Nier: Automata‘s anime adaptation is a fresh take on the brutal game. The world of Nier is bleak at its best and the second season of the anime conveys that theme with a bang. The first episode, titled “reckless bra[V]ery”, reveals two of the series’ darkest story lines in less than 25 minutes. Protagonists and partners 2B and 9S help a woman looking for her friend’s killer, an adaption of the “Amnesia” questline.

9S’s true designation is also revealed, and the only thing more brutal than her true nature is the past that comes with it.

While the first season focused on the inner workings of the world of Nier, it looks like the second season is going to focus on the stark reality the YoRHa units face every day as they fight a war they may never win.

Side Quest – Intro to the E Units

Amnesia is one of the Darkest Side Quests in Nier: Automata

9S and 2B are traveling through the remains of a city when they come across someone asking for help. A woman in a red cloak lets the pair know that her friend was recently killed, and she needs their help to find the killer. Unfortunately, they did find the killer, who happened to be the woman in the red cloak the entire time. Her memories come flooding back to her, revealing her past as a YoRHa Type E Android.

While the Type E Androids have been touched upon in their series, this is the first time their true nature as executioners/assassins is revealed. The woman in the red cloak was designed to infiltrate Resistance outposts, make friends, and eventually execute them when their guard was down.

The Woman in Red can’t take the pain of living as a tool for destruction, only waking up every day to kill those closest to her. Instead of continuing her own cycle of violence, she chooses to jump off the roof and end it herself. As she jumps, she leaves 9S with an ominous and important message that saved his life. Almost.

2B Is Revealed to be 2E

2B or not 2B – that’s the question the anime has decided to ask

While the woman in the red cloak fell off the building, she told 9S to “be careful”, giving him a chance to find out 2B’s truth. Cautiously, he then tricks 2B into letting him plant a virus in her head for the future, just in case she turns on him. He’s right to do so, as in the episode 2B is seen trying to kill 9S in an abandoned shopping mall. An order comes in from Command that diverts her attention just in time, but the camera pans to the pit of the mall where the corpse of 9S remains.

After leaving the mall, 2B attacks 9S. Confused, he asks his partner why she’s attacking him. After she slices his arm off, she coldly answers that “Type S models can’t win against Type E models in close range,” confirming her true identity as a Type E executioner model. These models are specifically designed to execute and assassinate compromised models before they fall into enemy hands, or allied forces that exhibit rogue behavior.

The Cycle of Violence Never Ends

2B Has to Constantly Kill Her Partner

2E is right, there’s no way 9S can defeat her in close combat. Because of the Woman in Red’s warning, however, he’s able to buy himself a couple of seconds and freeze 2E in her place to save himself from the executioner unit. 9S isn’t just up against 2E though, as his own Pod Unit betrays him and saves 2E, showing that he’s up against the entire Council of Humanity. He’s able to stab 2E through the shoulder but not before she can stab him through his mid-section, killing the scanner model instantly.

The screen pans out to reveal that this is just one of many incidents. 9S was killed because he learned too much about the Council of Humanity, a cycle he has repeated upwards of 40 times by this point in the story. Because he keeps finding information he shouldn’t, his partner 2B was eventually given the designation of 2E and the task of summarily executing him every time he does.

Nothing is darker than developing a genuine relationship with your partner only to be forced to kill them, and 2E has already done so three dozen times.