Made in Abyss: A Review – Glass Reflection

Welcome to the Abyss. Located on an island in the middle of nowhere lies a hole, a pit impossibly large and tremendously deep. The Abyss is home to entire ecosystems of monsters, aberrations, and unknown magicks. Like a long outdated D&D supplement, the Abyss contains many artifacts and remnants of a lost civilization that operate without explanation, some even bending the laws of physics, reality, and life itself, which makes them valuable. An entire colony of humans live on the Abyss’s edge, housing hunters called Cave Raiders, who spend their days diving into the Abyss to find its artifacts and unlock its many secrets. But its denizens of various monsters aren’t the greatest threat to the Abyss however. For the Abyss itself comes with an inexplicable curse, one that allows anyone to enter, but none to leave without consequence.

Ladies, gentlemen and others, my name is Arkada and I bid you welcome to Glass Reflection where today we are taking a look at the anime adaptation of the manga by Akihito Tsukushi: Made in Abyss. Let’s jam.

Made in Abyss is a 2017 anime produced by Kinema Citrus and directed by Masayuki Kojima. It stars a young girl named Riko, the daughter of the famous White Whistle raider named Lyza. Riko lives on the surface rim of the Abyss, in training to eventually become a raider herself. She is headstrong and stubborn, determined to not only be a Cave Raider, but to be one of the best that there is. On one particular school excursion to the upper levels of the Abyss, she gets attacked by the local wildlife, and is eventually saved by a strange young robot in the shape of a boy. This robot, Reg, arrives shortly before a message for Riko appears from her mother, whose last known location was deep in the Abyss. The message reads, “Meet me at the bottom of the Abyss”. So despite the objections of her betters, she and Reg begin the dark decent into the Abyss, to battle the horrors beneath its depths in order to find Riko’s mother.

On the surface, Made in Abyss comes off as a narratively standard but beautifully produced adventure title. You have a new unexplored world and some young adventurers naive enough to think that they can brave the hardships that could potentially befall them. Oh, my sweet summer children.

But like some other well-produced shows with narratively standard plots for their genres that I could mention, Made in Abyss hides a much deeper story, a story probably just as deep as the Abyss itself, one that gets darker with every foot that our two protagonists descend. Because you see, with all the ancient technology within it, the Abyss also harbors its well-known curse. While it is true that one can dive into it as far as you want, whenever you attempt to ascend you suffer the consequences. These consequences include sometimes nausea, maybe dizziness. But beyond that? Internal bleeding, hemorrhaging, and beyond that, straight-up death. Very few individuals have ever returned from the Abyss’s depths for this very reason, and Riko’s mother is apparently at the deepest depths of it.

So, if you want to start watching this series and think to yourself, aww look how upbeat and happy everyone is! And these character designs are so cute! Nothing can go wrong, right?

I liken the story of Made in Abyss a lot to the famous Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies. It’s an amazingly told story about the adventures of these two children, but they face many horrors that you would not inflict on anyone, and for some it might be difficult to watch. It’s not particularly graphic, at least for the majority of its run. I can name quite a few anime even from recent years that offer far more in the gore department. No, Abyss likes to torture you with the emotional attachments you have to the characters, so that you start to feel the same pain that they do, making those darker scenes all the more poignant.

You start to really get attached to both Riko and Reg. Riko is your brazen, happy-go-lucky adventurer far too good for the world that she lives in. Reg is a mysterious robot who doesn’t remember where he came from, one who miraculously suffers no effects of the Abyss’s curse. At least so far. Even the show’s supporting cast are extremely well-realized, the highlights of which being the experienced but mentally quirky White Whistle Ouzen, and the even more mysterious rabbit-eared being called Nanachi. Even though we only get a handful of episodes with these characters as Riko and Reg meet them, their impact is long-lasting. An impressive feat for a series only 13 episodes in length.

But that attachment to the characters is the most impressive and important aspect of the show. Because the emotional turmoil that the series subjects its audience to is not just the amount of gore that it has or an increased amount of violence, but rather this large, ever-looming sense of dread. There is very little surprise in this series. It’s not one that relies on surprises or jump scares like horror. But it’s that knowledge that horrible things can and will happen, only you just don’t know when or what effect that they will have.

What I think really elevates this dread though is the whiplash given to you by the designs of the characters themselves. The cute faces and wholesome designs really make you fall in love with the characters. They induce a quicker attachment than more realistic designs would, and this combined with the amount of extraneous detail in the backgrounds detailing the darkness of the Abyss itself, really helps to bring you into the moment, to be there with the characters, but also to be powerless to affect the outcome.

Speaking of outcomes, the ending of this first season (assuming we eventually get more) is worth noting. The series itself ends with a story unfinished, a story with more questions than answers and a final episode that makes you feel like you were driven over by a steamroller. But despite the story being largely unfinished, I cannot think of a better way to end this part of the story. It’s gut-wrenching and depressing, but that kind of sums up the narrative thus far in a nutshell. Plus, the final moments leave us with a small glimmer of hope about the future of our new favourite characters, one that we will no doubt see dashed quickly in the story to come.

Ahh, but the music... This is my personal aesthetic. The music for Made in Abyss differs greatly in tone from many a soundtrack from other anime of a similar genre. The music for Made in Abyss was composed by the Australian-born Kevin Penkin, who previous to this also composed the music for the kickstarter backed anime Under the Dog. The music of Abyss feels reminiscent of a Role Playing Game, one that fits the show very well considering the progression of the narrative and the adventure that our two protagonists take. It’s been a long time since I’ve had an anime soundtrack that I’ve listened to constantly outside of the context of the show though. This music is just brilliant in its own right. And hey, it’s even out on Spotify, so go give it a listen and try to tell me I’m wrong.

Made in Abyss, is a brilliant anime, based on brilliant material. The production team at Kinema Citrus have done a masterful job at bringing the horrors of the Abyss and the naivety of the story’s cast to life in a very limited amount of time. The amount of detail that was placed into this series – from the art, to the animation, to one of the best soundtracks I’ve listened to – is a wonder to behold.

This series is like if you put Madoka, Grave of the Fireflies, and Hunter x Hunter into a blender. They are all shows that specialize in stories about young protagonists placed into situations and forced to make tough choices, some are just a bit more brutal than others.

But honestly, this is the kind of series that I hope to see every season. This, to me, is the kind of show that makes me love anime so much. To have a series that makes me feel this way, even as horrible as it can sometimes be to watch at times, the impact that it leaves is massive and I am glad every single time that one of these shows comes along because I know it will not be the last. Do I want another season? Hell yes. Are we going to have to wait several years in order to get it? Also, unfortunately, yes. These things do take time, but I can look at the massive bright side. We need the delay to mentally prepare ourselves for the massive amount of depression that a sequel will inevitably put us through.

And so it is with great pleasure that I present Made in Abyss with the ranking of Certified Frosty, a rating for only the best of the best and those shows too important to ignore. You can watch Made in Abyss online via Amazon Prime’s video service, and hopefully purchase the series from Sentai Filmworks when their home video release eventually comes out later this year. And of course the manga is also available online digitally from our good friends over at Bookwalker. The manga is just as good if not better, I assure you.

For alternate anime recommendations, I’d first like to point you towards an anime that is not afraid to show much darker themes in its narrative and toss them onto young protagonists, Shinsekai Yori. A tale about children in a world far different from our own where the characters must sort out the hidden truths kept secret from them. Second recommendation goes to a much calmer series, Girls’ Last Tour, which is another journey-like series but without the impending dread behind it. Two girls making their way across a desolate wasteland, but not one so bleak that there is not enjoyment to be had in their lives. Between those two, you should hopefully find something to your liking.

And until next time – ladies, gentlemen, and others – stay frosty.

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