NieR: Automata Creator Yoko Taro Responds to Protagonist Butt Controversy

NieR and Drakengard creator Yoko Taro is known for being an oddball of a creator, refusing to show his face in public and donning a life-sized helmet based on one of his characters. His eccentric nature also extends to his games and characters, whom many fans (including me) love.

A recent controversy surrounding the existence of an in-game butthole (NSFW) to one of his characters hasn’t fazed him.


We conducted a thorough investigation into whether or not this digital sphincter actually exists, and ultimately came up with nothing. It’s purely doctored, or fan-made.

The short version: a fan took various mods made for Japanese developer Illusion’s 3D games and made an erotic version of NieR: Automata’s protagonist, YoRHA No. 2B, a model similar to the actual character.

As with any media, fans got to work creating more fanart, a good amount of it more sexual than the original.

Taro responded to the controversy in a way so fitting of him:

“Due to the 2B butt controversy, many outrageous drawings are being made. Collecting them to share individually is a pain. It would be great if we can group them together to make it easier to distribute them every week.”

You can’t deny that Taro’s games have adult themes in them, sometimes with unabashedly sexual themes as well (a character that’s a futanari is a minor example). This video is an example of the further-sexualized fan-version of 2B in motion.

It’s worth mentioning that it didn’t take long for someone to gather lots of fan-art of 2B, which Taro also responded to:

“When I said that I wanted people to gather images of 2B and put them in a zip file for me, the tweet got all kinds of exposure. Now people are actually collecting them. The internet is amazing.”

So, in a time when more developers are reducing the number of potentially offensive themes in their games, sometimes even in response to negative criticism, you should consider supporting a creator like Taro.

NieR: Automata launches March 7th for PS4, with a PC release coming later this year. A demo for the game is now available, which you can read more about here.

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