"Goddess of Victory: Nikke" as a Trans Text

OR : A PROLOGUE TO THE GENDER MANIFESTO[*0.5]

OR : I'M REALLY GETTING ON MY BULLSHIT THIS TIME

No tabletop post today! Just an analysis of one of my new favorite games that I haven't seen getting the love it deserves. Trigger warnings cause we'll be talking about all the heavy awful stuff that comes with being persecuted by technocratic bigots.

Throughout 2024 I was plugging away at a very ambitious blog post entitled "Gender, the Wasteland and Hot Android Women" - An analysis of recurrent themes of synthetic (often trans coded) feminine bodies in post-apocalyptic verdant wastelands where humanity has otherwise disappeared. It's a topic I've been thinking about ever since I realized that Nier: Automata (2017) was almost certainly taking at least partial inspiration from one of my favorite animated films Expelled from Paradise (2014) given the uncanny similarities in some of the setting details. Details shared by my GOTY last year Stellar Blade (2024). So of course being a dutiful little researcher I looked into Stellar Blade developer Shift Up's other post-apocalyptic game featuring busty synthetic women: Goddess of Victory: Nikke (2022). [*3]

You know, the butt-jiggle mobile game?[*1] Initially I was planning on just having a passing mention, based off my memory of the (very good) first chapter. But soon that mention turned into a section, that section turned into sections and those sections got so unwieldy it became clear I was going to need to quarantine my MANY Nikke thoughts in a separate post so the original post could stay focused.

And so here we are...

"The girls awaken from the nightmare of shame and the ambition of revenge..." 

PREFACE

((You can skip this if you already know a lot about Nikke))

So what is Nikke? You've probably seen the ad banners for its hot anime women draping your screen, but lets go over the basics:

• Nikke is a live-service mobile game with a character gaccha (you gamble on banners to get characters and they're pretty generous with the free currency, though incentives to whale unfortunately exist.). Players put together a team of up to 5 Nikkes to take on story and daily missions of various intensities in a pseudo-3rd person gallery shooter game (I'll be real - The gameplay is this game's weakest spot, in sharp contrast to Stellar Blade).
• The plot follows a post-apocalyptic Earth where the remnants of mankind live in a highly-advanced underground super-city called the Ark while mysterious "alien" robots named Raptures hunt down any humans on sight on the surface.
• The Ark is ruled by a vaguely authoritarian and highly militaristic "Central Government" who deploy fully synthetic female soldiers "Nikkes" to combat the Rapture menace. Nikkes are treated like second-class citizens at best, and are largely considered "not human" despite having human brains underneath their synthetic core. ((There's even concepts like "Nikke Rights Activist" and "Nikkephobics" - A central plot point being that a Nikke pop-star was killed on-stage by a Nikkephobe.))
• Nikkes are built by taking a human brain[*6] and inserting them into highly advanced synthetic weaponized bodies (a process which erases many of their past memories and makes them start life anew). To smooth this dissonance these bodies are given a human-like appearance and functions. The most resilient Nikkes (see the ones who retain some identity) take on bodies that represent their subconscious' "ideal form" (more on this later). They have super strength, can survive without food or water, and are equipped with firepower whose kickback would rip a normal human in half.
• Nikkes are also injected with "NIMPH" - Poorly understood nano-machines that force compliance from Nikkes to never harm humans and follow the orders of the Central Government. (Minor spoilers to follow) Nikkes are also susceptible to corruption from Raptures which ostensibly highjacks their NIMPH and turns the Nikkes into puppets of the Raptures who'll fire on their allies.
• There's also Heretics (who could be their own article) who are corrupted Nikkes who serve the Rapture Queen, and Pilgrims who are Nikkes independent of the Arc and the Raptures who roam the surface.

You probably already see where this is going. There's a lot of good stuff out there about Nikke and it's relations to topics like feminism (and more specifically the caustic nature of patriarchies and governments who control peoples bodies) and how the game is largely "subversive" - And I by and large agree with a lot of these takes and am not going to regurgitate all of those here. People can also spin their wheels about the "male gaze" in this game, but I find that branch of analysis largely reductive so I won't even be touching on it here.[*5]

Nikke passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors (I could count the male characters in this game on two hands and they never upstage the women). Its central (and arguably gender ambiguous[*5.5]) commander protagonist's special power is that they Actually Give a Shit About the Girlies™, emboldening them to fight harder by treating them like real human beings deserving of love (platonic and otherwise) and encouraging them to be themselves. They also are remarkably non-central to a lot of the story, serving more like the framing device and supporting character. The list goes on ~

What I don't hear often though is how trans the whole thing feels. The re-sculpting of the body via technology. The struggle for acceptance in a world that dehumanizes and degenders them while demanding total obedience. The doomed yuri [*0]. It's all right there!~ So let me try to sell you on this text being fundamentally trans (and especially trans feminine), something which has deeply enriched my enjoyment of the game.

Some other quick disclaimers: 1) Death of the author! In this house we queer the canon regardless of "intent" [Although...*4] 2) This game is still really hard to recommend playing because its gameplay as a gacha game rarely adds much to the themes (save to subvert expectations). It's a great little mobile game if you like those, but overall I'd recommend going and watching through the hours of cutscenes this game has if it interests you (This game needs an anime or proper 3rd person shooter) - That said we will be touching on a variety of spoilers, none of which I think will lessen your enjoyment of the game. 3) The localization to this game is really rough for reasons I can only guess at. Thus some conclusions here may be drawn from translation errors or unintended localization decisions (which I'll try to note as we go) but I think that makes the read all the juicier.

NIKKES AS NOT-WOMEN

While diving into Nikke, I was exposed to Talia Bhatt's excellent writing. A running theme in her work is the way trans bodies (especially trans women's bodies and especially those outside western imperial spheres) get "Third Sexed" in an exoticizing exercise in othering and degendering. ((This of course isn't to be confused with the reality of comfortably intersex folks and non-binaries ~ )) If you'd like to read up more on it I highly recommend "The Third Sex" - I'm not going to summarize the whole thing here cause there's a LOT at play and Talia puts it best herself - But to put this degendering another way:

"[...]trans women are degendered, regarded as some kind of heinous, aberrant, nonhuman thing that must never be countenanced, only rectified. Our expressions of pain are manipulations, never sincere. [...]

Degendering dehumanizes us utterly because a patriarchal regime conditions legibility upon gender. Are you imbued with a modicum of agency, your place in society central and venerated and deified, the sire and scion of your line? Are you a reproductive asset, a vessel through whom the actual agents of history will perpetuate their marks upon a world forbidden to you? 

… Or are you, in fact, something else entirely? Something that is neither citizen nor serf, something that cannot even serve the purpose of incubator, something whose only use can be absorbing as much violence as those around her deem her fit to take?" - Talia Bhatt "When The Doll Speaks"

And hot dang I know this is a heavy and serious topic, but if it doesn't feel like the big booby waifu game has something to say about this topic and transmisogyny as a whole.

On multiple occasions we hear that Nikkes have been taught and that society enforces that they are not human. A view which our protagonist commander fights at every turn, and in many ways is the central struggle of the plot, almost more-so than overcoming the Rapture threat. Nikkes are not just second class citizens subservient to men, but something ranked lower than any human woman could be as well.

Stripped of agency, humanity and even at times individuality, we see Nikkes again and again propelling society forward in the arts, economy, sciences and more - But according to that self-same society, those women will only ever be Nikkes, and should feel grateful at the mere chance to contribute ((the recent event Wisdom Springs even touches on this)). 

On more than one occasion when making comparisons between humans and Nikkes the game holds a model of a Nikke and the average human woman side-by-side, rather than say a Nikke and a human male. While I do think Nikke has a lot to say about misogyny and patriarchy as a whole, it's clear to me it also has a lot to say about transmisogyny specifically.

In fact one of the game's most vocal adherents that Nikkes are inhuman is Syuen, a female CEO of one of the Big Three companies that produces Nikkes (specifically the Missilis line). Often demeaning Nikkes by calling them "buckets of bolts" or "rust buckets" (while also insisting her favorite trio of Nikkes are different and must be protected), it's hard not to hear how Syuen's often hypocritical rhetoric rhymes with a lot of transphobic ideology.

Nikkes (despite being so obviously women that people get in a huff about this game's presentation of them) are treated explicitly as dehumanized and degendered feminine bodies within the game's text - A text predominantly about rehumanizing said bodies.

THE IDEAL FORM

If you had a button that let you transform into your best and most beautiful self would you press it? What if it cost you your memories? Forced you to start over? Take up a new name and leave your old life behind?[*3.5] It's this birth into a new life that punctuates a myriad of the Nikkes' personal stories. These are women given a second chance at living with a new body, a new name and transformed into their ideal form via miraculous (and heavily regulated) technology, often at the cost of leaving their whole past behind - If that isn't the most overtly trans analogue narrative, I don't know what is.

Shift Up could've easily said these synthetic bodies are designed by the Big Three to be attractive propaganda machines (and in fact, that much seems to be the case with the mass-produced models) or forgone Nikkes having human brains altogether - But to have specifically human brains that then determine an ideal feminine form for themselves via their subconscious self-image feels very intentional.

This is to say nothing of the fact that (in the EN localization[*4.5]), Alice (one of the game's strongest characters that has an unlimited-time event to encourage new players to play through her story) is explicitly trans, being referred to as "Mr. ----" in brief flashbacks to her human days.

OK so we've established that Nikkes are low-key high-key pretty trans, and that the story of Nikke is about reaffirming the rights and humanity of those characters...

NIMPH, OBEDIENCE AND PATRIARCHY

NIMPH on the surface seems like it could be a convenient excuse for why the Nikkes never rebel and are infatuated with the protagonist - It forces subordination and limits the otherwise limitless potential of these women. Yet Shift Up explicitly puts NIMPH's very existence and usage as a central conflict within the story, one the protagonist commander is very much dead-set on removing from the Ark's Nikke population in the process of liberating them.

When we go over all the things NIMPH does to make "good" Nikkes[*8] (subservience, obedience, passivity), we start seeing startling similarities in the kind of performative subservience to patriarchal "ideals" that defines a "woman" which trans women are often encouraged to over-perform to get the most barebones treatment and recognition from authorities and medical professionals. It's the same song-and-dance that harms cis women, leading to repression and oppression in equal measure.

[Though, let me be super clear - If you want to be a hotty bimbo trophy wife who does nothing but cook and clean for your man, by all means live your best life. In many ways, the plot lines involving the Maid For You squad in Nikke seem to explore embracing those traditionally "feminine" roles if/when it brings you joy and if/when it's done with sincerity as opposed to due to outside expectations ~ But that's a very big if ((see also Maid in Valentine))]

NIMPH in the most literal sense is patriarchal transmisogynistic brain worms - Thus over the course of the story the traditionalist masses are easily swayed to be even more suspect of a Nikke with her NIMPH removed (a level of heightened scrutiny evocative of the struggles of women living under the sword of transmisogyny).

 

This reading also has interesting implications for the kind of "safety blanket" that kind of compulsive (but orderly) subservient mindset can have, and the ways its removal can be a challenging (but ultimately empowering) process. [Pay close attention to Chapter 18]

CORRUPTION AND SELF-TERMINATION

Staggering suicide rates among the trans community are no secret. It then feels notable how often the topic of suicide and "self-termination" comes up in Nikke, almost always as a reaction to their continued oppression, traumas, losing their fellow Nikkes and the overall grief of the life they've been forced to live (a life in service to people who treat them as sub-human). Nikke isn't shy about the ways in which the systemic mistreatment of these women tends to lead to the same paths.

However it is subversive in introducing another reason Nikkes often die: Corruption. It's a process by which a Nikke loses all sense of self and becomes a violent slave to the Rapture hoard, bent on killing her sisters and the rest of humanity.

Corruption itself is (minor spoiler) an infectious code developed by a character (a Nikke no less) who thought humanity's best option was to quietly assimilate into the Rapture's swarm, to not make waves and surrender oneself - A concept that should feel familiar to any woman being told her primary goal should be to blend in, to abandon any part of her identity that could potentially mark her as other, to either pass so well she can persecute other trans women or to stay in the closet forever and not make such a fuss.

It's no surprise then that (much like how this pressure to stay closeted or pass in increasingly subservient ways rides on patriarchal ideology) corruption is only made possible by infecting a Nikke's NIMPH. Thus if a character lacks the NIMPH they're immune (but the Central Government can't have that, can they?) And equally no surprise that most Nikkes would prefer the path of self-termination over the living hell of corruption. (Though in Nikke it's revealed Corruption isn't a one way street - In other words it's never too late ~)

LEFT BEHIND

Over Zone, Nikke's first major event, is so so so so fucking good. I could write for hours about it. But the gist is this: Over Zone is ostensibly a prequel involving the legendary Goddess Squad being the first and last line of defense protecting the Ark while it's being sealed... (spoilers) and then being left behind, unwelcome to ever enter the safe haven they fought to secure. Completely abandoned with only a fleeting "thoughts and prayers" to send them along.

Both feminist and queer rights movements have a nasty habit of sealing protections for themselves, while erroneously (and often intentionally) leaving behind their trans brothers and sisters who fought with them on the front lines to fend for themselves - A parallel that feels unmistakable here.

I've tried not to write too much about the Goddess Squad here because there's a lot of spoilers and a lot of nuance and also it's 3 a.m. - But there's a LOT to dig into there for those with eyes to see it ((And it's one of the many reasons I'm obsessed with Dorothy's character and her interplay with the utopian Eden))

WHY ALL THIS MATTERS

OK so I've established Nikke is depressing as hell, and arguably uses its sci-fi to talk about the many struggles of trans folks (in particular trans women), and obviously the game is about big mean government bad, bigotry bad and subservient brain worms bad. But Nikke is about SO MUCH MORE than all the sad stuff I just mentioned, which is why I play it.

It's about these women whose bodies are weaponized and itemized, finding sisterhood in each other, in their goofy little hobbies, in their individuality. It's about the power of trust and community and friendship even in the face of horrible systemic oppression. It's about fighting for the little moments of joy and love and appreciating every moment of happiness you can get. It's about how even in the face of an apocalypse and a technocratic government breathing down your neck, you can still find corners to be yourself, to have fun and foster beauty in the world. And that those moments matter. And that theme feels incredibly pertinent to me personally.

I cannot tell you the last game I played that features multiple main story arcs about women just hanging out, having fun and living life to the best of their ability. This feels like if someone stuck Lucky Star, Nier: Automata and Ghost in the Shell into a blender and I am so here for it. It reflects a multiplicity in the trans experience that feels so rarely touched on.

It feels rare and amazing to get a huge cast of trans[*9] characters who get to (at times) just live and have fun and be silly, in the same game that deals with sweeping sci-fi stories and deeper thematic narratives. And rarer still to get to see that in a globally popular game! I'm sure there's plenty of Nikke fans who'll never see the (obvious) trans coding of it all or ignore its obvious text about promoting compassion and dismantling systemic oppressions. And there's even more more people still who'll just write Nikke off as never anything more than predatory gacha shlock that exploits the female figure for big bucks. But to me Nikke is the kind of game I've always dreamed of and rarely get: A diverse, big budget, deep cutting, sex-positive, operatic post-apocalyptic sci-fi masterpiece with well written characters, true-to-life antics and impeccable aesthetics. One whose varied cast is as loveable as they are nuanced, and one where happy endings can still be written in the margins.

Anyways thanks for reading all this! If I've convinced you, I'd recommend giving Nikke a closer look and to maybe not judge all books by their cover ~

[*0 : An Aside On (Trans) Lesbianism and Kink - This could've been it's own section but this post is already hella long and this aside has more to do with sexuality than sex. The game's (as far as I can tell) only canonical non-ambiguous onscreen romance is between two women (Nikkes no less) and frankly I was floored with how tastefully, empathetically and heartbreakingly well it's portrayed. Firstly, said romance gets a CG, one that (in my opinion) is notably not drawn for gratification but rather to portray an honest and heated chemistry (that CG rendered below): 

Additionally the way both Yuni and Mihara are portrayed in their bond episodes is playful, clever and radically accepting of kink culture. It's the kind of writing that definitely clues you in to the writers not being your average milk-toast cishet focused harem makers.

However ((We're about to get into major spoiler territory so skip this if you haven't gotten well past Chapter 25 of Nikke's Story and don't want to be spoiled)) holy shit this sub plot is grim in the main campaign. Yuni (pink hair smol dom) has to watch as Mihara (tall busty sub) gets her mind wiped due to failure to adhere to protocols during an operation and thus forgets the unique romance they share. What begins as a beautiful shared consensual kinky heat between the two is eroded by the Central Government's grim punitive measures against any perceived disobedience and it hurts watching Yuni trying to pick up the pieces. It's a kind of government enforced robbing of identity that's not so subtly similar to other real-world anti-queer programs. The way the writing portrays Mihara as having lost all sense of self, of joy, of love, of identity, all to conform to the whims of a government who'd keep her "in her place." It's enough to (quite reasonably) radicalize Yuni who's always treated as a "useless rust bucket" by Syuen and other humans. And how does the Central Government punish Yuni's eventual (admittedly incredibly violent) act of insubordination? In no small part by stripping her of that cute tiny exterior and turning her into a hulking goliath of rapture parts who must hide her face... By turning her once ideal body into a miserable waking prison. Yeah. It's... so brutal.]]

[*0.5 : OK OK so big big caveats right out the gate - One I am by no means a gender studies professional - This is all based off personal experience, the experiences of close friends and stuff I've read on the world wide web - Secondly "~gender~" (in my experience) is a bit of a divisive term that's used for so many varied and conflicting ideologies that it's evocative of the kind of "what is a tabletop rpg" pedantry that drives me up the wall - If you want a touch-stone for how I'm using "sex" (and interchangeably "gender") I really recommend reading this spectacular article by Traverse Fantasy and in particular this passage: "We should instead take sex as our basis: not sex according to gender ideology, which is static and immutable and objective; but sex as one’s body and their relationship to it, which is constantly defined and regulated by society at the expense of both cis woman and trans people, and also which one can change (socially and physiologically) and in doing so demand appropriate treatment and protection from their peers in society." - To me it is both the essential nature of sci-fi (and Nikke especially) to treat sex/the body as appropriately complex and dynamic.]

[*1 : Lordy this one is going to have a lot of notes BUT I want to start out by saying as lurid and pandering as the butt jiggle can be, there's something to be said about the fact that Nikke portrays far "fatter" bodies than are usually the accepted beauty standard in Korea and abroad. Does this equate to even more jiggle? Of course. But credit where credit is due for the raw diversity in body types this game presents as equally beautiful in their own unique ways (Especially when compared to a game like Genshin where women only come in three forms of "tall and busty", "stick thin" and "actual child"[*2] - Also (while certainly still a minority) Nikke's cast has more than a few black women (who admittedly get routine white-washed) which Hoyoverse seems allergic to...)]

[*2 : Hi! This is the part where I talk about Liter! She's one of the strongest characters in the game and one that makes me (and a lot of the fanbase) wildly uncomfortable in how she's modeled! Pound for pound Nikke barely has any "loli" characters (what few prepubescent characters there are, are notably not sexualized - instead [[in my experience]] geared towards getting an "Awww" reaction - See also: Rei)  - Except.... for Liter ... Truthfully I think her character writing is fun (and mercifully platonic) and her ultimate is super cute. But lordy the way she's drawn in combat flips my stomach. It's pretty undefendable given she's gotten two costumes already, one of which makes that sexualization even worse. They really shoulda just leaned into Liter being adorable instead of doing the "oh she's one of the oldest Nikkes even though she looks like she's 9" - yuck.]

[*3 : Technically re-looked into - I played the game when it first dropped and was really impressed by the first chapter (a non-insignificant reason I decided to give the game another look while writing the aforementioned WIP post) - I initially fell off because Genshin, Destiny and Fortnite were already jostling for my live-service time... Well since then Destiny wrapped (as far as I'm concerned), Genshin has gotten overly monotonous and Fortnite is easy to play in short bursts. Thus I flushed so much of my free time down the drain deep diving into this game the past few months - zero regrets tbh]

[*3.5 : OK so this theoretical is mostly based off a classic egg cracking question of "if you had this button to flip your sex would you press it?" which I think is a pretty imperfect theoretical for a number of reasons (the least of which isn't the fact that it seemingly frames pursuing transition as a "choice" when it's about as much of a choice as seeking treatment for a broken leg) - But I felt like it kinda fit for describing Nikke.

[*4 : I say this but Shift-Up knowingly collaborated with the band Queen Bee (whose mixed-race vocalist and songwriter Avu-chan is very publicly genderqueer) for the song Headless Angel - Thanks to filth for the tip ~ Additionally Pernelle (who goes by it/its pronouns) is another frequent vocalist on Shift Up projects (including the excellent track Goddess of Victory and Stellar Blade's Democrawler theme) -- In a world brimming with cishet vocalists these choices feel nothing short of intentional, especially considering Pernelle was specifically recruited for the live Nikke Orchestra.]

[*4.5 : This, for what it's worth, is 100% a localization thing. In the original Korean Alice is referred to as "---- 씨" ~ "씨" being a distinctly gender neutral honorific.]

[*5 : OK we touch on it a little bit. I think the Nikkes being super hot is actually quite juicy for reasons that'll get discussed in "Gender, the Wasteland and Hot Anime Women", but I also see that some of the designs could've been toned down a bit to appeal to a wider audience who normally get icked by overtly sexual material. A good example is how the Chinese designs all maintain impeccable aesthetics, (relative) body diversity and sexy flair without me constantly worrying that Anis is one wrong move away from a wardrobe malfunction. Neon's revised design is especially telling in this regard.]

[*5.5 : Ahhh our first localization split. The game almost unanimously refers to the commander with "they/them" pronouns even though some characters have lines like "you seem like a man with taste" - This paired with the fact that the commander's squad's name (Counters) isn't narrated in the first 20 or so chapters leads me to believe that at some point, both the commander's gender and the name of the squad could be chosen by the player. Considering the number of women in high ranking military positions in the Ark (and a few canonical female commanders) it's not unreasonable to think this could've been a possibility and keeping the gender ambiguous was an attempt to save on costs regardless of what the player decided. What few images of the commander we do have portray them as distinctly twunk-ish. The commander is definitely supposed to be a general "player stand-in" so I think this ambiguity is ultimately intentional, less so as queer representation (though we'll say it is ;3 ), but more to keep the commander "player gendered" ((which is based because that means characters like Maiden and Isabelle could potentially be read as lesbian)).]

[*6 : Cue "why no male Nikkes?" ~ Well according to the lore only women's brains were suitable candidates - In that same chapter where that lore is dropped it's revealed most of the fighting male population was wiped out trying to kill Raptures with conventional arms. There exists a few possibilities here including that the Central Government (as patriarchs are want to do) found women to be disposable and (having a deficit of disposable men) thus made up the "only women brains survive the transfer" - This is to say nothing of the fact that prenatal sexual differentiation takes place separately from (and at time at odds with) the brain's prenatal neurological development ((but that topic is a huge rabbit hole that I'm not super qualified to talk about, and some folks get reasonably icked at overly medicalized analyses of gender ~ But needless to say a lot of the research around that was happening in the years leading up to Nikke's release))]

[*8 : Fun side note that characters whose NIMPH restrictions are loosened by the Central Government also happen to take on more traditionally "masculine" hierarchical roles (as excellently exemplified by the triad of headstrong independent mob bosses in Underworld Queen - This is to say nothing of the Pilgrims, each of whom could really be their own lengthy analysis in this framework). ]

[*9 : It's telling that I really don't know whether to write "Trans" or "Trans Coded" because it feels so right there in the text that I struggle to call it "coding."]

THANKS FOR READING ALL OF THIS!! Nikke has been living rent free in my brain and I'm so happy I got to share with everyone why it's become one of my favorite works of queer sci-fi despite ostensibly seeming like male-pandering gacha shlock. Here's Biscuit, because if the game couldn't get any more trans they released a puppy-girl before a cat-girl.

 ~ silly girls just keep winning ~ nap time ~