86: EIGHTY SIX PART 2

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME Action86: Eighty Six
NOVEL Action86: Eighty Six
MUSIC MysteryKyoukaisen
MANGA Action86: Eighty Six - Run Through The Battlefront

REVIEWS

• 

  Mcsuper

  85/100
  War in a Larger Scope

  Many of times, shows that get derailed by production and scheduling issues end up having poor or rushed endings. We’ve seen this with Wonder Egg Priority, and The Promised Neverland Season 2, both of which got massively rushed due to poor production. I’m glad that this second cour of 86 did not fall into that hell, despite the huge delay before the last two episodes. The high quality did not falter throughout, and we as fans can all appreciate such a thing.

  My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

  STORY: 21.5/25

  This takes all the good war themes from Part 1 and expands upon them. This time, there are in fact, scenes outside just simple fighting, as our characters attempt to reintegrate themselves into society. A lot of the narrative is realistic, as the characters struggle with war memories, the rush of fighting, and the feeling of not being on the battlefield. There isn’t much to be said here, the narrative continues to be as solid as ever, and while there are spots that were a little boring for me personally, the story is able to suck you into a world of war and many other things as well, and of course, what I can say about the emotional reunion of Spearhead and Handler One?

  ART: 9.4/10

  An improvement to part 1. Fight scenes are spectacular, background shots are spectacular, just great.

  MUSIC: 9.3/10

  Sawano’s soundtrack continues to impress, even if it’s much of the same. Opening and ending themes really set the stage and ended episodes on an emotional note.

  CHARACTERS: 16.0/20

  With a smaller cast of characters this cour, it felt easier to keep up and allow the characters to leave a stronger impression on me. Shin continues to struggle with being “The Undertaker”, breaking as many of his companions have left him behind, which is a very gripping thing to watch, and it’s great to see the development.

  We also have a new addition to the cast, Frederica, and she compliments the cast pretty well. She’s lightens the mood a bit, keeps Shin in check, and has her own set of problems that plague her.

  The other characters have their moments, but give off much of the same vibe we have seen throughout the series, and continue to be enjoyable to watch.

  ENJOYMENT: 12/15

  Despite the delay in between, my immersion was not broken severely, and I found myself right back to enjoying the show after the long break.

  THEMATIC EXECUTION: 17/20

  The wartime theme is executed in a brilliant manner, on and off the battlefield. It’s gripping, realistic, painful to watch, and emotional. The dialogue is great, and the world of 86 is great.

  OVERALL: 85.2/100

  It was definitely a shame that there were many interruptions in between the show, but the quality remained very good throughout. As was the same with Part 1 for me, some spots did feel a bit repeated or long-winded, especially as Shin’s struggles are portrayed to us, but regardless of that, there is simply a lot of good in this show, and if you enjoyed Part 1, chances are Part 2 will be even more immersive!

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• 

  SpiritChaser

  45/100
  Boringly executed with laughable politics and poor character development. Besides Shin and Milize, no one else matters.

  For almost a year I followed 86, looking for something better in this new decadent age of anime. Still, anyone who's followed my content, the tiny amount who are out there, know that I have been on the frontlines as a critic of it. Not for the sake of it, but the reasons that follow:

  Season 1 showed me, as painful as it was to see, one of the worst first episodes I ever saw. The legion are an ocean of copy paste, hideous CGI robots that lack any kind of originality in how lazy they are designed. They are hollow with no depth besides being evil in an aimless manner. I still have so many questions. If the robot designs had any creativity behind them, I would not get constantly confused between who is on which side. All this copy paste ruined any chance the CGI had to be decent.

  The first half of this first season was so painfully boring. Yes, it did "get better" halfway. Regardless, the terrible start ruined it. It reminds me that every series I ever came to really enjoy had a strong first episode. I can only take so many slide show, flapping mouth infested still frames scenes, and fake out deaths that felt annoying in how often they happened. Not even Sawano's brilliant music can salvage it, not to mention he oftentimes lacks creativity and sounds the same too much of the time. A simple example is the similarity between "Ego" from Gundam Unicorn and "Avid" from this series.

  The politics in this so called political series is laughable compared to those that did it right like Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Mobile Suit Gundam. Even the elementary politics of Code Geass is better than this. Milize is so painfully politically naïve and still has not grown much at all. Considering she was rebelling in class and trying to radicalize her peers, why didn't the government try to assassinate her? It only makes sense to weed out her type. No, girls doing cute things isn't enough in an anime to sway me if they lack good writing.

  Season 2 failed and did worse were season 1 fell apart. I get it. The 86 are broken individuals used to only war and the misery that maybe one day me and you will come to experience. I didn't need this force fed into me time and time again. Amongst this depressive tone, boring slice of life episodes made their way in. The problem with the 86 is that Shin is the only one that really matters and who has any kind of real development. The rest have been reduced to background characters. They are just there.

  One of the biggest problems with season 2 is that Milize, the best character in my opinion, was nearly absent the entire time. The 86 could not hold the anime without her, Shin lost all his development from the last season for a long time, and it continued with boring slide show execution. I thought a series like this would have better production values. I could tell the delay was coming far before it got announced because it was obvious the production was already struggling beforehand.

  Yet, if there is some hope that laid anywhere in this second season, it's the last two episodes. No, I did not forget how bad this second season had been after the long absence to know that I wouldn't be deceived by one good episode. The payoff here is deceiving. The last episode also did well. Out of two seasons, at least this series had two strong episodes. Why couldn't this level of quality be had throughout every episode? They were emotional, and yet I felt nothing really meaningful behind it. Just because you cried doesn't make an anime good if there is no real meaning and good writing behind it.

  Maybe the cast has grown on me, and yet I feel as if they have grown on me on a hollow and not so meaningful way. They lack any depth and feel as if they are just something I got used to that feels familiar. To make matters worse, an annoying little girl was introduced, who's screeching and obnoxious voice ruined any hope I had left at the time.

  As I witnessed the constant decline this series took among the viewers, at least it ended strong. That won't be enough to salvage it, and though I tried to be nice, I cant deny that 90% of these two seasons were trash, to put it as nicely as I can.

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• 

  Ultra

  100/100
  A show fueled with love and passion surpasses all expectations, achieving heights most adaptations could only dream of

  ##__86 EIGHTY-SIX Season 2__ . _I Won’t let you die_ . There are a lot of things I want to say about this series, but I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible. Every part of this show left me speechless. I couldn't believe I could feel this passionate about a show ever since Made In Abyss, but here we are now. 86 was a show that had a lot to offer, whether it be its in-depth story telling, the significant growth of each and every character through their trials and tribulations, the relationships shared between each of the cast and heck, even the more materialistic stuff such as animations, soundtrack, etc. Now, I haven’t watched my fair share of mecha, regardless of which I can confidently say that this is a competitor for being considered one of the best in the genre. This show genuinely gave me the feeling that everyone working on it had nothing but love and passion for this series, and that’s what made this a masterpiece in my eyes. Eighty Six has achieved heights most adaptations could only ever dream of achieving and set the bar for future light novel adaptations. Taking inspiration from World War II Germany, 86 is a show that gives you an insight into a future where war dominates the world. A world where death on the battlefield is most significant. A world where racism & segregation is the norm, a tragic tale of being forced onto the battlefield even before getting a proper grasp on life. This show leaves you thinking a lot about such events that occur throughout, and for me personally, it has left a very lasting impression that won't falter for a very long time to come. . _Don’t leave me_ . The very first thing I’m gonna get into is the animations in 86. As expected from A-1 Pictures, they did not miss in the slightest with the animations, especially in episode 11 (which I will go more into later). As for the CGI, while I was initially concerned about the use of CGI for the legion troops before I started watching the show, this easily turned out to be some of the best CGI i’ve ever seen, with amazing attention to details and fluid movement, which makes it almost impossible for me to imagine 86 without the CGI legions, which would feel worse. That is something that I would usually never say about CGI. Besides that, the show had really beautiful sceneries and many wallpaper worthy shots throughout the show. . _I won’t forget.._ . The second season of 86 (or part 2 at this point I don't know anymore) gave more significance to Shin and his gang in contrast to season 1, which gave almost equal significance to both Lena and the spearhead squadron. While I was initially slightly disappointed to see the lack of Lena, that disappointment soon faded to nothing as the plot began picking up its pace and I got heavily invested in the spearhead squadrons life beyond the republic. Though with that being said, the true star of the show was Shin. Throughout the show, we get to see Shin grow substantially as an individual, to find the meaning of life beyond killing his brother and to go from an emotionless battle machine to becoming someone that does not have to be dependent on his brother in order to keep moving forward in life, coming to appreciate several other things which he otherwise would not have before. Now we know that even though he wouldn't stop being as reckless as he is, he would atleast stop putting himself into suicidal situations, and the person mainly responsible for bringing such a change in him is none other than our queen Lena When we talk about character development, we most certainly cannot forget about Lena. We get to observe in both seasons just how much Lena has grown. From learning how simply compassion is not enough to bring a change and realizing her own limitations in the process, refusing to let the fact that she is a minority amongst the alba stop her. Over the course of the two seasons she has time and time again proven to us how she went from a person who we could respect to a person we could truly respect AND look up to. . _I won’t forget..._ . I feel like I need to dedicate one section to just episode 11, simply because of the piece of art it was. Going into a 3 month hiatus was considered to be critical damage to 86 as a show, but with its return 3 months later, it transcended all expectations and silenced all critics. The beginning parts of the episode gave us an insight into Shins mentality, using several unorthodox means particularly such as the aspect ratio (black bars) and more throughout the episode. Now, I won't be going too deep into every bit of information from the episode as that would take too long, but the episode was filled to the brim with symbolism, and i'm sure even now I still haven't found most of the things that Ishii tried to convey with this episode regardless of the countless amounts of times I rewatched this episode. As someone who's read the light novel, I can confidently say that the anime and especially this episode were way better than the light novel version of events. Though the LN is amazing, the anime took things one step further. Another thing worth mentioning was the soundtrack used in one particular scene. The usage of the OST "Voices Of The Chord" was simply perfect for the moment and genuinely left me with tears in my eyes when the scene happened. That scene had so much impact mainly because you could tell something changed within Shin once he found out Lena was still alive and when she told him he should still be proud of himself for fighting and surviving till the end. . _I won’t forget..._ . Since we are on the topic of soundtracks, I might as well give credits to the man behind the musical masterpiece himself, Hiroyuki Sawano. Those who keep up with the anime industry on a regular basis surely have heard of this name. That is because he has made the soundtrack for many popular shows such as Attack on Titan which were incredible good, and yet again he delivered in full force with his soundtrack for 86. His soundtrack added so much impact in several moments, particularly one I mentioned above and elevated my enjoyment even further, not to mention even composing the two EDs in season 1 which too were amazing. Along with that, I should give credit to Kohta Yamamoto who's also composed for popular shows such as AOT and who composed around half of the soundtracks for 86 alongside Sawano. Both of them did an incredible job. Some of my favorite 86 tracks by them are "Voices Of The Chord", "The Answer", "8SIX" and "Region". . _I won’t forget...._ . In conclusion, no matter which direction you look at this show from, whether it be its story, animations or soundtrack, this show is the true definition of a masterpiece, easily the best light novel adaptation I have ever seen and a show I can confidently call the undisputed goat of 2021. I am really grateful to the original author Asato sensei, the director Ishii Toshimasa and everyone else that was involved in creating this masterpiece, and I look forward to seeing more from them in the near future. Since the anime had a perfect conclusion, I wouldn't complain a lot if we never get a sequel but even so I really hope that one day we can see another masterpiece of a season, and I will be eagerly waiting for that day no matter how long it takes, be it 2 years or even 4. . _.....I won’t forget.._
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