of its “original self,” it manages to cultivate a NEW “original self” synthesized out of its inspirations and into a distinct entity. Even as the adaptation combines the source’s stories [A] and [B] and cannot diverge too far out of necessity, it proves to be as malleable as Pascal’s body, adopting a new form or function. And oftentimes, it is within the quiet, almost-surreal placidness of the world that the series is at its most comfortable, allowing its world to be lived in with its Machines rather than blown up in fiery goodness. Rather than use the word “grower” to refer to it, the series could best be called a “learner.”

(The series is at its best when it uses the spirit of the original source rather than simply copying it, creating pockets of new content that complement either the world, its themes, or its inhabitants, if not all three at once)

To be sure, it can only go so far in this respect. In true spirit of its hack-and-slash origin, NieR: Automata Ver1.1a has to bring the action at various points, and the staff’s production woes do make their presence known. The movements come across as smooth, though not with the same sense of freedom and poise that tends to define the best of anime action. 2B and 9S can indeed move through space with fluidity, but the storyboarding or choreography cannot quite give them the full release of spectacle that is being sought. It is far from ideal, but it is not garish or ugly, except when the red-purple orbs appear and call all the more attention to its video game origins (they’re easy to dodge with a controller, but not to watch with the eyes). It ultimately makes for a bit of a mixed blessing. Though maybe it doesn’t matter nearly so much this time around the factory; one could argue that we have been spoiled by sakugafests and that this anime’s general sense of action could never quite hit the full stride, but there is an indelible quality to the sequences that does ring as sincere. The fact that the action sequences are as good as they are is a godsend given the circumstances involved.

(While not perfect, the action sequences within the finished product do indeed have kinetic movement and slickness. The mixture of 2D—that’s not an android name—and CGI are at their most harmonious in moments like these, though some jank does remain)

That, perhaps, summarizes NieR: Automata Ver1.1a better than anything else. At first flush, the anime seemed poised to be pale a shadow of the original, dwarfed in concept, aesthetic, and story underpinning. Somehow, it managed to patch itself and learn in several capacities and touched upon the inherent wonder that lay within. It’s a rarity that an anime (adaptation or otherwise) manages to pick itself up and dust itself off in the same way that this did, though it could only achieve so much given the restrictions involved both in exploration and in manpower. In that vein, it has created in its wake something that is almost NieR, but not quite.

You have unlocked ending [A].

…though, perhaps I’m looking at this the wrong way, so let’s try another angle instead: this is a production that, in more ways than one, should not be what it is. Every sign at the start seemed to hint at an impending implosion, yet through small miracles, it patched itself and learned in an effort to achieve self-actualization. Because it could never understand or explore the totality of it all, it chose instead to be the most “thing” that it could in the time that it had, however imperfectly. In that vein, it might actually be the most-NieR thing of all.

You have unlocked ending [B].