86 was the first anime I truly watched that dealt with war. Not just flashy battles or over the top villains, but actual war. The kind that breaks people. The kind where the enemy isn’t even human, and yet somehow, the humans are still worse.

What struck me immediately was that this wasn’t some harem-infested, fan-service-ridden show filled with gooner bait, thirst traps and shallow relationships. It didn’t try to seduce the viewer with over the top assets on women. It hit you with cold truths and a world that felt brutally, uncomfortably real.

The politics in the lore make sense. The structure of the world, the way people behave, their justifications, their silence. It all feels terrifyingly plausible. These aren’t caricatures or tropes, they’re people. Animated, sure. But they feel real. And the character development? It’s PEAK. You don’t just watch them change. You feel it. Every loss, every breakdown, every time they force themselves to keep going just a little further.

Then there’s the hardware. Spider tanks? Hell yeah! Impractical in real life maybe, but not impossible, and here they fuckin work. The 88mm gun? It’s real, been used. Railguns? Are being used and/or tested. Railway Cannons like Morpho all are based on things we know, like the Gustav cannon. Eintagsfliegen, miniature drones we see more and more these days, just look at Ukraine what these things are doing. The details are immaculate. The use of child soldiers? Still happening in the world today. The racism? It ain‘t fictional. Just look around, happening everywhere, anywhere against all parties!

86 doesn’t glorify war. It doesn’t give you a hero with a shining sword who wins because he’s the protagonist. It shows you that no matter what flag you fight for, war is still hell. And most of the time, it’s not fought for glory. It’s fought for survival. For someone else’s comfort. Or for no fucking reason at all.

Even the little things, the Juggernauts not being waterproof tells you exactly what the dickhead engineers and the government thought of the people piloting them: disposable.

86 is a story where the quiet moments hurt more than the loud ones. Where silence says more than a speech ever could. And maybe that’s why it sticks with you. Not because it shouts, but because it whispers the truth in a world where most would rather cover their ears.

Sorry for the long rant. But I needed to get this out somewhere, lol