Proof
86 is an anime that delivers a whole lotta of elements that are apparently profound, a publicly acclaimed corny but awe-inspiring direction, direction that abuses impactful throwbacks and visual cues so people don’t get lost and cheer at any single bloated epic moment, inputting elements to grab your memories and let yourself recreate the sentiments of the self-insert like main character, delivering an atmosphere of constant switching between disturbing silence, grandiloquent action eminence, and a deceiving tension. While the animation is highly inconsistent during the season, symptom of a messy schedule that filters through the slideshow dull episodes in the middle section of the season that anyone with two eyes and sense of criticism would notice; the fights, Sawano’s soundtrack, expressive and conscious close-ups, and impactful explosions with a bunch of stuff flying through the screen let you experience a dynamic mecha warfare, an experience that shouldn’t let you be indifferent if you are a fan of romance… I mean action and politics!
Sadly, if you are not a person that spam WW3 WHEN in social media after any tension between global superpowers, or if you are not a fan of LENASHIN (Because watching a whole anime just to experience the two main characters that are obviously going to get together get together is peak entertainment), then the anime will not deliver any ounce of meaning or deepness, intertwining a mediocre storyline with cartoony heroes and villains, a ton of conveniences to create a bunch of melodramatic explosions for the lower common denominator, long running speeches that are one-note and accomplish barely anything other than a bunch of eye-rolls, and a landfill of edgy characterization and conflicts so people don’t get asleep because of how elongated any sort of point that the anime is trying to do is.
The main problem of this iteration of 86 happens to be the same as the past iteration of 86, but it also features a new flaw, the viewer requires a monumental suspension of disbelief to accept absolutely everything that happens on screen, because writing a story that makes an inch of consequential sense is for noobz and nerdz. This suspension of disbelief comes just for watching the first episode, where the main squad of emo war soldiers happens survives because of the heroes of plot and brain damage. At this point of the story, one should be an incredible idiot to think that this anime would kill or provoke any sort of interesting consequence to the acts of any of the major characters soon, phenomenon that I would call the Shingeki Syndrome, you kill disposable characters to make some point and create tension so people soyjak at the stakes, and you stop killing them afterwards unless you need to wake up your audience.
While the suspension of disbelief is a common element in anime, as making everything a complete hyperbole is almost a necessity so people can understand what they are watching, the main issue is not it, it is just the topping of this shit ice cream. The main issue of this anime is that it is trying to answer a reduced amount of questions through a limited perspective during the whole runtime, while not allowing anything else intersect the plot. The past season this question was about discrimination, and this season it is about the consequences of that, “Why am I fighting? Why am I living?” are questions that are studied by the perspective of some emo soldier kid called Shin during all its runtime. That wouldn’t be wrong if 86 was capable of writing anything that isn’t fanfic romance and room temperature IQ war strategy, but sadly you get 11 episodes of the same meaningless bullshit about the relationship between fighting, war, and Shin, the same dumb repetitive conversations with tiny changes of perspective, a random loli obliterating your ears with the most condescending shallow speeches that nobody cares about (Who the fuck cares about Kiri, gave me some Lena legs!!!!11), just to get to the most simpleton resolution “Because I have other people that are with me”. Yeah dude, nobody saw that coming, is this the apex of originality? Not satisfied with the stupidity of the answer, the anime also manages to get to that conclusion in the most absurd manner possible, by reintroducing (SPOILERS ALERT) LENA FROM 86 BATCHEST in an open field, with red flowers, after destroying the main villain, with fire in the back, and some mesmerizing colors and flashbacks so people start to cry. Moronic to say the least, but some people could like it, is this peak fiction?
86 not only have a monotonic purpose with elongated speeches and a power off brain requirement to enjoyment, but it also tackles any single topic as the shittiest parody ever. You have the president Ernst as a character who is supposed to be a moral pivot that juxtapose to the republic and the utilitarian politic system that we've seen during the past season, but he ends up as a pathetic intent to make a comedy device with a obnoxiously loud and corny approach to the conflict (Don’t know why people miss Lena, this guy is Lena with a dick), and his relationship with the other characters doesn’t make sense in any single possible power relationship that doesn’t emerge from the brain damage narrative.
Then we get the loli, Frederica, a character that should be sent to hell because of how stupid everything around her is. Frederica randomly starts talking hours and hours with Shin about nonsense of some character called Kiri, happens to be the center of many attacks with the indestructible squad because of a ridiculous superpower, and not just content with not dying and saving us for watching her, it also let the story introduce the ridiculous melodramatic parallel between Shin and Kiri, that not only tells you the same as the first 10 episodes of the anime have already told you 5 times, but also just serves to create this apparently magnific idea of making ghosts appear in the memories of Shin so the audience can clap and cry because memories sad!!!
The main squAdZ also got completely lost during the season, which is a complete shame, because they would allow the story to expand beyond the absolute snoozefest of Shin-Frederica-Whatever interactions. The episode of the guy who was about to see his sister was as pathetic as the whole plot of YLIA, which was kind of funny, could anyone feel anything but a spit in the eye after watching that? Anyways, the characters on this season are completely wasted. They are wasted because apparently the story can’t produce any eloquent message with diverse perspectives and it must reiterate the same issue all the time, because this is not a story of war, discrimination, PTSD, it is a story about how being a badass can get you a girl with thighs.
As a conclusion, the most disrespectful element of this anime is that it tries the audience as idiots, as people who are incapable of thinking that the stakes are all fake bullshit just to create drama, as people who are incapable of telling that this anime is not a mix between politics and technological advancement with some deep criticism and psychology, because it isn’t that, this anime is just a fetishistic approach of getting a wonderful girl that lives in the privilege converting into a badass and dragged to the lower class to have a romantic relationship with the average viewer that happens to be betrayed by the society, or in reverse, a story about how being a badass girl that helps the others and is always morally correct let you touch even the coldest heart (Inclusion people!) If it wasn’t such the case, 86 would care more about elaborating the principles of a multidimensional perspective of the issue, if it wasn’t so, 86 would never reintroduce LENA FROM 86 in a low quality fanfiction manner in the end, if it wasn’t so, 86 would never let all the characters live to create this fantasy of having multiple love interests.
QED
