Nier: Automata anime annouces return with a 2-hour long episode

One of the biggest surprise hits of Winter 2023 anime season was the premiere of Nier: Automata Ver1.1a anime series, which is an adaptation of the video game series of the same name. While there wasn’t any negative sentiments heading into the series’ premiere, fans were not enthusiastic about the quality.

However, over the course of two months and eight episodes, the Nier: Automata anime series proved itself as enjoyable and high quality as anything else premiering during that anime season. The only thing fans panned was the decision to stop the first season with eight episodes.

Since the airing of the last episode, fans have had no news on what the plan for the Nier: Automata anime series is. Fortunately, the official Twitter account for the series has seemingly changed that, given their latest tweet on the series’ status has provided an exciting update for viewers.

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Nier: Automata anime set to return with a two-hour long finale

On Friday, June 23, 2023, it was announced that the Nier: Automata anime will be returning one month from today. Set to broadcast on Sunday, July 23, the final four episodes of the series’ first season will be airing back to back on TOKYO MX, BS11, Tochigi TV, and Gunma TV. As such, this will create a 2-hour long finale episode for the first season.

The information comes from the series’ official Twitter account, as mentioned earlier. Moreover, this broadcast of the final episodes will see a “preceding cut” of the prior events in the series air beforehand. The tweet and accompanying website messages thanked fans for their unwavering support, further asking them to “kindly wait for a while until the broadcasting and distribution resumes.”

The series first aired on January 8, 2023, eventually airing its latest episode on March 19, 2023. Unfortunately, the series was delayed twice on the way to this eighth episode, which may have also played a role in why the ninth episode and those beyond were also delayed.

While press releases cited the impact of COVID-19 as creating the need for a delay at the time, it's possible that earlier delays snowballed into a larger issue with the series approaching its end. Although this is speculative, it would make sense, considering that the first season had to delay two episodes prior to delaying the season’s conclusive third act.

The series stars Yui Ishikawa as 2B, Natsuki Hanae as 9S, Hiroki Yasumoto as Pod 042, and Kaoru Akiyama as Pod 153. All four reprise their roles from the original video game series for the anime adaptation.

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Be sure to keep up with all anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.