Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden ‒ Episode 4
Lacking the gleeful, fun-sized violence of the previous episode, episode four of Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden begins with her and her overly familiar attendant arriving at the primary education academy that she's legally required to attend for the next several years. Here, she quickly meets with Hildetaura Altoire, the third Princess of this Kingdom of Altoire, and Reliared Silver, another rising magivision child actor whose family is invested in the technology and Nia's self-proclaimed rival. Altoire reveals to the girls that she got all of these impossibly articulate five-year-olds together because she believes magivision is pivotal to the long-term success of her nation.
Her arguments for this brief are compelling, terrifying, and informed by occurrences from real-world history. Citing the downfall of a nation-state based in the sky islands (casually existing in this universe) due to the invention of airships and the ease of migration they allow, she wants to use the emerging magivision technology to, most charitably, create a soft-power system that makes her citizenry proud to live in their home country or, more cynically, create a propaganda network that convinces her subjects that they won't be able to find a better quality of life outside of her rule. Basically, through first principles, Altoire has discovered the underlying motivations behind why the national anthem plays before every sporting event in the US or why Japan dedicates taxpayer money to promoting anime globally; good media inspires positive sentiment toward the place or people that make that media, and that sentiment is tremendously valuable in the kind of post-industrial economy that her nation is becoming.
That Nia Liston is now essentially an anime where a government actor (who is overtly a child) is set to invent in-universe “cute girls doing cute things” media where one of those other girls is secretly a super-powered murderer so that she can keep the serfs placated through little treats rather than actual social improvement is exactly my kind of nonsense, and I'm so curious to see how much this anime leans into the mechanics of this process or how overtly evil this brainwashing can be. Though, based on the brief mentions of magivision still being seen largely as a luxury good and the framing of Altoire's declaration, I guess that Nia Liston is about to turn so far into the skid that the wheel breaks off. I'm more confident than ever that this show won't find a mainstream audience, but Nia Liston is rapidly becoming an anime geared towards people who have my exact educational background, and I couldn't be more excited to see what the show has in store for us next!
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While Lucas DeRuyter had a fairly normal childhood (though people always seem surprised when he describes it to them with any amount of detail), his adulthood has been filled with the thrilling exploits of an anime writer and entertainment critic. To keep up with his adventures, new and old, you can follow his Bluesky account. You'll also hear from him regularly in ANN's This Week in Anime column, and can see him process what definitely aren't alienating childhood experiences by checking out his portfolio.
Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden is currently streaming on HIDIVE.
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