(CR) 86 TV anime

[Frontier]

The Legion are overrunning the Republic and Lena, the surviving Alba military, Annette, and the Eighty-Six are holding the line as best they can, but the onslaught seems impossible to fend off. Lena is making a valiant last stand, but can even she survive this ?

Well, luckily the Eighty-Six in the Frederacy managed to make it out, although the same can't be said for a lot of the Frederacy's front-line bases that got hit by Kiriya's attack in the Morpho. Frederica is worried Shin might turn into the same kind of relentless machine that can only fight, and his response to her isn't very reassuring .

Erwin is playing politics with the other nations hit by the Legion attack, and they've discovered where the Morpho is and that it's damaged enough that they have some time to come up with a plan to take it out, but it's not going to be easy when the only viable means of going at it is a straightforward assault deep into Legion-infested territory. And who better to send off than the useful yet expendable Eighty-Six .

What the heck is Marcel doing with Nina? Nina sent Shin a letter blaming him for the death of her brother? Did Marcel tell her that? Is he manipulating a young girls' feelings over his own resentment and using it to get back at Shin? Well, it worked, because Shin becomes so fueled with guilt and desperation over having nothing and leaving behind everyone he's ever cared for or had as a comrade that he throws himself into battle with reckless abandon that we saw last week. The only thing that was able to get through to him was, inexplicably, Lena's voice .

The team don't respond well to pity and concern because they feel like they don't need it because they've survived this long through worse and it's all they know, although I don't think that's really much healthier .

Theo brought up the elephant in the room as to whether the Major's okay, and Kurena at least respected Lena enough to know she wouldn't run from a fight, even knowing they were probably screwed, but that was something they didn't plan on bringing up to Shin, not that he's showing an obvious reaction to it other than how out of it he is. They don't even realize how out of it when you look at what he was like in the last episode, and only Frederica seems genuinely concerned about it .

Shin demonstrates his power and finds his hand unconsciouly drawn to the Republic, even when it didn't matter to the Frederacy. Even he seemed surprised his hand was drawn to the Republic. He was thinking of the Major .

So the plan is to use the main force as a decoy in a frontal assault while Nordlicht is once again a "Spearhead" Suicide Squad getting sent in to take down the Morpho before it's completely repaired. Some things never change .

While Grethe is arguing against sending them on a suicide mission, Shin is still haunted by the dead Eighty-Six weighing him down with his obligation to carry on their memory and keep fighting while they pass on while he still survives. He held out hope that Lena would live and carry on his memory, but he seems to have made peace with the fact that Lena probably didn't make it. Shin is so messed up .

Grethe tries to express her concern to Shin, but for one he gets genuinely angry because, from his perspective, her concern is just self-righteous pity trying to take away the only thing they have left, which is fighting as Eighty-Six and not running away like the White Pigs in the Republic did. But is that really all they have left ?

Well, the Republic's seen better days with dead Legion and Eighty-Six side by side. Even Lena's home has been ravaged (although it looks like the jar with the Eighty-Six pictures survived). Is her mom okay...?

[sierra117]

Seeing San Magnolia got burned down and laid to waste by Legion make me feel immensely satisfied

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by sierra117

Seeing San Magnolia got burned down and laid to waste by Legion make me feel immensely satisfied

I can't say the Republic didn't have it coming and it makes a dramatic contrast with the pristine, clean, Republic they've always presented right up until they got a reality check from the Legion...but I feel bad for all those left to face the Legion, including Lena .

[sierra117]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I can't say the Republic didn't have it coming and it makes a dramatic contrast with the pristine, clean, Republic they've always presented right up until they got a reality check from the Legion...but I feel bad for all those left to face the Legion, including Lena .

I do feel bad for Lena and her factions along with the remaining 86s. But the rest of the Republic? B.U.R.N

[Yazi88]

Republic being burned to the ground was implied in the beginning parts of the opening, where we see ruins of a city.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by sierra117

I do feel bad for Lena and her factions along with the remaining 86s. But the rest of the Republic? B.U.R.N

I mean, the military brass had it coming but the rank and file citizens really didn't know any better and were just a consequence of the propaganda. I don't know if that makes them "innocent" but I don't think it means they deserved to die.

[ryllharu]

Are Giad and San Magnolia's capitals really only like 200-400 km apart? Implied by the distance to the railgun from the base.

These countries are that tiny?

There are cities within Honshu that are further apart.

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

Are Giad and San Magnolia's capitals really only like 200-400 km apart? Implied by the distance to the railgun from the base.

No, it's significantly more than that. The map where they displayed the capitals (assuming it was drawn by the staff somewhat according to scale) is extremely zoomed out. If we put together the large map with the zoomed in map of the Western front where they talked about pushing 100km into enemy controlled territory, then the red arrow I added is approximately 100km on the large map:

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[Gerard07]

Seen the chapter, Lena is doing her best to keep as many as she can alive, I was a bit surprised by Eugene's little sister and her letters to Shin, and again they gave 86 a suicide mission, but hey, they used to do it. In the next episodes I hope they show more of San Magnolia (or what remains of her) and Lena, I want to see more details of what happens there, to wait for the next chapters.

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Kakurin

No, it's significantly more than that. The map where they displayed the capitals (assuming it was drawn by the staff somewhat according to scale) is extremely zoomed out. If we put together the large map with the zoomed in map of the Western front where they talked about pushing 100km into enemy controlled territory, then the red arrow I added is approximately 100km on the large map:

That still puts San Magnolia only 600 km from Giad's capital. Aomori is further away from Tokyo. Paris to Frankfurt is about the same distance.

I guess it is just all relative. That's not a particular long distance to me.

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

That still puts San Magnolia only 600 km from Giad's capital. Aomori is further away from Tokyo. Paris to Frankfurt is about the same distance.

I guess it is just all relative. That's not a particular long distance to me.

Looks more like 800km air distance to me. Considering the distances in central Europe for example, it's not that small. Berlin - Warsaw is slightly more than 500km. Berlin - Prague not even 300km. Even Paris - Berlin is not much more than that at slightly less than 900km.

And taking Japan as a reference point might not be the most suitable one considering that Japan's is a long but very thin country. Tokyo - Niigata might be one of the longest horizontal distance on Honshu between two major population centres and it's only like 250km direct distance.

[frubam]

Kinda disappointed they didn't show Lena's situation in detail this week, given last week's ending segment. Guess they had to try and home in on Shin's feelings about Lena while making it seem like she bit the dust. Obviously she didn't, especially since they used this trick already twice, so it'd be hard to believe the 2ndmost major char died off. They'll save it for a future episode, but I am curious at how the full operation on her end went.

Red hair scummy, sending those letters to Shin, knowing that little girl was blaming Shin for Eugene's death. It kinda felt like Red "got it" after seeing Eugene's sister blame Shin about how terrible he's been.

I dunno what that look on Shin's face was when he looked at the "Rei" tag, but I don't like it one bit. I can imagine where this is going, but hopefully Shin won't completely turns to Kiri before he gets there.

[Gerard07]

Will there be no chapter next week? I need spoliers, someone with a good heart, please answer me:

Spoiler for Questions:

-Lena's room was damaged (although it seems that the box with her 86 faces was fine), what happened to her mother and the cat that she adopted last season?
-Lena I guess she survives but what happens after her? Does she get promoted and / or does she gain fame?
-Have you mentioned how many inhabitants San Magnonia and the rest of the countries have?
-Later Kaie (the one who became Legion?) And Lev (the mechanical dawn from last season) reappear?
-How is the first meeting between Shin and Lena? a lot is missing?

I know that maybe I miss a lot but the more spoliers you give me, the better please.

[Edgardes]

So much for calling themselves better than the Republic.

[Kanon]

I don't get why all the soldiers, besides the ones from Shin's squadron, apparently hate the 86. Sure, they fight so well they might as well be called killing machines, but they're on their side, so that's a good thing. The constant victimization of the 86 by the story is getting old.

I hope buzz cut will die a horrible death. He's manipulating a little girl into blaming Shin, and apparently takes great joy in doing so.

The 86 are off to another suicide mission they'll come back from just fine. But we'll have to wait an extra week because it's recap time! Hadn't happened in a while.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by Edgardes

So much for calling themselves better than the Republic.

That whole "Send the 86 to die" thing was pointless. It was another bit of the melodrama that almost made me drop the first season. There was no need for it since just pointing out that they had the best chance of being successful would have been plenty of reason to send them. And the whole "we can not send our own people on it because the other solders would hate us" shows that the writer has never had any actual interaction with the military.

[carmolita]

Originally Posted by Frontier

The Legion are overrunning the Republic and Lena, the surviving Alba military, Annette, and the Eighty-Six are holding the line as best they can, but the onslaught seems impossible to fend off. Lena is making a valiant last stand, but can even she survive this ?

Lena has been preparing for this ever since shin told her about it during the first 11 episodes. No one would believe her though, she worked with annette to alter the para-raid so that she can connect to all processors/ 86 when this happened and set up the missile defenses which saved as many lives as they could

Well, luckily the Eighty-Six in the Frederacy managed to make it out, although the same can't be said for a lot of the Frederacy's front-line bases that got hit by Kiriya's attack in the Morpho. Frederica is worried Shin might turn into the same kind of relentless machine that can only fight, and his response to her isn't very reassuring .

Not just the Federacy but all of the countries were hit at the same time, 2 faired better because of the terrain and their resources. If they don't take out the Morpho mankind can be destroyed. Frederica is concerned but Shin doesn't care he is looking for a place to die. He doesn't care about living

What the heck is Marcel doing with Nina? Nina sent Shin a letter blaming him for the death of her brother? Did Marcel tell her that? Is he manipulating a young girls' feelings over his own resentment and using it to get back at Shin? Well, it worked, because Shin becomes so fueled with guilt and desperation over having nothing and leaving behind everyone he's ever cared for or had as a comrade that he throws himself into battle with reckless abandon that we saw last week. The only thing that was able to get through to him was, inexplicably, Lena's voice .

This changed a bit in the anime, Nina could not believe that Eugene was dead because she did not see him dead, the coffin with his body in it was nailed shut (it was nailed shut so it couldn't be opened because his body was badly damaged). She wanted to know what happened so she sought out an answer, Marcel was being a jerk and wanted someone to blame so he told her how he died and that shin killed him. She wrote a letter and Marcel delivered it by sliding it under shins door and he read it. Shin knew it was Marcel that delivered the letter and told her what happened because there could be no one else. IIRC there was no letter in the cockpit in the book, I don't know why the anime did it that way, Shin never says anything to Nina about the issue and just accepts the contents of the letter. It wasn't that lena's voice was going through his mind, he heard it (her voice).

Theo brought up the elephant in the room as to whether the Major's okay, and Kurena at least respected Lena enough to know she wouldn't run from a fight, even knowing they were probably screwed, but that was something they didn't plan on bringing up to Shin, not that he's showing an obvious reaction to it other than how out of it he is. They don't even realize how out of it when you look at what he was like in the last episode, and only Frederica seems genuinely concerned about it .

Federicka's is an esper she can see the past and present of anyone's eyes she has looked into but she can not hear any sound only images. Kiriya is the Morpho so she saw him destroy the grand mur/ that wall in the republic by looking through his eyes. Shin already knows what happened and that the republic was destroyed because he heard it through the legion's voices. He does think that Lena may not have survived/ died. He doesn't tell the other 86 what happened. He knows that if he doesn't defeat the Morpho mankind will be wiped out

Well, the Republic's seen better days with dead Legion and Eighty-Six side by side. Even Lena's home has been ravaged (although it looks like the jar with the Eighty-Six pictures survived). Is her mom okay...?

Her mom is terrible, (her parents had a political marriage) she believed the 86 are pigs and not human.

Spoiler for Lena's mother:

Her mother was killed during the battle and assimilated by the Legion, her uncle died which we knew would happen because he went to fight with the weapon that was given to him when he entered the military, her home was destroyed and she has nothing left but Annette

Originally Posted by Gerard07

Will there be no chapter next week? I need spoliers, someone with a good heart, please answer me:
[SPOILER="Questions"]
-Lena's room was damaged (although it seems that the box with her 86 faces was fine), what happened to her mother and the cat that she adopted last season?
-Lena I guess she survives but what happens after her? Does she get promoted and / or does she gain fame?
-Have you mentioned how many inhabitants San Magnonia and the rest of the countries have?
-Later Kaie (the one who became Legion?) And Lev (the mechanical dawn from last season) reappear?
-How is the first meeting between Shin and Lena you give me, the better, please.

I will spoil it without deeply spoiling it,

Spoiler for lena/shin:

1. see above response with regards to mother, the cat TP is fine/alive
2. She gets arrested by the Federacy on the battlefield. yes to the promotion but its for show and yes to fame but it's not a good thing nor welcomed
3. no, not that i can recall
4. Kaie both saves and harms shin, we won't see it unless there is another season. No, Lev died in this battle, it's only talked about in vol 4
5. Shinden brings Lena to the battlefield with her assault rifle, Shin is arrogant, stays in his cockpit, She says something to him nostalgic and he realizes that she is lena but does not reveal himself, the reinforcements arrive, she gets arrested, then shins attitude does a 180 they don't meet face to face and she doesn't know who he is. I think the anime may stop there or do the first part of the first chapter of vol 4.

A couple of things, Shin is not just good in operating a turrat/Juggernaut he is also superb at fighting which is not shown and has superhuman reflexes. Some dialogue from the episode where shin was receiving Lena'a fireworks was cut. After the alba soldier complains about lena sending the 86 a package/ special ammunition, he tries to get a reaction out of shin and says something XXX rated about Lena ( sorry I can not write those words in good conscious) Shin reacts by giving him the I'm gonna kill you look/stare, it's said that shin could have disarmed the soliders gun within a blink of an eye and took him down in an instant. But instead, Shin says something XXX rated about the man's wife ( sorry I once again can not write those words in good conscious) and the soldier went off and they had to drag him away. This is where we first realize the Shin x Lena connection. In the anime it's realized in his conversation with riden before the final battle.
Shin is of the imperial noble bloodline, his father's side specializes in martial, that's why no one can hear his feet when he walks, and he excels in combat, this is inherited from his clan/bloodline. His mother's clan/bloodline are telepaths, but shin is the only one who can hear the legion. The anime left this part out today but there are other espers in the federacy military, so him being one comes as no surprise, (they're just surprised he can hear the legion), although his adoptive father was trying to hide it. Shin also can not control his power which becomes a liability later.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by frubam

Kinda disappointed they didn't show Lena's situation in detail this week, given last week's ending segment. Guess they had to try and home in on Shin's feelings about Lena while making it seem like she bit the dust. Obviously she didn't, especially since they used this trick already twice, so it'd be hard to believe the 2ndmost major char died off. They'll save it for a future episode, but I am curious at how the full operation on her end went.

I can't think of a show that killed off it's Main Heroine off-screen, although maybe another one that played for drama where the Male Lead thinks they're dead .

Red hair scummy, sending those letters to Shin, knowing that little girl was blaming Shin for Eugene's death. It kinda felt like Red "got it" after seeing Eugene's sister blame Shin about how terrible he's been.

He's using a child not knowing any better as a means of fulfilling his own personal (and unjustified) resentment towards Shin. He's a scumabg .

I dunno what that look on Shin's face was when he looked at the "Rei" tag, but I don't like it one bit. I can imagine where this is going, but hopefully Shin won't completely turns to Kiri before he gets there.

It seems like Shin is retreating back into being the guy he was when he was single-mindedly obsessed with fighting his brother (or maybe he never stopped being that guy). His saying he won't turn out like Kiri didn't sound convincing in the slightest.

Originally Posted by Kanon

I don't get why all the soldiers, besides the ones from Shin's squadron, apparently hate the 86. Sure, they fight so well they might as well be called killing machines, but they're on their side, so that's a good thing. The constant victimization of the 86 by the story is getting old.

I don't think it's so much hate as it is not really understanding them. Why would people forced into battle willingly go back after everything they endured? And on-top of that the Eighty-Six seem very insular and come off "different" from normal people, which sets them apart.

Even the Eighty-Six are tired of being treated as victims, but part of that also means that they take genuine concern and just see it as demeaning pity. They also don't seem to care about self-care or their own mental health since all they know is the battlefield.

Originally Posted by Magewolf

That whole "Send the 86 to die" thing was pointless. It was another bit of the melodrama that almost made me drop the first season. There was no need for it since just pointing out that they had the best chance of being successful would have been plenty of reason to send them. And the whole "we can not send our own people on it because the other solders would hate us" shows that the writer has never had any actual interaction with the military.

I think from a practical, pragmatic, perspective they are being sent because they're the best chance at taking down the Morpho. There's just the added benefit that no one will really miss them if they're gone.

Originally Posted by carmolita

Her mom is terrible, (her parents had a political marriage) she believed the 86 are pigs and not human.

She's prejudiced (I don't remember it coming up that her parents had a political marriage, but that doesn't mean they didn't love each other), but she's still Lena's mom.

[carmolita]

@Frontier they talk about the alba and marriage in the novel, it's in the same chapter with Lena's mom. Although her mom is prejudiced she is indeed terrible (the way she goes off on lena about the 86 is awful), she did not hate her mom but they do not see eye to eye, it's obvious she is closest to her father and shares his beliefs. Either way other than that one chapter and her mom's fate being briefly mentioned in book 4, 6 and 7, nothing else is ever said about her, and part of the reason is because Shin never asked her anything about those 2 years. Annette also lost her mom during this battle so the 2 of them only have each other. The guy who hid the 86 records so they would not be destroyed told lena where they were and also went off to fight because of his guilt and died.

I was watching this episode today to see if there was any anime-only footage because this vol is told from shins pov we don't get a lot of details about what happened in the republic until they go on a mission in book 4. I for one want them to animate another season so that I can see shins' hand-to-hand combat skills and lena's shock and awe moment.

[Random14]

Its insane that even in the middle of dying there was still anti-86 graffiti in the capital, but that's the Alba for you. I think that was my favorite part of the episode, seeing a glimpse of Lena directing the defense.

The rest of the episode went overboard with the angst (and next week is clip show or something?). And we have to put up with another child wasting screen time to drive Shin even more crazy, and of course not like Shin would ever tell anyone else about the jerk passing along cutesy letters to guilt trip him (and even just the memory of Lena being one of the few things keeping Shin together). Yes, the 86 have their "pride", they don't want pity, we get it.

I'm not sure I'd quite call it self-righteous pity on the Federacy's part as much as them having some ethics at least (to feel bad about sending child soldiers to their death, though there are logical reasons, such as this is their best chance at survival and they are desperate), but after growing up in the Republic, the 86 can't tell the difference and just see it as being thrown away again. They reacted the same way to Lena too (though she was more oblivious originally).

Its not that I want pure action, but just tired of them replaying the clash between the 86's pride and everybody else's horror at how traumatized they already are, we've been seeing that since the Federacy was introduced. At least Lena (and her few supporters) have a simpler more direct struggle by now.