86 - EIGHTY SIX, Vol. 1 (light novel)

by Asato Asato

[sa090]

86 by Asato Asato

I’ve been hearing a lot about this series and also getting it recommended every time I ask for recs so after reading it, I can say that it was a more pleasant experience than I thought it would be :)

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I’m not against popular series, I just have a bit of reversion when it comes to them after being let down so many times. Thankfully, reading 86 wasn’t one of those times. It’s actually been a while since I read a post apocalyptic series in either the western or the eastern communities, and while the basic formula is the same, I think the focus on humanity or more accurately who should be considered a “human” in the eyes of the government made it a little extra interesting. Again, I know it’s not the first time, but I really enjoy novels that like to tackle issues concerning humanity, usually it’s the basic black and white of with or against, that grey area getting the focus had my interest the minute I read this in the book:

“Yet another day dawned when soldiers, who were treated as nothing more than mechanical parts, set out to suffer deaths that would not be counted as deaths, on a battlefield without casualties.”

I was hooked afterwards, and the novel proceeded to show me different aspects of their country and gave me bits and pieces about the opposition. Although it wasn’t to the same extent I hoped, it was enough for the novel to paint the outside of the world in the way it wanted me to see it. The rest of that painting was slowly filled with the events of the novel, I wouldn’t call it a purely fast paced novel and I wouldn’t call it a purely slow paced either, it had a bit of both in its halves. First half felt slow-ish to me, while the second was faster. I liked both of them to be very honest, although I wish the novel did a something thing differently for me to really make a better decision.

Namely how it handled its characters. I wouldn’t call it bad, but I wouldn’t call it good either. Here’s the thing, the novel handles war, it handles death and it handles everything in between. Yet, the characters save for a few are not memorable enough for me to care nor feel anything when they kick the bucket. Ultimately, other than the two mains on the cover, none of the multiple names mentioned in the novel made that big of an impression on me for me to still remember their names. That goes for the main characters as well, I remember their code names more so than the actual names and this is only me after a month a half of reading the novel.

Technology or rather the way Asato-sensei handles the technology was fun and I really hoped that we’ll dive much much deeper when it came to how everything works with the machines in this world. Moreover, I really hoped for something recon wise to be implemented, the world gets mentioned in bits and pieces like I said, but not to the extent that I can tell which country is which with conviction. However, considering that this is the first novel in a series I’m not going to be hard on it because there is more than enough chance to give me what I hoped for later on.

This brings me to my last point, this novel, despite the chance for it to expand its world to a bigger degree, made me think that it would have been better as a standalone instead of a series. I’m not saying that because it’s boring, au contraire, I enjoyed myself, but the ending of the conflict or at least the main conflict in this novel made it seem like enough, this is a really good way to end it and I would like to see other works by this author who can give his work this kind of ending. So when it got the prelude to a continuation later in the novel, I kind of expected it but wasn’t really hoping for it. Make sense? It’s a weird feeling to have, but only time will tell, as I will surely be continuing with it.

Final rating: 4/5