86 is breathtaking. The title is obviously some cheap clickbait, but the thumbnail does express my thoughts quite well, I do prefer 86 to attack on titan SO FAR and if you watch this video to the end, I hope you’ll see my perspective.
As the years go by, anime is straying further and further from being just plain manga adaptations to other media such as mahwa and light novels. Notable manhwa adaptations include tower of god and god of highschool and for the light novel side of things we got re zero and now eighty six and by god is it brilliant. Aniplex Japan announced back in March that the award-winning sci-fi/military/tragedy series Eighty-Six is being adapted by THE A-1 Pictures, famous for its work on your lie in april, ano hana and kaguya sama and is currently airing and is a must watch for those of you who have an attack on titan sized hole in your hearts whilst you wait for the second cour of the final season to air.
86 is probably the most relevant anime to be airing now, whether we take a look at the BLM movement and its attempts to dismantle the systemic racism faced by certain people, the protests against the Myanmar military coup that represent a struggle for non-military democracy, the Brexit protests in Ireland built on an imperialistic foundation, or the civil war in Yemen. Militarism is an ideology that stands directly in the way of racial and social equality and thus brings harm to normal people like you and I and the oppressed who are left to deal with the consequences.
I’ll be honest with you, I tend to stray away from most mecha animes since they tend to be cliche with overused tropes, with the last mecha anime that I seriously enjoyed being, of course, Code Geass and the entirety of that franchise since it had exactly what I love about anime, subterfuge and an intricate plot line which deals with the grey areas of life but for some reason I picked up 86, intrigued by its plot and watched the first episode and became instantly hooked to it.
For the story itself, it deals with a war between the republic of san magnolia and empire of giad which has lasted 9 years, with the empire winning at first using mechs, but then the republic clapped back with its own autonomous units, called juggernauts which are controlled by a handler. The Republic's government claims that its battle mechs are unmanned drones, so they're successfully fighting "a war without casualties," but this, as we learn, is a lie. The 85 sectors of San Magnolia are protected by fortified walls and a sect of soldiers known as the 86. The 86 are young men and women who, because of their skin color and ancestral bloodlines, are treated as less than human and forced into battle to die defending their country.
Vladilena Mirize, or Lena, our female mc, is a purebred alba- the most powerful race- who’s risen to fame of her unique commandeering abilities when she’s assigned to the spearhead unit, who have names eighty sixes, recognised for their service but one infamous for breaking its handlers mentalities and crushing those who oppress them mentally. Lena is an alba who does not believe in the blatant facism shown and as she tries to interact with the eighty six more and more, she further uncovers dark truths about the empire's contradictory ways.
From this quick synopsis we can already draw a lot of parallels to attack on titan, eldians being similar to the eighty-six, unfairly prosecuted for sharing a race with someone in their past, and the oppression of Marley being the same as the other sectors of magnolia. We further draw parallels when those eldians or eighty six are only given basic rights such as a name through participating in a war that they shouldn't really need to fight in. Both animes involve military strategy, subterfuge, extremely impactful and emotional scenes and both have that wow factor that depicts the atrocities of such fascism.
There’s also similarities to ww2, with magnolia acting as a step in germany. The albas are plae skinned silver haired humans, similar to the aryan identity hitler deemed to be the best race, and the others, or colorata, are treated as less than ideal. However, magnolia doesn’t adopt a demagogue approach as was seen in Germany but it does however idealise the act of using a minority population- the jewish or eighty six- as a scapegoat so they can ostracize them and then use and abuse them as cheap labour
Given this backdrop, racial tension is obviously the most prevalent recurring element of the story. Lena isn't deluded on the level of her peers, blaming an unrelated race for the so called demise of the republic, hell she even argues with their lax attitude which doesn’t reflect like they’re at war at all, but she is painfully, painfully naïve. This naivete leads to her butting heads with Undertaker and the other 86s that she serves as Handler for as they can’t deal with her having her head in her arse, again similar to eren back in season 1. They maintain their distance no matter the advances that Lena makes to get closer to the eighty sixes, giving one word answers as though they were your mum after you didn’t say her food was good. Slowly though, they get closer with Lena’s persistence breaking some barriers but to no avail when the going gets tough.
Sometimes, silence speaks louder than a thousand words, and Lena should have heard this quote before she ran her mouth about causing the death of one of the eighty six. She gets torn a new one as you can hear the rage and the wavering in her voice as she realises that she can't do anything and that if she tries to, she would only make the situation that much worse, breaking the bridges she tries so hard to build in the first place.
Sculpting an intricate plot like this requires some extremely deft world-building which is obviously helped by the novel but the anime so far does have this in the bag. The most interesting part of the anime, being a science nerd myself, is the para-RAID system. It assumes both the existence of a collective human unconscious and that there’s a technological way to establish a telepathic connection between people which allows not only communication at long range that can't be jammed for some reason but also some sort of sense of what the other person is feeling, depending on the strength of the resonance. This to me sounds like something straight out of fantasy, having studied neuroscience and psychology a tad but the way the anime artfully portrays this as something feasible to do with technology does deserve a good pat on the back from me.
Don’t forget the legendary Hiroyuki Sawano being the composer. Him making the music also sets the precedent of what’s to come as his work reaches legendary status. Sawano really heightens anything he does with studio Trigger to god-tier, and his work on AoT was (mwah) god tier. Though you've also got stuff like Aldnoah Zero and Guilty Crown made by him, I truly feel like dystopian military animes are when he shines the brightest.
I think the most interesting part of the show are the conversations and relationships, something I felt a bit lacking in Attack on titan. Shin and his crew are all considered subhuman and their quality of life is arguably lower than Lena’s, but they live a more honest lifestyle and make the most of it. They even eat real food, while the alba’s have synthetic(at least based off of Lena's friend mentioning real eggs and milk, while Shin's crew has chickens laying eggs). You’ve also got Lena who’s a privileged rich girl that probably has never struggled, but she hates the way others of her race act and hates the lies being told by the government. She tries to be kind and treat the 86 like people, but to the 86 it is just some girl coming in, thinking she is making their lives better by not treating them like shit. All while they are out on the battlefield dying and she is sitting safely in a chair. "Who are you to act like our savior?" essentially. And realistically, there isn't much she can do to save them other than reduce how many die.
I absolutely love the directing of this show. Having the whole second half of episode 3 from separate perspectives, with both 86s and then Lena's perspective really drives home how totally disconnected she is from the squadron, and also how powerless she is. I especially loved how the scenes focused entirely one one side’s perspective each time, giving so much attention to every character's personality and disposition towards others. It also enhanced the perspectives of the 86’s who felt really warm and relaxed despite their circumstances (contrasting the colder, high-class, sort of detached tone in the main city); and in Lena’s perspective she acted like a high school girl talking excitedly with new friends over the phone (adding more impact to the after credits scene). And then this being contrasted to seeing Kaie move into a bad position and be destroyed while saying "I don't want to die" and being able to do nothing about it was heartbreaking.
Attack on titan definitely did have these moments, but I honestly found it to be incredibly slow, which is okay in the world building aspect but I feel like 86 just does it better, mixing portions of intense action contrasted with light hearted fun and all in one episode. Attack on titans story has been more intricate, but with more than 4 seasons under its belt it's obviously going to be that way. I also feel that showing multiple different perspectives helps us to empathise that much more on an individual level with the cast and so their deaths are that much more impactful and leaves us that much more broken.
Speaking of, the official website is killer, it updates the dead or alive status every episode but I digress. Anyways I hope you understand why I am so far enjoying 86 as much if not more than attack on titan, as it's a brilliant piece of relevant social commentary that has what I think the pinnacle of clever direction and soundscape. That’s it for this video, let me know your thoughts down below, if you have any video recommendation do tell, otherwise like sub and all that and you already know who its been , signing out.
