Translated by Defade Creator’s Interview
*Before you read*
1. You saw ending D or confirmed its contents through this book 2. You read all the short stories in this book (191-224)
3. You can keep a straight face no matter what you know Only read if you fulfill these requirements.
Director – Yoko Taro
The director of this game, the one responsible for creating Nier’s unique worldview. He’s not too good with interviews, photo shoots, praise or great expectations.
Scenario Writer – Sawako Natori
Famous for her work in “DOD” and “99’s Tear” etc. Did some novelization work as well.
Wrote Popola’s madness scene while role-playing PreCure with her daughter.
Novelist – Jun Eishima
Novelized the “DOD” series. Also wrote “W – the two summers” under the penname Nagashima Emi. “Completely obsessed with shounen stuff” according to Yokoo.
It’s been one week since NieR’s release…Replicant was sold out in many shops, and “NieR Rhapsody”-esque movements have sprung all over the streets and alleyways. A small banquet was set in a corner of Shinjuku. How did the world full of mysteries; the sad, painful yet beautiful story which grabbed our hearts come to be? The three most important people will meet for the first time this night, and reveal to us all there is-
Both the software and the soundtrack were immensely popular The director’s butt feels itchy
-Nier was released without a hitch, and it seemed to have garnered quite the popularity.
Yokoo Tarou(Yokoo from now on): To tell you the truth, as someone involved in the development, I never expected such positive response, and I was caught off guard.
-The software and soundtrack were received with such praise that it’s hard to find them anywhere.
Yokoo: Well- I never thought that they’d garner such praise. I’m pretty uncomfortable with praise, so my butt is itching quite badly as a result.
Eishima Jun(Eishima from now on): I thought that Yokoo would definitely lock himself in his locker from the backlash of Ending D…(laughs)*
*The Locker Incident = Happened after the release of “Drag-on Dragoon” on anonymous chat boards on the net. A huge amount of internet backlash arose from the strangeness of the last battle in ending E and depression-inducing contents of the multi bad ends. In response to that Yokoo hid in a locker to ride out the storm of ASCII art flames directed his way. “Maybe Yokoo will drag himself to the locker again” became an expression that captures the conflicting feelings of hate and love from the fans.
Yokoo: I was completely prepared to go into the locker myself.(laughs) We put quite a lot of things in Nier, and as a result it had its fair share of rough edges. As developers, we caught many of those rough edges ourselves, but if we wanted to fix all of them, the game will never get released. That’s why we just took a “Whatever!” attitude regarding some issues.
We did feel really bad for the players though.
-Despite all that, the general response is very positive. It seems like the satisfied players outnumber the ones who aren’t.
Yokoo: I wonder…actually, I’m not really confident, and I always look at reviews with a “This is so suspicious….!” attitude.
Eishima: Why are you always preparing yourself for the worst like that. (laughs)
Natori Sawako(Natari from now on): It’s like “If only 1 out of 10 people was satisfied…”
except the ratio ended up being a bit more than 1:10. (laughs) Some good probably came out of reading tons of shounen manga and looking into their formula stories.
-How is it like for the publisher?
Square Enix Promotion Staff(Mr. T from now on): Even we didn’t expect such popularity.
Yokoo’s works are often quite enigmatic, and their target audience is mature. However, Nier’s official site suddenly experienced an accessing boom before the official release date, and more and more inquiries were made as the release date closed in. We tried to satisfy the market as best as we could with a happy scream, but we couldn’t quite keep up with the sales. It was pretty painful for us.
Yokoo: It’s a new game, so nobody is looking forward to it – maybe that’s the secret behind Nier’s success!
Eishima: Ah- That might actually(laughs) Natori: Be right.(laughs)
-Of course there were the introductions in Dengeki PlayStation and Dengeki Games, but the weapon stories and short stories(SS from now on) garnered the highest amount of feedback.
Yokoo: That…is Eishima working too hard.
Eishima: What are you saying! It was your idea to have young Nier prostitute himself in the first place! I tried making it as tame as I could.
-…it was supposed to be more shocking…?
Nier’s secret past
It was actually more…!!
Eishima: Ever since I took the SS job, I learnt a lot about the settings and worldview of the game from Yokoo aside from doing test plays of the game. Every time I saw the contents of my mail, I froze before my computer and shouted “Ehhh-!?”
-The same scream was heard from the editor’s room.
Yokoo: Me, scenario writers Kikuchi and Natori decided that Nier couldn’t possibly survive without earning money like that. So the setting was pretty normal, wasn’t it?
Natori: Yes. It was normal.(smiles)
Eishima: T-true….it…might be common? However, that’s still too much for a game setting to be published officially in a normal game magazine. The first setting I got from Yokoo said “He earned money by being their partner for the night, no matter the gender”.
-…how pitiful.
Eishima: And Yokoo’s description of it was horrible.
Yokoo: Eh, no it wasn’t!? It was just him looking at the ceiling and waiting for unpleasant times to end, and finding it a bit hard to sit down the next day…
Eishima: That’s exactly it! It was indirect, but still too direct!(laughs) In the end, we
managed to tone it down considerably by agreeing on Nier tying up his hair after that night.
-You could’ve included those “direct” parts in this book.
Eishima: I probably wouldn’t be able to hold myself back…in different manners of speaking, so I refrained from doing that.(laughs)
Kaine’s “Gender”
Depicting the normal workings of humanity
-Since we’re talking about the SS, Natori’s story about Kaine packed quite the punch as well.
Natori: That was partially inspired by Eishima’s SS. Since Nier was like that(laughs), maybe Kaine had that side to her as well. It was normal to her. However, there are people who couldn’t accept that as normal. I wrote it in hopes of depicting those differences.
-Her female side was emphasized in the game, so there might be many users who are surprised at her male side in this SS.
Natori: We didn’t really put much emphasis on her being a hermaphrodite in the game, so I wanted to write about that somewhere. In the game, we only touched on her being bullied as a child.
-Did you intentionally not emphasize the hermaphrodite issue in the game? What were the reasons behind that?
Yokoo: To me, Kaine being a hermaphrodite wasn’t really a point of importance. Since people like that do exist in reality, we just don’t know about them. I was actually surprised that it garnered so much attention after the game was released.
Let's ask director Yokoo a simple question 1: Since Gestalts are souls, why do the Shades bleed?
Yokoo: Gestalts don’t possess a physical body or cells, but the instant they get hurt, their wounds temporarily try to return to their human state. That’s why they bleed, and can die
like normal humans.
Emil’s “sexuality”
“Normality” in Yokoo’s works?
-Kaine became a huge topic of discussion even before the release, but Emil’s feelings towards Nier got its own share of attention after the release.
Yokoo: I thought I made it quite clear with that bride statement, but it didn’t seem to have gotten the message across.
-One theory was that Emil developed feminine feelings and liked Nier as a result of fusing with his sister Halua
Yokoo: No, Emil is gay!
Eishima: Oh, confirmation is good. I thought that I saw nonexistent undertones because of my dirty mind. (laughs)
Mr. T: I thought Emil liked Kaine since they slept outside together, and wanted to marry her.
Yokoo: Emil saw Halua in Kaine. To Emil, she was a reliable sister figure.
-There always seem to be some characters with unusual sexual preferences in Yokoo’s works.
Natori: We just feel like that we’re reflecting the real world while creating the worldview and settings.
Yokoo: How would you define “unusual”, is the question. If we look around, we can definitely see homosexuals, few in number they may be. I’m not trying to say “Don’t discriminate” or anything like that, just “People like that exist. It’s simply the way the world works.” They’re labeled with “normal”, “unusual” and compared quite often, but the difference between people with certain sexual preferences lies purely in number. Some are quite abundant, some are not, but we’re all in the same world. I never intended for them to appear as special.
Kaine’s love scene
And why ending C and D feel strange
-As I was playing, I understood that both Emil and Kaine liked Nier. However, very little emphasis was put on who Nier likes.
Yokoo: I don’t want to complicate the main point of the story. “An older brother saving his sister” was the main theme we wanted to portray, and I wanted to deliver all the drama involved as a first impression. Details of the worldview or personality quirks of other
characters can be left later for people who really want to know. If I put in more about Nier and Kaine, the main theme would get muddled, so I refrained.
-Kaine loves Nier, doesn’t she?
Natori: That’s right. When he was young, she just felt friendship towards a fellow comrade and a person she could trust, but she realized the changes in her feelings when she woke up in the library. We made to emphasize that during the scene.
-Did Kaine ever reveal her feelings towards Nier during the journey?
Natori: Nier’s heart was filled with thoughts of Yonah and revenge against the Shades.
He really wasn’t fit to deal with Kaine and Emil’s faint feelings for him.(laughs) And Kaine wasn’t good at confessing, so she resolved to be useful to him in his revenge at least. That’s why she said “I’ll become his blade and die!”
Yokoo: By the way, Kaine first realized that she loved Nier during the love scene in shadowlord’s castle.
-???
Yokoo: When she kicked Nier in his stomach.
Eishima: That…could it even be called a love scene? (laughs)
Yokoo: It is a love scene! She realized that “Ah, I actually love this person!” when she was kicking him and beating him up! Her backing off was the girl side in her coming out.
-It was a good scene. I could clearly see how Kaine’s brain works. (laughs) Yokoo: It was the most romantic scene in the game.
Natori: When I was writing the scenario, I almost dipped into Kaine and Nier’s romance territory a few times, but I remember Yokoo telling me that “This isn’t what I wanted to show” and asking me to change it. I have to focus on writing them as “comrades”. So it ended up as a rather simple love scene.
-However, as a result of that, the development in ending C and D may come off as rather strange to players.
Yokoo: Instead of being a decision for “Nier and Kaine”, it was more like a choice for “the player and Kaine”. If you like Kaine after playing through the game twice, then sacrifice yourself and save her, if you don’t then you don’t have to save her. I wasn’t trying to force your hand into saving her by shoving romance down your throat.
-I see. However, Nier’s “My beloved~” line comes off as even more abrupt now.
Yokoo: That was more like a spur of the moment thing rather than intended
direction.(laughs) “Whether the player loves Kaine or not” – base your decision on that.
-Ending D isn’t the true end just because it comes last, but the player could freely choose “their own true end” .
Yokoo: That’s pretty much it.
Eishima: However, as a gamer, you simply have to proceed to ending D since it was present in the system. After all, you do want to see it.(laughs)
-Hearing you say that, I feel pain at having made my choice on the basis of Nier being a game. Now I’m told to make that choice based on what I really feel for Kaine…in a certain manner of speaking, the hurdle the player had to cross was quite high.
A study on ending D
Eishima and Natori’s interpretations
Natori: Ending D felt very natural to me. Nier’s love for his comrades was really strong, and even if that were Emil, he’d still save him. To him, only Yonah is special, and everyone else sort of shares the 1st place in his heart.
-He probably thought that he’d be happy simply with people important to him, including Yonah, living on.
Eishima: To me, ending C was father Nier’s choice, and ending D was brother Nier’s choice.
-What is the reasoning behind that?
Eishima: A father is responsible to his own daughter, so he couldn’t just give up his existence. He feels that it’s his duty to protect Yonah and raise her, so he’d kill Kaine and live on. On the other hand, a brother and sister both coexist with and depend on each other, so maybe he’d choose to disappear and be relieved from his burden.
Natori: I see…
Eishima: Interpretations of ending C and D could really vary from person to person. That’s why I think Nier is a game made for a wide audience. You do have a choice to make, but we don’t try to force you into one by shouting “This is it, right!”
Yokoo: However, it is a strange game.
It’s strange, but it still garnered the acceptance of many
The reason lies in the focus on “impacting people on an emotional level”
-When I read the settings in this book, I realize that many of them were not revealed in the actual game.
Yokoo: That’s true. We barely explained “Project Gestalt”.
-Was that intentionally done?
Yokoo: We didn’t explain everything because that’s just how reality is. I wanted to reflect certain elements of reality in this game, so I didn’t put too much focus on explaining everything. I also wanted to make the basic story simple and easy to understand, so I deleted most information that weren’t vital to emotional impact.
-That’s why it makes you feel “refreshed, but leaves a weird taste in your mouth”. It’s very dramatic, but you feel indigestion.
Yokoo: At the end of the day, I wanted to make a weird and strange game. More like, I can’t make anything but strange games.
The day it rained salt in Shinjuku-What is “Project Gestalt?”
-So, can I direct detailed questions on the worldview to Yokoo specifically?
Yokoo: Shoot. I’ll answer to the best of my ability.
-Yokoo, were you the only brains behind “Project Gestalt” and “Replicant System”?
Yokoo: The general idea came from me, but it was later refined by Cavia’s planners, programmers, Kikuchi and Natori. They all contributed to different parts of the concept.
-The game began halfway through the 21st century in Shinjuku, I was quite surprised that it was snowing in summer?
Yokoo: That isn’t snow but salt. The corpses of victims suffering from chlorination decomposed and fell from the sky.
-Because of the white chlorination syndrome.
Yokoo: In 2003, Caim and Angel came to this world from a multi-dimensional world. After they fought with the giant, they were shot down by fighter planes. What came out of their bodies was the “demonic element”. When humans come in contact with the demonic element, they’re pulled into contract ala DOD styled. Except instead of a contract, it’s more like a forced curse. “Become a servant to god and destroy the world according to its will, if you reject then you shall die” is the content of the contract. If they reject the contract, they’ll suffer chlorination and die, if they accept it, they’ll turn into servants of god(legions).
-No matter the outcome, they won’t be able to live as humans. “Project Gestalt” was devised as a counter for that, right?
Yokoo: The Gestalt process was a system where a person’s mentality dwells in a yorishiro refined through the dragon’s corpse. DOD’s contract involves an exchange of souls, but in this case the contractor – the “dragon”, is already soulless and an empty yorishiro, so there is no soul to exchange with. That’s why the person’s soul will simply be transferred into the yorishiro and take over that.
-If people go through the Gestalt process, they can avoid the WCS?
Yokoo: Because their body is separated from their soul, they have no fear of entering a contract when they touch the demonic element.
-And the soul can be reunited with the body.
Yokoo: It’s possible. However, though the soul shall remain ageless and live on indefinitely, the body isn’t made of the same stuff. That’s how the “Replicant System” came to be – having androids manage fake bodies without a consciousness within a regulated area. If they die, then the androids make more, rinse and repeat. They make the Replicants who are immune to WCS exterminate the legions and uncover the truth behind the WCS. During that time, the Gestalts sleep and eventually regain their human form and everyday life after everything’s been said and done. That’s how “Project Gestalt” and “Replicant System”
should’ve ideally functioned.
Eishima: These kind of settings are so complicated – you won’t even know unless you ask Yokoo. I had to ask him a lot of questions while writing the SS, and I learned quite a bit.
Let's ask director Yokoo a simple question 2: Why doesn't it ever get completely dark at night?
Yokoo: The axis of the earth has changed in that time period, the sun won't sink below the horizon even at night – it’ll be like a midnight sun.
A product of coincidence from experiments
"Gestalt Nier"
Yokoo: The humans have managed to combine science and magic through the dragon’s corpse, leading to the successful Gestalt process. However, there were
fatal “inconveniences”. One of them was that Gestalts were weak to sunlight. The other one is that a soul that went through the Gestalt process will eventually lose its sense of self and start attacking humans, eventually dying.
-Those are the “relapsed Gestalts”, the Shades that attack the replicants.
Yokoo: The siblings Nier and Yonah took part in the Gestalt experiment, but Nier became suspicious of the project and escaped the facility with Yonah. Nier probably realized the dangers of the Gestalt process.
-After that, they were attacked by Shades, and Nier had no choice but to make a contract
-After that, they were attacked by Shades, and Nier had no choice but to make a contract