NOTE: This post had been sitting in the queue, ready to be posted, but I never got around to finishing it. So, this is the list little recap of the NieR:Automata 2nd Anniversary event at STORIA from February.
It’s been a while since this event was held. I meant to finish up my recap of it a long time ago, but again other real life matters got in the way and I eventually forgot about it. Yup. It always happens, which is why I try to complete as much as I can, as soon as I can… orz
In the last post, we left off at the “Recollection” segment, where Yasumoto Hiroki lead the casual walkthrough of NieR’s past. Here you can see the aftermath of Yoko’s fall during the 2016 TGS event presentation.
But, don’t worry!! yoshi fixed him all up and he is feeling much better now!!
The next segment they talked about the huge-long 25 or so hour live broadcast they did for the 1st Anniversary. It was pretty insane.
The next segment took a look back at the YoRHa stage plays held in February 2018, the YoRHa Boys stage play and the YoRHa Musical Ver.1.2:
Then came Yoko’s announcement of the YoRHa 1.3a stage play:
YoRHa Ver.1.3a is an additional upgrade stemming from the YoRHa Musical Ver.1.2, a revisioning with an all-male cast, dubbed an “arranged version” (a). There will be new fights, new characters, and a new story…! This battle is somewhat separated from the events of NieR:Automata.
The next segment detailed about the Thou Shalt Not Die Zero -KAI- blu-ray release! There will be a standard and collector’s release, both of which are available on Amazon and the DearStage website!
With the release of the YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse alliance raid in Final Fantasy XIV the other day, the appearance of the white 2Pーas she is now canonically knownーhas stirred up continued conversation regarding what exactly that “P” in her name could possibly stand for.
First of all, when 2B was originally added as a playable character in SoulCalibur VI, she was merely called “2B”…including her 2nd player pallet swap white version. There was no specific or official name for the white version since, as we all know about fighting games, the 2nd player color swap is only to help differentiate between same characters on the screen, should both the 1st and 2nd player choose to play the same character. However, fans began calling the white version of 2B by “2P”, the name stuck and SQEX later released the white version Bring Arts figure as just that: 2P.
Yesterday, Twitter user Jason X (@envinyon) revived a snippet from an article by SRK that commented on an interview with Dengeki and NieR:Automata development team for the collaboration with Soul Callibur VI. More specifically, though, we’re talking about Yoko Taro’s comments in this interview.
On a general level, the writer for SRK did a decent job of conveying the message from the lengthy interview, but instead of using the original source from Dengeki, it seems like they used a 3rd party account of the matter originally in Japanese. Suffice it to say, there were a few bumps in the road.
▶︎ Yoko says! The P Stands for Panasonic!
Note: “Ryokutya” is an alternate romanization of “Ryokucha,” which commonly translates to “green tea.” Referring to the owner of this blog as a male individual named “Ryo” is done out of mere convenience and serves no other purpose.
There were a couple issues with the text attachment, which was an excerpt from the SRK article.
“While seemingly a joke” — This implies that it sounded like a joke but was actually a masked truth.
“Taro later concludes that the P does stand for that.” — This affirms the previous statement that even though it sounded like a joke, it’s actually true.
“…he mentions how “Panasonic” means…” — This is using an undefined pronoun. The previous time the pronoun “he” was used it referred to Taro, as shown above in point 2; however, assuming this “he” also refers to Taro would be inaccurate. This portion was actually part of Ryokutya’s personal editorial on his own blog.
Without citing the source of the article clipping, it wasn’t readily known what they were referring. After a quick Google search, there appeared to be only a single hit for this excerpt, which turned out to be an article written by Franz “d3v” Co for shoryuken.com on November 29, 2018, roughly a day after the initial release of the Dengeki article.
So then, what’s the hang up?
The problem arrises from the mischaracterization of Ryokutya’s original blog post, which was essentially a second-hand account after reading the article. Without directly utilizing the original article and instead using a 3rd party’s personal account as fact, SRK’s telephone game clearly went awry somewhere along the line.
So, by now, I think it’s clear that SRK took Ryo’s article as a complete review of the original article even though it also included editorial comments spliced in. Without any regard to this, we’re left with misleading information that the “P” in 2P stands for “Panasonic” as stated by Yoko.
But anyone who knows Yoko on a personal, professional, or even fan level should know how tongue-in-cheek he tends to be. He is a master troll. He loves sarcasm and this can easily be confused with a straight truth. His word is massively important to us fans, but we need to view his comments with a grain of salt.
He, himself, told us not to believe anything he says. A world of contradictions exists within a single man.
▶︎ The Word of Yoko Says…
3rd, Remember. You know that Yoko Taro is one of the terrible videogame director. Do not bleive me. Thank you.
For a closer look at the segment of the interview where Yoko mentions Panasonic as a joke, here is the actual passage directly from the page on Dengeki Online.
At this point in time, there is no official YoRHa Type P designation; however, I seem to recall Yoko stating that there is a type for every letter of the alphabet even if he hasn’t thought of them all yet (this needs a citation!! I can’t remember where I heard this and I can’t seem to find anything about it, so I may have dreamt it up from this tweet).
Whether this memory is accurate or not, it’s absolutely within the realm of possibility for Yoko to create a new P Type model in retrospect specifically for the YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse story. If that is the case, then what P possibilities can you think of?
▶︎ What do you think the P in “2P” stands for?
If we’re going off of the already known YoRHa model types, it will likely begin with a P and end in an R, no more than 8 letters.
Pacifier
Paladin
Panzer
Paradox
Passenger
Preceptor
Power <—- Saito mentioned this one!
Prancer
Prayer
Predator
Programmer
Protector
Punisher
So, long story short, there’s a ton of hype whenever Yoko or NieR is involved. There are going to be jokes thrown around from time to time, but we need to be a little careful not to mistake a reported joke for the truth and then spread that misinformation to others, who likewise perceive it as fact.
Maybe in the end, it doesn’t matter either way. As long as there is HYPE, who cares, hm?
Long-time NieR veteran vocalist and lyricist Emi Evans will finally be able to express her love and musical prowess in her home country of England (and her family!!) on this tour! What an absolute dream come true!
My life as a singer just gets more and more exciting thanks to NieR Automata and the unwavering support of you music fans! Can't wait to sing my gratitude to you in London, Chicago and Bangkok!https://t.co/zxHdUgHlfS
Also worth nothing is that both J’Nique Nicole and Nakagawa Nami will not be in attendance for these concerts. Nakagawa-san hasn’t been involved in any official NieR concert since her initial performance during the NieR:Automata Memory of Dolls concert in 2017, but at least to J’Nique, this news seemed to be a bit of a shock.
To everyone asking me if I’m doing the NieR world tour. The answer is no. Unfortunately I was already booked on the days they chose for the tour. I was told that they would try to work with my schedule but I guess they were unable to do so 🤷🏾♀️
As anyone involved in the music business, we all know how difficult it is to schedule big events like this, not to mention multiple international performances, but as a NieR fan, it would have been nice for SQEX to have worked a little harder to get the main performers (Emi -and- J’Nique) involved on this tour. I’m both upset for J’Nique as well as all the international NieR fans that won’t be able to experience her amazing musical talent on stage for themselves, but I realize that there are a lot of moving parts involved in this decision. At the end of the day, it’s very unfortunate.
Regarding tickets, I’m not all that knowledgeable about how to get tickets to these venues– It seems as though some people have been able to reserve tickets already although the “GET TICKETS” link from the official site doesn’t seem to like to anything specific yet. I will continue to update this page with additional information to help people get tickets!
For anyone interested in the original run of the concert in Japan, I went to half of the performances in Yokohama and wrote about it here.
This event is especially important to me because it was the last time to hang out with my buddy Allyn before he was relocated. It’s been about a year and I still miss his company. It was beyond liberating to be able to express my geekiness with a fellow fan. I will always be thankful for getting the chance to meet such a great friend.
This series is special. It has a way of connecting people beyond national and cultural borders. I have met so many amazing people through it and the other related works by Yoko Taro. It’s this authentic, creative passion that keeps me engaged and excited for any and everything new to come.
Here’s to all the amazing people involved with this series, as there are many integral folk that tend to shy away from the spotlight! Without all of these people and circumstances lining up just right, we wouldn’t have such opportunities as this!
Thanks to Square Enix, MOMACA, ILCA, and anyone else involved that I’ve failed to mention here for their continued support for Yoko Taro and NieR in general. Especially, thank you to Saito Yosuke!! Without you, I honestly doubt NieR would have made such a comeback as it did through NieR:Automata in 2017.
To all the international fans who will be able to attend the concert: ENJOY!! It will definitely be a night to remember!!
In a recent tweet by NieR:Automata Producer Saito Yosuke, he references a joint interview with Tsukumo and ASCII in which he discusses details for an up-coming release of a NieR:Automata collaboration PC. It’s within this article that he also mentions some interesting things regarding NieR in general.
YoRHa PC, pictured item not for sale – KADOKAWA ASCII Research Laboratories, Inc.
Here are a couple interesting sections of the interview:
Editor: Can you tell us briefly the flow of how a NieR:Automata PC collaboration came to be?
Saito: It all came about when I wanted to make a new PC for myself and I asked Tsukumo to make me a “YoRHa model”. When I posted images of it to Twitter, people went crazy over it, expressing how much they wanted one like it, too. That’s generally how this project came about.
Editor: What sort of machine will this collaboration PC be?
Saito: It’s a shame I can’t show it to you yet, but I’m very particular that the design should resemble NieR. Tsukumo suggested to add something as a bonus, so I’m thinking about a mouse pad. Definitely stay tuned for the details when we can make the announcement.
Editor: I think maybe you’ve received a ton of requests for a remastered version of NieR Gestalt / Replicant, but are you planning to release a remastered version in the future?
Saito: On a personal level, I want to work hard to release a remastered version and do something new, but…
NieR Gestalt / Replicant was for the PS3, so it’s not easy for people to play it these days, even though it would be nice if people could play it. Actually, the demand for a remake/remastered version from the world-wide fanbase is rather significant. Won’t somebody please say “I’ve made the remaster!” and hand me the disc? lol
Editor: You’ve released DLC in the past. Might it be possible to release additional DLC in the future?
Saito: New DLC isn’t feasible at this point. I know a lot of people would like additional content, but if it costs money, I want to do something new. Regarding NieR:Automata, we’ve been able to have various concerts and stage plays, offer a ton of new merchandise, so it would be really nice if all players could experience the world of NieR:Automata through these things. I can’t really say anything specific right now, but as far as development goes, I’d like to try something new.
Editor: Does that mean we can expect something big for the 10th Anniversary in 2020?
Saito: We’re not releasing anything physical or whatever else, but I’d like to start working on at least discussing something.
So it seems like we won’t get anything physical like a NieR Gestalt / Replicant remaster or remake in 2020, but we’ve known that Yoko and the gang have been working on a new game; I would still like to think that we’ll get some new information about that by the end of the year or early next year. I doubt they’re looking for a 2020 release for that, though, especially since they haven’t even dropped an official announcement for it yet.
For the past several days, there have been a couple different rumors flying around, but the majority revolve around unconfirmed information that not only is a NieR:Automata 2 is in development but it will also have a large budget. The only authority that can speak about this is SQEX, so until that time comes, let’s avoid spreading uncorroborated rumors from unknown sources.
With this in mind, I have updated my original page dedicated to this subject, Yoko’s New Project, and I suggest everyone to have a read through it as I go into depth regarding the recruiting process for the project, who was hired and when, as well as what they are likely working on:
AFTERWORD: I realize the attached image that I selected for this post is a little strong for the point that I’m trying to make here. The image suggests that rumors stem from lies, but this isn’t necessarily accurate for this case. There very well could be some truth behind leaks like this, if that’s what this is, but the fact remains that it’s very easy for unsubstantiated comments to be taken at face value and therefore shared over and over again until no one remembers where the information originally came from or, more importantly, whether it’s valid or not.
