Tag: Eighty Six

Eighty Six has returned everyone! After 3 months everyone’s favorite genocide simulation has come back to finish what it started! I’d say I hope all of you went and rewatched some old episodes for a bit of a refresher, but doing that myself just reminded me how disappointing this season really was. Still, it’s time to bury the hatchet and see if Eighty Six can end on a high note. So lets jump into it!

First up, lets talk about just how good this episode looked. Like seriously, say what you want about the narrative, the Eighty Six team used those 3 months well. This episode looked gorgeous. From the editing to the coloring and animation, it’s like they saved all of their efforts since production started for this. Take Shin’s opening flashback for instance! I absolutely loved the use of foreground silhouettes layered over scenes in the background. The flat black morphing and flowing around the screen, exploding into nothing at the sound of the gunshot, the exaggerated mouth movements and use of negative space. And then we have stuff like the black bars constricting the scene tighter and tighter, Shin reaching out towards it. The story of how we got here may be mediocre but the visuals behind it certainly are not. And this is only the beginning of my visual praise!

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 11 [Shin]” →

Welcome back everyone to Eighty Six! The shows been having a rough time recently, what with all the delays. In fact we won’t even be getting the last two episodes this year! What that says for the production I can’t say but odds are it isn’t very good. Anywanys, how about we hope into the episode.

Starting off, for all that the delays concern me Eighty Six gave us some good shots. From the time-lapse of the dragonfly corpse or Shin and Raiden’s talk on the bridge to the open vista’s and waving grass. The long panning shot of the mechs showing just how far away Shin was, mentally and physically, or Raiden and Shin’s shadows showing how he is alone only to reveal another person, etc. Eighty Six looked pretty this week. Of course there wasn’t much in the way of movement, the actual animation of Eighty Six seems to have taken a back seat. But if you ask me that’s fine! Fast paced action was never the main draw of the series, not visually nor narratively. So if we have to sacrifice it to get the snappy editing and scenic views back, I’ll gladly take that deal.

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 9 [Together Unto Death]” →

Hello everyone and welcome back to Eighty Six! It’s been two weeks since our last episode and its going to be two more weeks until our next. Suffice to Eighty Six is starting to fall apart and its easy to see in the episode. Don’t believe me? Then lets dive in to this weeks episode and see if I can’t convince you!

And what better place to start doing that than with the visuals! Whooo boy this episode had some issues, where do I even begin. How about the falling scene right at the start, that’s a good place. This looked like someone shaking action figures in front of a camera, it was that bad. Maybe if they had stuck to wide shots, or internal shots of the characters, they could have sold it better. But by showing the mechs at the angle and closeness they did but with absolutely no movement they just looked so… wooden. Same for the Nachzehrer going down in the background to, I couldn’t even tell it was “going down”. And then we have the blurred still frames during the big explosion later as well. Aside from a view landscape shots Eighty Six just did not look good this week. And I fear it won’t get better.

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 8 [Stay This Way Forever]” →

Hello everyone and welcome to the third “I’m back” catchup post of the week! This time I lucked out because Eighty Six is skipping another episode, letting me take my time with this one. What that says about the production I don’t know! But it probably isn’t anything good. Enough about that though, lets dive into the episode!

Starting off, Eighty Six had some fun shots this week. Nothing as ground breaking as the week before sadly but still some good shot direction. I’m talking stuff like the President meeting with the General, showing us most of the conversation through their reflections rather than their faces. It sounds like a pretty straight forward trick right? Tell us, the audience, that something is off, make us feel like someone is lying, by not showing us their face. And it is! But so many series fail to something even as basic as this. Then there was also the long held final shot in place of an ED, really letting the battlefield comms sink in. It’s simple… but effective. And it does a good job of hammering home just how much is riding on this mission without repeating it over and over “Everyone will die if you fail”. I like that.

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 7 [The Truth Is]” →

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Eighty Six! This week we follow up on Lena, see her organize the defense of San Magnolia and have an all around good time! Or at least that’s what I would like to say. Instead we see even less of her this week. What happened in place of that? Lets dive in and talk about that.

First up though I need to give Eighty Six credit for this, the storyboarding is back baby. There were some really, really nice shots this week. Not much in the way of interesting cuts like we got last season sadly. But almost the entirety of Shin’s meeting with the general was just… really evocative. The way the sound cut out, the General’s dialogue fading away as Shin read between the lines and heard what they always did: Eighty Six. Expendable. The squad poofing away into the scrap metal with their names, clattering behind down behind him. This scene was probably the most engaged I’ve been with Eighty Six this entire season. This is the good shit! Now I just need Eighty Six to keep giving us this and less of the loli.

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 6 [I Won’t Forget]” →

Hello everyone and welcome to what is perhaps the dullest episode of Eighty Six yet! Think I’m exaggerating? Then you clearly haven’t watched the episode before reading this. And if you have but still disagree? Give me until the end of this post to prove it to you. So without further ado lets dive in!

Obviously the place we have to start is with Frederica. I know that this is becoming a weekly segment at this point but I have to get this out somewhere: She is the worst part of Eighty Six. From the blatant and pointless sexualization to taking over the conversations between the 86ers and making them about herself, she’s bringing down everything that made Eighty Six good. What’s worse though is that she also isn’t bringing anything new to the table to make up for what she’s ruining. A 10 year old waxing philosophical in her little “moe” voice about life and death, am I supposed to not laugh?! How am I supposed to take this whole knight and fallen kingdom plot seriously when it’s being delivered by fucking Moe Moe Kyun? And actually now that I mention it lets talk about this “Knight” plot because it’s incredibly lazy.

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 4 [Welcome Back]” →

Hello everyone and welcome back to Eighty Six! I’ve been a bit positive lately, what with my coverage of Haibane Renmei and gushing over some recent productions. So it’s time to go back to being a bit of a curmudgeon and take shots at someone’s labor of love! Lets dive in.

Now I framed it humorously in the intro but I am legitimately disappointed in Eighty Six this week. From both a production and narrative perspective this episode feels like a step down. And you know what’s so surprising about it? This episode was both Directed and Storyboarded by Satsuki Takahashi, who did episodes 5 and 10 back in the first season. Those were good episodes with incredibly striking imagery! From Shin’s shot in the mirror in episode 5 to the scenic shots of episode 10, I praised them a lot! So it’s really disappointing to see him return this week and not get more of the same beauty. I can only assume the reason is the subject material he had to work with. Those two episodes were much stronger narratively and seemingly more focused in their goal. Meanwhile this episode felt… predictable. More so than Eighty Six usually is.

(Though I will say the CGI looked much better)

Continue reading “Eighty Six S2 – 3 [Glad to Be Here]” →