Nightmare City (ナイトメアシティ) is the action-packed duology that notably borrows 2channel's AA characters. The two Flash animations had been authored by “Mi~ya” (み～や), under “Clairvoyance”, and was published for events that occurred on December 25, 2004 and October 29, 2005.¹⁾

The animation was quite popular and received a lot of parodies, including “4chan City” by “NCHProductions”, but it also drew in some criticism for alleged plagiarism at the time. For their 20th anniversary, it had a remaster that released on December 25, 2024.²⁾³⁾

Most of the original story can be inferred from the initial animation's bonus cutscene, where it's explained that the protagonists are stuck in cyberspace, where their 'dreams' or 'minds' are connected, but the machine malfunctions because the AIs started to rebel and nobody has been able to wake up, and we're left with a brief hint that one must realize they're dreaming from within a dream, but this part is obvious.

As the story goes, the protagonists are trying to escape a virtual 'city of lies',⁴⁾ and most of the characters are implied to be humans using AA characters as mere avatars. However, Shii can't actually escape with “Giko” because she was an AI herself, the 'Monolith-C' (Monolith-Shii) machine.⁵⁾ In the end, they defeat the machine, which does free everyone, yet it deletes Shii in the process.

^{Key: O - Original, C - Catastrophe, R - Requiem. ⭕ - Does appear, ❌ - Does not appear, ⏪ - Flashback only.}

Toggle transcript and literal translation.

The original Nightmare City was submitted to the 'Third Red-White Flash Contest' on December 25, 2004 and won first place, netting him an iPod Mini and interview in the 2channel Plus magazine.⁶⁾ Months later, Miyasuke became a special guest for the 'FLASH★BOMB '05' event on October 29, 2005, which was when the second half and dramatic conclusion, Nightmare City: Catastrophe, was initially unveiled.

Almost two decades later, Miyasuke would post about a Nightmare City-inspired VR project for April Fools Day 2021, and most people assumed this was a joke.⁷⁾ For the 20th anniversary, Miyasuke would upload a remaster called Nightmare City: Requiem on December 25, 2024, and the VRChat world shown earlier had actually became public for a brief period of time.⁸⁾

The animations borrow music from the indie Japanese metal band, 403 (Yonmarusan), who initially released “Southern Cross” and “Northern Lights” into the public domain, but eventually organized these tracks in the 2007 album, N.E.W.S., and remastered them below. For the 20th anniversary remaster, the animation uses “Raise Your Souls!” from the 2021 album Heroes Part 2, which borrows the “Southern Cross” leitmotif.

In the past, the first-place winning Nightmare City duology had faced mild accusations of 'plagiarism' over the references to the Akira slide,⁹⁾ Final Fantasy,¹⁰⁾ Kingdom Hearts, Savior Cat, etc. Most people would just consider this a non-issue, but Miyasuke felt obligated to apologize for the commotion during an interview on an internet radio program in 2005.

• In the past, the band name '403' was mistakenly written as '403 Forbiddena', due to the fact that the old website was named "Laboratory Room 403 -Forbiddena-" (研究室403号室 -Forbiddena-).
• Giko's actual human name was planned to be 'Kōsuke Kusanagi' (草薙コウスケ, Kusanagi Kōsuke).¹¹⁾
• Miyasuke did “Monosugoi Ikioi de Keine ga Monosugoi Uta” (物凄い勢いでけーねが物凄いうた).¹²⁾¹³⁾

• Savior Cat - One of the inspirations.

• Nightmare City → Catastrophe - The original Flash files. Yes, it's still there.
  • Nightmare City → Catastrophe + Requiem on Niconico Douga - The official uploads.
  • Nightmare City → Catastrophe + Requiem on YouTube - The official uploads.
• miyasuke.net - The front page of Miya's website. Hasn't been updated in years. Mostly retired.
  • @miyasuke1 on Twitter
• Laboratory 403 - The front page of 403's website.
  • @kazuki403 on Twitter
• Nightmare City on Pixiv Encyclopedia
• Nightmare City on Niconico Encyclopedia