Santa Saito’s Christmas Final Special

Saito and the gang will be hanging up their annual Santa Saito’s Christmas specials with this year’s final installment. This year’s show will be “A laid-back Christmas night, talking about the previous Santa Saito’s Christmas specials as well as the NieR Fan event last month.” There were many things they weren’t able to discuss at the NieR:Automata Fan Festival 12022, so they’ll be touching more on those topics. And since it’s Christmas, the special will also feature giveaway and variety segments!

The special will feature the following individuals:

  • MC: Yasumoto Hiroki
  • Saito Yosuke
  • Yoko Taro
  • Taura Takahisa
  • Okabe Keiichi

Title: Santa Saito’s Christmas Final Special
Date: December 25, 2022
Time: 7:00pm (JST)

The special is free to watch on NicoNico, but will likely contain a paid-only segment at the end as usual. It’s usually during that segment that some hot news is revealed.

I assume they will be advertising the Bakuken 2 play like they did last year. Unfortunately, the play had to conclude with less than half of the performances completed due to an overabundance of caution regarding COVID. The play was also scheduled to be broadcast live on NicoNico, but the first cancelled performance was for the live broadcast. That is likely one of the reasons they’re bringing the play back one more time so a DVD/Blu-ray can also be released eventually.

This has been an annual show for the past 10 years, first beginning in 2013! You can read my old recaps below. Some of the specials are still available to watch on NicoNico Douga as well.

The first five years of the special mainly focused on Dragon Quest X, but you can spot several Yoko related guests throughout:

2013: Dragon Quest X TV – Special Guests by SaitoV, Yasumoto Hiroki, Hatsumi Meari (Operator 21O), KENN, etc.
2014: Dragon Quest X TV – Special Guests by SaitoV, Hatsumi Meari (Operator 21O), Isobe Keiko (Operator 6O), etc.
2015: Dragon Quest X TV – Special Guests by SaitoV, Hatsumi Meari (Operator 21O), Isobe Keiko (Operator 6O), etc.
2016: Dragon Quest X TV – Special Guests by SaitoV, Hatsumi Meari (Operator 21O), Isobe Keiko (Operator 6O), Inko-san (Cactus in YoRHa Boys Ver.1.0),etc.
2017: SUPER Dragon Quest X TV – Assistant MC by SaitoV with guests by Hatsumi Meari (Operator 21O), Isobe Keiko (Operator 6O), Inko-san (Cactus in YoRHa Boys Ver.1.0), Takano Kohei (Kurenai in Kimi Shi ni Tamou Koto Nakare -ZERO-), etc.

Grimoire NieR & NieR Replicant Recollections Novel to be Officially Released in English

The much anticipated Revised Edition of the 2010 Grimoire NieR complete guide as well as the first of the two-part NieR Replicant Recollections novels are scheduled to be released officially in English in 2023 by Square Enix’s very own Manga & Books brand!

THANK GOD!!! It’s so hard to get good translations done when the work is outsourced to companies simply translate what’s written on the page without any deeper understanding of the context…

Here are the official announcements by the Square Enix Manga & Books Twitter account:

And here are the quick links to the item pages on the Square Enix Manga & Books site:

I’ve previously written in detail about these novels, but I’ve removed my personal translations of various passages to respect the official release later next year. Please note that there are two novels in this series, Project Gestalt Recollections File 1 and File 2, which means the release of File 2 will likely come a few months after the first… maybe summer or fall 2023!


The Revised Edition of Grimoire NieR is largely the same as the 2010 version that’s been updated with assets and information from Replicant Ver.1.22… If you’ve seen a great big fan translation of the original book floating around, please delete it and purchase the official English translation when it’s released! Since it’s being released by SQEX themselves, I have no doubt that it will be of the utmost quality! I’m super excited to see it!

All We Know About Yoko’s New IP

Updated: 2021.9.9 – 11:09pm

Earlier last year, we got wind that Yoko is working on two new titles, but later during the first NieR Replicant Ver.1.22 live broadcast on NicoNico (April 19), we were told the following:

  • Saito Yosuke is the Producer from SQEX
  • Yoko Taro is the Creative Director
  • The game is somewhat of an Indies title that will be download only (there might be a special package release at some point)

In later broadcasts (I need to relocate what broadcast this was stated), we were also told that Okabe Keiichi (MONACA) will be on board as composer.

We were also told that the game will be download only for non-mobile devices (so I’m assuming PS4/5, Xbox, Steam…) but they will think about a physical release sometime if the game is well received.

Excerpt from the idobata kaigi program, December 2020:

Saito: There are many things I still can’t talk about, but… I mean, we’re doing NieR— Replicant and Re[in]carnation— then there’s Babylon (Babylon’s Fall) as well.  There’s also talk about doing the next Automata, so when I was talking with Yoko about what we should do next, Yoko talked about something he really wants to do, but I told him I absolutely don’t want to do it. I was like, if you really want to do it, then you put up the money for it! But he presented it to me like I had never seen him do before. So, then he was like, “Okay, I have time tomorrow.” But that was a Sunday. Oh, wait. We talked on a Friday evening, so he was like, “Let’s talk tomorrow,” but I told him I couldn’t. So, he ended up showing me an hour-long presentation on Sunday. After that, we went out to eat and 3 bottles of wine later, I told him “let’s do it.” So, that’s what I regret, even now. He won me over with wine. I want to quit right now if I could. 

Yoko: This was the first time that I actually said what I wanted to do.

Saito: If it’s something Yoko wants to do, then I want to let him do it, to try out various different things. But I was entirely against it when he first brought it up.

Saito V: Is it a ways off yet?

Saito: Yes, it’ll be a while, but I hope you look forward to it.

Harada: About how long ago did you have this discussion?

Saito: It’s about a year or so ago.

Yoko: It was more than a year ago. It was quite a while ago. 

Harada: Oh, then it’s proceeding pretty well.

Yoko: Not so much… 

Saito: It’s progressing gradually.

Saito V: The comments are asking if it’s a game or something else.

Saito: It’s a game. 

Yoko: Are we really announcing something like this on Idobata Kaigi??

Saito: It’s an absolutely INSANE game.

Saito: I see this in the comments, but it’s not a rhythm/music game.

Yoko: I dunno, man, maybe we’ll make it into one.

Saito: It’s not a casual game.

Yoko: Ahh, I don’t know about that… Maybe it’ll become casual…


UPDATE: 2021.09.09

Today, Square Enix officially announced the new game by Yoko Taro, which was previously leaked here.

VOICE OF CARDS: THE ISLE DRAGON ROARS,
A NEW RPG BUILT OF CARDS

This is the official press release by Square Enix.

To Recap:

New IP for a download-only Indies game feature work by the following individuals:

Producer: Saito Yosuke
Creative Director: Yoko Taro
Composer: Okabe Keiichi (MONACA)
Character Designer: Fujisaka Kimihiko

YoRHa Girls Ver.1.1a Stage Play

YoRHa Girls Ver.1.1a Stage Play – yorha.com

Check out the link below for my YoRHa Girls Ver.1.1a stage play recap! It includes information on the creators and performers, details about the story, new insights into the world of YoRHa, and much more!

YoRHa Girls Ver.1.1a Stage Play

NieR:Theatrical Orchestra 12020

As part of the NieR 10th Anniversary, the NieR:Theatrical Orchestra 12020 was scheduled to be held earlier this March, but unfortunately due to the Coronavirus outbreak, all concerts with a live audience were cancelled. The concert was performed and broadcast live on NicoNico and YouTube, however, and just the other day, the Blu-ray recording of that performance has been released.

If anyone is a fan of the original NieR:Orchestra Concert 12018 from summer of 2018 or the later international performances of the same setlist earlier this year, let me reassure you… this version is by far superior in almost every way.

This version also featured two unique recitation dramas (朗読劇 / roudokugeki), one for each segment of the concert which featured NieR:Automata and NieR Replicant.

The Blu-ray features English subtitles throughout the entire concert, for both spoken dialogue on the stage and for the backdrop screen. I would highly recommend this concert Blu-ray to any NieR fan.

If you are interested in purchasing the Blu-ray, you can order it from Amazon here.