Made in Abyss is the story of a journey through a realm of both wonder and threat, in search of a distant and fairly nebulous goal. It has a very constrained cast, setting, and even timeline, but the world feels massive and expansive because of how it’s portrayed.
The best way to deal with Made in
Abyss, in my opinion, is to just dive right in.
We follow a girl named Riko. Riko
lives in an orphanage in Orth, a city built around the mysterious,
harrowing pit known as The Abyss, and trains to be a “cave raider”
like her parents, someone who goes down into the Abyss to find and
recover its mysterious treasures. Along with the other orphans, she
does mild work in the shallows of the first layer of the Abyss, where
things are still fairly safe. It turns out it’s not all that safe,
though, as a flying monster from deeper down attacks Riko. She’s
saved when a mysterious light cuts clean through the beast (and melts
through the terrain around as well), which leads her to the discovery
of a an unconscious robot boy. She and some of the other kids take
charge of the boy, naming him Reg when he comes to.
Shortly after, a message is delivered
to Orth from the depths of the Abyss. It comes from Riko’s mother,
the legendary cave raider known as Lyza the Annihilator. Though the
presence of the package means the world believes her dead, it
contained a message for Riko, saying that her mother would be waiting
for her at the bottom of the Abyss.
The bottom of the Abyss, however, is a
place that no one has ever seen, nor that there is any true knowledge
of. Getting there is also a one-way trip. The Abyss is divided into
“Layers”, and possesses what’s known as the “Curse”, which
manifests when one tries to ascend. The Curse gets worse the deeper
you go. Beneath the fifth layer, no one can actually come back to
the surface. The deepest known layer is the seventh, with no bottom
yet.
All the same, Riko is determined to go,
and Reg is all set to help her, in part because he would seem to be
from the depths of the Abyss and, since he has no memory, might learn
the truth of his existence down there. As a robot, rather than a
human, he’s immune to the effects of the Curse, and his incredible
durability, extending grappling hook arms, and killer laser cannon
will certainly help navigation and survival on the way down. They
escape the Orphange, and head into the depths.
From there, their trip downward takes
them to a base camp in the Second Layer run by Ozen the Immovable, a
veteran cave raider who was the mentor of Riko’s mother. Ozen is
somewhat terrifying, but also teaches the kids about the Abyss and
their quest. For every question she answers, though, the encounter
with her raises more, and she sends Riko and Reg on their way not
with fewer mysteries, but with better mysteries.
In the depths of the Fourth layer,
however, the pair hits a snag when they’re attacked by a particularly
powerful foe known as an Orbed Piercer. The vicious animal leaves
Riko suffering from a horrific poison, their escape from it hits her
with the fourth layer’s curse (bleeding from every orifice), and the
first aid Reg tries to give her at her direction isn’t very pleasant
either. As Riko appears to die, a sort of, um, cute rabbit monster
named Nanachi appears. Nanachi can save Riko’s life, and even her
arm (which Reg was set to amputate) but has some requests. Along
with Reg attempting to fulfill them we learn that Nanachi, along with
the strange sort of immortal blob creature she lives with, Mitty, was
originally human, and that the two of them gained their current forms
thanks to the experiments of a mad scientist cave raider, Bondrewd
the Novel, who maintains a base of operations at the bottom of the
Fifth Layer, just before the point of no return.
Ultimately, Riko is saved and healed,
and Reg is (as is Nanachi’s wish), able to put the otherwise
unkillable Mitty out of her miserable existence of suffering with his
laser. The three of them agree to go on to the bottom of the Abyss
together, a journey that will fairly shortly bring them into conflict
with Bondrewd…
And that’s where the anime, such as we
have it, ends: the group leaving Nanachi’s hideout, further adventure
as the destination. That doesn’t sound like a lot for a season of
show, does it?
Part of that is that Reg, Riko, and
Nanachi aren’t really the stars of Made in Abyss. The star is,
ultimately, the Abyss itself. The entire show often feels not unlike
a nature documentary, showing us the sometimes grisly, sometimes
beautiful way that things live and die in the unique environment of
the Abyss. This is accomplished through the cinematography, the
narration (usually from Riko, though Nanachi and Ozen also have their
moments of explaining how something works), and the fact that most
episodes are framed around one or more encounters the kids have on
their trek down, letting us investigates some of the strange
wildlife.
Because of this, it’s very much a “man
versus nature” conflict. While human forces can provide some
opposition, more comes simply from the Abyss itself. True, Ozen goes
to town on Reg when they first meet and Bondrewd is pretty awful, but
the former is ultimately a friend while the latter hasn’t been
properly met by our central pair just yet. The Abyss is both the
setting and the antagonist as well as being the primary focus. We
know how it, and everything within its ecosystem, lives and breathes,
how they get light and food. We know the mechanics of the Curse, the
evolutionary adaptations of the deep-dwelling predators, and the
life-cycles of creatures that are born and die where humans only
intrude at great peril.
Yet, despite that, there’s a lot of
mystery baked into the premise and execution. In the Abyss, people
can find skeletons, which date to two thousand year intervals and are
all found in praying positions. On the other hand, in Orth people
are mysteriously dying just before their birthdays, but one case
suggests this is related to Orth itself and possibly the Abyss as a
sick kid recovers at once when taken out to sea. And while that
strangely regular timer is coming due and the birthday “disease”
is in place, we don’t yet know the mechanism that could threaten
Orth.
Perhaps Bondrewd knows? Or perhaps the
answer awaits even deeper?
All this and more will not be answered
in the current run of Made in Abyss. I’m caught up with the manga
(at least the volumes released in English) and while I have more
answers, I also have more questions yet. Better questions, perhaps
(just like Ozen left our heroes with) but questions all the same.
This is also a fantastically gorgeous
show. The art is honestly above and beyond, particularly when it
comes to the environments and monsters. It shouldn’t be understated,
though, that this includes when horrific subjects are in frame. Made
in Abyss is not sparing with its shots of a little girl being
subjected to horrific violence. It is numbed a little by the nature
documentary feel of the whole show, so that it doesn’t seem like Riko
is being tortured when the Abyss makes her bleed out of her eyes or
Reg breaks her arm to make a clean cut for amputation, but she’s
still absolutely suffering… and some moments, like Ozen thrashing
Reg or Bondrewed turning Nanachi and Mitty into the creatures they
become have human malice as well as that unflinching approach to
pain. Made in Abyss will absolutely take you dark places, and can
border on the horror genre at times.
However, I feel that works to the
show’s advantage. In walking on the line between Adventure, Mystery,
and Horror it finds a sweet spot where you’re actually able to be
drawn in by the environment at just about every level. And, as much
as I’ve repeated and repeated that this is a show about a place, I
also have to give credit to Made in Abyss’s handling of emotional
moments. You can feel Riko’s excitement and enthusiasm when she’s
examining something new, and the joy of her discovery. When she gets
her mother’s letter, you also feel her desperation, and the powerful
need that draws her down into the Abyss. And once there, we get some
dynamite human scenes as well. For instance, when Reg thinks he’s
lost Riko before Nanachi appears? It’s incredibly well sold and
framed, to make you understand Reg’s grief and helplessness.
Take also the pair’s encounter with
Ozen the Immovable. I’ve alluded to this sequence before, but in
greater detail, she does a few things that work on the psychological
level. She reveals that the “Curse-repelling vessel” in which
Riko was brought to the surface after being born in the Abyss did
not, in fact, protect against the Curse – the relic, instead,
resurrected the stillborn Riko. Other flesh animated by the vessel
crawls mindlessly to the Abyss, as though to throw itself in, down to
the bottom. So is Riko’s desire to reach the depths of the Abyss her
own will, or the siren call of her status as a being given life only
through the power of the Abyss? Is she even human? And when Ozen
fights Reg, and hands him his ass, she does it to prove that his
strength alone, without skill and cunning, won’t protect Riko or see
them to the bottom. Though she’s ruthless, and hurts Reg both
physically and emotionally, she does it (like most of the cruel
things she does) to force Reg and Riko to rise to the challenge that
awaits them, preparing them for what their journey will require. In
that, Ozen’s role is fairly complicated; she act as as both an
antagonist and a mentor, though she ultimately leans more on the
mentor side when she drops the ruthless act.
Ozen, however, is small potatoes next
to Bondrewd.
When dealing with Nanachi, we get an
extended flashback to the history between Nanachi, Mitty, and
Bondrewd. We see how Nanachi lived as a starving orphan in a
different land, unwanted and friendless, and how Nanachi became one
of the children that Bondrewd the Novel would bring into the Abyss.
We also see Nanachi meet Mitty, a gregarious and outgoing girl who
becomes Nanachi’s first and only friend. Nanachi is also quite
bright, and bonds with Bondrewd as his assistant as well as with
Mitty as a friend, and at first it seems as though he’s a kind,
paternal figure. When the rug is pulled and Bondrewed puts Mitty and
Nanachi into a machine intended to subject them to the sixth layer’s
Curse that causes loss of humanity, the horror is not just Nanachi
being forced to watch as Mitty, someone that Nanachi cares about with
everything inside, is reduced to the immortal yet invalid flesh-blob
that we later see. It’s not just that and Nanachi’s own
transformation from human child into rabbit monster. It’s the
betrayal, how Bondrewed, still speaking like an almost kindly parent,
is inflicting this horror upon them.
And, even after Nanachi’s
transformation, even after subjecting Mitty to more and more rounds
of pain to test the limits of her regeneration, Bondrewd’s attitude,
unlike his actions, remains freakishly kindly. It’s deeply
unnerving, as I’m sure it was meant to be.
And, on the topic of things that hurt
in a way that indicates the writer, director, and actors are doing
something very right, there’s Mitty’s final death. We understand,
thanks to the long flashback, that Mitty has been both stripped of
her human dignity and left in a condition where she’s suffering
constant pain and can only be promised more going forward. We know
by the time it happens that Nanachi’s request, for Reg to obliterate
Mitty utterly with his incinerator and end her existence, is very
much a mission of mercy that has to be done now if it’s ever to be
accomplished.
And yet, saying goodbye to Mitty that
way, even in her horrifically reduced state, is an agonizing moment.
It’s one of the hardest scenes I’ve ever encountered in anime to
watch without starting up the waterworks. And despite everything
about it being so powerfully moving, which naturally involves some
calculation on the part of the author and director, it doesn’t feel
forced and manipulative. There’s a real connection: you know how
Mitty is basically a good person and what this end represents, and
you also know how much Mitty means to Nanachi, and what putting her
out of her misery must mean, how desperately it weighs on Nanachi’s
heart. Because of this, when Nanachi acts out, you feel like there’s
nothing else that could have been done. It’s what had to happen, and
it’s both natural and potent for that.
That’s a high bar to meet in any show,
much less one that doesn’t have the interpersonal relationships of
its cast as its first or even really its second or third priority.
This is a fourth-string element for Made in Abyss, and it still
manages to be one of the strongest executions of its type.
And, I think, that shows why I feel
that I have to give Made in Abyss and A+. It’s not just strong in
its chosen arena, or even some secondary metrics, it’s strong
everywhere. The particular combination of world-building details,
harrowing adventure, esoteric mystery, visceral horror, and even
emotional drama is something that very few shows reach for and even
fewer could ever hope to achieve. It has a massive arsenal of
strengths and, shockingly, basically no weaknesses, no negatives that
I can level against it. I guess it’s unfinished, but for being based
on a continuing manga, they gave Made in Abyss a powerhouse arc,
cutting at a point that both felt like a natural conclusion for this
act of the story and that set up the continuation in a powerful way,
presaging the conflict with Bondrewd. It is, certainly, not for
everyone. I’d say that you need a strong stomach to really dive into
Made in Abyss, and it would probably be best to steel yourself in
general. This show does not pull its punches and is therefore not
for the faint of heart. But, once again, I feel that what could be a
weakness is leveraged to strength. Made in Abyss is a clear,
consistent, and uncompromising vision of a ruthless world of
survival; none of its darkness feels manufactured or edgy for the
sake of being edgy.
While Made in Abyss isn’t my favorite
anime of all time by any means, it is one of the strong contenders
for the title of “best”. And that’s not something you can say
often at all.