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— Hello where, anime fans!
— Hi, overhyped seasonal show № 6934. What do you wanna offer to us today?
— Well, I'm a spy comedy about Kaguya and Shir... I mean, Lloyd and Yor. It's hilariously funny, just try it for yourself!
— Meh, another comedy about nippon students or nippon freaks? We've seen tons of them every fucking season. Anything else?
— B... but I don't use any Japanese cliches! I replaced them with 100% concentrated Western Cold War tropes.
— Spy comedy in a Cold War setting? Like The Man from U.N.C.L.E or something?
— Yeah, and both of the main characters don't know about each other secret ... identities, like Mr. and Mrs. Smith!
— Cool, and what about production values? Wit or maybe Cloverworks?
— We couldn't decide, so we hired both of them!
— Both of them? Hm... sounds cool, but that's still not enough for us. Maybe you have a new seasonal waifu to replace that girl... already forgot her name... from that show about h... hina dolls? New waifus are kinda meh. Shikimori is boring, Raphtalia is outdated...
— Yeah, we have a kawaii anime little girl! Her name is Yotsub... I mean, Anya, and she is secretly a mind-reader!
— Mind-reader?
— Yeah, and she likes peanuts!
— Peanuts?
— Yeah, and... she doesn't like carrots.
— OMG, IT'S A 10/10 STUFF, I REPEAT, 10/10!!!

Spy x Family is a nicely done comedy, and unless you have been living under a rock for three weeks, you already know everythin about it without this review. Yeah, it's funny, it's cool, it tries hard to adapt all manga jokes (sometimes even harder than need with 1 chapter/1 episode pacing, so these jokes can be slow or wrong-paced for some of the manga readers as myself). It's good, and... that's all.

Seriously, when I started to read this manga in 2019, I already knew that lots of people will hype possible anime adaptation and Anya’s cuteness. And yeah, I enjoyed this adaptation by myself, even if I neither Wit nor Cloverworks fan. However, some well done gags is mostly the only thing that this show can offer. Story? Basic level. Characters? Just a standard archetypes. Action? Director prefer SoL scenes. All that we need for this rating nowadays - some simple jokes, well done production qualities and kawaii anime girl? Maybe we'll know it someday.

Should you watch it? Yeah, why not. Just don’t expect a 10/10 masterpiece because of all this hype, cause it's just a simple and enjoyable comedy, nothing more, nothing less.

People often say that mecha genre is dying nowadays. There is no place for the giant robot stuff in the era of light novel fantasies and battle shounens, and it’s difficult to disagree with it. After the ridiculous success of FranXX three years ago, this genre fell down into the void again, and suddenly I realized that literally nothing new was released in the past two years. Yeah, some movie sequels of already established franchises, some cheap and weird trash like Listeners or Revisions, and another rehashing of the same ideas for the tenth (eleventh? twelfth?) time by Trigger. Wake me up if something happens.

Because ... of that, I really had some hopes for 86. About a year ago, I read the first volume of the LN and found it pretty mediocre and way too teen, but with an unusual concept that could be developed into something passable with a good director and studio. I hoped that Sunrise or Satelight will take care of the source material as they can and give us something at least visually good. What have we got instead? Yeah, an amateurish guy who has never directed TV series before, A-1 Pictures, a studio who can’t make mecha at all, and the animation director whose previous works were Asterisk and Oreimo s2. And holy fuck, all these dudes gattaied into one big dude and gave me a mediocre experience that made me lost all of my hopes and dreams.

Let’s shortly talk about the good things first: action and music. After the averagely directed first episode, I expected nothing but was really surprised at how lit the first full-fledged battle was. Great direction, well-done CGI by studio Shirogumi, and OST by Sawano combined and became something surprisingly well done (yeah, the action was unrealistic a bit, but it is a mecha and we always forgive it to this genre, so shut up and enjoy the show). Mr. Hiroyuki produced another superb stuff as usual and made most of the scenes as hype as possible, thanks to him. That’s all.

People often say that 86 has a really complex story and doesn’t afraid to speak on deep and provocative themes like human freedom and slavery. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not. 86 is basically your run-of-the-mill teenage dystopia like Hunger Games or Divergent that was really popular only a few years ago. No, seriously, all of the components are here – dystopian Nazi country, ridiculous world-building with primitive plot holes, black and white sides of the conflict without any depth, and young teens as main characters. It’s not awful itself, because light novels (and most anime shows nowadays) are teenage-oriented, and simple stories about the heroic anime boys and girls who are fighting against fate can be enjoyable and well-done too – but sad bad true, 86 sucks even as a teenage mecha action.

Story? World-building? Imagine that you suddenly (what a surprise) knew that one of the “pig” pilots somehow killed a bunch of the handlers. What will you do? Kill him? Interrogate about how he did it and kill after that? At least, forbid him to communicate with the handlers? What a fool! The best decision in this situation is… do nothing and allow him to kill even more people! More than that, the next handler will be a kawaii 16-years old naive girl who doesn’t know anything about real life – what a good decision! Let’s hope that this pig won't kill her next (but don’t be afraid too much, because plot armor is the strongest armor).

How about the war against the Legion? Once again – nobody cares! We won’t use anything that could help us to win the war – intelligence, cartography work, artillery are just a bunch of words for us, so let's give our enemies some cardboard mechas and force them to fight for us by themselves while we are drinking vodka under the giant wall’s protection. Why does nobody care? Because the Legion will stop in two years, of course! What will we do if Legion won’t stop? What will we do if the Legion will destroy the army of 86 earlier than two years and attack our wall? What will we do if the rest of 86 won’t protect us for the two years and will make a suicidal attack on the wall or just stop resisting? Well… something, I guess? Who even cares? Let’s drink vodka because we are edgy cartoonish villains. What a time to be alive!

I won’t even say anything of minor stupid situations in this “deep anime” because this is just a preliminary review and it’s already way too huge, but I really need to say about the most degenerate moment of this show that was happened in episode two and made me lost any hope of this abomination. Imagine this: a Nazi military school where the future officers are studying how to be successful commanders (on paper, in anime all of the students don’t give a fuck at all, because, as we remember, nobody cares). Suddenly, a liberalistic military equivalent of Greta Turnberg stands up, interrupts the speaker, and starts to make her own propaganda about eighty-six who are “boys and girls, just like us”. Yeah, she directly said it in front of the students and the teacher in a fucking Nazi totalitarian country where you can be killed just because you have the wrong color of eyes or hair. If this show was a bit – a bit! – realistic, Lena would have been eventually killed, strictly punished (like a few years in the jail for the propaganda or direct transfer to the battlefield with 86 – they will be really happy to see a real Alba among them), or, at least, prohibited to be an officer and a handler anymore. In this show… imagine what? Yeah, you are right – nobody cares. What a masterful writing.

Yeah, Vladilena is an awful character. Not only because she acts like a typical Mary Sue (hey, I'm a kawaii 16 years-old girl, and I'm already the strongest handler in the whole Republic cause all other Alba's are just a bunch of degenerates) with plot armor, but because of her extremely naive personality and idealism. Girl, you have already lived in this country for about 16 years, you know that they treat 86 like pigs, and you STILL don't understand why Jerome can't give Shin's squad any help? You STILL can't understand that Albas don't give a fuck about eighty-six? What's wrong with you?

Shin is basically a standard "cool black-haired boy with a tragic past" archetype. It's not bad and I personally like this type of character, the problem here is that he is just way too generic without any memorable qualities. He is cool, he is skilled warrior, he is perfect and dramatic, yeah yeah how original never saw this before.

Other members of the 86 squad tried to become someone memorable but failed, even with some well-done anime original scenes that tried to give them some personality. They are nothing but boys and girls with different hair colors who fight... and sometimes die. Should I feel sad about them or what? They don't have enough screen time to become someone more than just a forced drama squad.

The animation by A-1 is fine at best – lots of cheap CGI (cars, robot on the 86’s base, backgrounds) + character designs like «hey, I can’t draw more than two faces so let’s give viewers a bunch of similar anime boys and girls who differ from each other only with their hair color». Of course, your favorite bright backgrounds that ruin all the atmosphere are also here, same as amateurish direction. Yeah, Ishii Toshimasa tried to carry this show by dynamic editing and switching the scenes between each other, but it doesn’t work at all – and even more, sometimes editing is so random that it feels like the director skipped a bunch of the scenes.

86 is lousy and doesn’t deserve this hype at all. Meh storyline, generic characters, and overall mediocrity made me disappointed. Yeah, A-1, disappointed, even with some actually great moments like 86's names in episode four. And yeah, LN is much better: of course, it is still a typical teen sci-fi, but it also has better world-building and some interesting conversations between Lena, Shinei, and Spearhead that were cut or replaced by stupid fillers like academy one. Will I continue watching? Yeah, because I’m interested in how they will animate Shin’s backstory and Volume 1 final fight, but after 4 episodes of this mecha I have no hopes whatsoever. Wanna see a better show with a similar idea? Watch the first season of Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans, watch The Sky Crawlers, watch Schwarzesmarken – all of these shows are much better than this. 86, however, is more on Egao no Daika level for me, but even Egao no Daika at least tried to show viewers a potentially promising sci-fi world with two equal sides of the conflict instead of this overhyped Nazi mediocrity. «I do not understand why such wasteful shows like this one are made or even allowed to exist». Yeah, bro, me neither.

20xx
Somewhere in the Pierrot office

Yuuji Nunokawa (smoking a big black cigarette):
— Guys, we have a fucking ton of money from Naruto, Bleach, Black Clover, and other beloved and popular franchises. Any ideas about what should we do with them?
— Finally, give Black Clover a proper adaptation!
— Stop milking Boruto, I guess?
— How about Yona of the Dawn s2?

(sudden random sounds of violence)
...
Security (holding a gun):
— Sir, five hundred feral Tokyo Ghoul fans are assaulting our office right now, and all of them wanna talk with you about something. Maybe we should give them a real manga adaptation instead of root a?
Yuuji Nunokawa (stops smoking):
— Nice ideas, but I have something better in my mind. Listen here.

(making a call)

— Oh hi Kodaka. It’s Yuuji Nunokawa, Pierrot CEO. I played your danganronpa thing a week ago, and it’s pretty enjoyable. Can you give us 12-episode anime like this but in DYSTOPIAN KANSAI FUTURE? Cyberpunk 2077 was postponed again, and I have nothing to play.
— Yeah, but…
— I’ll give you a fucking ton of money.
— Ok. How many edgy characters do you need?
— ALL OF THEM
— Say no more.

Akudama Drive is one of the most enjoyable things that I watched this year. It’s illogical, it’s a bit retarded, it’s edgy — but it also doesn’t give a fuck about it at all, and that honesty is understandable. No annoying crybaby Japanese students, no boring fan service, and no dull plot twists — only awesome action and magnificent visual style.

Yeah, the animation here is surprisingly superb: combinations of 2D and CGI, stylish backgrounds, and well-done fights are nearby with the Ufotable level of greatness — and unlike the Fate franchise, people here don’t speak a lot while fighting. What? Characters development? Well-written story? Are you a fucking nerd or something? Shut up and enjoy a wild cyberpunk ride — or you will die soon. God bless Kodaka!

I'm not entirely sure why I watched four episodes of this show. Everything, from the original light novel cover to the studio (C2C) and production team, made me think nothing but “oh, it's just another mediocre LN adaptation” and prefer to choose more entertaining shows from this season instead. However, power of MAL hype is strong, and hot discussions about the third episode attracted my attention. New Kino no Tabi? A show where protagonist is not the purest person in the whole world and can make decisions that fall in the morally grey territory? Not your typical LN adaptation? Ok, ok, I gave it a ... try… and what a disappointment, even for my low expectations.

What “deep” things people found here? What “not your cute fantasy with cute waifus” type of stuff? It’s just another boredom that uses imitation of deep content instead of really deep things; an anime where primitive and childish stories (remember kids, stealing is bad; remember kids, train hard and be nice with other people) are mixed with… another primitive and childish stories. Episode 3? Ok, there are flowers, they are (spoiler) and caused some (spoiler). Moral of the story? “Even beautiful roses have their thorns”. WOW, so deep, so philosophical, so unique, so meaningful! Who cares about Kino's Journey, we have a new seasonal king here! How that moral lessons for 12 years old kids can be even a little interesting? Just how?

Our protagonist, Elaina? The road movie is a rough genre, but a charismatic, charming main character can make even a clichéd story enjoyable. What we have here? Naive and egoistic b… witch. Sorry, I wanted to like this girl — tried to see her inner demons, her philosophical point of view as a traveler, her interesting decisions due to the episodes, but nah — “praise me more” and “I don’t want to know what happened with a slave girl” are two phrases that describe our MC perfectly. She just doesn’t care about anything, even about her journey and the places where she travels; our witch is too epic for all that plebs. Kino wasn’t a superman, and two girls from Shoujo Shuumatsu weren't powerful magicians; instead of them, Elaina can use her magic to change something — destroy flowers, take care of the slave girl, et cetera. However, she doesn’t want to do it at all and just leave things to happen. Reason? She doesn’t care. Ok, no problem, but why should I?

Art and animation? Go to the C2C official site, type “generic cute light novel fantasy designs” and you’ll get everything that you can see in Wandering Witch. Spend the rest of your budget for some cool magical fights (but not so much, our money isn’t infinite, remember?) and use CG for everything else. CG butterflies. CG roofs & flowers. CG witches. CG backgrounds. CG CG. Sad bad true, nowadays animators forgot how to draw and use CG instead of everything. Who are we to blame them?

I wanted to see something unique here. Just something that can give me emotions — happiness, sadness, pain, interest, maybe even anger. However, there is nothing much to say about Elaina, because it’s just mediocre. Mediocre adaptation of the mediocre light novel in the castle of mediocrity: boring, uninspiring, nothing to grab my attention at all. Want to watch another clichéd anime fantasy? Try Majo no Tabitabi: maybe you will enjoy it, and even add Elaina to your favorites, because why not. What about me? Sorry, but I prefer Strike Witches, not Generic ones. Peace.