So I finally got around to watching 86 and I have to say I'm impressed. The first few episodes felt like a disjointed riff on Attack on Titan, but once it started to click around 5 episodes I got hooked fast. The first half of the series has a high bodycount and really plays up the "horrors of war/anyone can die" feel, hence the Attack on Titan comparison. These earlier episodes tend to show the same event from two different perspectives and really like juxtaposing relatively lighthearted character moments with brutal combat and character deaths. It takes some getting used to. However, around halfway through the series breaks away from this format and goes off in a different direction. It settles in on a core cast of 5 characters from the first half in a totally different setting, allocating its character development between this much smaller group as opposed to the cast of 20+ in the first half.
While there's plenty of action, it does feel somewhat secondary to the characters and worldbuilding. The visual and art direction is astoundingly good. Lush backgrounds adorn almost every outdoor scene. Even the blatantly CGI fight scenes work well due to a cohesive aesthetic and pitch perfect sound design. They feel frantic, chaotic, and above all else dangerous. But the real meat and potatoes is what happens in between the action. Unlike AoT which has a bad habit of killing off characters for shock value and doing nothing with it, 86 gives both the action and the tragedy time to breath by giving surviving characters time to come to terms with both the losses they've endured and their own emotional baggage. It's a series which paces itself well and balances out what could be an edgelord story with a great deal of humanity.
Slow start but highly recommended if you want a war drama that leans towards sentimentality. I do hope they make another season.