I’m back and this time with another new Spring 2021 show, 86 – Eighty Six! God that’s a confusing name. Almost as confusing as the setting! That’s right I have a bit of a bone to pick with 86 so strap in. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
Before we get to the meat and potatoes of 86 though we first half to talk about the production. And surprisingly, I’m rather positive of it! The CGI model spider tanks are off of course, CGI integration with a 2D work is notoriously hard. But enough work went into the composite that you don’t really notice until they start to move. And even then this is still better than the 1st episode where the first person shot looked like a cheap Michael Bay movie. All the explosions and jumping around, it wasn’t good. I also like how the two sets of tanks are differentiated. The clean crystalline style works well for the opposing AI and sets them apart from the grungy 86ers. My hope is that 86 will take these clear styles and focus more on wide still shots, making full use of the backgrounds, rather than the janky action.
Getting into the actual narrative, lets start with the 86ers. The best way I can describe this side of the show is with another show: Muv-Luv. Plucky heroes in a dystopian setting battling inhuman opponents who outnumber and outgun them on a massive scale. Beyond that… we don’t really get much actually. There are some small moments of their life as they dick around their headquarters I suppose. We get to see them act like a family, joke and play and even accidentally rat on each other to their Handler. But we don’t get to see how they feel about all of this. The most we get is actually from Undertaker and how he treats the fallen tanks. Taking a memento and carving the pilots name in before letting the rest go for scrap. As if he had taken the only important thing left in it. It was… quaint.
Meanwhile the meat of the exposition happened on Vladilena’s side. And I have to say I think its pretty stupid, and where better to start than Vladilena herself. This girl doesn’t feel like an actual inhabitant of this world. Rather it’s like she was plucked out of our world with our sensibilities and just dropped into the middle of this dystopia. She’s just so ridiculously naïve and different from everyone else that I find it hard to believe she actually grew up here. Maybe if she wasn’t alone, if there were some visible Pro-86 support, I could believe it. Something to show us that her sentiment isn’t an abnormality in this world of white-haired supremacists. But there isn’t! As far as we know she’s the only person. And while this makes for a righteous MC and a decent “She’s a good one” storyline she also sticks out, painfully so.
For proof of this you need look no further than 86’s classroom scene! Now before I rip into this, credit where it’s due, this is fine as exposition. I’ll take it over a narrator talking to us over a panning shot any day. But how is she the only one to know all of this and what is she doing busting into a military cadet’s class? And if she isn’t the only one to know about this, why is she breaking into the class? With the Military Police right there?! It’s just so incredibly out of left field and I can’t imagine how any military would ever allow this. Is it because she’s a spoiled princess? Apparently it’s not an uncommon occurrence based on the professors reaction. Not to mention that this wouldn’t be common knowledge since it happened only 9 years ago!
Yeah you heard me, 9 years! This entire country managed to dehumanize, segregate and then purge dissidents of this decision in only 9 years. And in that time apparently the entire populace has either accepted the 86 as non-human or just… forgot? What is this timeframe? I refuse to believe that this was ever an egalitarian society with equal rights for the 86ers. That would be like successfully reinstituting slavery in the span of 2 Presidencies, madness! Once again this would be easier to believe if there were any dissenters whatsoever. Any sign that people disagreed with this decision and that the entire Military hadn’t descended into hedonism in such a short time. But we don’t get that. Maybe future episodes will give me what I want, I will have to wait and see. But for now I’m in this for the giant robot tanks and not the socio-political subplot.
All in all when I think of this episode I think of disappointment. Maybe I overestimated the politics, maybe I had to many expectations for this series. My hope is that this is just a one-off misstep and that it handles everything with more tact moving forward. So far though everything is so on the nose and so “Look at me, I’m morally righteous” that it feels like babies first war anime. Least I will still have tank robots beating the shit out of each other to entertain me. If nothing else I’m always down for that.
What did you think of this weeks episode? Am I being to critical, did I expect to much of 86? Or do you also think that something is off? Let me know down below and I will see you next week!
It all felt very speechy and there for the audience that scene as a whole.
Frankly, it feels like someone taking a set of very complicated issues and dumbing it all down to a preteen’s level. Only black and white, preaching at the audience, all main characters are Super Special teenagers against bad adults… Lena is a typical example of “respect her for her talents!” while also shamelessly using her for fan pandering what with her garter, her undressing, her cute faces, the creampuff thing; while whatshisname the Undertaker is this walking fan wishfulfilment, the Cool Jaded Dude who puts the idealist girl in her place but lets his heart be melted by her and so on and so forth. Eh. This show wants me to take it seriously but so far it’s just edgy and preachy.
I think “being really dumb while trying really hard to be smart” is one of the big problems I have with classical LNs. I don’t know why writers think that a heavy topic equals smart writing, even if it’s just thrown into a series without any believable context or adequate elaboration.
I agree with barak about seriousness barely ever working when you simultaneously get bombarded with fan pandering at the same time. Here we have yet another MC who is supposed to be smarter than the rest while being the childish naive waifu bait at the same time.
Sounds harsher than it is I think. I don’t hate this show at all. I just think that the setting itself has quite some potential but I fear that it will go down the route most LNs are taking, in which every unorthodox premise is but a new way to introduce another drama about super special teenagers saving the world and falling in love.
Though maybe I am wrong. I heard that the LNs held some surprises, so I don’t want to talk too badly about it yet.
I’m sure the entirety of Nazi Germany either accepted the 86 as non-human or forgot lol… (In the military like its shown here I’m sure they did actually though considering the Nazis literally considered the Jews to be subhuman if you weren’t aware of that somehow). Anti-Semitism and racism rose significantly during that period due to government propaganda and it did not take long for the Nazis to “dehumanize, segregate and then purge dissidents” of Jewish ancestry. Teenagers like those that are shown in the classroom scene would have been exposed to 9 years of government propaganda and education from a young age, a practice that was studied and seen to be extremely effective in places like Nazi Germany (what would you know). You could even say it took less than 9 years. Or how about we look at the US Executive Order 9066 that relocated over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans into interment camps only a year after the pearl harbor bombing and also increased racist pressures towards that group.
There is documentation of Nazi soldiers refusing orders to execute POWs/Jewish civilians who received no extreme consequence or no consequence at all. To see this as less of an act of protest as voicing against government propaganda seems a bit naïve. Not to mention Nazi general, Johannes Blaskowitz voiced consistent criticism for the Waffen-SS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS) military branch and even handed out death sentences to those who committed crimes against civilians. He was never imprisoned and was only shortly removed from his position for these acts before being later reinstated and participating in one of the final major offensives from Germany.
I recommend people look into history more before criticizing this seen. There are more worthwhile criticisms in how poorly the exposition was given in comparison to the subtly of episode 1.