Eighty Six S2 – 5 [Even So]

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Eighty Six! Apologies for the delay with this, I’ve been busy this Halloween and only got around to watching the episode. I hope you all had as much fun over the weekend as I did. So without further ado, lets dive into it!

First up how about some praise for Eighty Six? I haven’t given it much recently, and I certainly wont after this, but credit where its due: The robots look good, Eighty Six has seriously stepped up their mech game. As far as standard anime CGI goes I think these are some of the better mechs I’ve seen in a good while. Their movements were surprisingly fluid as they ran and bounced around the city in those extended shots and the compositing was, by and large, pretty good. I never felt taken out of the scene by a 3D mech standing on a 2D background nor by MS Paint fire and smoke effects. And on top of all of that Eighty Six still managed to work in some evocative shots and edits, such as glass flying by Shin’s face or his charge. So yeah, good job.

Sadly for Eighty Six the mech shots are… 70% of the episode? And there’s nothing else going for it. Yeah we have some half-baked story progression. But it all needed more time to build. This entire episode felt like the lead in to a season finale, a penultimate episode, rather than a midseason climax. And while that may sound fine none of the plot points were fleshed out. Take for instance Lena. We haven’t seen her since the first episode. We’ve not had a single episode, a single scene, a single moment, to explore her new relationships. So much has changed for her between seasons! Her position has changed, she’s leading new squads, she has an entire team behind her and the ire of her commanders. But we don’t get to see or explore any of this. And so now, when its coming to a head, it all falls flat.

Let’s take her Uncle for example. We know from the first season that they have had a strained relationship, that he thinks this war is already lost. It was that attitude that pushed Lena to who she is now. But months have passed since we last saw him and we haven’t seen them interact at all. He just shows up with poorly thought out reasons to lay down in front of the oncoming army and die only to heel turn the moment Lena shows a backbone, walking off with an assault rifle to defend against… what? 86ers when they get in? His fellow soldiers? Legion?! We don’t have near enough information for this conflict to make sense and it shows all across San Magnolia. We don’t know the new 86er squads, her team, any of that! And it’s a damn shame because it could been so much more compelling.

Of course Lena isn’t the only one to suffer, Shin does as well. Now let me be clear, and I said it last week to, I like what’s happening with him. The idea of Shin slowly losing his humanity as those he cares for die and he has to become more and more brutal over the course of this war? That’s some good, classic war drama shit! And seeing him fall further and further into this whole only for Lena to be the one to eventually pull him out of it is great setup for their inevitable romance! But… does anyone else feel like we are moving to fast here? It feels like we just introduced this plot thread and its climaxing already. Maybe if Eighty Six hadn’t focused on just the 86ers it would be fine. But with the sole focus it’s moving at a fast pace.

And now we come to the bit I’m sure many of you were expecting: The weekly Frederica corner! It’s actually not so bad this week as Frederica only really had 2 scenes. While I still can’t stand her “wittle woli woice” it wasn’t omnipresent. Instead the bigger issue is the return of her eye power AKA Eighty Six’s magical family blood arts. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea but I want to punch them. Why would you introduce unexplainable Deus Ex Machina superpowers into your gritty sci-fi war drama?! Now instead of having to search for the Knight using actual intelligence networks and strategy they can just have the Loli point to him. It’s become a crutch for the writer, an excuse for being lazy since they no longer have to think about solutions to their plot. The loli can just solve them!

Finally with all this negativity lets see if we can’t end this on a positive note and talk about what is to come. I mentioned before that Lena’s whole thing with her Uncle and the 86ers could be more compelling, and I stand by that. However I think that what we are going to get could still be promising. Lena ignoring her Government and taking sole command of the 86ers, organizing a defense and letting them into the capital in a final desperate defense, has a lot of promise. From shattering the grand illusion the citizens live in to the 86ers personally saving them, unifying this nation through sheer force of will. The aftermath as the old Government attempts to re-segregate and the inevitable pushback from both citizens and 86ers with Lena at the fore. A veritable revolution! It’s good (possible) shit! I hope Eighty Six can pull it off.

So yeah all in all Eighty Six has been on a bit of a downward spiral recently. Everything that made it enjoyable in the first season is gone, not only leaving the bad I mentioned in my review but introducing more bad. It’s a dark time to be an Eighty Six fan. At least one that’s engaged with reality and isn’t obsessed with the Light Novels that is. Hopefully Eighty Six can turn it around in the second half though. Endings are generally the most important part of a show for me. They are the final taste of a show you get, the sense of finality they can bring augmenting what came before. And if Eighty Six can nail its ending it may save itself from the garbage bin.