Episode 57: 86 aka “the sad mecha anime”

Posted on by knppodcast

Content Warning: This episode discusses the horrors of war, systemic racism, and trauma. Please use discretion while listening.

Listen here.

In this episode of the Kinky Nerdy Poly Podcast, M and G dive deep into 86, a mecha anime that explores war, systemic racism, and the human spirit in a dystopian society. G shares why this anime ranks as one of their recent favorites (and why it is their “sad mecha anime”), and M reflects on what makes 86 so compelling with respect to its heavy themes. G and M tackle philosophical questions: What does it mean to challenge systemic injustices? How does trauma shape communities under duress? And what lessons can we draw from science fiction to confront our present-day challenges?

Key topics include:

  • What is 86?: A breakdown of the anime’s premise, including the Republic of San Magnolia, the marginalized “86,” and the robotic enemy Legion.
  • The Role of War and Racism: How 86 uses science fiction to critique systemic racism, societal complicity, and the trauma of war.
  • Character Analysis: Discussions about Major Vladilena “Lena” Milizé’s savior complex and growth, and Shin “Undertaker” Nouzen’s immense burden as the leader of Spearhead Squadron.
  • Ethics of Autonomous Weapons: Timely reflections on the implications of AI and remotely controlled weapons in real-world warfare.

Sources and Mentions from the Episode:

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The music in this episode is the Secret of Tiki Island by Kevin MacLeod and is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0. You can find more of Kevin MacLeod’s music at his website.

Transcript

This transcript has not been fully edited for accuracy or completeness.

[00:00:00]

Welcome to the Kinking Nerdy Poll Podcast.

G: Hello, this is G. And this is M. And this is the Kinky Nerdy Polly Podcast.

M: On today’s episode of the KNP Podcast, G and I are going to be talking about one of G’s favorite, or maybe the favoritest, anime.

G: I’m not sure if it’s my favoritest, but it is my most favorite of animes that I’ve watched recently.

M: Okay, and that anime is 86.

G: Yes. Yes, this is, this is definitely my favorite anime that I’ve watched in the past five to [00:01:00] six years.and, we’re going to be talking about this anime and we’re going to be doing all the spoilers about this anime.

So if you want to go and watch the series and come back, we’ll be here waiting patiently.

M: And if you don’t want to watch the anime and you just want to listen to our thoughts on it, that’s fine too.

G: That’s also fine. And also we do need to put in a content warning for this episode. This is an anime. This is a mecha anime, which deals a lot with the horrors of war and also, systemic racism.

so if either of those topics make you uncomfortable, that’s fine. Just, come back for the next episode.

M: Actually, those subjects probably should make you uncomfortable.

G: Yes. If they

M: make you prohibitively uncomfortable to listen to this episode, then, You know, please, please honor that.

Yeah.

M: So, yes, we talked about one of my favorite animes, in recent history, which is My Hero Academia, and I’m really enjoying the new season,

M: that’s out, and now we [00:02:00] want to talk about one of your favorite animes, so I’m really excited that we get to do that, especially because after your recommendation, I decided to watch it, and I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and even someone I know who watched it.

who normally doesn’t enjoy anime, really enjoyed it because the plot is quite good, the animation is fantastic, and so on. So yeah. JAYLEE So I did have

G: to push you a little bit to watch the anime. STACEY

M: Did you?

G: JAYLEE Yeah, just a little bit, because I called it my sad mecha anime, and you were like STACEY

M: Well, it is harder when you just say it’s a sad mecha anime.

Because, and I also love comedies, like I love Psyche K, I love Mashle, Magic and Muscles, I like things with comedic You know? So it was a little bit of a hard sell, maybe because you were just framing it in a sad way, but I think there’s a lot to be gleaned there. It is sad.

G: Yes.

M: But there is more than sadness.

G: There is more than sadness, that is correct.

M: and so I really did enjoy it, even though I forgot that you had to push me a little bit in that respect. so, gee, what is 86?

G: [00:03:00] 86 is the story of a squadron of mech pilots, their spearhead squadron, and just to give you, this is, so this isn’t really a spoiler because it’s pretty much told to you right away, but essentially when this anime starts off, the, the society is divided between, a, a racial group known as the Albans.

or an ethnic group known as the Albans, who all have silver hair. And people who are not Albin, who don’t have silver hair, who are collectively referred to as either, Colorata or, 86. Because they live in the unofficial 86 district of the Republic of San Magnolia. and they’re basically used as human cannon fodder to defend, the Republic of San Magnolia from the, Autonomous Robot Enemy, which is known as Legion, or The Legion. I think that is a [00:04:00] summation of sort of how things start.

M: It’s a

G: great is, the anime is made by A1 Pictures, which has a pretty good reputation, even though I don’t remember their other animes. And the light novel, which the anime is based off is, written by Asato

M: Asato.

And is that the one that I got you the light novel of?

G: It’s actually fascinating because after having read that light novel and comparing it to the anime, I actually think the anime is a better introduction than the light novel. Because the light novel, I don’t know. There’s The Light Novel is just like a tad bit more clinical.

M: Okay, interesting.

G: in my opinion. Basically it kind of starts more sort of like at the one third of like the first season. basically a lot of people are already dead. Oh, okay. And then it like flashes back to them later.

M: Oh.

G: And I feel like So you don’t get attached. Right. I feel [00:05:00] like reordering that made it much more impactful when those people died.

M: Right, because then you have that time to grow with them. Yes. Yes, I can see that. Okay. And this was recommended to you by a YouTuber.

G: Yes, the YouTuber has a channel called Mother’s Basements where he reviews anime.

M: And we will post the link in the show notes.

G: I’ll post the link to his review. Though basically everything that he’s going to talk about we’re also going to talk about. I like to call this. My sad MechaAnime. And you think I actually have kind of like a kink for being sad.

M: Well, it’s certainly a mood.

Yes. and a mood like capital M. Yes. With a trademark symbol.

G: Yes. I, at first I think I argued with you about this, but then I binged watched Chernobyl in one night. and so maybe that’s not.

M: You’re just, you’re inclined towards sadness. Yes.

G: Yes.

M: And that’s okay. We need people who experience sadness to the fullest and that’s a beautiful thing.

G: Yeah.

M: And [00:06:00] also you get to be happy sometimes.

G: I do get to be happy sometimes.

M: Maybe this is just to say, audience folks, that if you are maybe in a depressed state.

G: Yeah.

M: you might want to just take caution. Because it is sad, and if you, and it could further that, or it could be an exploration.

G: Yeah, I sometimes, now that I’ve sort of been, thinking about it more, I wonder if I like watch sad stuff to see other people who are sadder than me, and it makes me feel better.

M: Oh, I was gonna, that kind of sounds mean, but I was gonna say maybe you’re watching it as a catharsis.

G: That’s a better way of

M: putting it.

Right, that is a better, isn’t it? I’ll be your therapist. No, I’m just kidding. . Yeah, because I, I get that with people who really like sad music and they’re depressed and they listen to sad music because it enables them to really get it, you know, really feel that and get it out. And that’s the catharsis of it.

G: Yeah.

M: Yeah.

G: I called myself MechaAnime because not only does it deal with sort of regular MechaAnime topics of like how war is hell, which is something that Gundam just keeps uncovering [00:07:00] over and over again, it also talks about

M: Can I pause you real quick? Yeah. Because I think this is important, but what is can we actually define Mecha and Gundam for those who might be tuning in who don’t know?

G: That’s a great point, Em. I wish I had written some bullet points for this, but I’ll try my best to ad lib this. So, Mecha refers to either a genre or a sub genre of anime, which involves fighting robots. Generally speaking, they’re piloted fighting robots. I think an early example of, like, you could kind of consider Astrobots to be a mecha, but it’s not, you know, it’s an autonomous robot, so it’s not, it’s not piloted.

Voltron, I think, is

M: Voltron, yeah.

G: Like, the old version, not the new Netflix remake. that was mecha anime, but it was like magical fighting robots. Generally speaking, when people say mecha anime, I think generally, what [00:08:00] they’re specifically referring to is sort of the more, hard science version of it, where it’s like, there are these fighting robots. they’re piloted, but they’re part of sort of these industrial systems. this isn’t always the case, like, Evangelion is technically a mecha anime. Attack on Titan can be considered a mecha anime, if you just consider that the titans themselves are just, you know, Biological mechs. that, so generally speaking, I’d say the primary things you’re looking for when somebody is talking about mecha anime is that, it is about a machine that’s piloted by a person and usually they’re fighting, more hard science, more hard science fiction universe. obviously there are exceptions and

M: yeah, that’s yeah, there’s always exceptions to the rule. I think that’s a great intro.

G: Yeah.

 Gundam refers to a specific. Mecha [00:09:00] franchise. there was

M: like several, I remember watching a Gundam wing or,

G: yeah.

There’s several. So the confusing thing about Gundam is that there’s actually, there’s like one main timeline, which I think is the universal century. Which a lot of their shows are placed in, but there’s also a bunch of other Gundam shows which are in other timelines. And so it’s a little confusing, and if you want to get into it, I’d highly recommend, like, looking up, like, a watchlist to see, like, which ones you’re interested in watching.

But, for the main plot of Gundam, which is the Universal Century, it is Dealing with sort of three main topics. One is sort of the evolution of humans into New types which is sort of like people who are more adapted to live and live in space and have usually have psychic powers the horrors of war Also, there is a fight between the principalities of Zeon and the United Nations on earthwhich, spans across the entire solar system, involves like billions of people dying. it is, I [00:10:00] believe, the trope originator of the, on TVTrope. org, it is the trope originator of the colony drop, trope. Which is the idea of you take a orbital colony, and instead of using it as a colony, you just de accelerate it to turn it into a big weapon.

M: Wow, I learned so much, even though I remember watching Gundam Wing and some other Gundams, but I just learned so much more.

G: Yeah.

M: so I am sorry that I interrupted you for that, but I think that was a good primer, like a good little intro to that. So the side mecha anime 86 deals with war. And also some, some things like

G: So not only does it deal with the topic that war is hell, which a lot of other mecha animes cover, like most of the Gundams are like, Hey, you think war is cool, here’s how it affects people.

Right. for very, I think, understandable cultural reasons, the Japanese tend to be, at least the ones that make Gundam, tend to be very like, war is a [00:11:00] bad idea.

M: Yeah, I think, and it’s I, I, I am in agreement with their assessment.

G: Yes. I’m not sure if all of their, I’m not, I’m not gonna say all, all their cultural output is like this, but I think a significant portion of their cultural output is about how like war is a terrible thing.

M: Right. And especially if we think about their history and not so long ago, how they have been deeply impacted and continue to be impacted today.

G: Yeah. So, not only does it deal with that, it also deals with even people who don’t die on the battlefield have to deal with significant trauma. Like,

and this affects both, not only like the Spearhead Squadron, it also affects,one of the Albin characters, uh,

M: Major Melisse.

G: Major Melisse. Thank you.and, so it, it looks at that. It also looks is one of, in my opinion, best sort of examinations [00:12:00] of systemic racism. Like it’s not just looking at.

The people who are hateful. It’s looking at all the systems that even if you’re not actively hate, hateful perpetuate the racism. Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah.

M: cause there were many people who it came up in the anime where they, , you know, believe themselves to be kind and good people. Yeah. But there was this thing, we don’t even think about these other people that are dying out there.

We don’t, you know, we don’t, we

G: don’t admit that they exist. We don’t admit that they exist. And so we just turn a

M: blind eye.

G: We take credit for some of the work that they did. Right. we, even people who are actively aware of the situation, have rationalize it to themselves. There’s some which some people turn hateful I guess let me let me just break it down a little bit and give you the because we’ve given you the overview of the story, but let me give you the breakdown [00:13:00] of How events are at the beginning of the anime?

So there’s the Republic of San Magnolia Which at the story introduction is as far as we’re as the audience is aware the last bastion of humanity And they’re facing off against a self replicating robotic army known as the Legion. During the initial stages of this conflict, the San Magnolian military was nearly wiped out by the Legion.

And so, in order to, In order to survive, what they did was they, reorganized their society around these 85 or 86 districts. they expelled all the colorata, to the 86th district and said that basically you have to fight now if you want to

M: rejoin back into the society, right?

G: Well, it’s not even that.

It’s like you have to fight now if you want to protect your family that’s also outside the protection of the community. the 85 districts. [00:14:00]

M: And then if they serve, they’re supposed to serve four years of fighting.

G: I think it’s two years.

M: Is it only two years? Oh, wow. Okay. I thought it was four. And then, cause it’s been a hot second since I watched it.

And then if they complete that, they’re supposed to,

G: Be able so yeah, so basically they’re they’re no longer legally classified as human they’re told that if they serve for a certain amount of time whether it’s two or four years They can rejoin Society as a they can regain their citizenship

so they fight in these, sort of insectoid, the, all the mecha, so most mecha is usually like based on humanoid shapes,but in this anime, everything is sort of insectoid. there’s like spiders and, yeah.

M: beetle esque, adjacent,

G: yeah. Wasps. Mm-hmm . Ish. Like the Scorpion. Mm-hmm . I think the, the juggernaut that the 86 pilot is very scorpion like.

M: Mm-hmm . Yeah.

G: so [00:15:00] everything is, all the, all the mecca are very insectoid in this, in this world. the. So yes, the 86 are told like, Hey, you know, if you survive for so long, you can rejoin society as a citizen. but the,

I don’t want to say this. one of the things I like about 86 is it’s very clear that none of them actually believe that bullshit. They know that nobody from the 86 has ever made it back to being a citizen, so they know it’s bullshit.

M: Yeah, they know they’re being blatantly lied to, but yeah, but what I also thought was very interesting is that some of them, not all of them, but some of them are still really dedicated to fighting like this is , Not that it’s the right thing to do, and not moralizing it.

Rather, it was like a, I’ll defend my people, even if my people won’t save me.

G: I mean, there’s an element of that, but I do feel like sort of the overriding [00:16:00] sentiment for most of them is like, all right, well, we don’t care about the Albans behind us, but we care about the people we’re fighting next to.

M: Yeah. And like our, our family and friends that we have here.

G: Yeah. A lot of trauma bonding. Yeah,

M: for sure. So yeah, they, and I agree, it’s not about protecting the Albans necessarily, but it was a sense of like, I’m going to do this because

G: yeah,

M: for my own,

G: you

M: know, and so it is exercising, even though they’re kind of forced in that position, but they’re what I took this as like reclaiming it of like, I’m going to make this as best as I can in this awful situation that I’m in.

G: Yes,

So we’ve already talked about one of the major characters, Major Millizay, Vladilena Millizay, who is an Albin.and she is very much a, she, she very much believes that what has been done to the 86. Oh, I guess we should go over why they’re called 86. You did already.

M: You said it’s because they were put [00:17:00] in the 86 district. Yeah. And then that district is ousted from society with all of the colorata.

G: Yeah. she thinks what’s been done to the 86 is abhorrent. Well, and she tries her best to, she tries her best to, improve their lot in life. even though that she’s a part of the military, which is supposed to basically use them as human cannon fodder. and the other character we follow is Sine Nozin, who is an 86 in command of the Spearhead Squadron. and he has some special stuff going on as well. I believe his codename is Undertaker.

M: That sounds right because he takes care of the people who die. Yes. And he remembers them by like writing their names, right?

G: Yeah, like a fascinating thing in the first episode is the Albans know, that his codename is Undertaker and they assume that it is a reference the fact that he drives handlers insane.

Mm

G: hmm. And then [00:18:00] you go to the Spearhead Squadron and like, No, he’s, like, he’s the ace pilot that takes care of us and will also, finish us off if we’re wounded in battle and cannot make it back.

he’ll take care of us so that we do not get,

M: Like because they can get kind of converted into.

G: Yeah, so part of the reason why the society is set up this way is that the Albans know for a fact that the Legion has a hard coded limit of it can’t they can only do like six years worth of fighting and Then the Legion units will start to shut down so what they don’t know and what the 86 do know is that, because the legion, are based off of brain scans, they have been able to harvest, wounded soldiers brains, or if they can capture one alive and do,

Brain transfer.

M: Oh, a transfer, yeah.

G: that’s even better. But , they’ve been able to duplicate. [00:19:00] So they know, the 86 know that this is a losing fight. Like, the Albans think the fight’s going to be over in two years. And in fact, what you find out I think later on the series is that from, the officer that, Major Mose reports to, is that in fact, what they’re hoping for is that all the 86 die, by the end of the war.

So that no, but there’s

M: nobody, no rebellion after everything,

G: no rebellion and no one to remember the atrocity. It’s fucked up. It is fucked up.

M: It’s very fucked up.

G: So those are two main characters, And, it looks like you have some questions for me if you want to start going over those, in order to sort of cover the basic concepts of the story.

M: Yeah. I wanted to dive into the, implications of some of these things. So first we’ll just start out with the concept of the juggernauts that are being secretly piloted by the 86.

Yeah.

M: so my question for you is what does that say about a [00:20:00] society that is willing to lie to its citizens and sacrifice a marginalized group for the perceived greater good?

G: This is one part of the show which I’m not 100 percent on,

because it’s, like, the show makes it seem like the military, the government and the military made this decision, and the citizens of the republic really aren’t aware of it. It’s hard for me to imagine that. Four years ago, you just managed to remove everyone who wasn’t of a certain ethnic group and nobody remembers, it’s,

it’s a little bit of like, , you may not have known there are people in Nazi Germany who didn’t know exactly what was going on. But they knew that the Jews were disappearing. It doesn’t take much to add two plus two.

M: So you think it’s maybe a will for ignorance that was happening on the part of the

G: 100%.

There’s no way you can Okay, I don’t want, maybe there are some people, especially [00:21:00] some people who are just that ignorant, but I think for the most part is a willful ignorance by the society in general to say, it’s like, we’re just going to forget that we had all these neighbors, and people who ran businesses and, you know, I think it is, I mean, I think 86 pretty much condemns.

The society for being the way it is. A hundred percent. Yeah. and you know, I hate to say it, but like, there’s certainly a lot of parallels that you can like draw to how the United States uses marginalized, especially using, immigrants in our military so that they can gain citizenship. Right. Right.

And also using, the military as a tool to escape poverty. Yeah, I was just

M: thinking about that and like to be able to get an education.

G: Yeah.

M: for example, so absolutely. these are excellent commentaries.

G: Yeah. so yeah, I, I think it, I think it’s a very, it’s deep condemnation of this kind of, and [00:22:00] obviously the United States isn’t at that extreme that the Republic of San Magnolia is, but that’s the nice thing about science fiction is that you can sort of examine things at the extreme.

You can extrapolate. Yes.

M: and hopefully that helps us to reflect on the systems we have in place now and say, we want to avoid these sorts of devastating big things in the future. And we can do that by working to undo these systems now.

I wanted to turn back to the character of Major Melize. I think she’s really interesting.

and so, before you answer, I wanted to just, chime in a little bit about her character. , I think she does challenge the systemic racism within the Republic, but, what I wanted to ask is if she’s a true ally to the 86, or is her role a little bit more complicated? And the reason that I want to bring this up is because, in the very beginning, she has a little bit of a savior complex.

That’s my,That’s my opinion.

G: I don’t think it’s a little savior complex. Okay, okay.

M: I

G: think it’s a huge savior complex. Okay,

M: I wanted to be a little bit, you know, [00:23:00] Maybe, tentative in how I phrase that, but yeah, so she has a savior complex, and I think that’s actually a relatable experience, and that’s something I like about her, because when you want to help other people, and she sees these atrocities, she thinks, I can save them, you know, me, like, I’m this one person, let me go do it, but you know, it takes more than one person to change a whole system, that’s the one thing that comes to mind, and the second thing is that, There might be, especially if, when you’re just starting to explore helping a group or dismantling a system, I think that, having that savior complex is sort of like,it, it, it feels like it can be easy to fall into.

G: Yeah, and I think it’s very easy for it to come off as very condescending. Mm hmm. Because she has some interactions with the spearhead squadron. Yeah,

so if you don’t mind me cutting in right here. I think what’s really telling, Spearhead Squadron is not the first squadron that she’s been like the handler for.

Oh, and I guess to [00:24:00] tell our audience folks, by handler, what we mean is she basically does sort of battlefield management remotely. She’s never on the battlefield herself. And that’s sort of the position that all the Albin military has. They’re always managing the 86 remotely. Even before she’s with the Spearhead Squadron, she’s with another unit, and she tells them after like a hard battle, you know, how sorry she is that, you know, 86 died.

So

sorry.

G: But you know, unfortunately she’s not going to be around for the next mission because she’s being reassigned to the spearhead squadron. And, I think it was very telling that the last line she hears from like this, the squadron that she used to manage that she presumably spent some time with was, it’s like, ah, best of luck, not going insane.

It like, it became very clear that. Even though she was trying her best, they did not appreciate it.

M: Absolutely. And we see [00:25:00] it again in the Spearhead Squadron where she has these interactions where they tell her quite frankly, You can never know the harms that are being done. You can never know the full extent.

And that’s something that I recently was talking with, somebody who does anti, anti racist work, for the black community. and she was saying, you know, all black people have an experience of racism. Not all black people have an, an analysis of racism because it’s like intellectualizing the trauma.

Right.

Yeah.

M: And so it’s like Millie Zay is kind of on the exterior looking in on these harms. And so she does not have the experience of the racism.

Yeah.

M: What she is doing is she’s having the analysis, but that pulls her, you know, there’s. She has the privilege to be able to separate

G: from

M: the trauma.

G: Yeah.

M: And so, I guess my whole thing is like, I think she grows a little bit within the Savior Complex.

Yes.

M: A little bit. and I think what it shows is like, even though she can never truly know the full extent of [00:26:00] the harms that are being done, it’s necessary to do our small part anyway. Yeah.

G: Yeah. I mean, she also essentially start setting up alternate systems.

 again, spoilers for the, basically the whole entire story. but, at a certain point, the remaining members of spearhead squadron are essentially ordered on a suicide mission. Basically to go on recon and never come back.and, She thinks they’re dead at this point. Spoiler alert, they’re not dead.

but she thinks they’re dead. And so what she essentially starts doing is, like, she, she comes to realize she can’t she can’t, she doesn’t have the power to change the system from the top down. So she starts recruiting people who think similar to her, start setting up an alternate system of, people who, who also recognize that what’s been done to the 86 is, basically an atrocity, and are willing to put in the effort to try to remedy it. and it’s actually [00:27:00] that alternate system which eventually saves the Albans. because, what happens is that, essentially the Republic thinks that they’ve got the Legion under control. They don’t. and then there’s like this huge attack that are, attack that, that comes at the Republic of Santa Magnolia.

Just leaving our military units outside in the 86 district is useless right now. We need to bring everybody inside the walls, set up defensive positions, and they’re only able to do this because of this alternate system that has set up trust with the 86. Also, when, when the general that, that Major Millizay has been reporting to, like, talks to her about it, it’s like, what’s to prevent the 86 from coming in and just killing us all?

And just taking over the factories themselves so they can keep on fighting, because it’d be a lot easier for them [00:28:00] rather than having to deal with all these civilians.

I think there’s a, I think this is sort of the very critical point of her sort of becoming a true ally in that it’s like, well, we don’t have a guarantee they won’t do that. I think that we have a stat, like the alternate system of trust I’ve developed, I think will hold. But also, if it doesn’t hold, we kind of deserve it.

 If they kill us all, I have at least tried my best to defend this country.

M: I think this is such a wonderful point you’re making. I think, for me, that means peacemaking takes risk.

Yes.

M: It takes someone to say, okay, no, this is not going to happen any longer. This is, we’re going to have to make a radical shift.

And that could have very drastic consequences, but we must, must take the risk.

Yeah.

M: I really love that.

G: I think there’s a very important point that I missed several times watching through this anime. I love rewatching this anime because I always pick up something [00:29:00] new. but this time I was watching a YouTuber, another YouTuber who I forget which one I was watching, talk about the show and a point that he brought up was that, Major Millie Zay. Asks for the names of the pets before she asks for the names of the 86 because she even though this is very, this is fairly early on the series, , so the 86, they use, pilot names, when they’re talking with the Albans.

But even though, and I think this is sort of, this is sort of the cracking point where Major Munizé realized she was not actually as good of an ally as she actually thought she was.she asked for the names of their pets. And later when one of the 86 dies on her watch and somewhat her mistake, and she’s trying to apologize for it, somebody confronts her and is like, you don’t even know our names.

Right. We are just code names to you. We are not fully human. You cannot sympathize with us right now while we’re [00:30:00] mourning a friend.

M: Do you mind if we shift towards Shinenozen’s story? Yeah, go for it. So, and it’s, unfortunately we don’t have Kei here. Yeah. Because, you know, he’s been sort of a helper on talking about the military before.

Mm

hmm.

M: And, I was curious about how does the story of Sine Spearhead Squadron reflect the real life experiences of soldiers who are marginalized within their own societies? You’ve already mentioned a little bit about how immigrants and other people as like a way to escape poverty might join the military. but I’m curious about, how you view that and how they might reflect real life experiences.

G: it’s interesting cause

Sine himself Basically the way that Sine handles all of the trauma that he’s had to go through, and he’s had to go through a lot of trauma. Like, he, his family was actually, like you find out that his family was actually like from one of the wealthier districts inside Republic of San Magnolia.

And I, I don’t think it’s been talked about in the anime, but in, but I know from the [00:31:00] light novels that, because I’ve read the Wikipedia for them, that Sine’s father was actually, Working on the juggernauts, and he was actually trying to make them fully autonomous but He ran out of time, and that’s when the government decided to do what it did So he has a trauma of basically losing his home.

His parents die when he’s young His brother gets sent to the 86 and the last thing he remembers of his brother is Is him, his brother trying to choke him to death.

M: And does, do I remember currently that his brother did turn into one of the legion?

G: Yes.

M: That’s right. Yeah.

G: what, it’s not really talked about, but there’s a, his brother, whose name I’m forgetting right now, gets transformed into what the, What the 86 call shepherds, like they’re able to organize the legion and sort of make them much more dangerous than just being a horde of robots.

so when the [00:32:00] 86, when spearhead squadron goes out on their suicide reconnaissance mission, Sinead and his brother basically face off against each other and it’s all It’s only through, major military breaking protocol that they’re able to defeat his brother. But also his brother has an epiphany, and it’s not made super clear in the anime, but essentially what happens is he’s not destroyed in that battle with Shinnay, he’s damaged.

And what he does is he shadows them for a while. And actually helps them get to the Republic of

Giyad.

.

M: which is a nicer society for them,

G: which is a nicer society. but it’s also why they’re initially suspicious of them. It’s not really, I don’t know why they kind of skipped, like, basically at one point you like kind of see a shot of the, the Republic president is like walking past it and he’s like, yeah, we don’t know why this older, this old, unit was, was, was like guard [00:33:00] protecting them, but it’s why they’re initially very suspicious of the, of them.

 I think the way he has dealt with all this trauma is basically to remove his ego from the equation. if I just pretend that I am a cork floating on the sea, I just float no matter how turbulent the sea is. And I think it, and a lot of people read that as apathy. I don’t think he’s ap I don’t think he’s apathetic.

I don’t think he’s

M: apathetic at all, no.

G: but he just has to deal with so much, and we haven’t even talked about the psychic screams that he has to deal with.

M: Mm hmm.

G: Audience folks. He has to deal with psychic screams in his head almost all the time. it’s the Legion.

M: He has a connection to the Legion.

G: Yeah. And he’s

M: able to tell where they are.

G: Yeah. , he deals with a lot of these traumas and also a trauma, which he doesn’t, he kind of starts dealing with this trauma after he’s with Republic

Giyad.

 was [00:34:00] he has to, as a, as sort of traditional in his unit, he’s the one who kills people who are wounded and can’t make it back to like a hospital, because they don’t want to be, none of them want to be scanned.

M: They don’t want to become a legion.

G: They don’t want to become, like if they’re scanned when they’re like wounded, they’re often called black sheep. Cause they have some cognitive ability, but it’s not enough to like take full command of a unit.but none of them want to become black sheep. I think part of the horror for them is like, they’ve already been forced to fight a war.

And the idea of being forced to fight a war endlessly, It’s just too much for them.

M: which I think is interesting because when they’re in

Giyad. , something that I think that could relate to real life experiences, for military, members and I, I’m not in the military, but I know family members who are and friends, and it feels like, you know, when they get to

Giyad. , the folks they celebrate them.

You did so well, you know,

I’m trying to defeat this this legion like you are to [00:35:00] be celebrated and honored and we don’t want you to fight anymore Right, like they’re sort of adoptive dad or I forget his name.

 Is like, you know, don’t go back

You know you’ve you’ve already done enough.

You’re so young. Please like have a life

And ultimately they decide we want to go back and fight.

G: The exploration of racism actually becomes more interesting when it gets to Gid because it becomes less the sort of very overt racism and becomes like the more

M: microaggression,

G: microaggression, I guess is one way to put it.

But basically sort of the more paternalistic. Racism, where it’s like, Oh, sweet, sweet child, you’ve been through so much and you know, you’ve abused so much and let’s, you know, you don’t, like, you don’t have to worry about, you don’t have to deal with any of that stuff in the past. You just, you know, just let us take care of you.

like they can’t make their own decisions. and this is something that,Frederica, who also lives with [00:36:00] the president, so basically the president invites all of them into his home and he adopts them as his own children.to sort of bypass any legal, Yeah,

M: so it really is an adoptive dad.

G: Yes.

That’s what I thought. Okay. to bypass any sort of legal shenanigans about You know because I think some people in the military still want like keep them as prisoners and this was his way of like No, they are now full citizens. If you want to arrest them, you’re going to have to Bring them up on charges, right?

But there but that’s also an interesting point like there was a point in the beginning where they thought about treating them Just like the Republic of San Magnolia as somebody who was not deserving of human rights Cause they thought they might be like legion spies or something. and actually, can I ask you a question?

Like, what do you, like, I actually find the president to be one, like one of the most interesting side characters. What did you think of the president?

M: I think he’s a very complex character.

G: I [00:37:00] think, thing is he’s He was actually one of the people who led the revolution of the Giyad. So the, the country which started all this was the Giyad Empire, which created the legion, and they’re actually using the legion to fight a rebellion, which eventually led to the Giyad Republic.

And it’s very interesting that he’s basically like one of the guys who started

M: Like the legion in the beginning?

G: No, he started the revolution. Oh, he started

M: the revolution. Okay.

G: Like he helped lead the revolution, but now he’s Protecting the last heir to the Giad Empire.

M: Mm hmm. Oh, is that that’s that little kid?

G: Yeah, it’s a little girl. Yeah

M: Okay, I remember her now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s Frederica. Okay. Yeah,

G: and He also there’s this interesting moment in the second season where Basically, they’ve had to, they’ve made this huge diversionary attack so that the [00:38:00] spearhead squadron could go and attack this ultra long range cannon.

And he’s like, look, if we purposely send those kids out to die and they don’t make it back. We’re all dying here. Like there’s no, I’m willing to burn this Republic down to the ground. If that’s what the kind of people we’re going to become. it’s very like strong moment, at least to me.

M: Yeah.

G: Yeah. I don’t think people like that actually exist, really, for the most part, but it’s interesting to see, like, this guy who used to be a revolutionary, like, try his best to be a leader that still follows the principle of being a revolutionary.

M: Mm

G: And it’s like, look, if we

M: Yeah, as someone who’s in power, we often don’t see people who are in power who are willing to actually live by their strong values.

G: Yeah.

M: and he certainly is doing his best to do that.

G: I think Sine is dealing with a lot of trauma and I think, I mean they all, I mean they’re all dealing with massive, like everybody in Spearhead [00:39:00] Squadron who’s still left alive is dealing with massive amounts of PTSD, but even everybody in Spearhead Squadron recognizes that Sine.

Has like the worst PTSD. he does not know. I mean part of it is that he can’t There is no safe space for him. Like he can never turn off the Psychic from the Legion communications that he’s getting so he’s always on alert, right? he never gets a break from that

M: Absolutely. So there’s only two seasons out, right?

Yes. Right now of the anime. Mm hmm. I’m not sure how far the manga or the light novel is.

G: Light novel I think has books. Oh,

M: 14 books. Okay.

G: Yeah, I think they’ve covered like the first three books.

M: Okay, so they’ve covered the first three books. So there’s more story to be told and maybe Shine will eventually get Some rest.

G: Yes.

M: that’s certainly something I’m hoping for, for his character.

G: Yeah.

M: I did have another question for you,

G: give, gimme the question.

M: Okay. my last question to you, G, is what are the ethical [00:40:00] implications of using autonomous or remotely controlled weapons in warfare, and how does this change the nature of war and its impacts on soldiers and civilians?

And I feel like this is very timely in our society.

G: Oh, yeah, it is more timely than I would like it to be, if I’m being honest, because we are, we are getting to the point where this is going to be a reality.if it’s not already a reality, and for audience folks who may not be aware, both Russia and Ukraine have found that the major limiting factor for, drones to be useful is the fact that one, you have to have a human operating each drone.

And two, there has to be constant communication between the drone and the human operator. So a very easy counter to drones is just to jam the signal between the operator and the drone.

So both Russia and Ukraine are trying to, create autonomous [00:41:00] drones that can justkill people by themselves, essentially. and I’m gonna be honest, I’m not super excited for that future.

M: It, for me, it removes the human element, even though we do not want more people necessarily to be fighting directly, but it does remove some of the human element to it.

Which can make us feel like we can justify taking lives easier because this isn’t, you know, I’m not doing it. It’s this

G: There are still very large limits on What an AI can act, what artificial intelligence can actually do, even if you are having, if you somehow managed to network all the drones together. And by the way, this is not just Russia and Ukraine. the United States military is heavily investing into drones.

All the countries watching this conflict have realized how important drones are going to be in the future and are investing in it. What? What kind of frightens me is that [00:42:00] as artificial intelligence becomes easier and drones become easier to make, like this technology is for the most part just become cheaper and easier over time.

What happens when organized crime starts deploying their own Autonomous drone swarms. like the Mexican cartels. Mm-hmm . Like, there’s already a huge problem with the Mexican government trying to battle the Mexican cartels. . And what happens when they, get access to drones? What happens if some white su supremacist group gets access to drones in the United States and decides to launch an attack? And also there’s the problem of like, if you remove the human element, you remove the ability, to make super complex decisions. Right. so for example, recently I saw a video from a drone where a Russian was lying in a ditch, essentially, and essentially [00:43:00] he was trying to surrender to the drone. And every time, like, the drone got close, the guy got super scared, and so what the drone operator did was he backed off, flew away a little bit, dropped the grenade that his drone was carrying, it exploded, came back, and the Russian basically surrendered to the drone, and the drone basically sort of shepherded into Ukrainian lines.

that’s not really a thing that, like, artificial intelligence can do. Certainly not in the near future. Certainly not in the near future. so, and also, you know, when chat GPT makes a mistake, there can be some consequences. Like there is that lawyer who’d relied on chat GPT to do his legal research, which caused his license to be suspended, I think.

Mm-hmm . but suddenly when you have stuff like chat, GPT running, autonomous drone swarms, and it’s not gonna be chat, well, it wouldn’t be chat t because chat

M: BT is a large language model, but yes.

G: But the techniques that chat, GBT [00:44:00] uses. all that stuff, like all the mistakes that ChatGPT makes when it’s on hundreds of servers.

Now imagine the mistakes an AI can make when it’s only running on the processors that are on drones. Like there’s only so many commands that they can put in. And there’s only so many scenarios they can program in. And at a certain point you just have to accept that there are going to be civilian casualties.

That happened because these drones were autonomously working and there’s also going to be friendly fire incidents because these drones 100

M: percent I mean, this is going to indiscriminately kill people And so I I think that this is a very bad thing.

G: Yes

M: for our somewhat very near future

G: I understand why Ukraine is pursuing this research because because, I mean, A, Russia’s also pursuing it, but B, they are also at a massive manpower disadvantage compared to Russia.

so they need every person available and they have [00:45:00] made the assessment that it’s better to occasionally have a friendly fire incident, versus having one person per drone. And it’s better to have that force multiplier. Which, I understand the logic behind the reasoning, I’m still scared of the world that comes afterwards.

M: Right. Yeah, of course. I think that’s where all of these things are very complex situations where of course we can have understanding and even maybe empathy towards that situation. That feels very, dire.

Yeah.

M: And at the same time, I think it’s really important, perhaps now more than ever, to Be vocal about, we don’t want that.

We don’t want to have these things.

G: unfortunately I’m, I kind of feel like the genie might already be out of the bottle.

M: Well, the genie was already out of the bottle in the 86. And here’s my proposal to you. Will you be Major Malise or no?

G: Okay.

M: That’s my proposal to you because we can be that person.

That’s what this anime showed me. One person. We can be that person.

G: Okay. We can

M: The lesion was already there. [00:46:00] Yeah. The discrimination was already there.

G: Mm hmm.

M: So, you’re the type of person to say, Oh, cat’s already out of the bag.

G: That is an excellent point. And I like to think of myself as the kind of person who does a I mean, you’re my partner, but do you think I’m the one who stands idly by when I see stuff happening to other people?

M: No. I don’t think you are.

G: Okay. But

M: I just noticed that you were like, well, it’s already, this is just gonna be our future. But I just would say that we don’t have to accept that future.

G: Okay.

M: Even if it’s just you and me or our audience folks, we can say, no, we do not agree with that future.

And stand up. Bye.

G: On that note.

 if you’d like to support us, you can donate at the link at the bottom of the show notes.

M: And please feel free to share this episode with anyone you think would enjoy learning more about the quote, sad mecha anime.

G: This is G.

M: This is M.

G: Don’t be afraid to love how you love.

Love what you love. And love who you love.

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