86: Eighty Six S2 Anime Review 42/100

Sequels are always difficult to write reviews about. Usually, barring any major production or authorial changes, you can tell if you will like it just by your reaction to the first season. With minor shifts up or down for whatever the current content is about. My recent Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen review is evidence enough of that. But sometimes… sometimes you have the unfortunate case where a sequel falls short. Where for whatever reason, be it changes in production, writing staff or simply going on longer than it should, the series falls off. Animated at A-1 Pictures, directed by Toshimasa Ishii and originally created by Asato Asato, 86: Eighty Six Season 2 is, sadly, one such case. Why is that the case? What could have happened between season 1, something I enjoyed, and this to fall off as hard as it did? Well, lets jump in and talk about that.

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Eighty Six Season 2. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents.

Visuals

Before we get to deep into the weeds, how about we instead start with a positive? That’s right, I want to talk about Eighty Six’s production.

This is one of the few areas where I think Eighty Six continues to hold strong. Toshimasa Ishii is making waves with his TV directorial debut. When this man has the time to plan and properly storyboard, to enact his vision, Eighty Six looks incredible. It’s really hard for me to go into detail here, as most of the best scenes of the season are filled with spoilers. So you’re just going to have to take me at my word, and the example of the first season, when I say all of this: Whether it be depicting the day-to-day mundanity of civilian life or the burden of those left behind, the bombastic action or the spine-chilling 2-episode finale, the man and his team do incredible work! But that’s the kicker. When they have the time. And if I’m being honest? It doesn’t feel like they often did.

Instead, what we often got this season was something much more… well, basic. Rather standard, unimaginative direction and shot composition such as in episodes 4, 7 and 8. Nothing like the well-paced, well-framed, and well-blocked out stuff we are used to. I can only surmise that this has to do with time constraints on their part. From the multiple skipped weeks to an entire 3 months delay for the finale, whatever the reason, the production schedule definitely seems to have suffered. To be clear: I have no proof of this. The closest I have are a few tweets citing production problems and scheduling delays, nothing concrete. If I’m being honest, however, the “why” is sort of irrelevant regardless of the reason. Because at the end of the day, Eighty Six only looked good about half the time. And the other half? Well… we will get there.

That said, I do want to praise Eighty Six for one major improvement before we move on: The CGI mecha. In season one, lets be honest, the mechs didn’t look very good. Their poor compositing made them stick out like sore thumbs and their movements were floaty and weightless. It was, to put it simply, not very good. So imagine my surprise and elation to see just how much Eighty Six has improved on it. I have no idea what Toshimasa and A-1 changed between seasons, but keep doing it. Because it actually looks good now. These mechs feel like they have weight, like they actually belong in a scene, and, most important of all, actually move in a consistent manner. For once I was able to sit back and enjoy a fight between giant robots. And that’s great! Because I love me some giant robots.

So with both the CGI improvements and inconsistent storyboarding in mind, I can confidently say that this season of Eighty Six was a lateral move visually. A downgrade in some areas due to time constraints, an improvement in pipeline for others. All around I was pretty satisfied with this aspect of Eighty Six. But you know what I wasn’t satisfied with? Everything else.

That’s right people, it’s time to get into the negative part of the review. All I can ask is that you read it through to the end before you start yelling at me, and that if you do disagree you leave me a comment so we can talk about. So without further ado… Lets talk narrative.

Narrative

I’m just going to come out and say it: Season 2 of Eighty Six is just a rehash of Season 1. There’s a new brain in a jar that’s vaguely associated with Shin. The child soldiers are once again the only people who can stop it via a suicide mission. We have a new female officer who doesn’t like that they have to do this, but her name isn’t Lena because she got written out of the season. But you know what? Maybe that’s a little unfair, because Eighty Six did indeed introduce one new thing into the season: A war-torn loli with magical eye powers who likes to wax philosophical and wander around in shirts many sizes to big for her. Does it sound like I don’t like her? Good, because I don’t. But we will get to Frederica in her own time.

For now, just know this: I think this season of Eighty Six, despite having a few legitimately new and good ideas such as characters thinking about their future post-war and Shin moving on, is a poorly written mess. And if I want to talk about it with any degree of coherency, I need to go into spoiler territory. You have been warned.

So, why is this season a retread of the first? Well, it’s simple: This season of Eighty Six feels like it is taking all of the same plot beats, the same story structure, the same character archetypes, and just giving them a fresh coat of paint. The 86ers, for all their newfound freedom, are still looked down on and despised by those around them. Are still forced to fight. We still have a female commanding officer who wants the best for them and is grappling with the unfairness of her military’s treatment towards the 86ers, only now her name is Grethe. There’s still a head-in-a-jar villain loosely associated with Shin who we have to go out and kill to save everyone. And the worst? Eighty Six can’t even kill any of the characters to build tension, because the only ones left we care about have plot armor after all those cliffhangers.

What do I mean by plot armor? For anyone reading this who has watched the season, the reason should be obvious. The amount of times these people “die” on a cliffhanger ending just to survive for no reason is ridiculous. The end of last season was bad enough; anyone who put in an ounce of thought knew they weren’t dead. But now that we have everyone making big sacrifice plays throughout the season? Taking big hits, falling down canyons, being shown on screen to be “dead” and bleeding from head wounds? Just to show up after a 3-month cliffhanger, alive and well. There comes a point where the threat of death loses all meaning in your story. For me, at least, Eighty Six has hit that point. And that’s not a good place for your racial war-drama to be. They even bring back Fido, of all things, ruining its fantastic “death”.

This isn’t to say that this season of Eighty Six doesn’t have new ideas. It very clearly does, as we can see in Frederica, and her relationship to Kiriya as well as in it’s exploration of Shin’s mental state. The problem, however, is that most of these ideas suck. It turns out that the Nouzen clan, to which Kiriya, and Shin belong, have more than just telepathy! It’s also the reason for their combat prowess, as apparently all members are just badasses. We can’t have our lead jut be a regular person forced into this; after all, it always comes back to bloodlines. Speaking of bloodlines, we also have Frederica, who apparently can see the past of anyone around her. Eighty six has now become Naruto, with eye powers and Kekkei Genkai. What happened to Eighty Six between the 1st and 2nd novels?

Well, if you ask me, I think I know what happened. The editor/author saw the success of the first book and decided “We need to do that again, but bigger”. And how do you go bigger than that? Another giant robot with a gun that can wipe out an entire military base? A low-flying plane the size of an aircraft carrier? How about a 10 year old loli waxing philosophical about war and the sanctity of life despite barely knowing how to tie her shoes? This season could have been something great. It could have left the cliffhanger of Season 1 alive and focused instead on Lena and her desperate attempts to salvage a collapsing nation. To bridge their racial divide and past wrongs in the name of survival. Only to have those we thought lost appear at the end, with their own little story. Instead, I got a loli.

To be fair, Eighty Six started and ended well. The opening segments in Giad were alright, and the ending did the best it possibly could with what it had been given. And that’s great! I think endings are very important, they are the last taste you have of a show and influence how you remember the show looking back at it in like… 3 months. But the ending wasn’t good enough for me to forget the mediocre story I was put through leading up to it. It feels to me like Eighty Six caught lightning in a bottle with its first book and tried to replicate that. Only this time it jumped the shark in action and, in an effort to appeal to an even broader audience, added a loli so Otaku’s had another waifu to fawn over. And that’s just not my style.

Characters

Moving on to the characters, it is with great remorse that I must say I will be repeating myself here. A lot. Mostly about Frederica. Everyone else? They’re fine, mostly. Shin has some good stuff, and I will give some praise for that later on. After him the rest of the cast very quickly falls off into irrelevance, though. Basically just floating around for the Shin and Frederica show, with a light sprinkling of Lena thrown in there at the beginning and end. If all you care about is Shin and Lena, or you don’t want to hear me rant about a smug loli again, then feel free to skip the next paragraph and go right to the good stuff. I promise, this will be the last time I mention her. At least until the end.

So Frederica… I’ve already made my feelings about her clear, so I’m just going to say it, she’s terrible. Eighty Six tried to add her in as a replacement for Lena while Lena got written out of the season, but it just doesn’t work. Where Lena was a compelling character battling with her love for her country and with the wrongs said country had committed against the 86ers, Frederica is just a whinny brat inserted in to have a leading female follow Shin around. From her “uwu, I’m a wittle woli” voice to the way she is ham-fisted into the groups dynamic. I cannot think of a single positive thing she brings to Eighty Six. Which is a shame because she’s probably the 2nd most important character in the season. She, in my opinion, single-handedly brings down the entire show. And not even Shin can save that.

That’s right, Shin, the sad man with one emotion, has the only decent character arc of the entire season. His whole bit about finding something to live for post-war, about survivors guilt and learning its ok to be happy, is some good stuff. Augment this with some incredibly evocative direction and imagery courtesy of Toshimasa Ishii and his team and you have a legitimately good story here. It’s just a shame its saddled to Frederica and Kiriya, two absolute wastes of space. And you wanna know the worst part of all of this? It’s not Frederica’s existence, or the way she brings down what is otherwise a decent narrative arc. It’s that we got this at the cost of Lena.

I’ve made no attempt to hide the fact that my favorite part of Season 1 was Vladilena. I find her struggle to reconcile her love for her nation with the wrongs said nation has committed, to do the right thing in a system built around only doing wrong, to be the best part of Eighty Six. Which is why it was incredibly disappointing when she was all but written out of this season. Aside from 2 half-episode segments, one to setup her story and one to end it in the final episode, she gets nothing. We don’t see her struggles or how she had to unite and defend her nation. How she convinces the 86ers and San Magnolians to work together. We only see the aftermath, with scenes from her journey that are more evocative than 75% of what we got from Frederica. And for me?

That’s the real disappointment. And a disappointment is what I would call Eighty Six’s character arcs. It had a lot of potential here, a lot of good ideas. But they were either squandered, ignored, or brought down by supporting characters that actively sucked the life and drama out of the story.

OST/Sound Design

This brings me to the Original Sound Track (OST) and Sound Design, a part of the review I can finally start being positive again. Sadly though, as of writing this, the OST for Season 2 of Eighty Six is not yet fully released. So that means I’m going to have to be a bit sparse on the examples. Still, the show must go on!

Cutting to the chase, the music, how is it? Well I would have to call it… Sawano. Now I know that isn’t helpful whatsoever, especially since Hiroyuki Sawano is the name of the guy who composed it. But allow me to explain my unique relationship with Sawano’s music: The man keeps making the same sounds, the same patterns, progressions and styles, across all of his OSTs. Attack on Titan, Thunderbolt Fantasy, Promare. This man has one style and he does very, very well. If you like that style, then great! You’re in for a treat and you will get what you want. If you are like me, however, and you want him to try something new though then you may find yourself disappointed. However same-y his music always ends up being though, the man never fails to evoke the emotion he is going for.

In that sense I think Sawano has actually created a decent OST for Eighty Six. The hype moments sound hype, the sad ones sad and everything in between. It’s only as music in a vacuum, separated from the show and the scenery it plays over, that I start to get tired of it. I wouldn’t want to listen to any of this OST while say… driving to work, or relaxing at home, for instance. I need the show, for the scenes this music was written for, to be playing along side it. The Eighty Six OST just doesn’t work on it’s own. I get that this may sound like a ridiculous criticism, and it is in a lot of ways! But I want to make this clear: I think Eighty Six has a decent OST. Just not a memorable one, among all of Sawano’s others.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that I have completely failed to credit another composer for this series, Kouta Yamamoto. This was a big mistake on my part and clearly shows that I didn’t take the care I should have with this particular section. I apologize.

A Tale of Two Roads

This brings me to the personal section of the review. This section exists so that I can talk to you about Eighty Six one-on-one. No review format, no specific topic, none of this trying to “judge” any particular part of the show. It’s all about giving you, the reader, a window into my experience with Eighty Six in the hopes that you can see where I am coming before you see the score. If you don’t care about that, if you just want a number, than feel free to skip. Otherwise? Read on. Oh, also, a warning: There will be a bunch of spoilers in this section, no holds barred. Cool? Cool.

In my mind Eighty Six had two roads it could go down. The exciting, dangerous road where it actually makes you think it killed off half the cast and focuses on survival against the odds. This would involve following Lena as she is moved to a new squad and must actively organize the defense of her nation, fighting against the systems and commanders arrayed against her. All the while we, the audience, believe Shin and Co dead until their inevitable return at the final hour before we learn what happened to them in the 2nd half of the season. Or we could go the standard, unsurprising road where everyone is revealed to survive in the first episode and we continue just like we were before. In case it wasn’t obvious, Eighty Six chose the latter. And this choice of the “safe” option was where it first started to lose me.

From here Eighty Six proceeded to make the safe, standard decision every chance it got. Need to remind us of the dangers of war and how fragile everyone is? Lets introduce a new character with a million death flags that dies almost immediately instead of even touching any of our core cast. What about our lead girl off in another country? We can’t go a season without her and we can’t follow her story simultaneously apparently so how do we fill the gap? Oh just introduce a Loli. She can wax philosophical just like Lena but can also wear shirts 3 sizes to big for her. The Otaku will love that! And what about the villain? Or the President? Or this, or that, or etc etc, you get the point. Eighty Six never truly risked anything this season. It didn’t try anything new. And so my interest continued to wane.

At this point Eighty Six began to lose me more and more with every episode. A pretty standard battle to remind us that the 86ers are the only ones who can fight the Legion here, a jump-the-shark massive aircraft rather than a clever strategy there. It had some good stuff in there. Some pearls among the rough, like with Shin realizing things were the same in both nations in episode 6, etc. But we always quickly returned to the mediocrity of Frederica and Kiriya. Episodes of backstory, 4 episodes of fighting a giant robot with a big gun, you know the drill. Had there been even a shred of doubt that everyone would survive, I might have bought into these threats. But as you can guess, Eighty Six had completely lost everything that made me interested in it from the 1st season by this point.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that with its first season, Eighty Six gave me hope. Hope that it was more than your standard Light Novel shlock. Something like Twelve Kingdoms, which some people call a Light Novel but I think has earned the right to just be called a Novel at this point. It’s the same with the Monogatari series or Spice and Wolf. As far as I know, these are all classified as Light Novels. And yet they carry little of stigmatism that surrounds the medium. They have, for all intents and purposes, transcended their origin to simply become good stories. And I hope that Eighty Six could maybe do the same. It’s a damn shame that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Conclusion

So all in all, 3300+ words later, how do I feel about Eighty Six Season 2? The answer is a flat: Disappointed. There were only 3 good, engaging episodes across this entire season. And 2 of those came after 3 months of delay and production issues. No matter how good those episodes are, no matter how good a final impression I am left with, they cannot make up for the mediocre journey to get there. If you really liked Season 1 of Eighty Six, I’m talking one of your favorite series ever, then you will probably still enjoy Season 2. It’s a very safe, very standard follow up. But if you were on the fence like I was? Then you won’t find what you are looking for here. Only a lot of wasted time and admittedly pretty pictures.

Lets hope this is just a misstep as we head into the inevitable future seasons huh? I’ve heard some good things about volumes 4-6. Maybe those can pull me back in, should they ever get animated. And if you disagree? Shoot me a comment and lets talk about it. I want to know why this worked for you where it didn’t work for me. I’m always down for a conversation.