In Memoriam
Below is an excerpt of my essay length reflections on the anime series 86EightySix - and focusing on the theme of memory. The essay was kindly published in the Church Life Journal, based in The University of Notre Dame in the United States. This would be the second essay published with them (the first being my treatment of zombies and liturgy). To read the essay in full, click on the link at the bottom of this post.
Introduction
Last year, I had the pleasure of watching the anime adaptation of Asato Asato’s 86: Eighty-Six. Though ostensibly a series about racism and futuristic mech warfare, what struck me about the series was how memory was a subtle golden thread woven through the series. Beneath the numerous battle scenes lies an extended artistic impression of the way memories are borne by some, erased by others, and then reclaimed by others still in a digitally saturated milieu.
What follows is an attempt at reflecting upon the series’ depiction of memory, highlighting moments that zero in on the carriage of memory, the refusal to take it up, and the redemption of memory. In doing so, we will map out these moments against philosophical, social theoretical and scriptural resources, with particular reference to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and the Psalms. While there are spoilers, I hope to keep them to a minimum so that you could, even after reading this limited reflection, still enjoy the series.
Memory Undertaken
86 Eighty Six paints a bleak future made up of a series of warring nations. Two of these are the Republic of San Magnolia and the Empire of Giad, who have been at war for nine years. The warfare waged can be described as a cross between tank and drone warfare, fought in units known as Juggernauts. What happens to the Juggernauts forms not only the main concern of the war, but also the central driver of the narrative. This is because the Juggernauts, at least in the official reportage of the war by the Republic, are considered self-piloted autonomous units.
What drives the plot is the revelation that the Juggernauts are actually piloted by people, only they are not recognized as such by San Magnolia. The Republic is an apartheid regime, where citizenship is confined to the Albas, a race of white-haired and porcelain-skinned humans. Those not bearing these features are relegated to a helot-like class and banished to essentially concentration camps in the officially non-existent Eighty-Sixth District. These unfortunates are denied citizenship, housing, and even basic supplies; they are also denied the acknowledgment that they are even human.
Known as “86,” they are dragooned to pilot the Juggernauts and fight San Magnolia’s wars in exchange for (barely) improved conditions and promises of citizenship. They are directed remotely by officers taken from the ranks of the Alba, who witness nothing of the suffering borne by their “drones” (as the Alba call them), the only exception being a series of blips on a screen that disappear upon death. In spite of the millions of casualties suffered by the 86 over the years, their denial of human status has meant that the war is officially a zero-casualty conflict. Upon death, all 86 are legally refused burial or and all memorialization is prohibited. The life of the 86, when it is not marked by marginalization and violence, is a life marked by a slow-burning genocide via collective amnesia.
At the forefront of this warfare and forgetting is a unit of veteran Juggernauts codenamed “Spearhead” led by Shinei Nouzen. To his comrades, he is known as Shin. To the Republic, he is known as “Undertaker.” The rationale behind his nom de guerre is twofold. On a surface level—the only level that matters for the Republic’s Alba class—the name is attributed to his high kill rate. On another level—the level that matters for his comrades—Shin is the Undertaker because of his practice of carving out, collecting and storing in a box, the insignias that emblazon the sides of his fallen comrades’ Juggernauts. In a world where the 86 are destined to be forgotten, the Undertaker carries on his very person the memory of the dead as he doles out death to his enemies.
On the one hand, Shin’s act of carrying his fallen comrade’s insignias in a box harken back to ancient as well as medieval understandings of memory as a storehouse of memories, to be deposited and withdrawn at will. In his Theaetetus, for instance, Plato adopted the idea of the memory as a wax upon which our perceptions and thoughts are imprinted.[1] Plato gives the (perhaps over-simplistic) impression that things that get stored in the memory retain their integrity indefinitely, barring any outside interference. In this context, recall is the intentional act of withdrawing that intact memory.
Though more nuanced than Plato, Augustine still regarded the memory as a storehouse of static items. In his Confessions, Augustine spoke of memory as vast “treasuries of innumerable images of all kinds of objects brought in by sense-perception”.[2] Augustine’s nuance from Plato lies in designating our memories as a storehouse of images. Viewers glimpses of this aspect of memory in episodes where Shin recalls his comrades via flashbacks, moving images of events in which they are in combat or moments of recreation.
What makes the series fascinating is the way Shin’s carriage of his comrade’s memory is facilitated precisely by this recall of images, which in turn…
Read the full essay at Church Life Journal
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