Can it really be we don't have an eighty-six thread?

Just finished S1.

It's...definitely a slow-paced kind of story, isn't it? Takes its time to do just about everything. Both for better and for worse. Entire episodes are taken to resolve an altercation that took place in the previous episode.

Perhaps I'd have liked it better if I was in a different mood, but watching S1 over several days I just kind of wanted it to hurry up.

Perhaps I would have liked it more if the action scenes were more interesting, but they lacked an indefinable something for me.

And the actual 86-er characters...I know I was supposed to get attached to them, but they were just way to archetypical and predictable to pull me in. You've got the cute younger sister figure, the stoic, competent field commander (who reminded me a bit too much of Levi from AoT even though I know he's a completely different character under the skin), the devil's advocate (angel's advocate given the circumstances?) who yells at the main character to make the inherent abuse of the situation clear, and...I cannot actually remember any of the others in much depth.

It's a shame, because the premise seems like something tailored to my interest in a lot of ways.
 
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I came across a thread on reddit where people were ranking the novels. Most of the respondents seemed to rank the second novel (which is what many of the recent episodes have been based off of) is at or near the bottom of the list. In a way that's actually kind of reassuring...

(I haven't actually read the second volume yet myself. I thought I should wait until after the second cour is finished -though I may renege on that promise if I actually get a hold of a copy before the second cour finishes airing. :p)

Well as someone who is getting interested in anime due to minor characters Eighty Six caught my eye because of how Lena shares VA with a character in Blue Archive who became one of the most popular girls in the series.


Lena isn't a minor character, she's actually one of the mains.
 
Lena isn't a minor character, she's actually one of the mains.

That's not wrong, but at the same time Lena does take a backseat to Spearhead in Season 2 - Volume 2 & 3.

I came across a thread on reddit where people were ranking the novels. Most of the respondents seemed to rank the second novel (which is what many of the recent episodes have been based off of) is at or near the bottom of the list. In a way that's actually kind of reassuring...

Season 2 adapts both Volumes 2 & 3.

Roughly speaking Spearhead leaves Vol 1 after they kill Shin's brother and say goodbye to Lena so their scenes from episodes 10 & 11 are actually from Volume 2 which has a cliffhanger ending when Kiri bombards Spearhead's base at the end of Episode 16.

I think we can expect the rest of the season to adapt the rest of Vol 3 and Vol 1's distant epilogue.

One thing the anime failed to convincingly establish is that as much as two years pass between Spearhead parting with Lena in Vol 1 and the end of Vol 3 & Vol 1's distant epilogue. Without context, I would have believed it would have been a few months, a year at the most.


Well as someone who is getting interested in anime due to minor characters Eighty Six caught my eye because of how Lena shares VA with a character in Blue Archive who became one of the most popular girls in the series.

*Fanservice*

And in the background, Shin is furiously sharpening his shovel.

Someone had the bright idea to put Lena in a form-fitting latex space suit. One that left little to the imagination. Shin was not happy and would have committed murder if Lena hadn't intervened.
 
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Season 2 adapts both Volumes 2 & 3.

[...]

One thing the anime failed to convincingly establish is that as much as two years pass between Spearhead parting with Lena in Vol 1 and the end of Vol 3 & Vol 1's distant epilogue. Without context, I would have believed it would have been a few months, a year at the most.

I'm aware that S2 is adapting Volume 3 as well, I just didn't realize we'd been into it for three episodes now.

I don't pay much attention to the dates when I'm watching, so I would have thought about a year myself. I guess the officer training Ernst insisted they take took up a big chunk of that?

My view on this may change when I have a chance to rewatch the second season as a complete work without two week gaps from production delays, but one thing I haven't particularly liked so far is its pacing. It feels like I've spent a lot of time waiting for big things to happen, yet the show has also rushed through things I would have liked to have seen more of like Spearhead's experiences with civilian life and officer school.
 
Yeah, the latest episode was really good. It reminded me of how much I loved this series during its first cour. Kind of ironic considering that its a dialogue heavy episode and I was just complaining about the second cour's pacing earlier in the week. :p
 
This week was a poignant reminder that the Eighty Six are incredibly broken child soldiers just like the Master Chief. Underneath the bravado and fighting ability, they're empty inside and don't understand why they're wrong to keep throwing themselves at the Legion. The only difference is that by Infinite, Chief has secretly become self-aware of how horrible his existence is.

Ernst / Brohammer: Why do you keep doing this, again and again?

Eighty Six / Chief: It's all I know.
 
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Yeah, the latest episode was really good. It reminded me of how much I loved this series during its first cour. Kind of ironic considering that its a dialogue heavy episode and I was just complaining about the second cour's pacing earlier in the week. :p
Tbf I'm sure the pacing would be a lot better if you binge watched it instead of per-release, given how the anime's getting delayed because of the two abusive fathers of the industry is breathing down its neck. I'd rather they give 86 half a year or even a full year to recover before airing the next part, this show deserves it.
This week was a poignant reminder that the Eighty Six are incredibly broken child soldiers just like the Master Chief. Underneath the bravado and fighting ability, they're empty inside and don't understand why they're wrong to keep throwing themselves at the Legion. The only difference is that by Infinite, Chief has secretly become self-aware of how horrible his existence is.

Ernst / Brohammer: Why do you keep doing this, again and again?

Eighty Six / Chief: It's all I know.
Oh trust me they get more self-aware about it and it is not a good time
 
Tbf I'm sure the pacing would be a lot better if you binge watched it instead of per-release, given how the anime's getting delayed because of the two abusive fathers of the industry is breathing down its neck. I'd rather they give 86 half a year or even a full year to recover before airing the next part, this show deserves it.

Oh trust me they get more self-aware about it and it is not a good time

Quite possibly, though I think some of it is that I followed the content of this episode more clearly then some of the mid season ones. Granted I think some of the mid season content was working towards this. But this episode was very much focused on the 86 themselves (and Shin in particular) with relatively little focus on the people around them. My view might change with rewatching and/or reading the source material, but right now I'm not entirely sold on the second cour's dynamics between the 86 and those around them.

Rest of the squad seems to have things relatively together right now though Anju apparently sees herself as similar to Shin (hard to tell how she's doing sometimes since she tends to hide things). Seems to be mostly Shin who is having a problem here. Well him and Frederica. Though actually if you throw in Anju along with those two then half the squad has been having serious doubts about their place in things...

On a lighter note, am I the only person who initially thought that Grethe had walked into a cloud of body odour in that tent until they saw the cigarette the old guy was smoking? What with the Federacy army pushing themselves to advance and all? :p
 
On a lighter note, am I the only person who initially thought that Grethe had walked into a cloud of body odour in that tent until they saw the cigarette the old guy was smoking? What with the Federacy army pushing themselves to advance and all? :p
Damn, your mind's in the gutter with Asato's seriously this woman is horny as hell.
I am aware of that. I deleted half my post because it was about later volumes.
Ah, neat. How far have you read?
 
Tbf I'm sure the pacing would be a lot better if you binge watched it instead of per-release, given how the anime's getting delayed because of the two abusive fathers of the industry is breathing down its neck.
What sort of issues are they facing atm? I'd assumed the delays were to polish the animation some more due to the upcoming few episodes being action heavy.
 
The Reginleifs are T-Posing and the rigger is stuck in quarantine hell without wifi.
 
The Reginleifs are T-Posing and the rigger is stuck in quarantine hell without wifi.
Pale Rider really just wants Shin to stop T-posing for dominance.
Also another funny thing about 86 is that it taught me that "equal-opportunity horny" looks different for everyone given the Asato's preference for garter belts and dresses with women and military uniforms with men. (Read the afterwords, they're fucking hilarious.)
 
My comment actually made me ponder what a T-posing spider would look like, and then I remembered jumping spider mating displays.
 
Damn, your mind's in the gutter

That wasn't me being horny, I just presumed that Grethe's digusted reaction was because she walked into a tent that reeked of soldiers who hadn't had time to shower due to the relentless pace of operations and thought the idea was pretty funny (though the cloud turned out to be cigarette smoke).

I did tell a friend who gets teased about having a long hair fetish that this fan art reminded me of him though. :p

View: https://twitter.com/Skiiiyo/status/1399070896262762503

(Now I'm wondering how Anju managed to take care of that absurdly long hair of her for two weeks without access to showers or a bath when Spearhead was journeying across Legion territory...)

Also another funny thing about 86 is that it taught me that "equal-opportunity horny" looks different for everyone given the Asato's preference for garter belts and dresses with women and military uniforms with men. (Read the afterwords, they're fucking hilarious.)

I've only read the afterword for the first book so far, but are Asato's tastes really that tied to the character's sex? In season two the Federacy appears to give female soldiers the option of trousers or a skirt for their garrison uniforms. Some fans were a bit surprised that Anju chose trousers while Kurena chose a skirt though it really shouldn't be that surprising given Kurena's interest in cute/stylish clothes (when I was rewatching Season One I noticed that she was eyeing a dress in the shop window of the abandoned town that Spearhead passed through).
 
I've only read the afterword for the first book so far, but are Asato's tastes really that tied to the character's sex? In season two the Federacy appears to give female soldiers the option of trousers or a skirt for their garrison uniforms. Some fans were a bit surprised that Anju chose trousers while Kurena chose a skirt though it really shouldn't be that surprising given Kurena's interest in cute/stylish clothes (when I was rewatching Season One I noticed that she was eyeing a dress in the shop window of the abandoned town that Spearhead passed through).
Then you remember a lot better than me lmao. I just remember that in the afterwords that Asato says "Girls in pilot suits are justice!" and "Boys in uniform are justice!". She's probably just really big on those particular fashions.
 
I actually watched Episode 21 on Christmas Day. It was pretty impressive, but Crunchyroll failed to translate a significant line during Shin's showdown with the Kiri/Morpho. Granted it's semi-hidden by the cacophony of legion voices. That line was apparently to the effect of
"Unidentified unit, take cover."
Though I guess even without the line it's not that hard to deduce who's saving Shin...

As someone who has been spoiled a bit on future developments, my one significant complaint with the episode itself is
that they implied the deaths of Shin and his remaining comrades again when I know they have to survive because of their appearances in later stories.

Would it be asking too much to have two separate threads for this series given how far ahead the novels are vs the TV adaptation? (Though I guess even a separate thread for the novels might need spoiler tags if anyone's reading the Japanese market releases.)
 
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