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Not to be confused with the Youtube short animation ''WebAnimation/EightySix2012'' or the Steam puzzle game ''VideoGame/EightySix2020''.
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** The manga expands a bit on how Kurena's parents were murdered by Albans: shortly after the war started and the Legion annihilated almost all of San Magnolia's military, the government hastily had to rebuild as much of the military as possible just to survive the initial onslaught, and [[LoweredRecruitingStandards standards for conscription were incredibly low]]. The Albans who murdered Mr. and Mrs. Kukumila were part of a batch of new recruits who were violent brutes and lazy slobs as civilians. And it turned out Lena's father Vaclav stumbled upon the murders too late to prevent them.
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** The manga expands Episode 4's scene when Lena asks Shin to tell her Spearhead Squadron's names shows her to be at a bit on how Kurena's parents were murdered by Albans: shortly after war memorial that honors the war started and the Legion annihilated almost all of San Magnolia's military, the government hastily had to rebuild as much of the military as possible just to survive the initial onslaught, and [[LoweredRecruitingStandards standards for conscription were incredibly low]]. The Albans (and only the Albans) who murdered Mr. and Mrs. Kukumila were part of a batch of new recruits who were violent brutes and lazy slobs as civilians. And it turned out Lena's father have died against the Legion, with her father's name Vaclav stumbled upon being the murders too late to prevent them.last one recorded. In the novel, she's simply at home as usual.
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* AdaptationExpansion: The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she goes over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
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* AdaptationExpansion: Quite a bit:
** The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she goes over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
** The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she goes over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
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** Episode 6 is almost entirely anime-original. The first part of the episode is a flashback showing how Spearhead Squadron was formed as they get to know each other and speculate on what their new Handler will be like (much of the dialogue is taken from the Black Tag Daily Life short story). The second major part shows the battle [[spoiler: where Daiya dies to a swarm of self-propelled mines, along with another squad member named Lecca]]; this was actually glossed over in the light novel, which skipped the battle and simply showed the aftermath.
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* ShownTheirWork:
** In Episode 3, after Daiya is caught peeping on the girls at the river, [[https://imgur.com/a/YnclGze they all draw guns on him in a split second.]] The girl on the far left is in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp_2ECfbwKo straight Isosceles stance, next to her is Kurena who is in Modified Isosceles stance, while Anju and Lecca are both in Weaver stance.]]
** Lena's notebook in Episode 5 has [[https://www.reddit.com/r/EightySix/comments/nagfbn/lenas_sketches_use_accurate_military_symbols/ diagrams]] drawn up using proper NATO Joint Military Symbology to depict mechanized platoons engaged in combat across bridges.
** The afterword of Volume 4 shows that Asato Asato used Hiroki Tokugawa's ''[[https://www.amazon.com/Railway-Corridor-Hiroki-Tokugawa/dp/4408111937 Railway Corridor]]'' photobook as reference when writing the subway battles. It also mentions she used Iori Tomita's ''[[http://gakuran.com/iori-tomitas-new-world-transparent-specimens/ Transparent Silence]]'' artwork, most likely for inspiration when designing the Legion units.
** In Episode 3, after Daiya is caught peeping on the girls at the river, [[https://imgur.com/a/YnclGze they all draw guns on him in a split second.]] The girl on the far left is in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp_2ECfbwKo straight Isosceles stance, next to her is Kurena who is in Modified Isosceles stance, while Anju and Lecca are both in Weaver stance.]]
** Lena's notebook in Episode 5 has [[https://www.reddit.com/r/EightySix/comments/nagfbn/lenas_sketches_use_accurate_military_symbols/ diagrams]] drawn up using proper NATO Joint Military Symbology to depict mechanized platoons engaged in combat across bridges.
** The afterword of Volume 4 shows that Asato Asato used Hiroki Tokugawa's ''[[https://www.amazon.com/Railway-Corridor-Hiroki-Tokugawa/dp/4408111937 Railway Corridor]]'' photobook as reference when writing the subway battles. It also mentions she used Iori Tomita's ''[[http://gakuran.com/iori-tomitas-new-world-transparent-specimens/ Transparent Silence]]'' artwork, most likely for inspiration when designing the Legion units.
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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:# -- D]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:E -- P]]
[[folder:E -- P]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Q -- Z]]
[[folder:Q -- Z]]
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* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Albans have silver hair, Raiden has steel-green hair and Anju has silver-blue hair originating from a distant Alba ancestor.
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* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Albans have silver hair, Raiden has steel-green hair and Anju has silver-blue hair originating from a distant Alba ancestor.ancestor.
[[/folder]]
----
[[/folder]]
----
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* TakeThat: The big battle in Volume 4 in the underground terminal of Charité is said in the afterword to be based on the Tokyo metro lines, specifically Shinjuku, Otemachi, and Tokyo Stations, and Asato herself admits to having old feelings of resentment over how frequently she used to get lost in that labyrinth... which is why the terminal is pretty much wrecked to pieces in the battle.
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** The manga expands a bit on how Kurena's parents were murdered as "target practice" by Albans: shortly after the war started and the Legion annihilated almost all of San Magnolia's military, the government hastily had to rebuild as much of the military as possible just to survive the initial onslaught, and [[LoweredRecruitingStandards standards for recruitment dropped significantly]]. The Albans who murdered Mr. and Mrs. Kukumila were part of a batch of new recruits who had little discipline and self-control. And it turned out Lena's father Vaclav stumbled upon the murders too late to prevent them.
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** The manga expands a bit on how Kurena's parents were murdered as "target practice" by Albans: shortly after the war started and the Legion annihilated almost all of San Magnolia's military, the government hastily had to rebuild as much of the military as possible just to survive the initial onslaught, and [[LoweredRecruitingStandards standards for recruitment dropped significantly]].conscription were incredibly low]]. The Albans who murdered Mr. and Mrs. Kukumila were part of a batch of new recruits who had little discipline were violent brutes and self-control.lazy slobs as civilians. And it turned out Lena's father Vaclav stumbled upon the murders too late to prevent them.
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** The manga expands a bit on how Kurena's parents were murdered as "target practice" by Albans: shortly after the war started and the Legion annihilated almost all of San Magnolia's military, the government hastily had to rebuild as much of the military as possible just to survive the initial onslaught, and [[LoweredRecruitingStandards standards for recruitment dropped significantly]]. The Albans who murdered Mr. and Mrs. Kukumila were part of a batch of new recruits who had little discipline and self-control. And it turned out Lena's father Vaclav stumbled upon the murders too late to prevent them.
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* ProudWarriorRace: The Vargus were originally subjects of the Giadian Empire tasked with defending its borders from external threats. When the empire was overthrown and the Legion turned on the newly formed Federacy the Vargus held them off long enough for a proper defense of the former empire's core territories to be organized. Since then they have been employed as mercenaries by the Federacy and are frequently deployed to areas of fierce fighting. Due to their history as a warrior caste they are one of the few groups who work well with the 86, due to their shared affinity for life on the battlefield.
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* ProudWarriorRace: The Vargus were originally subjects of the Giadian Empire tasked with defending its borders from external threats. When the empire was overthrown and the Legion turned on the newly formed Federacy the Vargus held them off long enough for a proper defense of the former empire's core territories to be organized. Since then they have been employed as mercenaries by the Federacy and are frequently deployed to areas of fierce fighting. Due to their history as a warrior caste they are one of the few groups who work well with the 86, due to their shared as they both share an affinity for life on the battlefield.
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* RefugeInAudacity: The plan to take out the Morpho railgun involved three nations launching a massive combined arms offensive across hundreds of kilometers of front line. In reality this was all just a ploy to distract the Legion and prevent them from noticing the real strike force of 15 Reginleifs being airdropped behind enemy lines by an experimental ekranoplan
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* RefugeInAudacity: The plan to take out the Morpho railgun involved three nations launching a massive combined arms offensive across hundreds of kilometers of front line. In reality this was all just a ploy to distract the Legion and prevent them from noticing the real strike force of 15 Reginleifs being airdropped behind enemy lines by an experimental ekranoplanekranoplan.
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* ProudWarriorRace: The Vargus were originally subjects of the Giadian Empire tasked with defending its borders from external threats. When the empire was overthrown and the Legion turned on the newly formed Federacy the Vargus held them off long enough for a proper defense of the former empire's core territories to be organized. Since then they have been employed as mercenaries by the Federacy and are frequently deployed to areas of fierce fighting. Due to their history as a warrior caste they are one of the few groups who work well with the 86, due to their shared affinity for life on the battlefield.
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* AdaptedOut: The anime skips over the prologue of the first light novel, which shows one of Shin's previous units getting completely wiped out leaving Shin as the SoleSurvivor. Notably the unit's handler was actually upset about losing so many people, showing that Lena wasn't the first handler to grow attached to the 86. In contrast the anime shows a different engagement where Shin "breaks" a handler who had been purposely trying to get the 86 killed.
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* AdaptedOut: The anime skips over the prologue of the first light novel, which shows one of Shin's previous units getting completely wiped out leaving Shin as the SoleSurvivor. Notably Surprisingly the unit's Alba handler was actually upset about losing so many people, people and repeatedly apologizes for sending them to their deaths, showing that Lena wasn't the first handler to grow attached to the 86. In contrast the anime shows a different engagement where Shin "breaks" a different handler who had been purposely trying to get the 86 killed.
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* AdaptedOut: The anime skips over the prologue of the first light novel, which shows one of Shin's previous units getting completely wiped out leaving Shin as the SoleSurvivor. Notably the unit's handler was actually upset about losing so many people, showing that Lena wasn't the first handler to grow attached to the 86. In contrast the anime shows a different engagement where Shin "breaks" a handler who had been purposely trying to get the 86 killed.
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* BadassFamily: The Nouzen bloodline is notable for producing exceptional warriors who often served as personal bodyguards to the Giadian royal family.
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* RefugeInAudacity: The plan to take out the Morpho railgun involved three nations launching a massive combined arms offensive across hundreds of kilometers of front line. In reality this was all just a ploy to distract the Legion and prevent them from noticing the real strike force of 15 Reginleifs being airdropped behind enemy lines by an experimental ekranoplan
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* RealityEnsues: The main reason the Legion is winning the war is due to its ability to rapidly replace its losses. It doesn't need to train its troops and can deploy new units as soon as they roll out of the factory. In contrast it takes months to train human soldiers in order for them to be combat capable. As a result many of the victories won by human forces have been Pyrrhic in nature, as the Legion just replaced any losses they took in a matter of weeks. Meanwhile their opponents are left struggling to fill in gaps in their manpower. So despite the success of recent operations to retake territory by the Federacy, United Kingdom, and Alliance the outlook of the war looks grim as the Legion will likely win by attrition alone if something doesn't change.
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* DavidVsGoliath: Shin's fight with [[spoiler: Rei's]] Dinosauria is a textbook example of this, with his miniscule Juggernaut facing off against the heavily armored Legion monstrosity. An even more ridiculous matchup occurs [[spoiler: when he fights the Morpho, a thousand ton railway mounted railgun that needs several tracks just to support its massive weight]].
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* FantasyCounterpartCulture: San Magnolia is an unholy combination of World War II United States, the Confederate States, France, and Nazi Germany. Giad is Imperial Germany and later West/modern day Germany, Roa Gracia is an autocratic monarchical version of the UK mixed with Imperial Russia.
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* FantasyCounterpartCulture: San Magnolia is an unholy combination of World War II United States, the Confederate States, France, and Nazi Germany. Giad is Imperial Germany and later West/modern day Germany, Germany with the multi ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire thrown in for good measure. Roa Gracia is an autocratic monarchical version of the UK mixed with Imperial Russia.Russia. The Alliance of Wald is a mountainous country with a history of armed neutrality similar to Switzerland.
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* AdaptationExpansion: The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
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* AdaptationExpansion: The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she goes over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
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* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The whole "chain of command" of Eighty-sixers being extremely lax, generally who is considered as leader is decided through unarmed combat, or agreement by most parties present. Shiden tried and failed to usurp Shin's position in Volume 4 for field leader position (this is despite the fact that they're now under formal chain of command in Giadian military) and ends up being in FriendlyRivalry position instead.
* AuthorAppeal: The author really likes garter belts and the LatexSpaceSuit. The former was incorporated into Lena's uniform (and said that that description had to be cut out from the original story when she sent it to Dengeki Novel Prize), and Lena wears the latter in Volume 5.
* AuthorAppeal: The author really likes garter belts and the LatexSpaceSuit. The former was incorporated into Lena's uniform (and said that that description had to be cut out from the original story when she sent it to Dengeki Novel Prize), and Lena wears the latter in Volume 5.
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* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The whole "chain of command" of Eighty-sixers being extremely lax, generally who is considered as leader is decided through unarmed combat, or agreement by most parties present. Shiden tried and failed to usurp Shin's position in Volume 4 for field leader position (this is despite the fact that they're now under a formal chain of command in Giadian Giad's military) and ends up being in FriendlyRivalry a FriendlyRival position instead.
* AuthorAppeal: The author really likes garter belts and the LatexSpaceSuit. The former was incorporated into Lena's uniform (and said that that description had to be cut out from the original story when she sent it to Dengeki Novel Prize), and Lena wears the latter in Volume5.5 & again in Volume 8.
* AuthorAppeal: The author really likes garter belts and the LatexSpaceSuit. The former was incorporated into Lena's uniform (and said that that description had to be cut out from the original story when she sent it to Dengeki Novel Prize), and Lena wears the latter in Volume
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* CainAndAbel: Rei was so angered by his mother's death that he tried to strangle his brother Shin to death for it, blaming him for her death. He ends up regretting it immensely, however, and tried to find Shin again to apologize, which is cut short by his death and assimilation. Shin also tries to find the Legion unit housing his brother's memory and kill it to put his brother out of misery.
* ChangedMyMindKid: While it takes persuasion, Annette eventually changes from being apathetic to Eighty-sixers' plight ([[NeverBeHurtAgain due to not wanting to suffer]] [[SafetyInIndifference the pain of losing Shin due to prejudice again]]) to fully supporting Lena and help secretly boost Lena's Para-RAID's capabilities, and is one of the few people being involved in Lena's plan to continue fighting when San Magnolia falls.
* ChangedMyMindKid: While it takes persuasion, Annette eventually changes from being apathetic to Eighty-sixers' plight ([[NeverBeHurtAgain due to not wanting to suffer]] [[SafetyInIndifference the pain of losing Shin due to prejudice again]]) to fully supporting Lena and help secretly boost Lena's Para-RAID's capabilities, and is one of the few people being involved in Lena's plan to continue fighting when San Magnolia falls.
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* CainAndAbel: Rei was so angered by his mother's death that he tried to strangle his brother Shin to death for it, blaming him for her death. He ends up regretting it immensely, however, and tried to find Shin again to apologize, which is was cut short by his death and assimilation. Shin also tries to find the Legion unit housing his brother's memory and kill it to put his brother out of his misery.
* ChangedMyMindKid: While it takes persuasion, Annette eventually changes from being apathetic to Eighty-sixers' plight ([[NeverBeHurtAgain due to not wanting to suffer]] [[SafetyInIndifference the pain of losing Shin due to prejudice again]]) to fully supporting Lena and help secretly boost Lena's Para-RAID's capabilities, and is one of the few peoplebeing involved in Lena's plan to continue fighting when San Magnolia falls.
* ChangedMyMindKid: While it takes persuasion, Annette eventually changes from being apathetic to Eighty-sixers' plight ([[NeverBeHurtAgain due to not wanting to suffer]] [[SafetyInIndifference the pain of losing Shin due to prejudice again]]) to fully supporting Lena and help secretly boost Lena's Para-RAID's capabilities, and is one of the few people
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* ChildProdigy: Lena is such a good Handler she has the rank of Major. Annette is a tech genius who is in charge of the development of Para-RAID after her father dies. Shin is probably one of the best Juggernaut pilot of the whole Republic. All of them are only 16. Prince Viktor may or may not count, since while he developed AI model that would eventually be developed into the Legion at the age of ''5'', he also has SuperIntelligence from his bloodline.
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* ChildProdigy: Lena is such a good Handler she has the rank of Major. Annette is a tech genius who is in charge of the development of Para-RAID after her father dies. Shin is probably one of the best Juggernaut pilot of the whole Republic. All of them are only 16. Prince Viktor may or may not count, since while he developed the AI model that would eventually be developed into become the Legion at the age of ''5'', he also has SuperIntelligence from his bloodline.
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** The anime adds multiple original scenes showing Lena's growing attraction to Shin, such as in Episode 2 when she lightly blushes at Annette's questioning her about her frequent Para-RAID calls with him, and in Episode 5 when she witnesses a couple kissing on a staircase and begins imagining the man and woman as instead herself and Shin. This can also be considered a form of AdaptationalEarlyAppearance since in the light novels, there's not much hint of her being romantically inclined towards him until Volume 4 at the earliest.
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* SinisterSubway: The plot of volume 4 centers around the attempt to destroy an underground subway station that the Legion had converted into a factory. [[spoiler: Inside the Strike Package is horrified to discover that Legion has been mass producing Shepherds using captured civilians. The true horror comes when they find a chamber filled with thousands of rotting corpses that the Legion had callously disposed of after removing their brains.]]
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* HumanResources: As Shin grimly notes, the Legion compensates its missing materials by salvaging the corpses of Processors, including his brother Shourei. It gets even worse in volume 4 [[spoiler: as the fall of San Magnolia has allowed the Legion to start harvesting brains on an industrial scale using captured civilians. The first mission of the 86th Strike Passage has them destroy a facility where the Legion were carrying out these operations.]]
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* HumanResources: As Shin grimly notes, the Legion compensates its missing materials by salvaging the corpses of Processors, including his brother Shourei. It gets even worse in volume 4 [[spoiler: as the fall of San Magnolia has allowed the Legion to start harvesting brains on an industrial scale using captured civilians. The first mission of the 86th Strike Passage has them destroy a facility where the Legion were carrying out these operations. Said mission is easily the biggest source of NightmareFuel in the entire series and a horrifying example of what happens when humans are reduced to nothing more than "spare parts" by unfeeling machines.]]
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* HumanResources: As Shin grimly notes, the Legion compensates its missing materials by salvaging the corpses of Processors, including his brother Shourei.
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* HumanResources: As Shin grimly notes, the Legion compensates its missing materials by salvaging the corpses of Processors, including his brother Shourei. It gets even worse in volume 4 [[spoiler: as the fall of San Magnolia has allowed the Legion to start harvesting brains on an industrial scale using captured civilians. The first mission of the 86th Strike Passage has them destroy a facility where the Legion were carrying out these operations.]]
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!!''86 - EIGHTY-SIX'' provides examples of:
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!!''86 - EIGHTY-SIX'' provides examples of:
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Revised intro.
''86 EIGHTY-SIX'' is a MilitaryScienceFiction {{Light Novel|s}} series by Asato Asato, illustrated by Shirabii, and mech design by I-IV[[note]]''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' players might recognize the artist for drawing Charles Babbage, Orion, and Anne Bonnie and Mary Read, while ''[[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Xenoblade 2]]'' players might be more familiar with this person as the designer of the Rare Blade Boreas[[/note]] which began publishing in February 2017.
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''86 EIGHTY-SIX'' is a MilitaryScienceFiction {{Light Novel|s}} series by Asato Asato, illustrated by Shirabii, and mech design by I-IV[[note]]''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' players might recognize the artist for drawing Charles Babbage, Orion, and Anne Bonnie and Mary Read, while ''[[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Xenoblade 2]]'' players might be more familiar with this person as the designer of the Rare Blade Boreas[[/note]] which began publishing in February 2017. It follows the story of Major Vladilena "Lena" Milizé as she's given command of the veteran Eighty-Six Spearhead Squadron which, for some reason, [[HighTurnoverRate goes through handlers like crazy]], including some that committed suicide, and it is suspected the unit's leader, Captain Shinei "Shin" Nouzen, might have something to do with that. All the while Lena has to battle institutional racism and gaining acceptance with the squadron who, understandably, does not recognize her as one of their own even as she's trying to keep them alive.
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!!General Tropes
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* TheAlledgedCar: The Juggernaut was originally intended to be an unmanned drone, which is why it has almost no pilot survivability features due to it being converted into a manned vehicle on very short notice. With its paper thin armor and lackluster main armament its no wonder that the majority of pilots consider it be little more than a walking coffin.
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* TheAlledgedCar: TheAllegedCar: The Juggernaut was originally intended to be an unmanned drone, which is why it has almost no pilot survivability features due to it being converted into a manned vehicle on very short notice. With its paper thin armor and lackluster main armament its no wonder that the majority of pilots consider it be little more than a walking coffin.
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* TheAlledgedCar: The Juggernaut was originally intended to be an unmanned drone, which is why it has almost no pilot survivability features due to it being converted into a manned vehicle on very short notice. With its paper thin armor and lackluster main armament its no wonder that the majority of pilots consider it be little more than a walking coffin.
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* TheSoCalledCar: The Juggernaut was originally intended to be an unmanned drone, which is why it has almost no pilot survivability features due to it being converted into a manned vehicle on very short notice. With its paper thin armor and lackluster main armament its no wonder that the majority of pilots consider it be little more than a walking coffin.
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* TheSoCalledCar: The Juggernaut was originally intended to be an unmanned drone, which is why it has almost no pilot survivability features due to it being converted into a manned vehicle on very short notice. With its paper thin armor and lackluster main armament its no wonder that the majority of pilots consider it be little more than a walking coffin.
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* HellIsThatNoise: Black Sheep [[spoiler: are created using the brain scans of a recently deceased individual. As a result they are constantly replaying their last thoughts at the moment of their death. The insane ramblings of these cybernetic ghosts can be extremely unsettling for anyone unfortunate enough to hear them over the para-RAID.]]
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''86'' is a MilitaryScienceFiction {{Light Novel|s}} series by Asato Asato, illustrated by Shirabii, and mech design by I-IV[[note]]''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' players might recognize the artist for drawing Charles Babbage, Orion, and Anne Bonnie and Mary Read, while ''[[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Xenoblade 2]]'' players might be more familiar with this person as the designer of the Rare Blade Boreas[[/note]] which began publishing in February 2017. It follows the story of Major Vladilena "Lena" Milizé as she's given command of the veteran Eighty-Six Spearhead Squadron which, for some reason, [[HighTurnoverRate goes through handlers like crazy]], including some that committed suicide, and it is suspected the unit's leader, Captain Shinei "Shin" Nouzen, might have something to do with that. All the while Lena has to battle institutional racism and gaining acceptance with the squadron who, understandably, does not recognize her as one of their own even as she's trying to keep them alive.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eighty_six_vol_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:A War Without Casualties]]
The Republic of San Magnolia has long been under attack from the neighboring Giadian Empire's army of unmanned drones known as the Legion. After years of painstaking research, the Republic finally developed autonomous drones of their own, turning the one-sided struggle into a war without casualties-or at least, that's what the government claims. In truth, there is no such thing as a bloodless war. Beyond the fortified walls protecting the eighty-five Republic territories lies the "nonexistent" Eighty-Sixth Sector. The young men and women of this forsaken land are branded the Eighty-Six and, stripped of their humanity, pilot the "unmanned" weapons into battle...
''86'' is a MilitaryScienceFiction {{Light Novel|s}} series by Asato Asato, illustrated by Shirabii, and mech design by I-IV[[note]]''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' players might recognize the artist for drawing Charles Babbage, Orion, and Anne Bonnie and Mary Read, while ''[[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Xenoblade 2]]'' players might be more familiar with this person as the designer of the Rare Blade Boreas[[/note]] which began publishing in February 2017. It follows the story of Major Vladilena "Lena" Milizé as she's given command of the veteran Eighty-Six Spearhead Squadron which, for some reason, [[HighTurnoverRate goes through handlers like crazy]], including some that committed suicide, and it is suspected the unit's leader, Captain Shinei "Shin" Nouzen, might have something to do with that. All the while Lena has to battle institutional racism and gaining acceptance with the squadron who, understandably, does not recognize her as one of their own even as she's trying to keep them alive.
Nine volumes have been released in Japanese so far. The web novel side stories can be found [[https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054885551439 here]] (in Japanese). Creator/YenPress has licensed the series for English release beginning March 2019.
[[https://twitter.com/bunko_dengeki/status/1239149417237581825 A TV Anime Adaptation was confirmed]] for 2020, done by Creator/A1Pictures, directed by Toshimasa Ishii and with music by Kohta Yamamoto and Music/HiroyukiSawano. It was then delayed but eventually premiered in April 2021.
'''Warning: Unmarked spoilers for Volume 1 below''', due to many {{First Episode Twist}}s required to discuss any future volumes.
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!!General Tropes
* AdaptiveAbility: As the Spearhead Squadron has discovered, the Legion's drones are slowly improving in tactics and design, and unlike what analysts say, their production is not slowing down.
* AdaptationExpansion: The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
* AntiAir: The Legion doesn't seem to have their own air force other than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control solar-powered EWACS aircraft]] and jammer swarm, however their Stachelschwein Mobile AA is good enough that flying any kind of aircraft into their territory is basically suicidal, relegating aircraft to support and logistics role. Lena and her father were shot down when she was still a child after he took her on an observation trip.
* AKA47: The story takes quite a bit of cues from World War II, so some of the machines in the series are futuristic versions of World War II vehicles. The most notable is the Morpho, which is basically the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav Schwerer Gustav]] with the cannon being a [[MagneticWeapons railgun]] instead of a conventional gun. There are this trope's versions of more modern equipment as well, like the Nachzehrer being the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster Korabl Maket/Caspian Sea Monster]] fused with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya An-225 Mriya]]'s cargo capacity and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit B-2 Spirit]]'s stealth and flying wing design.
* AIIsACrapshoot: The Legion drones end up [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming growing beyond what the Empire anticipated]] (Although [[spoiler:that might be a deliberate choice by their head developer]]) by developing the ability to copy the last memories and thinking of their victims. On another level, once the Empire collapses due to internal rebellion and is replaced by the Federation of Giad, the Legion also begin targeting the Federation solely on the basis of being "not the Empire." This is played with, however, since the Legion's still technically following the Empire's orders.
* AnachronicOrder: Volume 2 has this a bit early on, where it jumps from the 2-year skip in Volume 1's epilogue to Lena getting demoted and commanding another Processor unit, to Shin doing his job as Federacy officer, and then back to right after they destroyed AI Rei's Dinosauria, where the story continues in normal order.
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The whole "chain of command" of Eighty-sixers being extremely lax, generally who is considered as leader is decided through unarmed combat, or agreement by most parties present. Shiden tried and failed to usurp Shin's position in Volume 4 for field leader position (this is despite the fact that they're now under formal chain of command in Giadian military) and ends up being in FriendlyRivalry position instead.
* AuthorAppeal: The author really likes garter belts and the LatexSpaceSuit. The former was incorporated into Lena's uniform (and said that that description had to be cut out from the original story when she sent it to Dengeki Novel Prize), and Lena wears the latter in Volume 5.
* BananaInTheTailpipe: Besides their AA, the Legion deals with enemy aircraft by clogging the planes' air intake and exhaust with their jammer swarm.
* BigDamnHeroes:
** In Volume 1, when the fight against Dinosauria and its escort goes badly, Lena suddenly came out of nowhere and dropped multiple artillery shells onto groups of Legion drones, giving them fighting chance. Then she saved Shin's life by hitting the Dinosauria with dud shells which gave Shin enough time to wake up and put it down. Turns out the reason that she didn't say goodbye to them earlier isn't because she's too sad or angry to, instead she's busy having Annette giving her some Para-RAID modifications to allow sight-sharing and access code to interception cannons.
** In Volume 3, [[spoiler:Lena pulls this again when her unit, being unidentified to Shin at the time, unleashed large number of mortars at the Morpho that AI Kiriya's using, immobilizing it, destroyed its explosive reactive armor panels, and gives Shin another chance to beat it. She then follows up with napalm missiles that disable Morpho's close combat electrified whip and destroyed its legs and railroad tracks, then when it's trying to do a suicide attack, Frederica distracted it long enough for Shin to put in a final shot.]]
* BrainUploading:
** Legion's neural pattern assimilation is basically a hostile version of this trope, with Black Sheeps being assimilated from damaged neural pattern, Shepherds from completely intact brain that woud retain human mind and personality, [[spoiler:and Sheepdogs which are basically improved Black Sheeps/Shepherds without human mind after Legion got access to large number of intact brains from San Magnolia invasion to experiment on]].
** At the end of Volume 4, [[spoiler:it's speculated the the head developer of Legion, Zelene Birkenbaum, might have uploaded her brain into one of Legion's Ameise unit (being the only unit developed prior to her "death"), given that Giad government NeverFoundTheBody.]]
** [[spoiler:Roa Garcia has their own version with Sirins, human neural patterns being scanned, memory-wiped, and uploaded into female-shaped robots to serve as shock troops, though unlike Legion they're done with consent from patients: They scan only volunteers, specifically those with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage_tag black triage tag]]. They won't even scan volunteers if said volunteers have any chance of survival. Even then, Shin notes that their souls are like those assimilated by the Legion: volunteered or not, in the end they all begged to move on]].
* BrokenBird: Shin is a male version of this. All the events that happened in his life, from being a ChildSoldiers to nearly getting killed by his brother turned him into an extreme cynic who couldn't see humanity as anything beyond their lowest point and could not care about anything beyond immediate survival and his close comrades. He can't understand how can Lena even managed to hold onto any shred of idealism even though she had to be in the horrific battlefield condition like him.
* ButtMonkey: Quite a number of humor in the side stories are at Lena's expense, which isn't helped by her ShelteredAristocrat upbringing.
* CainAndAbel: Rei was so angered by his mother's death that he tried to strangle his brother Shin to death for it, blaming him for her death. He ends up regretting it immensely, however, and tried to find Shin again to apologize, which is cut short by his death and assimilation. Shin also tries to find the Legion unit housing his brother's memory and kill it to put his brother out of misery.
* ChangedMyMindKid: While it takes persuasion, Annette eventually changes from being apathetic to Eighty-sixers' plight ([[NeverBeHurtAgain due to not wanting to suffer]] [[SafetyInIndifference the pain of losing Shin due to prejudice again]]) to fully supporting Lena and help secretly boost Lena's Para-RAID's capabilities, and is one of the few people being involved in Lena's plan to continue fighting when San Magnolia falls.
* ChildhoodFriend: Annette and Shin turns out to be this, which Lena eventually uses as a leverage to get Annette to help her save Shin and the Spearhead Squadron from their suicide mission.
* ChildProdigy: Lena is such a good Handler she has the rank of Major. Annette is a tech genius who is in charge of the development of Para-RAID after her father dies. Shin is probably one of the best Juggernaut pilot of the whole Republic. All of them are only 16. Prince Viktor may or may not count, since while he developed AI model that would eventually be developed into the Legion at the age of ''5'', he also has SuperIntelligence from his bloodline.
* ChildSoldiers:
** A lot of Processors are this due to staggering casualty rates suffered by adults. Shin himself starts being a soldier at 11. It also shows how much it can affect the psyche of the soldiers, since the Spearhead Squadron, even after they managed to escape to Giad and finally able to leave the battlefield behind, chooses to return to the battlefield because they simply cannot adjust to the civilian life due to the fact that they have been soldiers for a large part of their lives and have no idea what to do after.
** By volume 4, Frederica went from a noncombatant mascot to a assistant control aide to Lena. While she won't be in the battlefield directly, she's now officially in the chain of command. She's ''10''.
* CodeName: Processors aren't allowed to have names, but they eventually receive Code Names if they survive long enough. Shin's is Undertaker, Anju is Snow Witch, Raiden is Werewolf and so on.
* CrapsackWorld: From the very beginning it's obvious things are horrible for everyone, especially the Eighty-Six, who are dehumanized and forced to fight a losing war against a mechanized horde that seemingly never ends, while the Republic of San Magnolia acts as if things aren't horrible when in fact they live in a GildedCage with no way out. The situation in other nations isn't much better either.
* ColonelBadass: Lieutenant Colonel Grethe Wenzel is the head developer of the Reginleif, and is one of the few remaining aircraft pilots left in active service in the Federation, which she proves by being the one skilled/crazy enough to pilot the Nachzehrer into Legion airspace.
* CondescendingCompassion: PlayedWith: while several characters outside of San Magnolia does display this towards the Eighty-sixers, the others do display more normal compassion that we know of. The problem is that this is filtered through incredibly damaged worldview and psyche that Eighty-sixers had to adapt as survival mechanism, which ends up with most form of compassion being viewed by them as this.
* ContrivedCoincidence: How likely was that Lena would end up handling the Squadron led by the younger brother of the man who saved her and her father when they crashed in the warzone nine years prior? And that said brother was a childhood friend of her friend?
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: All pureblood Albans have silver eyes and hairs. Lena herself eventually subverts this at the end of Volume 1 when she starts partially dyeing her hair red which is then played straight after Shin told her to revert to her natural color. Anju, who has distant Alban ancestry, has silvery-blue hair and eye.
* DefectorFromDecadence: The remaining Spearhead Squadron managed to survive the "Special Reconnaissance mission" and joined up with the Federated Republic of Giad. Lena and the other surviving Processors joined later, after the Republic was destroyed and her remaining forces were rescued by the Federacy.
* {{Dehumanization}}: As explained by Lena's epigraph, San Magnolian government did this to non-Albans (or even part-Albans) by reducing them to pigs wearing human skins, thus cannot be subjected to human rights. And since they're not considered to be human, Juggernauts piloted by them aren't considered manned. [[spoiler:Roa Garcia's Sirins are more literal version of this, since they're brain-uploaded robots, they literally aren't humans anymore despite being one before. They're also used for the same reason as Eighty-sixers.]]
* DemocracyIsFlawed: One one hand, San Magnolia betrayed its very principle when it stripped non-Albans of their citizenship, and most Albans went with it. On the other hand, Giad is slowly trying to implement a stable democracy in place of its old monarchy/oligarchy.
* DesecratingTheDead: The reason why Prince Viktor is disinherited from the succession line is that [[spoiler:at the age of 5, he removed his mother's brain from her cryonically preserved corpse in an attempt to upload it into a machine and resurrect her. While that failed, his attempt ends up creating the Marinana Model AI that would later be developed by Giadian scientists into the Legion.]]
* DeterminedDefeatist: The Eighty-sixes knew that the Republic would never give them back citizenship. They still fight because if they're going to die, it's going to be on their terms.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Presidential Order that stripped Colorata-descended people of their citizenship is numbered 6609. Reverse the number order, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066 and we get]]...yes, this is basically the parallel to the US setting up internment camp for Japanese-, German-, and Italian-Americans. [[note]]However, arming them and sending them into combat without truly wanting to give them back their citizenship is closer to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans_in_the_American_Civil_War#Proposals_to_arm_slaves Confederate's decision]] not long before the Civil War ends (the parallel to the CSA includes cases of Colorata trafficking that's akin to slave trade), and the aspect of hating the people so much to see them die off completely is much closer to Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews and the other undesirables[[/note]]
* DontLookAtMe: [[spoiler:Shin and Lena's meeting after the destruction of Morpho has both sides not knowing each other's identity. Even when Lena blurt out her name, Shin still refuses to give his name, because learning Lena's hardships and sacrifices she suffers in order to meet him again, he doesn't want her to see him in another battlefield, but rather somewhere better. Frederica happily states that Shin finally found a reason to live.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: Annette's father committed suicide due to the guilt of human experimentation needed to be done in order to make Para-RAID works by setting Para-RAID synchronization to maximum.
* DwindlingParty: By the end of the first volume only five members of the Spearhead Squadron manage to escape San Magnolia and the Legion; Shin, Raiden, Kurena, Anju and Theo.
* EnemyMine: Despite fears by the higher ups, surprisingly large number of Eighty-six units chose to fight with the Republic when the Gran Mur fell and Lena asking for their assistance, reasoning that having access to surviving infrastructures like power plants, food processing factories and such increase their odds of survival. The rest chose to hold up in the internment camps that they lived in.
* EvilCounterpart: Not evil, but [[spoiler:Sirins are basically Eighty-sixers if they really are ''not'' humans. Both are used by their respective nations as disposable shock troops, but while Eighty-sixers are humans being denied human rights, Sirins are former humans being brain-uploaded into android bodies. Narrative-wise, they are there to show the Eighty-sixers what their mentality and actions look like from the outside.]]
* ExperiencedProtagonist: Spearhead Squadron already has 4 years of experience on the battlefield by the time the story starts, with Shin being the most experienced at 5 years. Lena herself, while a NaiveNewcomer compared to them, is not a total newbie either since she's already commanded a different squad of 86 prior to being assigned to Spearhead.
* FantasticRacism: A large part of human-human conflict in the first Volume is due to this: as San Magnolia needs a way to quickly fill back the ranks of soldiers lost after initial battles against Giad and the Legion, they start demonizing the non- and non-pure Albans, reducing them to pigs in human skins, stripped them of any citizenship, and used them as BattleThralls against the Legion while the newly-trained officer corps controlled them from the First Sector. After the first volume there's still exploration of aftereffects of San Magnolian racism, how it shaped the Eighty-sixers' [[BlueAndOrangeMorality mentality]], and how that affects Eighty-sixers' relation with other nations. In Federacy service, Shin and his group still are subjected to some racism from some Giadian soldiers who viewed Eighty-sixers as monsters forged from hell that is San Magnolia, given how much military skill they're displaying and how willing they are in heading back into the battlefield even after they could have settled down in peace.
* FantasticSlurs: Alba call the Eighty-Six pigs or cattle, and the Colorata in return refer to Alba as "white pigs."
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: San Magnolia is an unholy combination of World War II United States, the Confederate States, France, and Nazi Germany. Giad is Imperial Germany and later West/modern day Germany, Roa Gracia is an autocratic monarchical version of the UK mixed with Imperial Russia.
* FirstEpisodeTwist: It's practically impossible to discuss anything from Volume 2 onward without knowing the massive number of spoilers within the first volume, namely Shin's ability to [[ISeeDeadPeople hear dead people]] assimilated by the Legion, Empire of Giad falling to revolution and changed the government structure to a Republic, thus turning the war into a full-on RobotWar, the Legion's assimilating human nervous system and got past its own time limit, Legion has full-on assimilated human personalities inside Shepherd units, San Magnolian government never planned to give any Eighty-sixers back their citizenship, San Magnolia's eventual destruction, and the remaining Spearhead Squadron's survival and subsequent reunion with Lena as Federacy officers. These twists do fit well into the first volume if it's a standalone novel, which it was originally: it was written for a competition, namely Dengeki Novel Prize, and the rule is that the story must be self-contained. The author expands it into a series when the first volume sold very well.
* FragileSpeedster:
** The [=M1A4=] Juggernaut is this, being weakly armed and poorly armored but has high agility partly due to its grapple system.
** The Federacy XM-2 Reginleif, being reversed engineered from [=M1A4=] (due to their difficulty creating their own high mobility units), retains the mobility but was given substantially better weapons and proper biological and chemical protection. Most Federacy pilots hated them, due to being more used to MightyGlacier units. Not to mention that it was created from Shin's combat data, and given the extreme moves he pulled with his old Juggernaut that result in some serious damage to the mech itself, the prototype Reginleifs ends up injuring several test pilots.
** Roa Garcia has Alkonost, which is even faster than Reginleif since it has even less armor and they're constructed without caring about pilot's survival, [[spoiler:since they're supposed to be piloted by Sirins, who have robotic bodies and are created via BrainUploading, thus are replaceable]].
* TheGrimReaper: One of Shin's job is this: he helps MercyKill dying teammates and carry on their memories.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Lena readily accepts her nickname of "The Bloodstained Queen" and "Bloody Reina" because she feels she earns it for throwing away lives of the people under her command, because whatever she do she can never save them. This is despite the fact that her unit suffers ''one of the the lowest casualty rate'' of all units in the Republic.
* HighSchoolAU: ''School IF'' is basically this, being lighthearted short stories setting the cast in a Japanese high school. There's also ''Operation Highschool'', which is a manga adaptation of ''School IF''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Republic, not wanting to admit to the world that the Juggernauts are manned, forbid any kind of body retrieval or burial/cremation of dead Processors. This leads to Legion having ample amount of bodies to harvest for human neural patterns, prolonging the war that they will lose instead of their hope that the Legion will shut down in 2 years.
* HonoraryPrincess: Lena's reputation as "The Bloodstained Queen" ends up with her new subordinate Shiden always referring to her as "Your Majesty" when talking to her. She's also referred to with this a few times before she got her moniker, but it's used to mock her for her naivety.
* HopelessWar: The Legion are able to continue operating beyond their 50,000 hour system lifespan by [[BrainUploading scanning and copying the brain activity]] of any human corpses that have their heads intact on the battlefield, and can continue to operate by copying these basic personalities across their units (the advanced ones have much bigger limitation, see OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow). This essentially means the Legion is a self-sustaining, infinite army, at least on the software side. The only way to defeat them would be to destroy the hardware side, i.e. taking out the automated factories that continuously build these machines. But that is impossible for the San Magnolia Republic as they are too weakened to strike inside enemy lines.
* HopeSpot: The Republic's scientists have discovered by studying Legion wreckage that they are bound by a 50,000 hour system lifespan (roughly 6 years) that will deactivate if they stop receiving updates from HQ. Since the Empire of Giad mysteriously collapsed 4 years ago, this means the Republic only needs to hold out for 2 more years and [[KeystoneArmy all of the Legion will deactivate at once]] once that threshold is passed. Spearhead Squadron unfortunately knows that the Legion have developed a way to get around this limitation and continue operating indefinitely.
* HumanResources: As Shin grimly notes, the Legion compensates its missing materials by salvaging the corpses of Processors, including his brother Shourei.
* IdiotHair: Lena has two. This is probably to highlight her ShelteredAristocrat upbringing.
* InappropriatelyCloseComrades: [[spoiler:By volume 5, Lena and Shin starts becoming romantically involved, though it doesn't become truly obvious until volume 6, with Lena kissing Shin in Volume 7. Anju also had feelings for Daiya before the latter's death, and Dustin is in turn in love with her]].
* {{Interquel}}: Volume 2 and 3 serves as this, expanding on the 2 year gap mentioned in Epilogue 1 of Volume 1 (mostly from Shin's perspective, since Epilogue 1 is from Lena's perspective) and how Lena and Shin meets again as Federacy officers in Epilogue 2. This is due to the first volume originally being written as a self-contained story for a Light Novel contest, thus it has to be expanded when it was serialized in order to show how Spearhead Squadron survived and reunited with Lena.
* ISeeDeadPeople: Due to nearly being strangled to death by his brother Shin can hear the memories of the dead that are stuck in machines, both on Legion units and [[spoiler:Sirin units]]. His former handlers either resigned or killed themselves when they hear those voices via Shin's Resonance. It's also useful since he can use this scout Legion drones' locations much better than with radar, especially given how good the Legion's signal jamming is. [[MundaneUtility Which means his unit doesn't need to go on patrol and can have extra free time.]]
* ItCanThink: The Legion isn't able to do this at first, since their limited intelligence means that more than a few times Empire troops have to be deployed to cover their weakness, but after they start assimilating human neural patterns, the Legion gets a lot more intelligent, even start changing directive from just killing everything to start capturing some humans alive in order to copy their intact neural pattern instead of a degraded one. This gets to the point where [[spoiler:the Legion, specifically AI Kiriya, managed to draw Shin's group into an ambush by exploiting his ability's weakness]] [[spoiler:The Legion's discovery on how to destroy a brain's individuality but keeping their cognitive function by destroying the hippocampus makes things even worse, since now even lower level units have near human-level intelligence.]]
* IRejectYourReality: The ''entire'' nation of San Magnolia delude themselves into believing things aren't as bleak as they seem, that the Colorata are nothing but animals and the war will be over very soon. In fact, by the time the story starts, the civilians are even calling for demobilization. When the bubble inevitably bursts, the only forces that make a meaningful defense are Lena's forces. Even after they have to get help from the Giadians and the Eighty-sixers to take their homeland back they're still deluding themselves that they can still build a pure Alban nation, and continue the racism.
* KillAllHumans: [[spoiler:Kiriya is this, due to being driven mad being deployed into combat constantly during the Giadian Civil War making him develop a big case of misanthropy, then he gets assimilated and being put in command of a [[MagneticWeapons Morpho]]. The only thing that can override this is him wanting to reunite with his princess, Frederica, again, which Frederica happily exploits in order to stop AI Kiriya from pulling a suicide attack long enough for Shin to kill him.]]
* TheLastDJ: Lena is one of the few Albans left that still treat the battle against the Legion seriously and treats the Eighty-sixes as humans instead of subhumans. In fact, her treatment of the Spearhead Squadron (including sending them fireworks illegally) and unauthorized use of interception cannons ends up getting her demoted from a Major to a Lieutenant after Volume 1 (she got promoted again after the wall falls).
* LatexSpaceSuit: Introduced in Volume 5, Cicada Thought-Support Device is a suit that helps lighten the strain that Para-RAID makes on the user's brain, and it takes the shape of this trope. Lena was forced to wear it in order to command large number of soldiers at once, and after she emerges from changing into it everyone in the room has to look away from her due to the sheer sex appeal she's oozing (and that Shin would have their head otherwise, since everyone in the room knew that Shin seems to start having feelings for Lena). Even its creator Prince Viktor apologizes on how much the suit is making Lena look since its other nominal user Lerche isn't as well-endowed as Lena.
* LethalChef: The rest of Speahead Squadron doesn't allow Shin to be the cook since his cooking tends to be extremely rough. He's good at prepping ingredients, however.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: Kurena is in love with Shin, however by Volume 2 the rest of the squadron told her that Shin's feeling for her is this trope, so her love is unrequited .
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Chapter 2 of Volume 1 is named "All Quiet on the Skeleton Front". Fitting, considering that ''86'' draws a lot from ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' on the theme of how war causing soldiers to become detached from civilian life.
* {{Mascot}}: Empire (later Federal Republic) of Giad always have a young girl (up to 12 years old, then they are pull out of the role and put into military school) serving as a unit's mascot attached to them, as a way to keep units in cohesion and hold the combat unit hostage, since if they broke and die, the mascot dies with them, because the mascot cannot retreat. Frederica eventually becomes one in Volume 2, being attached to Shin's unit.
* MeaningfulName: In American English, to "eighty-six" something is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_(term) a euphemism]] for "to dispose of" which is exactly what the Republic intends for the denizens of District Eighty-Six. The author confirmed in Volume 2 afterwords that this is a deliberate choice.
* MildlyMilitary: The Eighty-six units tends to be pretty lax in terms of military discipline when not in battle, since the Handlers generally don't care about them enough to worry about that, and they don't come into the field for direct inspection. Spearhead Squadron has some trouble adjusting to the fact that Lena takes her job very seriously, and later have the same trouble adjusting to more disciplined Giadian military.
* MomentKiller: In Volume 5, after Dustin and Anju had to take shelter from avalanche created by Legion's trap, Dustin starts confessing that he loves her (and try to console Anju after she says that she thinks her lingering feelings for Daiya means she won't be able to love anyone again) gets interrupted when Shin finally found them. Worse, Shin picked up their communications from when Dustin says he wants to see Anju in bikini ''and'' transmitting that to the rest of the rescue team, causing extreme level of embarrassment for both of them.
* {{Nanomachines}}: The Legion's CPU used this to simulate mammal's central nervous system. Later the Black Sheeps, [[spoiler:Sheepdogs]], and Shepherds get human's central nervous system. Some Legion drones can use them to create arms to manipulate objects or even block some projectiles.
* NonIdleRich: Lena comes from a wealthy noble family, but rather than hiding behind the walls and pretending everything is alright, she joined the military academy and did her best to ensure the Eighty-Six remain alive as long as possible.
* NonindicativeName: San Magnolian Juggernauts are lightly-armed, lightly-armoured FragileSpeedster rustbuckets. The impressive, intimidating name is emblematic of the country's immersion in propaganda and detachment from reality.
* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: {{Averted|Trope}} and {{Invoked|Trope}}: there are plenty of documents and such regarding Legion's design and construction by the Empire, however they seem to mostly been destroyed during the Giadian revolution, and only limited documentations are recovered by the new government. The attempt to reverse engineer the Legion by the Federacy wasn't too successful either, only managed to make unmanned scout units (which is the only type of AI the population tolerates), due to the combination of the original creators died before the war, higher education being restricted mainly to the aristocratic class and the post-revolution world being dominated by middle class, with a lot of the educated elites dead during the revolution, and that the population is against using armed combat drones due to the Legion.
* OnceMoreWithClarity: Lena's epigraph at the beginning of Volume 1 make it seems like she's endorsing San Magnolia's racism. The end of Volume 1 shows that epigraph again, but expanded with her real thoughts on the initial epigraph itself: that that embracement of racism is the start of the end of the Republic.
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: In Volume 1, Shin and AI Rei toward each other. Sensing their conflict is about to begin, the two of them order their respective units to stand down. Rei even blows away one of his own subordinates who dares interfere in the battle.
* OnlyElectricSheepAreCheap: During the war, most of the food in the Republic, both inside and outside the wall, are synthetic food. Giad averts this due to them still controlling large amounts of farmland.
* OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow: Shepherds, who have full human personalities, seems to be unable to withstand having more than one of it being in existence, unlike Black Sheeps which, since they don't have personalities, can exist in multiple. This becomes a problem for the Legion if a Shepherd is getting destroyed, since they can't have backups, they don't seem to transfer the personalities until it's way under emergency, and trying to transfer full consciousness in that condition and in short amount of time is impossible. Thus, even if the personality is transferred over, it's heavily damaged.
* OutOfFocus: Lena is mostly out of focus in Volume 2 and 3, only appearing in the prologue and epilogue of Volume 2, though she plays a crucial role in Volume 3's climax.
* PeopleOfHairColor: This is how the Alba separated themselves from the Colorata. Alba are easily identified by their silver hair and eyes.
* PortentOfDoom: [[https://twitter.com/NomiMatsu/status/1385996740504047616?s=20 Used symbolically in the anime]]. Kujou and Kaie, the first two members of the Spearhead Squadron to die in the story, were shown interacting with objects associated with ill omens (a black cat and a card with the Grim Reaper, respectively) moments before they bite the dust.
* RoyalBrat: [[spoiler:Frederica shows a shade of this with her haughty yet oddly mature attitude, even after she and the Giadian royal family's dethroned. She does show a lot of care for her adoptive family despite her behavior, however, even acting as Shin's sort-of therapist.]]
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething
** Prince Viktor Idinarohk serves as commander of Roa Garcia's southern front, head developer of several of the nations' technological projects, and on occasion even pilots his own Barushka Matushka unit into the field.
** [[spoiler:Frederica Rosenfolt, or rather Augusta Frederica Adel-Adler, despite her age joined Shin's unit as mascot, and after that she becomes Lena's aide who used her seer ability to help monitor troops in the field.]]
* RedBaron:
** Shin's nickname among the Processors and Handlers of the Eastern Front, the Reaper, is both feared and revered because of his ability to hear the voices of the dead. This ability had been used in the past to force Handlers who had tried to toy with Processors to retire by linking the Para-RAID at a higher Resonance level, thus allowing the Handler to also hear the horrifying screams of the Legion Black Sheep. Among Processors, the Reaper is rumored to use his squadron to prolong his own life; however, those who worked with the Reaper respect his compassion to the fallen and his use of his ability to create a better life for his fellow Processors.
** By the first volume's end, Lena is most widely known across the continent as "The Bloodstained Queen" and "Bloody Reina" due to the fact that she will not hesitate to sacrifice her squad to achieve her objectives. And yet in spite of the name, her squad still has much lower casualty counts compared to the rest of the military, leading to them being called the "Queen's Knights." This is due to the fact that Lena is ''actually trying'' to accomplish offensive missions against the Legion instead of the rest of the military that simply uses 86's as stationary cannon fodder on a shrinking and hopeless defense line. Shin and his squad members all think that it doesn't fit her at all.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:AI Rei, as the Dinosauria, after realizing that he nearly killed his brother ''again'' due to wanting to liberating him from his human shell, and nearly got destroyed by Shin in return, managed to barely hold his memory together and used the backup Dinosauria he was transfer to to save Shin when the latter was nearly captured by a Lowe when Shin tried to serve as a decoy for the rest of his unit to escape. In their shared dream, Rei finally manages to apologize to Shin and wishes him a better future, and carry the five to the Federacy border before the Federacy destroyed the Dinosauria, killing Rei permanently.]]
* RagsToRoyalty: {{Inverted|Trope}} and {{Downplayed|Trope}}: [[spoiler:Frederica was the last Empress of Giad before the government was toppled. Now she's attached to Shin's combat unit as a mascot. However, she is now the adoptive daughter of the Interim President, who's trying to protect her from witchhunt, and her job as the mascot is with his consent.]]
* RichesToRags: A number of wealthy Colorata families are hit by this when Presidential Order 6609 hits, including Shin's family, especially given that his father was one of Para-RAID's co-creators, and that [[spoiler:his Nouzen family is a split branch of the Giadian Royal Guard Nouzen family that emigrated to San Magnolia]]. Averted in the Federacy, where the new government elect to keep the aristocrats who are controlling important industries in place because trying anything otherwise would be extremely bad for the economy for a country still fighting a RobotWar. Those that aren't important are pretty much demoted, however, which proves to be a problem for them to adapt to, especially since they're loathed by the now-huge middle class.
* RobotWar: The war has become one of these as of the end of the first volume. With both the Empire of Giad and the Republic of San Magnolia fallen, the Empire's successor nation the Federation of Giad is left to absorb the remnants of San Magnolia and continue the fight against the Legion drone army, which is now running rampant across the continent following its programming to fight for a country that no longer exists.
* SafetyInIndifference:
** A lot of San Magnolian Albans who aren't into racism are mostly this, due to fear of being ostracized by their peers. Annette acts like this due to losing Shin when they're children, until Lena convinced her otherwise.
** Eighty-sixers also did something similar: they throw off everything that would allow them to feel pain in order to survive the discrimination and the war they're thrown into. Even when they're free from the Eighty-sixth sector, they [[EpiphanicPrison still are not truly free]] due to this.
* ScienceFantasy: Individuals from certain bloodlines possess seemingly supernatural abilities at odds with the otherwise hard science fiction setting.
* {{Seers}}: [[spoiler:Frederica]] has the ability to see into the past and the present of a person, as long as she knows their name. This even works on humans assimilated by the Legion.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: While the San Magnolia and Giad use the same language, there are some differences when it comes to vocabulary, particular in military terminology, which results in [[spoiler:Lena brushing off Shin calling her Major when she refers to herself as Captain near the end of Volume 3 when the two initially don't realize each other's identity, merely thinking that Shin called her Major due to this trope and not the fact that he knew her identity and rank when she was in command of Spearhead Squadron]].
* ShelteredAristocrat: Lena is quite sheltered. The short story in special edition of Volume 1 shows she doesn't even know what sewing is, and assumes that buttons are naturally stuck on clothes. Another short story has being so unfamiliar with bicycle she falls off one ''with training wheels''. Less humorously, she's very slow on the uptake that Eighty-sixers will never get their citizenship back, never realizing that she never sees a Colorata within the 85 sectors after the war starts, even though some of them should have survived long enough to finish their 5 year service. Not to mention that her upbringing means that Lena, despite trying her best, still displays some subconscious form of prejudices, with the big one being that she doesn't even ask for the names of people in Shin's unit until half a year later.
* ShoutOut:
** The story arc title of Volumes 2 & 3, ''Run Through the Battlefront'', is a reference to the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbI0cMyyw_M "Run Through the Jungle"]] by Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival. This very song is listed as the background music to Volume 2's Afterword.
** Volume 4's title ''Under Pressure'' refers to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a01QQZyl-_I the classic song]] by Music/{{Queen}}.
** Volume 5's title ''Death Be Not Proud'' is the first line of Creator/JohnDonne's ''Holy Sonnet X.''
** Volume 6's Japanese title ''Akeneba Koso Yoru wa Nagaku (明けねばこそ夜は永く)'' roughly translates to "The Rising Sun Does Not Rise for the Eternal Night." According to the [[https://twitter.com/TheZackZeal/status/1317159307159490562 official English translator]], this is likely a reference to Act IV of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', "the night is long that never finds the day."
** Volume 8's title ''Gun Smoke On the Water'' references the legendary song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGyZh0VbPQ "Smoke on the Water"]] by Music/DeepPurple.
* SoWhatDoWeDoNow: The Spearhead Squadron as a whole has this after their survival of the suicide mission: they hadn't planned to actually survive the ordeal. Shin has a especially bad case seeing that he only really plans to die after killing his brother. After Shin successfully did that at the end of Volume 1 ([[spoiler:or rather, he finally gets to chat with his brother in early Volume 2...it's complicated]]), he is at a complete and total loss on what to do after. At points he becomes full-on DeathSeeker. It takes Volume 2 and 3 before he finally found his answer.
* SpiderTank: Both Legion drones and Juggernauts look like this instead of typical humanoid mecha.
* SuicideMission: Since the Republic never planned to give the Eighty-sixers back their citizenship, any Processors that somehow managed to survive to the end of the service will be sent on a SuicideMission to kill them off. Shin and the rest of Spearhead Squadron only survived due to the intervention by Lena [[spoiler:and later AI Rei]]. As noted by a character, this makes the whole war situation ''even worse'' by basically handing highly skilled soldiers to the Legion.
* SuperIntelligence: Roa Garcia royalty's bloodline tend to produce people with this trope. Prince Viktor Idinarohk developed precursor model to AI [[spoiler:using his deceased mother's brain]] that would be eventually developed into Legion AI at the age of ''5''.
* SupernaturalElite: Some nobles' bloodlines tend to develop some supernatural abilities. For example: Pyropes (Shin included) tends to develop telepathic abilities, Giadian royalty develops seer abilities, while Roa Garcia royalty develops SuperIntelligence.
* {{Telepathy}}:
** Para-RAID allows those connected together to communicate via what's essentially artificial telepathy by tapping into the human collective unconscious. Depending on synchronization level, the amount of info that can be shared can range from just simple voices to sharing images from each other's eyeballs. Turning the synchronization level to maximum is [[TooMuchForManToHandle ill-advised]]. It also has limitations that it require recipients to be conscious in order to establish connection, so if the recipient is sleeping or fell unconscious, you cannot yet at them to try wake them up. Since it's unjammable, and the prevalence of Legion's signal jamming, it's one of the only technological edge the Republic has.
** Volume 3 says that natural version of this tend to develop in those with Pyrope bloodline, and they tend to be hired by the military for reconnaissance or interrogation work. Shin's ability is a specialized version of this.
* StopOrIShootMyself: [[spoiler:In order to stop AI Kiriya from pulling a suicide attack on Shin, Frederica willingly exposes herself, then points a gun at her own head, trusting that AI Kiriya would want her to be alive and stop the attack[[note]]This is probably an unnecessary gesture given that she's already in Kiriya's suicide attack killzone, but she wants to get his attention[[/note]]. It works.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: Fido is an AI created by Shin's father and is absolutely loyal to Shin, even wandering the battlefield by itself trying to search for Shin after he and his family is taken away due to Presidential Order 6609 being passed. After the scavenger unit it's housed in is destroyed and the AI core is recovered and reactivated by Giadian engineers, Fido won't respond to external stimuli until Shin's name is mentioned.
* UriahGambit: [[spoiler: When veteran 86 reach the end of their five year service career they are sent on a "long range scouting mission" deep behind enemy lines. In reality this a suicide mission they are not expected to return from. The Republic does this in order to hide the fact that they never intended to restore the citizenship of the 86 in return for their service. It also prevents these veteran 86 from becoming a symbol of hope and possible rebellion for the rest of the 86.]]
* {{Vibroweapon}}: Juggernaut (and later Reginleif) pilots can choose to equip themselves with high-frequency blades instead of machine guns for melee combat. Very few pilots take them due to how risky it is to use them. The Legion has them equipped on the Grauwolf.
* WeatherControlMachine: By Volume 5 (after [[spoiler:Legion's successful Sheepdog project]]), Legion is getting creative on how to prosecute the war. In that volume, it's using jammer swarm to deflect sunlight away from Roa Garcia, prolonging winter and straining the nation's already poor food production to breaking point. [[spoiler:And even that, it turns out, is a ploy to draw Roa Garcia's elite troops into counterattacking, so that Legion can draw them into a trap and annihilate them.]]
* WeightWoe: Dengeki Thanksgiving Festival 2018 short story has Lena hitting the gym, fearing that she enjoys too much Giad food and might start packing weight. Shin teases her by telling her not to overdo it or she won't get to eat [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel schnitzel]].
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Frederica, despite being only 10, due to her upbringing as [[spoiler:the future Empress, in combination of her powers as a seer]] allows her to be way more mature psychologically than her age is. In fact, she ends up as a sort-of therapist to Shin's group even if she has her own issues.
* YouDidntAsk: [[spoiler:Shiden realized that the pilot Lena's talking to near the end of Volume 3 is Shin due to her being able to see Shin's personal mark on the side of his mech. She chose not to mention this to Lena after realizing that Lena never saw the mark before.]]
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Albans have silver hair, Raiden has steel-green hair and Anju has silver-blue hair originating from a distant Alba ancestor.
[[caption-width-right:350:A War Without Casualties]]
The Republic of San Magnolia has long been under attack from the neighboring Giadian Empire's army of unmanned drones known as the Legion. After years of painstaking research, the Republic finally developed autonomous drones of their own, turning the one-sided struggle into a war without casualties-or at least, that's what the government claims. In truth, there is no such thing as a bloodless war. Beyond the fortified walls protecting the eighty-five Republic territories lies the "nonexistent" Eighty-Sixth Sector. The young men and women of this forsaken land are branded the Eighty-Six and, stripped of their humanity, pilot the "unmanned" weapons into battle...
''86'' is a MilitaryScienceFiction {{Light Novel|s}} series by Asato Asato, illustrated by Shirabii, and mech design by I-IV[[note]]''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' players might recognize the artist for drawing Charles Babbage, Orion, and Anne Bonnie and Mary Read, while ''[[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Xenoblade 2]]'' players might be more familiar with this person as the designer of the Rare Blade Boreas[[/note]] which began publishing in February 2017. It follows the story of Major Vladilena "Lena" Milizé as she's given command of the veteran Eighty-Six Spearhead Squadron which, for some reason, [[HighTurnoverRate goes through handlers like crazy]], including some that committed suicide, and it is suspected the unit's leader, Captain Shinei "Shin" Nouzen, might have something to do with that. All the while Lena has to battle institutional racism and gaining acceptance with the squadron who, understandably, does not recognize her as one of their own even as she's trying to keep them alive.
Nine volumes have been released in Japanese so far. The web novel side stories can be found [[https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054885551439 here]] (in Japanese). Creator/YenPress has licensed the series for English release beginning March 2019.
[[https://twitter.com/bunko_dengeki/status/1239149417237581825 A TV Anime Adaptation was confirmed]] for 2020, done by Creator/A1Pictures, directed by Toshimasa Ishii and with music by Kohta Yamamoto and Music/HiroyukiSawano. It was then delayed but eventually premiered in April 2021.
'''Warning: Unmarked spoilers for Volume 1 below''', due to many {{First Episode Twist}}s required to discuss any future volumes.
----
!!General Tropes
* AdaptiveAbility: As the Spearhead Squadron has discovered, the Legion's drones are slowly improving in tactics and design, and unlike what analysts say, their production is not slowing down.
* AdaptationExpansion: The second episode creates an anime-original scene where Lena tries to speak up about the maltreatment of the 86 to a class of new San Magnolian recruits as she over the truth of the wartime legislation that was used to discriminate against them. In the light novel, this information was originally given to the reader in the first chapter's narration as a long {{Infodump}}.
* AntiAir: The Legion doesn't seem to have their own air force other than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control solar-powered EWACS aircraft]] and jammer swarm, however their Stachelschwein Mobile AA is good enough that flying any kind of aircraft into their territory is basically suicidal, relegating aircraft to support and logistics role. Lena and her father were shot down when she was still a child after he took her on an observation trip.
* AKA47: The story takes quite a bit of cues from World War II, so some of the machines in the series are futuristic versions of World War II vehicles. The most notable is the Morpho, which is basically the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav Schwerer Gustav]] with the cannon being a [[MagneticWeapons railgun]] instead of a conventional gun. There are this trope's versions of more modern equipment as well, like the Nachzehrer being the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster Korabl Maket/Caspian Sea Monster]] fused with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya An-225 Mriya]]'s cargo capacity and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit B-2 Spirit]]'s stealth and flying wing design.
* AIIsACrapshoot: The Legion drones end up [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming growing beyond what the Empire anticipated]] (Although [[spoiler:that might be a deliberate choice by their head developer]]) by developing the ability to copy the last memories and thinking of their victims. On another level, once the Empire collapses due to internal rebellion and is replaced by the Federation of Giad, the Legion also begin targeting the Federation solely on the basis of being "not the Empire." This is played with, however, since the Legion's still technically following the Empire's orders.
* AnachronicOrder: Volume 2 has this a bit early on, where it jumps from the 2-year skip in Volume 1's epilogue to Lena getting demoted and commanding another Processor unit, to Shin doing his job as Federacy officer, and then back to right after they destroyed AI Rei's Dinosauria, where the story continues in normal order.
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The whole "chain of command" of Eighty-sixers being extremely lax, generally who is considered as leader is decided through unarmed combat, or agreement by most parties present. Shiden tried and failed to usurp Shin's position in Volume 4 for field leader position (this is despite the fact that they're now under formal chain of command in Giadian military) and ends up being in FriendlyRivalry position instead.
* AuthorAppeal: The author really likes garter belts and the LatexSpaceSuit. The former was incorporated into Lena's uniform (and said that that description had to be cut out from the original story when she sent it to Dengeki Novel Prize), and Lena wears the latter in Volume 5.
* BananaInTheTailpipe: Besides their AA, the Legion deals with enemy aircraft by clogging the planes' air intake and exhaust with their jammer swarm.
* BigDamnHeroes:
** In Volume 1, when the fight against Dinosauria and its escort goes badly, Lena suddenly came out of nowhere and dropped multiple artillery shells onto groups of Legion drones, giving them fighting chance. Then she saved Shin's life by hitting the Dinosauria with dud shells which gave Shin enough time to wake up and put it down. Turns out the reason that she didn't say goodbye to them earlier isn't because she's too sad or angry to, instead she's busy having Annette giving her some Para-RAID modifications to allow sight-sharing and access code to interception cannons.
** In Volume 3, [[spoiler:Lena pulls this again when her unit, being unidentified to Shin at the time, unleashed large number of mortars at the Morpho that AI Kiriya's using, immobilizing it, destroyed its explosive reactive armor panels, and gives Shin another chance to beat it. She then follows up with napalm missiles that disable Morpho's close combat electrified whip and destroyed its legs and railroad tracks, then when it's trying to do a suicide attack, Frederica distracted it long enough for Shin to put in a final shot.]]
* BrainUploading:
** Legion's neural pattern assimilation is basically a hostile version of this trope, with Black Sheeps being assimilated from damaged neural pattern, Shepherds from completely intact brain that woud retain human mind and personality, [[spoiler:and Sheepdogs which are basically improved Black Sheeps/Shepherds without human mind after Legion got access to large number of intact brains from San Magnolia invasion to experiment on]].
** At the end of Volume 4, [[spoiler:it's speculated the the head developer of Legion, Zelene Birkenbaum, might have uploaded her brain into one of Legion's Ameise unit (being the only unit developed prior to her "death"), given that Giad government NeverFoundTheBody.]]
** [[spoiler:Roa Garcia has their own version with Sirins, human neural patterns being scanned, memory-wiped, and uploaded into female-shaped robots to serve as shock troops, though unlike Legion they're done with consent from patients: They scan only volunteers, specifically those with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage_tag black triage tag]]. They won't even scan volunteers if said volunteers have any chance of survival. Even then, Shin notes that their souls are like those assimilated by the Legion: volunteered or not, in the end they all begged to move on]].
* BrokenBird: Shin is a male version of this. All the events that happened in his life, from being a ChildSoldiers to nearly getting killed by his brother turned him into an extreme cynic who couldn't see humanity as anything beyond their lowest point and could not care about anything beyond immediate survival and his close comrades. He can't understand how can Lena even managed to hold onto any shred of idealism even though she had to be in the horrific battlefield condition like him.
* ButtMonkey: Quite a number of humor in the side stories are at Lena's expense, which isn't helped by her ShelteredAristocrat upbringing.
* CainAndAbel: Rei was so angered by his mother's death that he tried to strangle his brother Shin to death for it, blaming him for her death. He ends up regretting it immensely, however, and tried to find Shin again to apologize, which is cut short by his death and assimilation. Shin also tries to find the Legion unit housing his brother's memory and kill it to put his brother out of misery.
* ChangedMyMindKid: While it takes persuasion, Annette eventually changes from being apathetic to Eighty-sixers' plight ([[NeverBeHurtAgain due to not wanting to suffer]] [[SafetyInIndifference the pain of losing Shin due to prejudice again]]) to fully supporting Lena and help secretly boost Lena's Para-RAID's capabilities, and is one of the few people being involved in Lena's plan to continue fighting when San Magnolia falls.
* ChildhoodFriend: Annette and Shin turns out to be this, which Lena eventually uses as a leverage to get Annette to help her save Shin and the Spearhead Squadron from their suicide mission.
* ChildProdigy: Lena is such a good Handler she has the rank of Major. Annette is a tech genius who is in charge of the development of Para-RAID after her father dies. Shin is probably one of the best Juggernaut pilot of the whole Republic. All of them are only 16. Prince Viktor may or may not count, since while he developed AI model that would eventually be developed into the Legion at the age of ''5'', he also has SuperIntelligence from his bloodline.
* ChildSoldiers:
** A lot of Processors are this due to staggering casualty rates suffered by adults. Shin himself starts being a soldier at 11. It also shows how much it can affect the psyche of the soldiers, since the Spearhead Squadron, even after they managed to escape to Giad and finally able to leave the battlefield behind, chooses to return to the battlefield because they simply cannot adjust to the civilian life due to the fact that they have been soldiers for a large part of their lives and have no idea what to do after.
** By volume 4, Frederica went from a noncombatant mascot to a assistant control aide to Lena. While she won't be in the battlefield directly, she's now officially in the chain of command. She's ''10''.
* CodeName: Processors aren't allowed to have names, but they eventually receive Code Names if they survive long enough. Shin's is Undertaker, Anju is Snow Witch, Raiden is Werewolf and so on.
* CrapsackWorld: From the very beginning it's obvious things are horrible for everyone, especially the Eighty-Six, who are dehumanized and forced to fight a losing war against a mechanized horde that seemingly never ends, while the Republic of San Magnolia acts as if things aren't horrible when in fact they live in a GildedCage with no way out. The situation in other nations isn't much better either.
* ColonelBadass: Lieutenant Colonel Grethe Wenzel is the head developer of the Reginleif, and is one of the few remaining aircraft pilots left in active service in the Federation, which she proves by being the one skilled/crazy enough to pilot the Nachzehrer into Legion airspace.
* CondescendingCompassion: PlayedWith: while several characters outside of San Magnolia does display this towards the Eighty-sixers, the others do display more normal compassion that we know of. The problem is that this is filtered through incredibly damaged worldview and psyche that Eighty-sixers had to adapt as survival mechanism, which ends up with most form of compassion being viewed by them as this.
* ContrivedCoincidence: How likely was that Lena would end up handling the Squadron led by the younger brother of the man who saved her and her father when they crashed in the warzone nine years prior? And that said brother was a childhood friend of her friend?
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: All pureblood Albans have silver eyes and hairs. Lena herself eventually subverts this at the end of Volume 1 when she starts partially dyeing her hair red which is then played straight after Shin told her to revert to her natural color. Anju, who has distant Alban ancestry, has silvery-blue hair and eye.
* DefectorFromDecadence: The remaining Spearhead Squadron managed to survive the "Special Reconnaissance mission" and joined up with the Federated Republic of Giad. Lena and the other surviving Processors joined later, after the Republic was destroyed and her remaining forces were rescued by the Federacy.
* {{Dehumanization}}: As explained by Lena's epigraph, San Magnolian government did this to non-Albans (or even part-Albans) by reducing them to pigs wearing human skins, thus cannot be subjected to human rights. And since they're not considered to be human, Juggernauts piloted by them aren't considered manned. [[spoiler:Roa Garcia's Sirins are more literal version of this, since they're brain-uploaded robots, they literally aren't humans anymore despite being one before. They're also used for the same reason as Eighty-sixers.]]
* DemocracyIsFlawed: One one hand, San Magnolia betrayed its very principle when it stripped non-Albans of their citizenship, and most Albans went with it. On the other hand, Giad is slowly trying to implement a stable democracy in place of its old monarchy/oligarchy.
* DesecratingTheDead: The reason why Prince Viktor is disinherited from the succession line is that [[spoiler:at the age of 5, he removed his mother's brain from her cryonically preserved corpse in an attempt to upload it into a machine and resurrect her. While that failed, his attempt ends up creating the Marinana Model AI that would later be developed by Giadian scientists into the Legion.]]
* DeterminedDefeatist: The Eighty-sixes knew that the Republic would never give them back citizenship. They still fight because if they're going to die, it's going to be on their terms.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Presidential Order that stripped Colorata-descended people of their citizenship is numbered 6609. Reverse the number order, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066 and we get]]...yes, this is basically the parallel to the US setting up internment camp for Japanese-, German-, and Italian-Americans. [[note]]However, arming them and sending them into combat without truly wanting to give them back their citizenship is closer to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans_in_the_American_Civil_War#Proposals_to_arm_slaves Confederate's decision]] not long before the Civil War ends (the parallel to the CSA includes cases of Colorata trafficking that's akin to slave trade), and the aspect of hating the people so much to see them die off completely is much closer to Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews and the other undesirables[[/note]]
* DontLookAtMe: [[spoiler:Shin and Lena's meeting after the destruction of Morpho has both sides not knowing each other's identity. Even when Lena blurt out her name, Shin still refuses to give his name, because learning Lena's hardships and sacrifices she suffers in order to meet him again, he doesn't want her to see him in another battlefield, but rather somewhere better. Frederica happily states that Shin finally found a reason to live.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: Annette's father committed suicide due to the guilt of human experimentation needed to be done in order to make Para-RAID works by setting Para-RAID synchronization to maximum.
* DwindlingParty: By the end of the first volume only five members of the Spearhead Squadron manage to escape San Magnolia and the Legion; Shin, Raiden, Kurena, Anju and Theo.
* EnemyMine: Despite fears by the higher ups, surprisingly large number of Eighty-six units chose to fight with the Republic when the Gran Mur fell and Lena asking for their assistance, reasoning that having access to surviving infrastructures like power plants, food processing factories and such increase their odds of survival. The rest chose to hold up in the internment camps that they lived in.
* EvilCounterpart: Not evil, but [[spoiler:Sirins are basically Eighty-sixers if they really are ''not'' humans. Both are used by their respective nations as disposable shock troops, but while Eighty-sixers are humans being denied human rights, Sirins are former humans being brain-uploaded into android bodies. Narrative-wise, they are there to show the Eighty-sixers what their mentality and actions look like from the outside.]]
* ExperiencedProtagonist: Spearhead Squadron already has 4 years of experience on the battlefield by the time the story starts, with Shin being the most experienced at 5 years. Lena herself, while a NaiveNewcomer compared to them, is not a total newbie either since she's already commanded a different squad of 86 prior to being assigned to Spearhead.
* FantasticRacism: A large part of human-human conflict in the first Volume is due to this: as San Magnolia needs a way to quickly fill back the ranks of soldiers lost after initial battles against Giad and the Legion, they start demonizing the non- and non-pure Albans, reducing them to pigs in human skins, stripped them of any citizenship, and used them as BattleThralls against the Legion while the newly-trained officer corps controlled them from the First Sector. After the first volume there's still exploration of aftereffects of San Magnolian racism, how it shaped the Eighty-sixers' [[BlueAndOrangeMorality mentality]], and how that affects Eighty-sixers' relation with other nations. In Federacy service, Shin and his group still are subjected to some racism from some Giadian soldiers who viewed Eighty-sixers as monsters forged from hell that is San Magnolia, given how much military skill they're displaying and how willing they are in heading back into the battlefield even after they could have settled down in peace.
* FantasticSlurs: Alba call the Eighty-Six pigs or cattle, and the Colorata in return refer to Alba as "white pigs."
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: San Magnolia is an unholy combination of World War II United States, the Confederate States, France, and Nazi Germany. Giad is Imperial Germany and later West/modern day Germany, Roa Gracia is an autocratic monarchical version of the UK mixed with Imperial Russia.
* FirstEpisodeTwist: It's practically impossible to discuss anything from Volume 2 onward without knowing the massive number of spoilers within the first volume, namely Shin's ability to [[ISeeDeadPeople hear dead people]] assimilated by the Legion, Empire of Giad falling to revolution and changed the government structure to a Republic, thus turning the war into a full-on RobotWar, the Legion's assimilating human nervous system and got past its own time limit, Legion has full-on assimilated human personalities inside Shepherd units, San Magnolian government never planned to give any Eighty-sixers back their citizenship, San Magnolia's eventual destruction, and the remaining Spearhead Squadron's survival and subsequent reunion with Lena as Federacy officers. These twists do fit well into the first volume if it's a standalone novel, which it was originally: it was written for a competition, namely Dengeki Novel Prize, and the rule is that the story must be self-contained. The author expands it into a series when the first volume sold very well.
* FragileSpeedster:
** The [=M1A4=] Juggernaut is this, being weakly armed and poorly armored but has high agility partly due to its grapple system.
** The Federacy XM-2 Reginleif, being reversed engineered from [=M1A4=] (due to their difficulty creating their own high mobility units), retains the mobility but was given substantially better weapons and proper biological and chemical protection. Most Federacy pilots hated them, due to being more used to MightyGlacier units. Not to mention that it was created from Shin's combat data, and given the extreme moves he pulled with his old Juggernaut that result in some serious damage to the mech itself, the prototype Reginleifs ends up injuring several test pilots.
** Roa Garcia has Alkonost, which is even faster than Reginleif since it has even less armor and they're constructed without caring about pilot's survival, [[spoiler:since they're supposed to be piloted by Sirins, who have robotic bodies and are created via BrainUploading, thus are replaceable]].
* TheGrimReaper: One of Shin's job is this: he helps MercyKill dying teammates and carry on their memories.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Lena readily accepts her nickname of "The Bloodstained Queen" and "Bloody Reina" because she feels she earns it for throwing away lives of the people under her command, because whatever she do she can never save them. This is despite the fact that her unit suffers ''one of the the lowest casualty rate'' of all units in the Republic.
* HighSchoolAU: ''School IF'' is basically this, being lighthearted short stories setting the cast in a Japanese high school. There's also ''Operation Highschool'', which is a manga adaptation of ''School IF''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Republic, not wanting to admit to the world that the Juggernauts are manned, forbid any kind of body retrieval or burial/cremation of dead Processors. This leads to Legion having ample amount of bodies to harvest for human neural patterns, prolonging the war that they will lose instead of their hope that the Legion will shut down in 2 years.
* HonoraryPrincess: Lena's reputation as "The Bloodstained Queen" ends up with her new subordinate Shiden always referring to her as "Your Majesty" when talking to her. She's also referred to with this a few times before she got her moniker, but it's used to mock her for her naivety.
* HopelessWar: The Legion are able to continue operating beyond their 50,000 hour system lifespan by [[BrainUploading scanning and copying the brain activity]] of any human corpses that have their heads intact on the battlefield, and can continue to operate by copying these basic personalities across their units (the advanced ones have much bigger limitation, see OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow). This essentially means the Legion is a self-sustaining, infinite army, at least on the software side. The only way to defeat them would be to destroy the hardware side, i.e. taking out the automated factories that continuously build these machines. But that is impossible for the San Magnolia Republic as they are too weakened to strike inside enemy lines.
* HopeSpot: The Republic's scientists have discovered by studying Legion wreckage that they are bound by a 50,000 hour system lifespan (roughly 6 years) that will deactivate if they stop receiving updates from HQ. Since the Empire of Giad mysteriously collapsed 4 years ago, this means the Republic only needs to hold out for 2 more years and [[KeystoneArmy all of the Legion will deactivate at once]] once that threshold is passed. Spearhead Squadron unfortunately knows that the Legion have developed a way to get around this limitation and continue operating indefinitely.
* HumanResources: As Shin grimly notes, the Legion compensates its missing materials by salvaging the corpses of Processors, including his brother Shourei.
* IdiotHair: Lena has two. This is probably to highlight her ShelteredAristocrat upbringing.
* InappropriatelyCloseComrades: [[spoiler:By volume 5, Lena and Shin starts becoming romantically involved, though it doesn't become truly obvious until volume 6, with Lena kissing Shin in Volume 7. Anju also had feelings for Daiya before the latter's death, and Dustin is in turn in love with her]].
* {{Interquel}}: Volume 2 and 3 serves as this, expanding on the 2 year gap mentioned in Epilogue 1 of Volume 1 (mostly from Shin's perspective, since Epilogue 1 is from Lena's perspective) and how Lena and Shin meets again as Federacy officers in Epilogue 2. This is due to the first volume originally being written as a self-contained story for a Light Novel contest, thus it has to be expanded when it was serialized in order to show how Spearhead Squadron survived and reunited with Lena.
* ISeeDeadPeople: Due to nearly being strangled to death by his brother Shin can hear the memories of the dead that are stuck in machines, both on Legion units and [[spoiler:Sirin units]]. His former handlers either resigned or killed themselves when they hear those voices via Shin's Resonance. It's also useful since he can use this scout Legion drones' locations much better than with radar, especially given how good the Legion's signal jamming is. [[MundaneUtility Which means his unit doesn't need to go on patrol and can have extra free time.]]
* ItCanThink: The Legion isn't able to do this at first, since their limited intelligence means that more than a few times Empire troops have to be deployed to cover their weakness, but after they start assimilating human neural patterns, the Legion gets a lot more intelligent, even start changing directive from just killing everything to start capturing some humans alive in order to copy their intact neural pattern instead of a degraded one. This gets to the point where [[spoiler:the Legion, specifically AI Kiriya, managed to draw Shin's group into an ambush by exploiting his ability's weakness]] [[spoiler:The Legion's discovery on how to destroy a brain's individuality but keeping their cognitive function by destroying the hippocampus makes things even worse, since now even lower level units have near human-level intelligence.]]
* IRejectYourReality: The ''entire'' nation of San Magnolia delude themselves into believing things aren't as bleak as they seem, that the Colorata are nothing but animals and the war will be over very soon. In fact, by the time the story starts, the civilians are even calling for demobilization. When the bubble inevitably bursts, the only forces that make a meaningful defense are Lena's forces. Even after they have to get help from the Giadians and the Eighty-sixers to take their homeland back they're still deluding themselves that they can still build a pure Alban nation, and continue the racism.
* KillAllHumans: [[spoiler:Kiriya is this, due to being driven mad being deployed into combat constantly during the Giadian Civil War making him develop a big case of misanthropy, then he gets assimilated and being put in command of a [[MagneticWeapons Morpho]]. The only thing that can override this is him wanting to reunite with his princess, Frederica, again, which Frederica happily exploits in order to stop AI Kiriya from pulling a suicide attack long enough for Shin to kill him.]]
* TheLastDJ: Lena is one of the few Albans left that still treat the battle against the Legion seriously and treats the Eighty-sixes as humans instead of subhumans. In fact, her treatment of the Spearhead Squadron (including sending them fireworks illegally) and unauthorized use of interception cannons ends up getting her demoted from a Major to a Lieutenant after Volume 1 (she got promoted again after the wall falls).
* LatexSpaceSuit: Introduced in Volume 5, Cicada Thought-Support Device is a suit that helps lighten the strain that Para-RAID makes on the user's brain, and it takes the shape of this trope. Lena was forced to wear it in order to command large number of soldiers at once, and after she emerges from changing into it everyone in the room has to look away from her due to the sheer sex appeal she's oozing (and that Shin would have their head otherwise, since everyone in the room knew that Shin seems to start having feelings for Lena). Even its creator Prince Viktor apologizes on how much the suit is making Lena look since its other nominal user Lerche isn't as well-endowed as Lena.
* LethalChef: The rest of Speahead Squadron doesn't allow Shin to be the cook since his cooking tends to be extremely rough. He's good at prepping ingredients, however.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: Kurena is in love with Shin, however by Volume 2 the rest of the squadron told her that Shin's feeling for her is this trope, so her love is unrequited .
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Chapter 2 of Volume 1 is named "All Quiet on the Skeleton Front". Fitting, considering that ''86'' draws a lot from ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' on the theme of how war causing soldiers to become detached from civilian life.
* {{Mascot}}: Empire (later Federal Republic) of Giad always have a young girl (up to 12 years old, then they are pull out of the role and put into military school) serving as a unit's mascot attached to them, as a way to keep units in cohesion and hold the combat unit hostage, since if they broke and die, the mascot dies with them, because the mascot cannot retreat. Frederica eventually becomes one in Volume 2, being attached to Shin's unit.
* MeaningfulName: In American English, to "eighty-six" something is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_(term) a euphemism]] for "to dispose of" which is exactly what the Republic intends for the denizens of District Eighty-Six. The author confirmed in Volume 2 afterwords that this is a deliberate choice.
* MildlyMilitary: The Eighty-six units tends to be pretty lax in terms of military discipline when not in battle, since the Handlers generally don't care about them enough to worry about that, and they don't come into the field for direct inspection. Spearhead Squadron has some trouble adjusting to the fact that Lena takes her job very seriously, and later have the same trouble adjusting to more disciplined Giadian military.
* MomentKiller: In Volume 5, after Dustin and Anju had to take shelter from avalanche created by Legion's trap, Dustin starts confessing that he loves her (and try to console Anju after she says that she thinks her lingering feelings for Daiya means she won't be able to love anyone again) gets interrupted when Shin finally found them. Worse, Shin picked up their communications from when Dustin says he wants to see Anju in bikini ''and'' transmitting that to the rest of the rescue team, causing extreme level of embarrassment for both of them.
* {{Nanomachines}}: The Legion's CPU used this to simulate mammal's central nervous system. Later the Black Sheeps, [[spoiler:Sheepdogs]], and Shepherds get human's central nervous system. Some Legion drones can use them to create arms to manipulate objects or even block some projectiles.
* NonIdleRich: Lena comes from a wealthy noble family, but rather than hiding behind the walls and pretending everything is alright, she joined the military academy and did her best to ensure the Eighty-Six remain alive as long as possible.
* NonindicativeName: San Magnolian Juggernauts are lightly-armed, lightly-armoured FragileSpeedster rustbuckets. The impressive, intimidating name is emblematic of the country's immersion in propaganda and detachment from reality.
* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: {{Averted|Trope}} and {{Invoked|Trope}}: there are plenty of documents and such regarding Legion's design and construction by the Empire, however they seem to mostly been destroyed during the Giadian revolution, and only limited documentations are recovered by the new government. The attempt to reverse engineer the Legion by the Federacy wasn't too successful either, only managed to make unmanned scout units (which is the only type of AI the population tolerates), due to the combination of the original creators died before the war, higher education being restricted mainly to the aristocratic class and the post-revolution world being dominated by middle class, with a lot of the educated elites dead during the revolution, and that the population is against using armed combat drones due to the Legion.
* OnceMoreWithClarity: Lena's epigraph at the beginning of Volume 1 make it seems like she's endorsing San Magnolia's racism. The end of Volume 1 shows that epigraph again, but expanded with her real thoughts on the initial epigraph itself: that that embracement of racism is the start of the end of the Republic.
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: In Volume 1, Shin and AI Rei toward each other. Sensing their conflict is about to begin, the two of them order their respective units to stand down. Rei even blows away one of his own subordinates who dares interfere in the battle.
* OnlyElectricSheepAreCheap: During the war, most of the food in the Republic, both inside and outside the wall, are synthetic food. Giad averts this due to them still controlling large amounts of farmland.
* OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow: Shepherds, who have full human personalities, seems to be unable to withstand having more than one of it being in existence, unlike Black Sheeps which, since they don't have personalities, can exist in multiple. This becomes a problem for the Legion if a Shepherd is getting destroyed, since they can't have backups, they don't seem to transfer the personalities until it's way under emergency, and trying to transfer full consciousness in that condition and in short amount of time is impossible. Thus, even if the personality is transferred over, it's heavily damaged.
* OutOfFocus: Lena is mostly out of focus in Volume 2 and 3, only appearing in the prologue and epilogue of Volume 2, though she plays a crucial role in Volume 3's climax.
* PeopleOfHairColor: This is how the Alba separated themselves from the Colorata. Alba are easily identified by their silver hair and eyes.
* PortentOfDoom: [[https://twitter.com/NomiMatsu/status/1385996740504047616?s=20 Used symbolically in the anime]]. Kujou and Kaie, the first two members of the Spearhead Squadron to die in the story, were shown interacting with objects associated with ill omens (a black cat and a card with the Grim Reaper, respectively) moments before they bite the dust.
* RoyalBrat: [[spoiler:Frederica shows a shade of this with her haughty yet oddly mature attitude, even after she and the Giadian royal family's dethroned. She does show a lot of care for her adoptive family despite her behavior, however, even acting as Shin's sort-of therapist.]]
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething
** Prince Viktor Idinarohk serves as commander of Roa Garcia's southern front, head developer of several of the nations' technological projects, and on occasion even pilots his own Barushka Matushka unit into the field.
** [[spoiler:Frederica Rosenfolt, or rather Augusta Frederica Adel-Adler, despite her age joined Shin's unit as mascot, and after that she becomes Lena's aide who used her seer ability to help monitor troops in the field.]]
* RedBaron:
** Shin's nickname among the Processors and Handlers of the Eastern Front, the Reaper, is both feared and revered because of his ability to hear the voices of the dead. This ability had been used in the past to force Handlers who had tried to toy with Processors to retire by linking the Para-RAID at a higher Resonance level, thus allowing the Handler to also hear the horrifying screams of the Legion Black Sheep. Among Processors, the Reaper is rumored to use his squadron to prolong his own life; however, those who worked with the Reaper respect his compassion to the fallen and his use of his ability to create a better life for his fellow Processors.
** By the first volume's end, Lena is most widely known across the continent as "The Bloodstained Queen" and "Bloody Reina" due to the fact that she will not hesitate to sacrifice her squad to achieve her objectives. And yet in spite of the name, her squad still has much lower casualty counts compared to the rest of the military, leading to them being called the "Queen's Knights." This is due to the fact that Lena is ''actually trying'' to accomplish offensive missions against the Legion instead of the rest of the military that simply uses 86's as stationary cannon fodder on a shrinking and hopeless defense line. Shin and his squad members all think that it doesn't fit her at all.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:AI Rei, as the Dinosauria, after realizing that he nearly killed his brother ''again'' due to wanting to liberating him from his human shell, and nearly got destroyed by Shin in return, managed to barely hold his memory together and used the backup Dinosauria he was transfer to to save Shin when the latter was nearly captured by a Lowe when Shin tried to serve as a decoy for the rest of his unit to escape. In their shared dream, Rei finally manages to apologize to Shin and wishes him a better future, and carry the five to the Federacy border before the Federacy destroyed the Dinosauria, killing Rei permanently.]]
* RagsToRoyalty: {{Inverted|Trope}} and {{Downplayed|Trope}}: [[spoiler:Frederica was the last Empress of Giad before the government was toppled. Now she's attached to Shin's combat unit as a mascot. However, she is now the adoptive daughter of the Interim President, who's trying to protect her from witchhunt, and her job as the mascot is with his consent.]]
* RichesToRags: A number of wealthy Colorata families are hit by this when Presidential Order 6609 hits, including Shin's family, especially given that his father was one of Para-RAID's co-creators, and that [[spoiler:his Nouzen family is a split branch of the Giadian Royal Guard Nouzen family that emigrated to San Magnolia]]. Averted in the Federacy, where the new government elect to keep the aristocrats who are controlling important industries in place because trying anything otherwise would be extremely bad for the economy for a country still fighting a RobotWar. Those that aren't important are pretty much demoted, however, which proves to be a problem for them to adapt to, especially since they're loathed by the now-huge middle class.
* RobotWar: The war has become one of these as of the end of the first volume. With both the Empire of Giad and the Republic of San Magnolia fallen, the Empire's successor nation the Federation of Giad is left to absorb the remnants of San Magnolia and continue the fight against the Legion drone army, which is now running rampant across the continent following its programming to fight for a country that no longer exists.
* SafetyInIndifference:
** A lot of San Magnolian Albans who aren't into racism are mostly this, due to fear of being ostracized by their peers. Annette acts like this due to losing Shin when they're children, until Lena convinced her otherwise.
** Eighty-sixers also did something similar: they throw off everything that would allow them to feel pain in order to survive the discrimination and the war they're thrown into. Even when they're free from the Eighty-sixth sector, they [[EpiphanicPrison still are not truly free]] due to this.
* ScienceFantasy: Individuals from certain bloodlines possess seemingly supernatural abilities at odds with the otherwise hard science fiction setting.
* {{Seers}}: [[spoiler:Frederica]] has the ability to see into the past and the present of a person, as long as she knows their name. This even works on humans assimilated by the Legion.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: While the San Magnolia and Giad use the same language, there are some differences when it comes to vocabulary, particular in military terminology, which results in [[spoiler:Lena brushing off Shin calling her Major when she refers to herself as Captain near the end of Volume 3 when the two initially don't realize each other's identity, merely thinking that Shin called her Major due to this trope and not the fact that he knew her identity and rank when she was in command of Spearhead Squadron]].
* ShelteredAristocrat: Lena is quite sheltered. The short story in special edition of Volume 1 shows she doesn't even know what sewing is, and assumes that buttons are naturally stuck on clothes. Another short story has being so unfamiliar with bicycle she falls off one ''with training wheels''. Less humorously, she's very slow on the uptake that Eighty-sixers will never get their citizenship back, never realizing that she never sees a Colorata within the 85 sectors after the war starts, even though some of them should have survived long enough to finish their 5 year service. Not to mention that her upbringing means that Lena, despite trying her best, still displays some subconscious form of prejudices, with the big one being that she doesn't even ask for the names of people in Shin's unit until half a year later.
* ShoutOut:
** The story arc title of Volumes 2 & 3, ''Run Through the Battlefront'', is a reference to the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbI0cMyyw_M "Run Through the Jungle"]] by Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival. This very song is listed as the background music to Volume 2's Afterword.
** Volume 4's title ''Under Pressure'' refers to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a01QQZyl-_I the classic song]] by Music/{{Queen}}.
** Volume 5's title ''Death Be Not Proud'' is the first line of Creator/JohnDonne's ''Holy Sonnet X.''
** Volume 6's Japanese title ''Akeneba Koso Yoru wa Nagaku (明けねばこそ夜は永く)'' roughly translates to "The Rising Sun Does Not Rise for the Eternal Night." According to the [[https://twitter.com/TheZackZeal/status/1317159307159490562 official English translator]], this is likely a reference to Act IV of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', "the night is long that never finds the day."
** Volume 8's title ''Gun Smoke On the Water'' references the legendary song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGyZh0VbPQ "Smoke on the Water"]] by Music/DeepPurple.
* SoWhatDoWeDoNow: The Spearhead Squadron as a whole has this after their survival of the suicide mission: they hadn't planned to actually survive the ordeal. Shin has a especially bad case seeing that he only really plans to die after killing his brother. After Shin successfully did that at the end of Volume 1 ([[spoiler:or rather, he finally gets to chat with his brother in early Volume 2...it's complicated]]), he is at a complete and total loss on what to do after. At points he becomes full-on DeathSeeker. It takes Volume 2 and 3 before he finally found his answer.
* SpiderTank: Both Legion drones and Juggernauts look like this instead of typical humanoid mecha.
* SuicideMission: Since the Republic never planned to give the Eighty-sixers back their citizenship, any Processors that somehow managed to survive to the end of the service will be sent on a SuicideMission to kill them off. Shin and the rest of Spearhead Squadron only survived due to the intervention by Lena [[spoiler:and later AI Rei]]. As noted by a character, this makes the whole war situation ''even worse'' by basically handing highly skilled soldiers to the Legion.
* SuperIntelligence: Roa Garcia royalty's bloodline tend to produce people with this trope. Prince Viktor Idinarohk developed precursor model to AI [[spoiler:using his deceased mother's brain]] that would be eventually developed into Legion AI at the age of ''5''.
* SupernaturalElite: Some nobles' bloodlines tend to develop some supernatural abilities. For example: Pyropes (Shin included) tends to develop telepathic abilities, Giadian royalty develops seer abilities, while Roa Garcia royalty develops SuperIntelligence.
* {{Telepathy}}:
** Para-RAID allows those connected together to communicate via what's essentially artificial telepathy by tapping into the human collective unconscious. Depending on synchronization level, the amount of info that can be shared can range from just simple voices to sharing images from each other's eyeballs. Turning the synchronization level to maximum is [[TooMuchForManToHandle ill-advised]]. It also has limitations that it require recipients to be conscious in order to establish connection, so if the recipient is sleeping or fell unconscious, you cannot yet at them to try wake them up. Since it's unjammable, and the prevalence of Legion's signal jamming, it's one of the only technological edge the Republic has.
** Volume 3 says that natural version of this tend to develop in those with Pyrope bloodline, and they tend to be hired by the military for reconnaissance or interrogation work. Shin's ability is a specialized version of this.
* StopOrIShootMyself: [[spoiler:In order to stop AI Kiriya from pulling a suicide attack on Shin, Frederica willingly exposes herself, then points a gun at her own head, trusting that AI Kiriya would want her to be alive and stop the attack[[note]]This is probably an unnecessary gesture given that she's already in Kiriya's suicide attack killzone, but she wants to get his attention[[/note]]. It works.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: Fido is an AI created by Shin's father and is absolutely loyal to Shin, even wandering the battlefield by itself trying to search for Shin after he and his family is taken away due to Presidential Order 6609 being passed. After the scavenger unit it's housed in is destroyed and the AI core is recovered and reactivated by Giadian engineers, Fido won't respond to external stimuli until Shin's name is mentioned.
* UriahGambit: [[spoiler: When veteran 86 reach the end of their five year service career they are sent on a "long range scouting mission" deep behind enemy lines. In reality this a suicide mission they are not expected to return from. The Republic does this in order to hide the fact that they never intended to restore the citizenship of the 86 in return for their service. It also prevents these veteran 86 from becoming a symbol of hope and possible rebellion for the rest of the 86.]]
* {{Vibroweapon}}: Juggernaut (and later Reginleif) pilots can choose to equip themselves with high-frequency blades instead of machine guns for melee combat. Very few pilots take them due to how risky it is to use them. The Legion has them equipped on the Grauwolf.
* WeatherControlMachine: By Volume 5 (after [[spoiler:Legion's successful Sheepdog project]]), Legion is getting creative on how to prosecute the war. In that volume, it's using jammer swarm to deflect sunlight away from Roa Garcia, prolonging winter and straining the nation's already poor food production to breaking point. [[spoiler:And even that, it turns out, is a ploy to draw Roa Garcia's elite troops into counterattacking, so that Legion can draw them into a trap and annihilate them.]]
* WeightWoe: Dengeki Thanksgiving Festival 2018 short story has Lena hitting the gym, fearing that she enjoys too much Giad food and might start packing weight. Shin teases her by telling her not to overdo it or she won't get to eat [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel schnitzel]].
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Frederica, despite being only 10, due to her upbringing as [[spoiler:the future Empress, in combination of her powers as a seer]] allows her to be way more mature psychologically than her age is. In fact, she ends up as a sort-of therapist to Shin's group even if she has her own issues.
* YouDidntAsk: [[spoiler:Shiden realized that the pilot Lena's talking to near the end of Volume 3 is Shin due to her being able to see Shin's personal mark on the side of his mech. She chose not to mention this to Lena after realizing that Lena never saw the mark before.]]
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Albans have silver hair, Raiden has steel-green hair and Anju has silver-blue hair originating from a distant Alba ancestor.
