Category Archives: Games

Tsuki Oke Performs NieR:Automata in 2019!

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It was just announced on Twitter that there will be a second Tsuki Oke fan concert event in 2019! The official title of the orchestral group is Mon Tränen PhilharmoNikeR, which is basically the Lunar Tear Orchestra. In Japanese, it is even further shortened to just 月オケ or Tsuki Oke.

Here’s the nitty-gritty details on the scheduled concert date and time:

  • Tsuki Oke / Lunar Tear Orchestra
  • Date: April 28, 2019
  • Venue: Suginami Public Hall
  • Music: From the game “NieR:Automata”
  • Conductor: Miura Osuke

The official website can be found here. mondtraenenphil.com

The site has been redesigned and is currently sporting a really nice illustration that conjures memories of NieR:Automata. The recruiting process will be opened at some undisclosed later date, so stay tuned for that!

Also, if you haven’t heard of Tsuki Oke before, check out the article I wrote about the previous concert from 2017 here.

YoRHa Musical & YoRHa Boys Stage Play BD Release Livestream Announced

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There will be a special livestream on Friday, May 11 at 9:00pm (JST) with Yoko Taro and the cast of both the YoRHa Musical and the YoRHa Stage Play! The exact list of appearances will be announced at a later date.

It’s a unclear exactly what will be discussed but the official release date of the Blu-ray will be announced in this broadcast!

Stay tuned for more info!

NieR:Automata Piano Collections Album Release and In-Store Signing Event

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Today saw the release of the NieR:Automata Piano Collections album of 12 new piano arranged tracks by a handful of talented pianists including Hoashi Keigo himself.

All music is produced by Okabe Keiichi (MONACA) and includes arranged performances by the following:

  1. Weight of the World, Arranged & Performed by Sakakibara Dai
  2. Amusement Park, Arranged & Performed by marasy
  3. A Beautiful Song, Arranged & Performed by Hoashi Keigo
  4. City Ruins, Arranged & Performed by suzuki yo (akisai)
  5. Dependent Weakling, Arranged & Performed by Taguchi Mariko
  6. Peaceful Sleep, Arranged & Performed by Kumagai Yasumasa
  7. Copied City, Arranged & Performed by Yabuki Taku
  8. Voice of no Return, Arranged & Performed by suzuki yo (akisai)
  9. Bipolar Nightmare, Arranged & Performed by Kikuchi Ryota
  10. The Tower, Arranged & Performed by Kumagai Yasumasa
  11. The Sound of the End, Arranged & Performed by Duke of Pianeet
  12. Vague Hope, Arranged & Performed by Hoashi Keigo


▶︎ New illustration on the back coverby Koda Kazuma depicting 9S.


▶︎ Another great shot of 9S by Koda Kazuma.

There was also an in-store event at the Shinjuku Tower Records that had appearances by Hoashi Keigo, Okabe Keiichi, and Yoko Taro. The three discussed various tracks on the album, funny anecdotes about its development, and more! Okabe also mentioned their desire to put on a larger orchestral performance for NieR:Automata. If you are interested in helping this thought become a reality, he suggested that everyone purchase this album and also tell SQEX via their music account on Twitter how much you’d like to see such a thing come to be! He suggested that you could even tell them this without purchasing the album (haha).


▶︎ New illustration of 2B by Koda Kazuma inside the album booklet.


▶︎ Album booklet cover.

◼︎Displays in the Store!

◼︎Participating in the Event

Those who preordered the piano collections album directly from the Tower Records Shinjuku branch store were given first dibs at obtaining a “participation ticket” for the talk / musical performance / signing event. This just allows you the opportunity to draw a random number when you come in to purchase the album on release day. This number becomes your place in line to enter the special event area. Starting at 7:00pm, those with event tickets were to line up in order inside a stairwell. I was pretty well up the stairs given the number I drew, so it was really hot waiting…

Related:NieR:Automata Original Soundtrack In-store Signing Event

◼︎Photo Op Time!

Just like the last album release event at Tower Records, we had a short photo op at the end of the talk segment and just before Hoashi performed a single piece. My phone was running out of juice, so I turned down the brightness of the screen…and couldn’t quite see what I was taking, so there are a ton of bad photos. Also, my phone camera can’t zoom in very well. I’ll go through all of the photos, but here’s a preliminary shot of the trio during this portion of the event!

◼︎ Fun Anecdotes from the Event

Hoashi mentioned that he usually doesn’t get nervous at live events like this or even performing at various concerts, but he said that the moment he steps out of his house, he feels a sense of dread as though he’s forgotten something really important and often ends up going back home to check that he didn’t actually forget something. He said this is probably due to other musicians who have to carry their instruments with them, but as a pianist, he doesn’t need to bring anything special to perform. It’s this sense of “empty handedness” that tends to make him paranoid.

Hoashi talked about a moment when Okabe actually got angry at something, but instead of yelling at moments like these, he merely asks why something wasn’t done or simply asking for a clear explanation. Sometimes it’s this sort of mentality that can be even more scary than those who openly unleash their anger. Maybe…

Yoko mentioned that Fujisaka Kimihiko, the illustrator for the Drakengard games among many others, was present at the event, and said that if anyone noticed some “buff” looking dude, that was probably Fujisaka. Unfortunately, I didn’t not run into him. 🙁

Sugihara-san from Famitsu as well as the same camera man who sat next to me at the YoRHa Musical dress rehearsal were also present at the event. I noticed Sugihara at the front, right side of the event space, but he disappeared by the time I walked by after speaking with Hoashi, Okabe, and Yoko.

◼︎ NieR:Automata Piano Collections Livestream!

The NieR:Automata Piano Collections will also be streamed live in NicoNico Douga on Wednesday, April 25 at 9:00pm (JST). Tune into the broadcast here!

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.

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.