It’s been a few weeks since this anime’s first season ended, but I’ll admit it’s been something that’s stuck with me.
Trying to explain why this story worked so well is more than a little difficult, but I’ll give it a try.
It would be too easy and simple to sum up that story as just another “Racism is bad” type of thing, and to a degree that’s there, but it goes well past that, too.
Unlike the modern woke tendency to over-simplify things, such as all those people who want to blame all problems on “whiteness”, 86 doesn’t settle for such a too-easy blame game. Some characters want to think like that. In the first half of the season, some of the 86 are so angry and bitter at the Alba people that they are more than ready and willing to consider all Alba to be “white pigs”. But even then, the story will not let that be the truth of the matter. It shows how some of the main cast of 86 suffered at the hands of other 86, and also how some were helped by Alba who did not agree with their nation’s unfair actions.
In the second half, the racism aspect is set aside, yet other differences set the main group apart from the people of their new home, and cause them to a seen with suspicion and even fear.
Other aspects of the anime also contribute this being in my mind a top-tier series. A lot of thought was given to how to convey ideas apart from simply doing it in dialogue, which might have been tricky in that first half since the two groups of characters never see each other in person. The music is first rate, I have the sound track and listen to parts of it pretty fairly often.
This is a series that’ll hit about every emotion you have, and hit them hard. It’ll give you things to think about, too.
I’ll give it a pretty strong recommendation.
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