YoRHa Musical Ver.1.2 Recap and Exclusive Interviews from the Cast and Crew

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It’s been almost exactly two months since the performances of the YoRHa Musical by now, but I am finally able to share my officially endorsed article and recap of the dress rehearsal, which includes several exclusive interviews from the cast and crew!

Read the Article Here!

As a quick overview, you can find personal comments and interviews from the following members:

  • The Cast
    Ishikawa Yui (No2)
    Takana Reina (No4)
    Mochida Chihira (No16)
    Hanana Mio (No21)
  • The Music Team
    Emi Evans (vocal)
    Goto Takanori (guitar)
    Kawaji Emi (piano)
  • Extended Interview with Tanaka Reina

I may write an afterward eventually detailing my first experience as official press.

Fan Questionnaire in Famitsu Magazine

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Famitsu recently sent out a questionnaire to international fans of NieR:Automata, and here’s a compilation of the comments that were chosen and printed in this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine, No.1531

I thought maybe I saw a comment that I made but…alas. lol Maybe they recognized my name and don’t consider me as “international” since I live in Japan. orz I’ll have to complain to Sugihara-san. lol J/K

[PlayerQuestionnaire]
The best part about NieR:Automata
Total number of unique users: 3856
Multiple answers possible.

  • Gameplay: 3085
  • Story: 3562
  • Art: 3008
  • Music: 3399
  • Other: 397

[Breakdown of Voters]

  • Total participants: 3856
  • Male: 3309
  • Female: 461
  • Other: 63
  • No Answer: 23

[Age]

  • 10s: 417
  • 20s: 2531
  • 30s: 814
  • 40s: 83

[Location]

  • North America: 1964
  • Europe: 1290
  • Asia: 227
  • South America: 193
  • Oceania: 154
  • Africa: 16

The twists on the above aspects were so clever and unique. ーJohn M (20 / M / Europe)

PlatinumGames creates very exciting and fun to play combat. Yoko Taro’s stories are always so interesting and compelling. The style of NieR:Automata is so different from American games, and the music of NieR games are on a whole other level above most American games. ーMichael Coleman (30 / M / North America)

Everything is excellent. What I love the most, though, it’s the way in which it usese every single feature of videogames as a mean to enhance the narrative. I’ve particularly enjoyed the moment when you cannot read the options menu because of the missing chip, or at the end, when 2B/A2 are damaged and it reflicts on the screen. ーLontrain (20 / F / Europe)

Everything was so unique and unusual. ーMsg (30 / M / North America)

The only thing missing from mosst of Yoko Taro’s games was polished gameplay, and PlatinumGames delivered wonderfully in that area. I also love the work of Akihiko Yoshida, so getting to see his designs in a Yoko Taro work was a welcome surprise. Keiichi Okabe’s musical work continues to be some of my favorite in the industry, as well as Emi Evans’ vocals. ーMimi (20 / Other / North America)

The weapon stories were an interesting way of providing some information about the world, and it was helpful because I’ve never played the first Nier or Drag-on Dragoon. ーAndrew (30 / M / North America)

Every aspect of this game was thoroughly considered. ーkstor (20 / M / South America)

The gameplay was fun, the music was amazing, I loved the story, 2B is really cool. ーMike Parks (30 / M / North America)

The hacking 8-bits parts were genius too! Especially with those 8-bits musics! ーTin (30 / M / Europe)

Parce que aucun jeu n’est comme lui. Et pour l’émotion qu’il apporte. (There is no other game like it. Especially the emotion it brings) ーCharles (30 / M / Europe)

Everything! Fantastic gameplay. Amazing story. Beautiful music. ーPhreakar (30 / M / America)

What a great example of Japanese gaming culture! Fast paced, energetic, sexy, funny, sad, touching, entertaining as hell. Great game! ーTobi (20 / M / Europe)

Yoko Taro’s “madness” is a very interesting phenomenon of videogame industry. NieR:Automata is no exception. ーDarkV (20 / M / Europe)

This game made me think about my existance in this world. Damn you Yoko Taro. ーShadi (20 / M / North America)

2B’S BIG BUTT ーKale Cahoon (20 / M / North America) *multiple duplecate comments

The story, the music. Most importantly 2B FTW! ーMaherTRY (20 / M / Asia)

Unique gameplay elements that can go from action to 2D shoot ’em up. The story is also interesting where it tried to explore what makes the androids individual beings. ーBuga (30 / M / Asia)

The music in this game is a masterpiece, I never heard any game that have this amazing music before in my life. ーHammerTank (20 / M / Asia)

Yui Ishikawa is fantastic in this game, also the combat is great. ーKi’oon (20 / M / Europe)

The Japanese voice actors’ performances of the script was fantastic. ーgrace (20 / F / Asia)

Interesting side quests. ー4yvak (20 / M / Europe)

Romeos and Juliets. ーNir (10 / M / Asia)

Emil! ーTiffany (20 / F / North America)

Yoko Taro is a mad genius. ーPandorise (20 / F / North America)

The music and story is very powerful and sad. ーBeau (20 / M / Oceania)

The Atmosphere. It’s perfect in this game. ーMakoEyes (30 / M / Europe)

◼︎ Who’s your favorite Main Character?

  • 2B: 2169
  • 9S: 916
  • A2: 770

[2B]

She is a strong and complex character. ーZMangz (20 / M / North America)

Her development, her personality. I got her tattooed on my leg. haha ーAnonymous (20 / M / Oceania)

2B’s story of opening up and becoming more “human” is very touching. ーTrevor (20 / M / North America)

She’s my waifu. ーNess (20 / Male / North America)

[9S]

I like his design and character a lot! Hacking was a lot of fun, too. ーRebecca (20 / F / North America)

I love how he degraded from a nice boy into a mad one after losing 2B. ーRebecca (20 / F / North America)

[A2]

I love A2’s personality. She reminds me of Kaine from Gestalt. ーBianca (20 / F / North America) *multiple duplicate comments

A2 was very cool and mysterious, which made it more enjoyable to find out about her. I also really liked her interactions with Pod042. ーEll (20 / M / Europe)

BECOME AS GODS BECOME AS GODS BECOME AS GODS ーSky (20 / M / America)

The really cool character designs! And the soundtrack was super good, too. ーNave (20 / M / North America)

Crazy story from Yoko Taro, amazing music from Okabe, and awesome gameplay from PlatinumGames. ーAnacra (30 / M / Oceania)

The YoRHa androids’ designs are amazingly beautiful, the areas are gorgeous, and the music is so beautiful it brings me to tears. ーVivian (10 / F / Europe)

Yuki Aoi as Pascal. ーPyotr (20 / M / Europe)

As a long time NieR and Drag-on Dragoon fan, it was nice to have some questions from both games answered while expanding the universe I adore. ーPhazonmasher (20 / M / North America)

The ending credits sequence. This was so moving to me, something that could only be done in a video game. How you had to choose to sacrifice everything, but you saw that so many people had sacrificed for you. It was a special moment and speaks to Yoko Taro’s genius. ーChristopher Dodge (30 / M / North America)

Everything. I could write endlessly, but here are the most important parts I loved:

  1. The beautiful UI and its inclusion in the game’s story
  2. The haunting music, especially the song entitled “Tower”
  3. All the continuity and references to the rest of the NieR and Drakengard universe, especially the first NieR’s Popola & Devola, A2’s stage play backstory, and Accord
    …..

Overall, the most impressive accomplishment of NieR:Automata is that it’s a story that could only be experienced in the format of a video game.Aside from being incredibly fun and satisfying to play, every element that makes video games unique is used to its fullest potential to create nothing short of a masterpiece. ーshiina (20 / F / North America) *Due to the length of the comment, the Japanese translation was shortened.

2B’s final message to 9S had me in tears. ーJK (20 / M / Europe)

◼︎ What’s your favorite ending?

#1:  the [E]nd of YoRHa ー 1958
#2:  flowers for m[A]chines ー 418
#3:  childhoo[D]’s end ー 247
#4:  meaningless [C]ode ー 231
#5:  aji wo [K]utta ー 106

The choir version of Weight of the World has a strong, emotional impact. ーbradyonetta (20 / M / Oceania)

Having to choose to sacrifice your whole gamesave to help someone you will never meet, such a brilliant decision. Very moving. ーChristopher Dodge (30 / M / North America)

The integration of the credits with the shooter hacking game and the story was unexpected and wonderful! ーKarasu (40 / M / North America)

I unlocked it by accident and after realization of what I have done I laughed so hard… ーILYA (20 / M / Europe)

Took me off guard, did not expect that a fish would be the end of me. ーNehelichus (20 / M / Europe)

I played the first Nier, so what Emil said during the fight was pretty moving. ーNoleen (20 / M / Europe)

SINoALICE x DOD3: Harmonic Interference Chapter Introduction

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There are quite a few interesting things that are included in the chapter introduction for the new SINoALICE x DOD3 chapter “Harmonic Interference*“.

* I have an alternate translation for this below…!

First off we have a couple lines by Zero:

  • “Mikhail, I will save you at all costs!”

There are a couple keywords that we can see in this shot:

  • The Wall of Jericho (エリコの壁) – This is the wall that was built around Shinjuku after the 6.12 incident to keep the White Chlorination Syndrome from spreading.
  • Will of God (神の意志) – If you take the largest kanji bit that covers the majority of the screen here and add these together, it looks like 神 aka “god”. The circle next to it is likely part of the hiragana の needed to complete this keyword phrase: 神の意志 or the “Will of God”.
  • Maso (魔素) – This is the so-called “demonic element” that comes from the Red Dragon’s remains after it is cursed by the Mother Angel aka the Queen Beast.
  • The Origin (始祖) – These jumbled kanji bits had me stumped for awhile, but thanks to a comment on Twitter, I was able to fix this part. This term can be translated as the “founder” or “origin”…It is likely referencing god as the creator of all or it could be talking about Maso and how it’s involved in the very existence of the Utautai.

There’s also a direct connection to NieR:Automata hidden here. See the text wrapped around in a circle?

You can see that it says ポッド042ポッド153デポルポボル (Pod042 Pod153 Devola Popola) listed there. The text wraps in a circle, so it’s unclear what order it’s meant to be. A couple frames after the above images, the text in this circle starts glitching out, replacing legible words with meaningless garbage.

  • Distortion in time… the great Apocalypse

  • The starting point, the Utautai

  • The Will of God

  • Special Weapons Organization (特殊兵器群) – Not sure what this is referring to, either. I don’t believe this term has been used in any of the previous titles of NieR or Drakengard… But, I get really weird vibes from this…such as something from KimiShini perhaps?? The experimental students at the Special Abilities School could be considered a sort of “special weapon” in development.
  • Mikhail
  • Dragon – This could be a stand-alone reference to the race of “noble dragons” that were forcefully transported into the Drakengard world in 856… Or it could be coupled with the aforementioned Special Weapons Organization since a new weapon was designed to support the conflict in the Kingdom of Night in 6230.
  • [A]ccord
  • Gishi[n]
  • [Ki] – The letters in brackets line up vertically to spell “Anki”.

  • Falldown – This is probably a figurative reference to nuclear meltdown in terms of the multiple timelines. Or maybe it’s meant to be reversed as in the word “downfall” aka the inevitable failure of something…something like time and all of its various branches.

Here we see a bunch of items from the overall timeline:

  • EID_M0010 – Branch A, Chapter Zero, Verse 1 (March 4, 999)
    Zero and Michael storm the Cathedral City.
  • EID_M231
  • EID_M321
  • EID_M332
  • EID_M431
  • EID_M1510 – Zero, Mikhail, and Octa…
  • EID_M2310 – Branch D, Verse 1 (March 19, 1000)
    Zero and the gang search the Kingdom of Mountains
  • EID_M3210 Branch B, Verse 1 (April 1, 1000) 
    Zero and the gang search the Kingdom of Forests
  • EID_M3320 Branch D, Verse 4 (April 4, 1000)
    Zero kills Five.
  • EID_M4310 Branch D, Verse 5 (April 14, 1000)
    Zero and the gang arrive in the Kingdom of Sands
  • EID_M5320 Branch D, Last Verse (April 22, 1000) 
    Mikhail and Zero battle against the “Flower” and destroy it

More specific dates:

  • 20
  • 99
  • 200
  • 997 – Usubeni (Zero) dies.
  • 998 – Suddenly, contact from each ruling lord is lost.
  • 998 – One creates Brother One
  • 1000 – The Utautai are destroyed.
  • 2003 – A strange being appears above Shinjuku.
  • 2004
  • 2008
  • 2010 – The “origin”…
    The word they use here is “始祖” which appears to be used for the Red Dragon after it had been affected by the curse of the Queen Beast… causing Maso to appear.
  • 2016 – The drug “Luciferase” was completed to delay the progression of the “White Chlorination Syndrome”.
  • 2026 – Experimental Weapon No7 (Emil) is developed.
  • 2033 – Relapsed Gestalts (Shades) are…
  • 2034 – “Project Gestalt”

The next shot of the timeline shows a lot of glitching as much of the lines are nothing but gibberish:

  • The Great Apocalypse
    About 15 years have passed since that battle.
    A mysterious disaster occurred on the Iberian Peninsula in the year 856.

  • It is our origin, the harmonizer of the world.

  • Harmonic Interference or… Accord’s Interference

It might be important to mention here that, according to the DOD3 Complete Guide, the name for Accord is taken from French which translates to “harmony”. More specifically, the Japanese that is given is 調和 or 和音. Notice, that 調和 (chouwa) appears in this chapter title. Therefore, it may be better to translate it as Accord… maybe Accord’s Interference.

Lastly, it’s interesting how blood is used in this trailer. First, we see a small drop falling in the darkness from which the first couple of keywords appear. The camera zooms out while spinning a couple times before we’re engulfed in a pool of blood as the keyword “Falldown” appears on the screen. Bright, yellowish petals begin to race to the top of the screen that makes it feel like we are falling. Then, from the top of the screen again, comes a splatter of blood that reaches throughout the timeline. The red blood stains slowly turn black the further we fall until the text of the timeline begin to glitch. Then finally the blood splatter hits the center of the screen where the chapter title “Harmonic Interference” appears.

We know the blood of the Utautai is far reaching and likely has ties to the “Flower” entity that wants to destroy the world. Perhaps this chapter will explore yet another unknown branch in this tangled mess of timelines.

SINoALICE x DOD3 – New Character Designs

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The official SINoALICE twitter account just posted a couple designs for the new character. They’ve redacted the character’s name, but if you saw my last post regarding this, then you’d know that it’s actually a human Mikhail!

Since I designed the DOD3 characters a long time ago, I find myself thinking “What do DOD3 characters look like again?” I hand trouble with that sort of ambiguity, but I imagined that anything would work as long as I made it cute. That’s pretty much how I came up with this design. ーFujisaka Kimihiko

He was originally a dragon, so he’s borrowed wings* and a tail* from that design. I began designing it with the thought that he’ll attack by grasping the heart, powering up by squeezing it, and getting angry by ??? The electric looking bolts are supposed to resemble blood vessels. ーFujisaka Kimihiko
* educated guess from the obvious. xD

The collaboration with DOD3 will begin on Tuesday, March 26!

SINoALICE x DOD3 Collaboration

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The other day, Square Enix released a preview for the new SINoALICE x DOD3 collaboration. Here are a couple things that we know about the details:

  • Zero, One, Accord will be playable. Upon logging in, all players will receive Zero (Breaker) as a gift.
  • DOD3 character designer Fujisaka Kimihiko has illustrated a new character for the collaboration, but the name is blurred out in the video. That being said, if you pause the video just right, you can clearly see that it says:
    「少年ミハイル」= Boy Mikhail
  • Yoko Taro has penned the story for these collaboration stages, so prepare some tissues…

Lastly, here are some photos from the PV:

 

Zero, One, and Accord will be playable characters!

New original character design by Fujisaka Kimihiko!
This is the young human form for Mikhail!
He is somewhat of a 4th “secret” character in terms of marketing.

If you look closely at the center of the “ribcage” looking part of the dragon design, you can see there’s actually a heart inside of it…!
It looks like the “red lightning” is also originating from the heart.

New original story penned by Yoko Taro!

Voice actors Uchida Maaya and Toyama Mao reprise their respective
roles as Zero and Mikhail.

Um… That’s Five’s glyph…

 

Zero: This world is surely my curse.

Chapter Title: Harmonic Interference
Available on March 26

Lastly on a couple of the screens we can see some of the story text. It’s really difficult to make the second half of it out, but so far this is what I can read. If anyone can help flesh it out some more, please let me know!

Japanese:
最初に感じられたのは痛み。
呼ぼうとする喉からは抜かれた空気だけが、
というか、何がどうなってるんだ？
右手には剣が握りしめられて、
左手を見ると……
金属の甲冑が く　光っていて。
私に私の感情と記憶
していくのを ていた。
そうだ。
僕が、私ーーは　　と戦っていたんだ。
ーー友。
なくてはならない、ゼロ
English:
The first thing I could feel was pain.
As I tried to call out, only air escaped my lips.
Besides that, what’s going on?
A sword lies firmly in my right hand,
Whereas when I look at my left hand……
Some metallic armor glistens brilliantly.
My thoughts and feelings,
???
That’s right.I, I was– fighting.
??? friend.
I must… ???
Zero

.hack//G.U. Last Recode – Drama CD “Innocent Call” [Complete]

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Well, I’ve been sitting on this for too long, so here you go! I had the majority of this translated sometime around Christmas, but I wanted to proofread it more and fix it up a little more naturally… But I just haven’t had the time to do that yet. So, rather than not posting it for who knows how long again, here’s my rough draft translation of the .hack//G.U. Last Recode Drama CD “Innocent Call” that came with the Japanese Collector’s Edition of the game.

But, as I said above, this is a rough draft, so there may be further edits and stuff done to it from time to time, so I’d really appreciate it if you do NOT copy and paste this elsewhere. Thank you!! <3

Continue reading →

Old World Connections: The Cathedral City, the Mercurius Gate, and more!

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I was just discussing how DOD3 connects to DOD1 through Ending E that’s revealed in the DOD3 Story Side Novel with the publisher of this YouTube video, so I felt another wave of energy to delve back into the lore on the Cathedral City and its connection to the so-called “Old World”.

To do this, I’m largely going to take a closer look at some of the chapters of the Utahime Five prequel manga, so if you haven’t read that yet, please beware of spoilers as you go further down the page.

Since my image gallery is sort of busted right now, I can’t link to full chapters of the Utahime Five manga that I worked to translate, but I will post several pages that are related to this topic here so we can get a better look at what lore revelations are revealed therein.

Continue reading →

Thou Shalt Not Die / Kimi Shini Tamou Koto Nakare, Chapter 33 Preview

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Chapter 33, which was released on February 25, 2018, gave us some interesting new details that seem…awfully reminiscent to some aspects in the new YoRHa Boys Ver.1.0 stage play. I’ll discuss this further behind spoiler tags below.

This is only going to be a very brief look at the chapter right now, as I need to be out of the house in ten minutes, but this chapter brings back a familiar face…

Welcome back, Yanagi. It’s been a while.

As the students were preparing all night for the up-coming School Festival, Yanagi had other ideas. He round up a group of “defecting students” to stage a coup against the teachers and government that set up the whole “Special Abilities High School” in the first place. Using the gym as their base of operations, Yanagi and his gang sent out an email to an outside news agency that said there would be an important announcement made at 6am.

Leading up to that time, Yanagi and his goons were using their powers to kill the teachers and other staff near the school entrance gate. Police were alerted to the incident and went to take control of the situation, but they, too, fell victim to Yanagi’s group.

As more and more bodies littered the school entrance, Kuroi and his group finally get word from the “outside world” about what’s going on (they didn’t know because they were in a different area of the school, preparing for the festival). Also, it appears that communication going in and out of the school had been cut off… The chapter ends with Rokusho meeting up with Kuroi’s group.

What’s interesting about this is that… Yanagi began his coup because he learned that special ability students like himself were just pawns to the state of Japan. They were rounded up from all over the country, given drugs to give them special abilities, and subsequently slaughtered in further experiments. He apparently had had enough of it.

This feels very much like what No21, No3, and No6 had done in the YoRHa Boys Ver.1.0 stage play. They learned that they were just pawns to Command and were slaughtered left and right for their precious data. Maybe their coup was partially influenced by the virus, but… the similarities between YoRHa and KimiShini continue.

I’ve made a bunch of comparisons between YoRHa and the KimiShini manga as well as possible connections to NieR, so be sure to check that out here. It’s an old post that needs updating, but it brings up some curious similarities…

Yoko Taro says there may be an international NieR:Automata fan event in the works!

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Could there be an international fan event in the works? Make sure you contact your local Square Enix and let them know that you want them to do it!!

Yoko Taro’s Manga “Thou Shalt Not Die / Kimi Shini Tamou Koto Nakare” Could Still be in the NieR Universe

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In today’s issue of Famitsu magazine, we were treated to a 14-page feature on NieR:Automata detailing more on its development, discussions by the creative and development team, plus we were given one more tease that there is still some “secret” left undiscovered within the game. As the teasers about this have stated, you are apparently able to zoom out the camera by pressing R3+using the directional buttons in order to “bug out” the camera… if you do that, you’re apparently able to see something that would be “very bad” and yet the dev team didn’t bother to remove or fix it because it felt very “NieR-esque”. xD

Now back to the topic at hand. In this issue of Famitsu, we are given a development timeline that details all the important points in Automata’s development. This includes things such as the YoRHa Ver.1.0 stage play in October 2014, the demo release in December 2016, and the NieR:Automata collaboration with Valkyrie Anatomia -The Origin-. All of the points listed in this timeline have *something* to do directly with Automata. That is why this is very curious:

The KimiShini – Zero stage play performed 9 shows up until Christmas day in 2016. The story was a prequel to the manga series. I wrote a long review and speculation piece regarding the manga and how it could relate to NieR here, but for the purposes of this post, I will take those ideas and outline them below. There may be some copy and pasting going on from the original post that I linked above.

  • The world has been thrown into chaos, but we don’t know exactly what is going on beyond the fact that fossil fuels are in serious demand, which has then triggered international conflicts and war.
  • Japan is unable to actively get involved in any international war because of its “self-defense only” constitution, but it also tries to bypass these restrictions by touting the NPO guise (more on this below).
  • Japan is desperate to protect itself from the rest of the world, so a drug is developed to give people “special abilities”, but the adults that took it lived no longer than 30 minutes after taking the drug before their brain literally explodes; however, if young people take the drug, their bodies are able to withstand the side affects and obtain seemingly random special abilities. Note: This sounds very much like the drug Luciferase in NieR.
  • This is why young adults are sought after to become test subjects. But the problem was finding suitable candidates for the project whilst putting on the guise that nothing illegal or unconstitutional is going on. This is why they use the guise of NPO work in foreign countries to get more recruits into the program. Likewise, any test runs of the kids’ abilities had to be carefully choreographed as to not be overly suspicious. Many “coverups” also resulted, such as with the opening conflict in Brazil when nearly the entire squad is killed–the whole thing was said to be the result of an unfortunate plane crash.
  • A school is set up to train these young people to learn how to use their special abilities. They are divided into three types: Short-range, Long-range, and Analysis… Pretty much the same as the three initial types of YoRHa androids: Attacker, Gunner, and Scanner. This is why I used the YoRHa type names in my translation of the manga.
  • The Enemy: It’s never said in the manga thus far, but they could be the Legion. They appear to be human but they have become infected with the White Chlorination Syndrome (WCS) and have entered into a pact with the god in order to remain “alive”. Or they could be a man-made enemy created through experimenting with drugs like  Luciferase.
  • Another important thing to mention is the true reason the kids were coerced into participating in the experiment in various ways (KimiShini -ZERO- stage play). In the end the mad-scientist Suou stated that it was to gather data on the kids’ performance in battle. It matters little if they survive; actually, they get better data if they die… This is exactly like the early YoRHa experiments, ie. the Pearl Harbor Descent Mission. The YoRHa are essentially pawns created to be destroyed in order to obtain valuable data for new androids.
  • The main heroine of the story, Mashiro, seems to be involved in a secret study called Project White. Mashiro is one of the “special abilities” students who was given superhuman strength. She’s able to easily crush or break through objects, receive multiple bullet wounds and still survive… and she also has “red eye” moments where blood pours from her eyes and she goes on a mindless rampage against anything or anyone in her way–friend or foe.
  • Update: With the release of Chapter 34 today, March 25, they’ve actually dropped a YoRHa term in the narrative. Yanagi explains that he has two unique abilities: the power to copy and another to cancel out others’ powers, the latter of which he dubs as the power of a “Canceller”. This term was dropped in the original YoRHa stage play back in October 2014.

◼ Further Speculation

  • I believe Mashiro and everyone are part of the “5th Crusade” that is talked about in the DOD/NieR timeline. They were deployed to Brazil and were nearly completely decimated in the battle with the Legion. We know that Mashiro’s unit was deployed somewhere in South America, but it’s never stated exactly who their adversaries are in the manga.
  • There may be a direct connection to some of these kids and the 13 Grimoire tomes. I originally speculated that Kuroi and Mashiro might be related to Grimoire Noir and Grimoire Weiss, respectively, but after reading the short story “And Then There Were None”, I believe it’s safe to say that we have not met the BOY who became Weiss nor the GIRL who became Rubrum. Three other tomes that were referenced to in the novella were the Amber, Emerald, and Azure tomes.
  • The drugs the kids are taking are probably the Luciferase that’s talked about in the DOD/NieR timeline. It was made from particles of “Maso” that would slow the effects of the White Chlorination Syndrome and was very effective to give young children magic-like abilities. This was not a cure for the disease, however.

◼ Related Links

◼ So, long story, short

I don’t see why the KimiShini play would be listed in the development timeline for NieR:Automata if it didn’t have some direct connection.