The first volume of 86 is legitimately brilliant. A dark, oppressive sci-fi war story with supernatural elements, following the efforts of a "Handler" and the people under her command as she tries to keep them alive and they try to survive against impossible odds (and frequently they don’t). Along the way, the Handler uncovers a couple of horrifying revelations that further stain the country that forced those on the ground into this situation and is forced to face her own unconscious biases by the people she wanted to keep alive. It keeps you wondering who will be left standing by the end as they go through multiple battles.
The second volume is where things start to fall apart.
The biggest problem with the latter parts is that it’s focused much more on the 86 themselves, and this is where I run into an insurmountable problem: I don’t care that much about them divorced from the Handler. I sympathize with their initial situation, but I was only interested in them as characters as they connected to the Handler. In the first volume, that’s their biggest function – they’re tools/facilitators of the Handler’s character development first and foremost. This built up my investment in the Handler, but not nearly as much in the 86 themselves. This might not be an issue, except that the story doesn’t do nearly enough to develop them, and what developments they do get I generally find uninteresting. And when the Handler finally comes back, most of her character development is concentrated on building up a love story between her and the “lead” member of the 86. I have no idea why, because these two have nothing approaching chemistry and I’m never going to be able to ignore a very ugly undercurrent to their relationship.
There are also some other issues. That dark, somber mood that the first volume built up gets blown to pieces with the introduction of Frederica, who is insufferable both on-page and on-screen. The president of the new country is someone who in any realistic setting would have long since been assassinated. Suddenly, the story is gun-shy about killing any of the 86, even though there are situations they should not have been able to survive and where their deaths would’ve added quite a bit of desperately needed tension. The battles themselves have the problem of constant escalation, going from facing off a super-tank to a railway gun with razor wings to a Terminator wannabe and it keeps getting sillier from there.
The writing itself is often repetitive (the number of times the series uses “silver-bell-like voice” shouldn’t be used for a drinking game), riddled with often-unnecessary exposition and the battles themselves are incredibly confusing to read. The anime is vastly superior in this regard, because at least you can tell what’s going on.
Overall, 86 feels exactly like what it is – a great idea for a single novel that later got stretched into a series. And frankly, the best ideas were in the first book.
Peaks Early
The first volume of 86 is legitimately brilliant. A dark, oppressive sci-fi war story with supernatural elements, following the efforts of a "Handler" and the people under her command as she tries to keep them alive and they try to survive against impossible odds (and frequently they don’t). Along the way, the Handler uncovers a couple of horrifying revelations that further stain the country that forced those on the ground into this situation and is forced to face her own unconscious biases by the people she wanted to keep alive. It keeps you wondering who will be left standing by the end as they go through multiple battles.
The second volume is where things start to fall apart.
The biggest problem with the latter parts is that it’s focused much more on the 86 themselves, and this is where I run into an insurmountable problem: I don’t care that much about them divorced from the Handler. I sympathize with their initial situation, but I was only interested in them as characters as they connected to the Handler. In the first volume, that’s their biggest function – they’re tools/facilitators of the Handler’s character development first and foremost. This built up my investment in the Handler, but not nearly as much in the 86 themselves. This might not be an issue, except that the story doesn’t do nearly enough to develop them, and what developments they do get I generally find uninteresting. And when the Handler finally comes back, most of her character development is concentrated on building up a love story between her and the “lead” member of the 86. I have no idea why, because these two have nothing approaching chemistry and I’m never going to be able to ignore a very ugly undercurrent to their relationship.
There are also some other issues. That dark, somber mood that the first volume built up gets blown to pieces with the introduction of Frederica, who is insufferable both on-page and on-screen. The president of the new country is someone who in any realistic setting would have long since been assassinated. Suddenly, the story is gun-shy about killing any of the 86, even though there are situations they should not have been able to survive and where their deaths would’ve added quite a bit of desperately needed tension. The battles themselves have the problem of constant escalation, going from facing off a super-tank to a railway gun with razor wings to a Terminator wannabe and it keeps getting sillier from there.
The writing itself is often repetitive (the number of times the series uses “silver-bell-like voice” shouldn’t be used for a drinking game), riddled with often-unnecessary exposition and the battles themselves are incredibly confusing to read. The anime is vastly superior in this regard, because at least you can tell what’s going on.
Overall, 86 feels exactly like what it is – a great idea for a single novel that later got stretched into a series. And frankly, the best ideas were in the first book.