86 EIGHTY-SIX Part 2

After wandering into Legion-controlled territory for days, they encounter a large group of Legion which they engage but are overwhelmed by.

The five surviving members of the decimated Spearhead squadron find themselves within the territory of the Federal Republic of Giad where they wake up detained in a secure medical facility for precautionary measures.

A few days after, they are welcomed as citizens of the Federacy and are legally adopted by the President of the Federacy himself. While trying to live normal lives pursuing their hobbies and interests as people of their age would, they would soon feel the urge to return to the battlefield as this was the only way they knew how to live their lives after being subjected to forced conscription due being people of "colour" who do not have Alba blood to fight the war against the Legion in place of the Alba's of the Republic of San Magnolia.

Upon becoming officers in the Federacy's military, they get stationed in the Western Front and immediately get into combat as the Legion launched its large scale offensive on several areas targeting different nations. They would later see themselves face against a stronger and different type of Legion called the Morpho which is a Railgun-type Legion.

The plot faithfully follows and covers Volumes 1 to 3 and ends with some parts of Volume 4 from the light novel by Asato Asato. The series sees the events arranged in chronological order with some added anime-only scenes, which was definitely a good decision by Toshimasa Ishii (Director) and Toshiya Oono (Series Composition) as it was able avoid and/or lessen confusion while properly telling the story in an episodic way.

Adapting a story full of lore from purely text with heavy dialogues and adding effects like that of character parallelism, symbolism and story foreshadowing should be a treat for the audience.

While the story revolves more around Shinei Nouzen in the 2nd cour, the occasional and later involvement of Vladilena Milize is something worth waiting for. The parallelism between the two main characters from events occurring in both cours is something to keep and eye on as they would eventually cross paths, something that should be very much anticipated.

The involvement of the supporting characters such as the members of the former spearhead squadron and the introduction of new characters from the Federacy and a new set of Eighty-Six processors from the Republic will continue to play a bigger role going forward and will be shownprovided the series gets a 2nd season.

A-1 Pictures deserves so much credit for having done an amazing job with the series overall. The animation in the 2nd cour looked much better with the CGI having a noticeable improvement compared to the 1st cour. The character and mechanical designs stayed true to the illustrations from the light novel done by Shirabii (Characters) and I-IV (Mechanicals).

The environment design was spot on as it was able to portray what an apocalyptic continent would look like before and during all the chaos caused by political decisions, unending military operations and geopolitical influences.

Various scenes and events were also done really well such as the battles against the Legion, the conversations over the Para-RAID Device and the eventual meeting of the characters at the end of series as I got to fully realise and see how my imaginations would look like animated.

With Hiroyuki Sawano and Kohta Yamamoto in charge of the soundtrack of the series overall, the audience should be in for a musical masterclass. The opening and numerous ending songs fit so well into the story and the way several episodes transition out of the ending scene into the ED in was a wonderful way to play with our emotions.

The choice of songs for certain events throughout the series made certain scenes very memorable and the use of sound effects and the science behind it (just like when the sound of the explosion came after the physical explosion of a bridge in episode 5) is proper attention to detail.

This is a story that involves aspects of socio-political issues, military, war, geopolitics, drama and romance, a unique story compared to most light novels around. This is definitely a modern masterpiece of literary art carefully adapted into a series that would get the audience immersed with an interesting story, beautiful visuals and an amazing soundtrack that will put you through different emotions. As a light novel reader, I couldn't have asked for a better adaptation so I highly recommend reading the light novel while hopefully waiting for a 2nd season.