History Literature / EightySixEightySix

* 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 begins 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.

* BolivianArmyEnding: The anime's first cour seemingly ends on an example of this trope, [[spoiler: with Spearhead Squadron making a hopeless LastStand against the Legion that leaves the fate of its members unknown.]] Subverted for light novel readers [[spoiler: who know that Rei rescued the survivors. The anime's official website even spoils this by not listing the remaining Spearhead members as DESTROYED. Rei on the other hand has had his status changed to DESTROYED, which indicates that his HeroicSacrifice has already occurred.]] This was also later subverted for anime viewers as well since [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the second season's trailers]] all showed [[spoiler: everyone in Spearhead is alive and well.]]

* ContrivedCoincidence: How likely was it 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?

** Episode 19 features an original flashback montage of [[spoiler: happier times between Kiriya and Frederica when she was still a toddler and he was her royal guardsman, and his subsequent mental collapse after Ernst faked her death by displaying her bloodied cape on a rifle bayonet.]]

''86 EIGHTY-SIX'' is a MilitaryScienceFiction {{Light Novel|s}} series by Asato Asato, illustrated by Shirabii, and with 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.

** The circumstances of Spearhead Squadron's rescue by Federacy are only vaguely alluded to in the anime. The only real clue the anime provides is the wrecked Dinosauria that the Federacy recovered alongside the Spearhead members. [[spoiler: The Dinosauria in question was Rei's backup unit. The anime never revealed that a badly corrupted copy of his mind had been partially transferred to a spare unit after Shin destroyed the original. This second Rei then proceeded to shadow Spearhead Squadron as they moved through Legion territory.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[HopelessWar A War]] [[DeadlyEuphemism Without]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook Casualties]]]]

* 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. The anime went ahead to feature the book itself as something Shin reads during his downtime (and naming Spearhead's TeamPet cat "Remarque), to [[spoiler:it being the book the last five of Spearhead leave their mementoes for Lena when she visited their camp]].

[[caption-width-right:350:A War Without Casualties]]

* 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.

** In general, the anime and the manga both greatly simplify the complex racial groups of the setting's people down to just Alba and non-Alba, with not even the word "Colorata" used in either series script, to say nothing of the myriad names of the races in the ''86'' setting. It also does not even hint at the existence of sub-races, such as the fact that even the Alba are divided into three sub-races of Celena, Adularia, and Alabaster. It takes until Episode 17 for a Giadian report to list off the ethnicities for Shin[[labelnote:*]]Onyx/Pyrope[[/labelnote]], Raiden[[labelnote:*]]Eisen[[/labelnote]], and Theo[[labelnote:*]]Jade[[/labelnote]], and even this [[FreezeFrameBonus only appears for a few seconds]].

** In general, the anime and the manga both greatly simplify the complex racial groups of the setting's people down to just Alba and non-Alba, with not even the word "Colorata" used in either series script, to say nothing of the myriad names of the races in the ''86'' setting. It also does not even hint at the existence of sub-races, such as the fact that even the Alba are divided into three sub-races of Celena, Adularia, and Alabaster.

** Grethe's chart in Episode 15 during her briefing showing the Giadian order of battle [[https://twitter.com/Kenichi_Kaneko/status/1451933548009590796 is drawn up using the correct Joint NATO Symbology format.]]

* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: Self-Propelled Mines show up in Episode 6 in an anime-original sequence. While they are mentioned to exist offhandedly in the first volume, they don't actually make a proper appearance in the story until Volume 4, [[https://twitter.com/Asakura_Toru/status/1388845522270580742 as confirmed by Asato Asato herself.]] They make another appearance in Episode 11.

** Episode 11 has an anime-original scene where the five members of Spearhead spend the night at a schoolhouse in an abandoned Giadian town and have fun pretending to be students.

[[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. After the conclusion of the first 11 episodes, a special RecapEpisode aired on June 27th. The second four began airing on October 2nd of the same year.

[[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. After the conclusion of the first 11 episodes, a special RecapEpisode aired on June 27th that also confirmed the second cour would air in October 2021.

* BolivianArmyEnding: The anime's first cour seemingly ends on an example of this trope, [[spoiler: with Spearhead Squadron making a hopeless LastStand against the Legion that leaves the fate of its members unknown.]] Subverted for light novel readers [[spoiler: who know that Rei rescued the survivors. The anime's official website even spoils this by not listing the remaining Spearhead members as DESTROYED. Rei on the other hand has had his status changed to DESTROYED, which indicates that his HeroicSacrifice has already occurred.]]

* NotSoDifferent: When the Eighty-Sixth Strike Package is dispatched to the United Kingdom of Roa Gracia to assist in their battle against the Legion, it turns out Roa Gracia is almost like a strange mirror image of San Magnolia: it is a racially diverse nation that also practices universal conscription along racial lines, with the difference being that [[{{Irony}} it is the majority race that is forced to fight, while the minority races get the option to volunteer.]] Spearhead, and Theo in particular finds this state of affairs oddly uncomfortable in their first days in the Kingdom.

* 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.

* OutsideContextProblem: Volume 8 has a MASSIVE one in the form of a Musukura. These 300 meter long oceanic leviathans are quite possibly the most powerful things in the setting. They don't give a fig about the outcome of the Legion War and will attack either side if their territory is trespassed on.