#do u know how many times i typod this anime as 89

[curestardust]

Dust Watched: 86

Genres: Action, Military, Drama, Mecha // 11 episodes

Up, Down, Up, Down, Down, down, down....

✧  story  ✧

I haven’t enjoyed anything I’ve watched lately and honestly my expectations were as low as they could be for “86″ as it’s a light novel adaptation and was one of the most popular anime of its season, which I’ve learnt is ususally a bad sign because weebs apparently have no taste.

But “86″ starts off with a bombastic episode that (unfortunately) shot my expectations through the roof. In a beautiful mix of visual and contextual storytelling we’re basically introduced to the whole world’s setting in the first 10 minutes with barely any dialogue. We’re first shown the pristine and marble paved city which is populated by people who all share the same feature: white hair and eyes. This is where we meet our MC: Major Milizé or Lena. She works as a ‘Handler” for the army which means she uses a device called ParaRAID to communicate with the people on the frontlines and give them instructions on enemy positions and what movements to make. There are a lot of suspicious things going on already: there being 85 districts in the empire but the army constantly mentioning “the 86″, the public being told that the Processors are automated robots but the Handlers jobs being to help the *people* sitting inside and driving these robots. After Major Milizé is made to become the Handler of the infamous Spearhead splatoon, we finally see the second half of the story: a small barrack on the frontlines, full of very not white haired kids, who are known as the 86 and are the ones fighting in the war.

Before I go any further, let me just describe my main issue with this anime which is the pacing. After a frankly fantastic first few episodes, the anime settles into a very repetitive structure. Start the episode with one side experiencing an event, then show what the other side was doing and how they reacted to the event and then wrap the episode up with a new plot twist. This becomes quite boring, real fast, especially as the “twists” start to become extremely easy to predict so Major Milizé’s exaggerated reaction to them becomes comical even if the subject matter is supposed to be extremely serious.

But oh, it’s not over. After making me experience boredom so strong that I literally had to force myself to continue the anime, things finally come to a head with a “big” final battle. While this episode definitely brought tension and at certain developments I could almost scream “Finally!!” some of it went in such a cheesy direction I yet again couldn’t help but laugh. A robot with no explanation spouting luqidy iron arms and hands and a painfully slow flashback of a character saying another’s name over and over again were definitely highlights. Oh but, then there’s another problem. This is episode 9. There are still 2 episodes left. And those are completely useless. I would even say, they lessen the impact of the finale of the season. The thing we had to know for the next season really could’ve been shown in a 3 minute clip, everything else was meaningless in the big picture.

And closing off this section is what I left for last: this anime almost feels like a Nazi’s daydream. The white haired people are called “Alba” and anyone who isn’t an Alba gets thrown out into the battlefield and becomes an 86. To pull this off, rhetoric was spread about how the 86 were not “human”. They were animals, pigs, their lives and deaths meaningless. Rings a bell? Yes, the ideal society, the perfect Aria race living in comfort inside a city while the “lessers” are made to fight their battle for them. 

The only problem here is the writer’s apparent misunderstanding of this Nazi ideal. You think the Nazis would’ve been glad, hell, happy about being protected by people whom they didn’t even think of as people? The strong, proud Nazis being protected by “them”? Not to mention the anime’s absolutely pitiful attempt at handwaving away the question of why the fuck the 86 still fight when they know it’s futile and the people they’re protecting don’t even think of them as human. You know what excuse the writer came up with? “We’ve met some good Alba so not all of you are bad”. YO R U SERIOUS. Their second reason of “There are innocents too inside the city” is more acceptable, I mean the non-army people apparently don’t even know there’re people fighting outside the walls but????? Listen here, these characters don’t need grand excuses to paint them as saints. They fight for one reason only: because whether they do or not, they will be killed. The 86 don’t have a *choice*. There was absolutely no need for this almost nauseating scene of them being painted as patron saints for defending the Alba despite the fact that the Alba put them there in the first place. It almost felt like not even the writer themselves knew why they were fighting and tried to make up any excuse they could think of. Stupid. Also, I hope I don’t need to explain why this whole setting just makes me uncomfortable (especially as a European).

✧  characters  ✧

I really went off in the story section so I’ll try to keep it short from here.

Major Milizé is a pussy for the first 8 episodes. There, I said it. At first, I accepted it - she was our mirror into the story, we got to know facts about the 86 at the same time as her. But as the story dragged on, she became more and more frustrating to watch. Empty promises with no way of keeping them, constantly mumbling and asking stupid questions. She finally does step up in Ep9 and I was cheering like hell... until she reverted back to her same usual mumbling self. And of course, she is the only “sane” person who actually thinks of the 86 as human while everyone else scoffs at her and shouts angry racist bullshit.

The 86 are supposed to be characters you very much feel for and yet they’ve the personal development of a block of cheese. The very first character death hurt. But then not only I, but seemingly the anime as well, started caring less and less, more important side-characters basically being killed off screen. It could be a literal representation of how the 86 get desensitised to death as it happens constantly but even for the remaining characters, I felt nothing. Shin’s main goal also comes out of kinda nowhere and then has a... honestly, a pretty underwhelming conclusion. 

✧  art  ✧

Huge props in this department, especially with the set design and composition. The art style and animation also stay very consistent throughout and the CGI robots blend seamlessly with the environment.

✧  sound ✧

Also great. Very nice OP and multiple EDs with a nice OST.

✧  overview ✧

Honestly, this was a rollercoaster but like... a really underwhelming one? I’m still foolishly holding out hope for Milizé to go absolutely buckwild in season 2 but.... sigh...

My Rating: 6/10