Universal Gaming

It doesn't show much but a short promotional video came out a couple of days ago that shows us the Commander:



The Commander will be voiced by her in-game VA Chiaki Kano. Additionally, Keiko Isobe will return as Operator 6O, and Meari Hatsumi will also reprise her role as Operator 21O. Designs of the Operators can be briefly seen in some key art at the end of the trailer, although it's hard to know if any of those shown are 6O or 21O:



Honestly I would be happy with just getting these small snippets of footage that just show us the characters as they look in the anime instead of any story stuff, because the art that comes out for them all so far is sick!

Man does time fly. I forgot this was airing this month and just saw that the first episode of this anime is going to air tomorrow on Crunchyroll!

If like me you can't wait until tomorrow, a new trailer came out just before the New Year:



The trailer also features both the OP and ED songs for the anime, which are as follows:

• OP | Escalate - Aimer
  
• ED | アンチノミー - Amazarashi
  

The translation for the name of the ED song is roughly Antinomy, which is a term that "refers to a real or apparent mutual incompatibility of two laws. It is a term used in logic and epistemology, particularly in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant." Amazarashi are no strangers to having their songs featured in NieR: Automata; the band released a single back in 2017 that was paired with the game’s release at the request of Yoko Taro. The song, titled “Deserving of Life” (Inochi ni Fusawashii), was used by Square Enix during the game’s promotion, with the songs accompanying music video inspired by the game. Lead singer Hiromu Akita is also a fan of the NieR franchise's complex lore.

Aimer does wonderful opening themes, and this one was no exception. I recognized her voice right away when the song began   


Context: she's done Re : Pray (Bleach ED...29?), BRAVE SHINE (Fate/Stay Night UBW S2 OP), ninelie (Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress ED), Chainsaw Man ED

I watched the first episode yesterday, and it's practically the games but done in anime form. There was nothing new or original present (maybe there will be later but this first episode is practically a 1:1 telling) but it was still a neat watch. I have to say though that the CG mechs are really, really bad against the high-quality of the anime visuals, with the worst of it being any zoomed out shots while 2B is manning a mech because her anime model is switched out for a CG one which looks bad. I don't know why they didn't just try to cel-shade the CG models so they looked visually closer to everything else; instead, it's like looking at CG in animated shows from the late 90's and early 00's.

Just saw a trailer dropped teasing the events of the last four episodes which will be simultaneously released on July 23:



I'm hoping the battle that happens at the end of Route A is done well in this, since I felt the fight against A2 in the anime within the castle area was pretty rushed while everything before it that wasn't important got dragged on.

One thing I'll say the anime does better is making the world feel more believable with the proximity things have to one another. I really hate that the game has a city, desert, forest w/ castle, theme park, and coastline all sitting next to each other in walking distance and greatly prefer that the anime has the characters fly to different areas as if they're not just around the corner. The game would've been so much better doing contained areas with better graphics and loading zones between them that you go to using the mech instead of the open approach it went for.