An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 13 (S2E2)

This week, we get an episode entirely devoted to Shin’s side of the world; Lena doesn’t appear at all. And, quite honestly, that was needed in order to go through the emotions of their experience with good pacing; the show would not have benefited from either doing it in half the time (losing emotional weight) or from doing it over two episodes (bloating the pace of the plot points).

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 12 (S2E1)

If you haven’t watched 86 yet, do yourself a favor and give it a look. The first cour of the show was a well-paced, emotional, dramatic dive into the seemingly no-win scenario of a group of undesirables intended to die in battle against an army of rogue AIs and their commander, a principled young woman battling to hold on to her own humanity and help them against the wishes of the system she’s a part of. It was A+ work that balanced human kindness and cruelty, as well as light and darkness in general, to form an effective experience.

The one odd bit is that, despite the fact that we knew another cour was coming, it seemed to end on a definite final note. So, how does the show continue?

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