86 - Eighty Six

 
 One of the better Mecha Anime produced from the Past 10 years that I recently marathoned which is simply called Eighty Six. This is one of the Mecha series sponsored by Bandai that is actually good and turns out to be quite successful compared to series like Sakugan or Kyokai Senki. No wonder the famous composer Hiroyuki Sawano also lent his talent to produce a music for this series.

Eighty Six is mecha series that sets a dystopian near future setting where Humanity fought a constantly losing war against army of Automated weapons of a fallen Empire, featuring walker mechas that look like Beetle Tanks for its mecha design. In this series, Eighty Six refers to a district in nation that is ruled by White haired people known as Alba. Just like Elevens from Code Geass, The People from 86 district are treated no better than Disposable Pawns by the ruling class and essentially forced to fight in the frontline as enslaved soldier against the merciless automaton army with extreme casualty rate.

The story of Eighty Six focus on a Combat group consisted of Teen Soldiers from the 86th district that somehow survived many impossible odds and become one of the most experienced combat asset that their discriminative nation had. As this group had a young man with mysterious psychic power as its member who simply goes by Undertaker as his callsign. The story of Eighty Six begin with an Idealistic Alba military officer lady served as this combat group's newest handler whose naivety yet genuine compassion for the group will hate her fate intetwine with the Undertaker and decide the fate of humanity in this dystopian setting.

If Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans all of sudden does not come with any Gundam and only equipped with Walker tanks as their arsenals then pitted in strictly terrestrial battle against Automatons weapons that came with similar technology, you will have Eighty Six. Surprisingly you can still have some good Mecha action sequence even if you only have bunch beetle tanks as the taking potshots at each other with some close combats thrown in to the mix. While I personally feel the the Worldbuilding from the anime are still rather lacking, the personal drama of a group of young teens trying their best to live to their fullest amidst brutal conflict they got into is quite well made and probably the reason the series is relatively well received by young adult audiences. Hasegawa Ikumi played the main heroine role very well in the series and over the span of two cours, Eighty Six managed to conclude in relatively high note, a rarity for present day anime. 

As there are still many things left to be uncovered by the series especially the worldbuilding aspect, I think Eighty Six will be quite successful when the sponsor decide to continue the funding for the animation. Hopefully the Light Novel series will properly conclude its run so we can have another great mecha anime series.