Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden

Episode 5

So, within the span of five episodes, Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden has gone from a pretty standard LitRPG anime where the central hook is that an all-powerful warrior is reincarnated into the body of a sickly four-year-old girl, to an anime where child actors invent reality TV from first principles. That is one of the most ridiculous sentences I have ever written in my decade and change as a professional writer, and my growing love for this show is only rivaled by my frustration at it being so specifically appealing to me personally that I can only recommend it to other people who have brain chemistry similar to my own.

Roughly the first half of this episode shows Nia participating in her school's equivalent of the Presidential Fitness Test and being disappointed by the capabilities of the martial arts instructor hyped up by the Silver sisters in the previous episode. While this section could have been paced better, it's still a really informed depiction of how isolating it can be to be a gifted and talented kid, especially when neurodivergencies are involved. While Nia is celebrated for her scores in the fitness test, it also places her on a lonely pedestal, and the scenes in the martial arts dojo further establish that there aren't even adults in her orbit who can engage in her special interest (violence) in a way that's challenging or rewarding for her.

While Nia takes this disappointment in stride as she has no alternatives, it reminded me of my own time in primary and secondary education where I was so far ahead of most of my peers as to nearly be disruptive to the class, and that my school would regularly give me distractions to fill that extra time like extra assignments, job shadowing opportunities, or work via grading other students' tests. Not only is it really weird and validating to see this part of my childhood encapsulated in Nia Liston, it's even weirder that Nia would satiate her boredom by creating and analyzing entertainment and the entertainment industry, WHICH IS ALSO WHAT I DID AS A KID!!! I'm writing this review and broadly working in the entertainment sector today because of the stuff this magical child is experiencing, and that's as amazing as it is hilarious.

The back half of this episode sees Nia, Reliared, and Hildetora brainstorming on how to make the television technologies their families are all invested in more popular, and they essentially pitch their way to creating a reality TV show to capitalize on people's eagerness to appear on television broadcasts. Beyond the televised martial arts tournament being a means for Nia to further her own personal goals, I find this development particularly entertaining, as this discussion is driven by propagandist mentalities, and I learned through my Comm. Arts coursework that the reason reality TV got big in the US in the early 2000s was due to a deliberate effort to give American audiences nationality-affirming comfort media in the wake of 9/11.

From my early childhood sequestering via exceptionalism to world-framing college experiences, Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden is depicting some of the most formative moments of my own life. This episode is leaving me flabbergasted in the best way possible, as I truly did not expect to see so much of myself in this show, and I hope that anyone who has ever thought that they are “like me” will check it out. If Nia starts re-examining her sexuality and starts marathon training in the next episode, I'm genuinely going to have to start making some calls and figure out if parts of my life were taken as inspiration for this story without my awareness, and I love that a show hits this close to home for me that I can make that joke.

Rating:

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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.