Why ‘Made in Abyss’ is a good anime
Made in Abyss, released in 2017, is an anime about a story of a child and a mysterious robot venturing into the Abyss, a deep chasm full of secrets and mysteries. Although this anime is full of flaws and has many moments where you would feel it could have been better otherwise, I believe I could dub this anime to be a good one based on some aspects.
[ THIS IS NOT A REVIEW ] Spoiler Alert: Up to Season 1 and Dawn of the Deep Soul
Some notes:
We have to take in and consider the state and the being of the characters shown in the show. Regarding children to be children, adults to be adults in their respective roles. The state of the characters and their characteristics are usually dismissed when discussing this show and therefore some parts feel like they do not make sense, while they actually do.
Whatever the plot may be, it is completely up to the author on how they want to make it and such. So it would not make sense for me to criticize the plot, but instead, the execution of the plot. Even stories with bad plots or simple plots may be executed perfectly and could be called a great work of art or stories with good plots may not be expressed well and may be regarded as a “flop”.
The Anime:
The basic premise of this anime is that a big chasm known as the Abyss, filled with mysterious creatures and phenomena, attracts a lot of people into finding rare and valuable artifacts inside it. The adventurers, known as Cave Raiders, risk their life and worth to delve into the deep and unknown lead only by their aspiration to conquer the unknown and find valuable treasures to loot. This is a significant theme that we will discuss soon. The story is led by two characters, Riko, an aspiring Cave Raider novice from an orphanage and Reg, a mysterious robot that arrived from deep within the Abyss and was discovered by Riko. Riko’s mother is a White Whistle or in other words, one of the top Cave Raiders and she is found to be missing during an expedition. Her white whistle, a symbol of her status, and an envelope is returned to Riko. By opening the envelope, she discovers her mother is still alive and waiting for her at the bottom of the abyss. Being motivated to go back to her mother, she starts her journey of no return to the bottom of the abyss along with Reg, to find her mother, where she faces many dangers and trials that shape the story.
The Arcs:
I have watched up to the Dawn of the Deep Soul movie. The first few episodes give a brief introduction into the plot and the plot has a slow progression, where Riko and Reg face many dangers in their adventure into the Abyss. We see their interaction with the white whistle, Ozen the Immovable, and then into the Mitty arc (I like to call this “Mitty arc” because the theme of the plot mostly consists around the Mitty character rather than their interactions with Nanachi) and then into Dawn of the Deep Soul, where their interactions with the complex character of Bondrewd. These are the few mentionable arcs of the anime where things get a lot interesting.
As we get through this review, I will talk about the different arcs and their importance in giving flavor to the anime. But for now, we will discuss a much broader topic about this anime, which is worldbuilding.
The Worldbuilding and Realism:
Usually, worldbuilding and concepts in fiction play a small role in the plot and the story depends more upon the characters and their objective in the plot. But in the case of Made in Abyss, the story matters more upon worldbuilding and realism. Most fictions are designed in such a way that an objective of the characters is fulfilled with forgiving obstacles, in other words, Deus Ex Machinae or in other words, Plot Armor.
But Made in Abyss is ruthless about this. It is not forgiving about the plot and its characters. Although the main character Riko, is always known to somehow luckily cross her obstacles and fulfills her objectives smoothly in the journey, we can see that even she has to suffer through a lot, embracing and experiencing unprecedented lessons of reality. Their journey could have ended in vain when they fought against Ozen, someone who they had thought would have helped them instead of being an adversary.
Getting hints of the true nature of Abyss through Ozen’s Arc:
Through their interactions with Ozen, we come to find out that the Abyss is not just any ordinary chasm. Ordinary in the context of their world, meaning just full of monsters and mysterious secrets. But it is full of inexplicable supernatural phenomena, cunning monsters not only led by their instincts but also cleverness, adversaries or enemies with rather a different objective than usual cave raiding. Not only basic survival skills are required to survive in the Abyss, but skills to survive in situations where they are faced with adversaries who are bent on destroying them and their objectives. They will be faced with hardship not against the natural world in the Abyss, but against real people turned corrupt by their aspiration.
Realism in the aftermath of their battle against Orb Piercer:
We see the pinnacle of realism shown in the first season of Made in Abyss in Episode 10 and after. In episode 10, where Riko gets hit by the Orb Piercer and gets poisoned, we see Reg trying to take Riko to an upper area where she could be safe from the cunning creature. But that was his mistake, ascending to a higher place, where she is hit by the ascension strain of the fourth layer. By doing this, she is affected by the strain along with being poisoned by the Orb Piercer. Blood pours out of all orifices of her body and it does not stop pouring out. This almost destroys Reg mentally, whose objective was to ensure her safety throughout the journey. Here we see hopeless Reg trying to save her however he can, but he had almost no knowledge of basic survival and so he understood how punishing reality can be. And here we see the same theme occur again, aspiration. Although it was not explicitly stated why at the beginning, Riko purposefully tells Reg to cut off her left arm where the Orb Piercer poisoned her, so that the pain would stop and blood would stop spilling. But to do that, Riko asked Reg to break her bones first in the left one, the joint on the wrist. So cutting it would be easy and not a mess. Reg was shocked by this request. He understands survival is one thing but giving him the responsibility to do what apparently is a cruel act to save her life is another. And what the show really did on this moment was not make her into a sunshine girl who does not feel much pain when this is being done on her. The show went outright cruel as what it is supposed to be and showed the reality, the reactions that should be shown by a helpless 12-years old in this situation. As Reg breaks the bones of her wrist using a boulder, she gives out wailing cries and screams of pain, which is supposed to happen and the scene shown is grim and cruel at the same time while not being too tragic and drapery. This perfectly captures the expression of realistic situations and people’s reaction to it, having to do what needs to be done. Although in their fight against Ozen, I understood if this anime wants it could go unforgiving in the story but it is at this scene, I fully understood the potential of this anime and what it may show later on in terms of realism.
Mitty’s arc and cruel decisions:
Let us move on to the next important part, which is Mitty’s arc. Reg and Riko get rescued by Nanachi, an intelligent hollow or a creature who lost their humanity upon ascending from the sixth layer of the Abyss. We will discuss her importance in the story when discussing the Dawn of the Deep Soul movie and Bondrewd/Nanachi’s arc. But we will focus instead on another character here, which is Mitty. Mitty is an unintelligent hollow creature who lost their humanity in an experiment done by the White Whistle Bondrewd, who also goes by the title of Sovereign of the Dawn. Bondrewd’s experiments were conducted to find a way to repel the Curse of the Abyss of the sixth layer so that the Cave Raiders can come back safely. But innocent humans or specifically orphans disconnected from the world were used in cruel experiments conducted by Umbra Hands, the cult of the White Whistle Bondrewd. Mitty is sacrificed in an experiment along with Nanachi where the ascension strain that is experienced by both characters is focused on Mitty so that Nanachi stays unaffected in the experiment.
Nanachi was Mitty’s best friend. They met each other for the first time when they were brought in from an orphanage by Bondrewd and the Umbra Hands in the guise of taking them down to the Abyss for them to become future Cave Raiders. Nanachi, before meeting Mitty, used to be frequently disregarded and bullied by her mates in the orphanage for being inept at begging and work and better ways of earning food. She used to pick food from the garbage and ate it and other children saw this as unclean and usually disassociated with her. But after meeting with Mitty, she had her first friend or her first best friend. Mitty found interest in the personality of Nanachi, being quiet but interesting and her curiosity about the knowledge of Abyss possessed by Nanachi also brought them together. As Nanachi had no friends before, being with Mitty gave her a sense of bond with Mitty much stronger than that of best friends.
Having to die as sacrifice to save her best friend she made in short time, Mitty accepts this cruel fate and through the experiment, Mitty is transformed into an inhuman hollow incapable of intelligence and Nanachi received what is known as Blessing of the Abyss or immunity to sixth layer’s ascension strain. Incapable of intelligence and communication, Mitty became a deformed creature who cannot be killed easily and regenerates her body upon damage. Even if poison is administered into her inhuman body, she still survives and does not die. Nanachi could not bear the cruel experiments done on Mitty after they became hollows, she escaped with her from Bondrewd and the Umbra Hands and found refuge in the fifth layer, where after a long time, they met with Riko and Reg. It was seen that Nanachi takes care of Mitty as a helpless friend. Taking care of her as if she was her family, reading her stories every night, preparing meals for her and being affectionate towards her. Although Mitty has lost all sense of intelligence and emotions of a human, both Reg and Nanachi feel that a real person, Mitty herself, still lives inside the creature. Just not being able to communicate, not being able to think. And this could be seen when Riko in her dreams being helpless and crying after being affected by the strain, she felt that someone even more miserable and in much more despair is wailing and crying, and that makes Riko pity her and feel that there are other people in much more pain than her, making her forget her pain and comforting the crying Mitty. And this was when Mitty was on Riko when Riko was unconscious, salivating over her and showing affinity to her.
Through these moments we come to understand there lived a helpless human inside that unintelligible hollow creature, and that helpless human cried for help in despair and this is something Nanachi could feel and yet she had to take a hard decision after discovering Reg. A decision so cruel and so forgiving at the same time, which came like a blessing on her life and to Mitty’s (in perspective of Nanachi). It was seen that Mitty could only be permanently damaged by Sparagamos, a weapon used by the White Whistle Bondrewd and Reg’s Incinerator showed similarity with Sparagamos. This gave hope to Nanachi, hope that she will be able to end Mitty’s misery once and for all. When Reg asked why she wanted to take this decision, despite that she could live peacefully with Mitty, she said she felt and understood all the pain Mitty goes through in this life. Her not being able to communicate, people not being able to understand her and every other problem of being a hollow. Nanachi could withstand this, living with her this way but once Nanachi is gone, her question is how Mitty will live. The fact that there is still a living creature inside her, suffering in pain, others will not realize that. Her pain will only increase and Nanachi cannot live with this fact. And as a result, Nanachi wants to take the cruel decision of ending Mitty’s life using Reg’s Incinerator.
Reg understands the point behind Nanachi’s request but at the same time, he thinks about the immediate future. Nanachi’s main reason of survival up until then was to find out how she could either cure or end Mitty, but once Reg destroys Mitty, Nanachi will not have a reason to live. And this is a red-flag to Reg and this realization expresses how this show seems to consider existentialism as part of its theme.
Once Reg gets assurance from Nanachi that she will not end herself after Mitty dies, Reg and Nanachi take preparation to destroy Mitty. She was placed on a small mat decorated with dolls and flowers that Nanachi previously brought to Mitty on a purpose of desperately trying to make her happy while knowing her ability to feel emotions should be gone. Mitty, surrounded by her beautiful dolls and decorations, was put in a place where her graveyard should be, in front of their house. And it is at the moment when Reg prepares his Incinerator, Nanachi rushes to Mitty wailing in woe that her best friend Mitty will be gone forever. She gave her all the last farewell she could give and then went back to Reg, who himself had to undergo the pain of killing an innocent child to put her out of her misery. As Reg, shoots his incinerator at Mitty, we see one of the most emotional moments in the show, beautifully portrayed as the innocence of a child being freed from not just the shackles of the abyss, but from the care of this world.
Bondrewd, Dawn of the Deep Soul’s Arc:
Although most people consider this arc to be focused on Prushka and Bondrewd’s story, I believe this arc is also a good tribute to the character development of Nanachi and true acceptance of reality by Riko.
In this arc, we get to see realism truly get exposed to our beloved characters. Bondrewd’s human experimentation to reach the deep Abyss and come back safely is done with pragmatic intentions, having no morals or ethics to restrict him. In this arc, we get to realize the true nature of humanity’s pursuit of knowledge.
I do not condone nor support any of Bondrewd’s actions done in the movie, but to criticize what he does is to criticize the moral dilemma that arises in human experimentation. We have seen in history that for civilization to progress further, cruel decisions are taken. Civilizations destroyed, people being experimented on etc. and it is upon this subjective opinion of what we consider an advancement of civilization. And one of the most widely accepted advancements is the pursuit and application of knowledge and if we apply this fact to the story of this arc, we can create a subtle opinion on the true nature of Bondrewd’s intentions.
Bondrewd’s pursuit of knowledge comes with a good intention, although his end goals are not stated. And that knowledge of the Abyss may come to help humanity as we know it. But to gain that knowledge, he requires experiments to be done and those experiments to have proper and useful results, it has to be done on humans.
No one would usually want to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause that does not help them or their close ones personally. As a result, we see a substantially less amount of volunteers for human experimentations and most of those volunteers are desperate and require reward in return. But the sort of experiments Bondrewd does sacrifices humans and the best way for him to get those humans is to find the oblivious ones who are forgotten by most people, namely those from orphanages and children of the slum. What he does is truly immoral but the fact about sonder also kicks in. What we do, what we eat and how the infrastructure of the society is built, is built by trampling on those that are unfortunate, for the greater mass of the society. An economy works when there is flow of resources, meaning someone has to live poorer than someone else and therefore there can be a flow of resources of monetary value. Similarly, these children become unfortunate victims of human experimentation that could, in the future, lead the Umbra Hands in successfully developing methods for Abyss exploration which could benefit humanity or a group in the future.
Regarding this, we get to see the psyche of Bondrewd. Bondrewd is a cruel human being but nevertheless, he is a human after all. He knows to love, he knows to hate and he has every other human feelings. And all of those feelings are overcome by his thirst for knowledge which in return, makes him do despicable things. Every child he sacrificed, he knows their names and he expressed that he loves them. This self of his shows that his human feelings are not correlated with his main motive. He loved Prushka, which he truly did or his final experiment would not have been successful. He sacrificed Prushka regardless, to fulfill his main motive. Through this, we get to see what humans must do to battle realities, what we must do to fulfill our ideologies. This is a side of humanity which Riko did not experience as she is just a kid, and it is truly shocking for her to experience Prushka’s sacrifice and observe an ugly side of humanity. And with Riko, we, the spectators, also observe this beautiful and yet cruel exposure.
Worldbuilding
Up until now, we have talked about the realism in this anime. But this realism is not the only great thing this anime has. The worldbuilding in this anime is fantastic.
Worldbuilding is usually regarded as important as the plot of the anime as it allows the spectators to imagine the possibilities in this world and have a better insight on the plot and its possible correlations with the environment. But in this anime, the worldbuilding is not just made for the plot, the worldbuilding is monumental in detail for the satisfaction of the viewers.
First point is the concept of the Abyss itself. The secrets of the Abyss and the aspiration of the Cave Raiders that come with it, the pursuit of knowledge in this world, foreign cave raiders, mysterious creatures and the mechanics in this world such as ascension strain etc. are of prime importance to the plot and at the same time, made so well it allows a drive to form in the viewers to continue watching the anime just to experience the details of worldbuilding.
Flaws of this anime:
Nothing is made without flaws, and this anime is no exception to that. Although the amount of good things you can find in this anime far outweighs the flaws, some of the flaws could have become a big problem if the anime did not have the themes that made it what it is.
First thing I find very unsettling is the main characters themselves. Riko, the main character, is a sunshine girl that lucks her way through everything. And her development throughout the plot is undeserving and imbalanced. Most of the obstacles she faces are easily overcome by Reg and at the same time she is dense about her experiences and does not learn her lessons quickly. An anime that is fueling continuously on realism of different situations, Riko does not falter in the name of aspiration to find her mother and the secrets of the Abyss. This becomes an unrealistic result that the spectators get to empathize with the side characters in motion while the main character herself remains unaffected by their mistakes and decisions.
Riko had the chance to reflect on what the Abyss can truly be after her consultation with Ozen, and she could finally embrace the reality of the Abyss when she was poisoned by the Orb Piercer, and yet she kept on journeying through the Abyss. None of this is wrong but what feels wrong to me is that she does not realize the burdens she put on Reg. This is what should be expected from a 12 year old but even after this many incidents, if she does not realize her dependency on Reg, this becomes disappointing and an annoyance to watch.
Like how after Reg was almost destroyed by Ozen during their meeting with Ozen, she felt no remorse for what Reg was going through for her. I do believe in the freedom of the author to write anything however they want because it is unique, but considering that, some logic of a story or definition of the characters which are not understood by the spectators at first glance, should either be free for imagination of the viewers or be explained in the art. But not explaining why Riko’s character is like this is unsatisfying and leaves a bad impression in my opinion.
Conclusion
All in all, Made in Abyss expresses deep themes of human emotion and human nature very well with an awesome worldbuilding and a mediocre plot. This anime is well crafted for its type and a good work of love by the authors. Although the flaws of this anime are significant to my impression of it, this anime is still a good fruit of literature.