Surviving
in Japan's cutthroat animation industry doesn't just depend on having a
brilliant story, but on keeping licenses active so that audiences continue to
consume your content over the years. Considered by many critics and viewers as
one of the best science fiction gems of the last decade, 86:
Eighty Six has just suffered a serious commercial blow. Exactly five
years after its original premiere, the acclaimed twenty-three-episode series
began to be removed from the main streaming platforms globally, leaving its
followers with an extremely bitter taste in the total absence of news about a
second season.
A
forgotten battlefield
For those who did not give it a chance at the time, this narrative is one of the crudest and most fascinating that the medium has given us recently. The story immerses us in a nation that pretends to wage an impeccable war using high-tech autonomous machinery, when the terrible reality is that young people from marginalized minorities are forced to pilot these metal coffins under inhumane conditions. Exploring very heavy themes such as social segregation, sacrifice and political hypocrisy, the animated adaptation closed its first broadcast in a masterful way, but barely scratched the surface of what really happens on the front lines.
Unfortunately,
while the original light novels continue to expand their
universe successfully and explore the psychological development of their
protagonists, the production committee seems to have put their television
counterpart on hold. The contrast between the richness of the printed material
and the stagnation of the animated project keeps fans in a constant state of
frustration.
The
uncertain future of the franchise
The sudden
elimination of digital catalogs means that new viewers will have to resort to
direct purchases or very specific additional services in order to enjoy this
war odyssey. While it's completely normal for shows to jump from one platform
to another when distribution contracts expire, what really
hurts the community is the stony silence about a sequel. With no single
official announcement on the horizon, the hope of seeing Shin and Lena battling
it out on the small screen again fades a little more with each passing year.
Knowing
that the creator has plenty of written content to adapt multiple narrative arcs
full of human drama and tactical action
