Nier 1 is certainly Taro's best written game and I adore it but IMO Kaine is the low point in that game in the case of how she is presented (character still good). Supposedly she wants to show her femininity because of her backstory, but Taro didnt' find any other way around to express that other than having an overly sexualized design. But to add to that, her character goes against that idea, with Kaine being a closed person that doesnt want to express any emotion to anyone, let alone show her femininity (he even blames Emil for talking good about her because she "has a reputation"),
It's a case of the design going against the character, sometimes that happens a lot in case of sexualized designs (in characters that go against that image).
Btw, Drakengard 1 designs are pretty cool yeah. It's just worring (to me) how Taro seems to go more towards fanservice and "waifus" in his games, Drakengard 3, Nier Automata (all Yohras but 9S), SinoAlice... for all the original content he can do, he still seems to fall down to pandering designs.
Yes, in terms of that, I agree, Automata does a better job than Nier 1. I still wish Taro didn't put stones in his own pockets and go with more sensible designs.
Also uuuuuuuggghh I said Automata is better than Nier 1 in something! lol
I mean, Taro isn't the character designer of any of those games. Well, at least as a director he can decide what he accepts or not and gives his own direction so you're not exactly wrong either.