a few months back a friend of mine suggested that I watch the first episode of the obnoxiously long 20 questions asked titled
Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii desu ka?
Which translates roughly to:
"Wouldn't it be crazy sad if all these kids died", whose attempt to thrust it's imperiled children and obvious tragedy down my throat
was cut off by me going
"Actually, I watched Black Bullet back in 2014, so I think I'm good"
It came as no big
surprise, then, when, one season later, that same dumb friend walked up and said I should watch this hot new show
about bondage fetishist 12 year olds in perilous situations because it was very good, so I did what any good friend would do:
I generously pointed out that the structure of that sentence was rather suspect
and could get him in a lot of trouble if he set it in the wrong company,
and then I called the police and had him arrested.
I'll be the first to say I'm a bit of a petty sort, so when a friend moon walks up and says
that they really like any given thing, I take that more as a challenge than a recommendation
So I went into episode one trying to find all the things I could criticize to prove that I was very smart and clever,
Because my self perception as a critic is basically all I have.
It was very striking, then, that about five minutes into the first episode
I was feeling that same feeling I got when I watched Kekkai Sensen
for the first time - that little buzz of "oh, this might actually be really special."
Hey, I'm Aaox! Do you like seeing children
experiencing immeasurable suffering and pain whilst confronting the grim spectre of the inevitability of death at every turn?
Of course you do!
You know who else does? Kinema Citrus, as showcased with the aforementioned Black Bullet, and their latest kiddie cruncher, Made in Abyss.
What a horrible bit this is.
Made in Abyss takes place in and around a great big hole in the ground,
the titular abyss, and explores the idea that people will do anything
If it's appropriately dangerous. A whole economy has built up around the abyss and its
exploration, and a caste of explorers, called Cave Raiders,
Frequently head into the hole to explore the space, get silly, and just have some fun with it, you know?
Precluding the get-rich-quick schemes, it turns out that the abyss is actually a horribly dangerous place
Being a vertical shaft at least as deep as 45 Empire State Building stacked on top of one another because it can't ever be easy, can it.
To compound the danger,
It's permeated with something called the curse of the abyss that causes severe
complications to one's health if one attempts to ascend, with the effects becoming more pronounced the deeper one goes.
It's also full of terrifyingly dangerous monsters that can basically see the future. Only complete idiots would think about going down.
Oh, hey Riko, didn't see you there.
Riko's a young cave Raider who receives a letter from her mother from the bottom of the abyss, and everyone is very shocked
which seems a bit strange until one learns that no one's ever gotten to the end of the abyss, and her mother was supposed to have died
years ago in a page taken right out of James Sunderland's diary. The letter carries with it a note
that simply says "I'm waiting at the bottom of the abyss,"
and so, naturally, Riko, a 12 year old, heads off on a suicide mission one that would surely fail if she hadn't recently found the *frustrated sigh*
amnesiac, *excited murmuring* robot, Quote, from Cave Story, I mean, Reg.
From Cave Story.
Armed - Eh? - Armed with her robot boy, Riko and Reg set off on their one-way trip, and thus we have the thrust of the matter.
She'll be fine though, because she's got a magical compass that points to the bottom of the Abyss. I mean it's not -
Why do I need a compass the points in the direction of the abyss? You'd think you could just point at the giant hole -
- I mean, well, at least they have it. That's something -
Oh for God's sake - There's an eminent air of mystery and strangeness to the proceedings.
That's extraordinarily disquieting. Despite evidence to the contrary Riko completely believes her mother must be alive, and immediately sets out on the suicide trip
into a literal hellhole, running away from her friends, her home, and any hope of living a life that doesn't involve dying in a big pit.
It feels almost like the abyss has made everyone go insane already. People are drawn to it, Riko especially,
and they willingly and happily throw their lives away just for the sake of seeing what's down there,
even knowing that at a certain point you just
literally cannot come back.
It's a realistic enough emotion, certainly, doing something stupid because it's there. People climb Everest,
vacation in Cambodia and browse the NTR tag for reasons not dissimilar to these,
but for thistwelve-year-old to be embarking on a
suicide mission and to have a bunch of adults just roll their eyes and go "oh, that Riko,
what can you do," despite it being a twelve-year-old basically marching to her death is
absolutely jarring, which I'm pretty sure is exactly the point.
This is a world where in children find skeletons on a daily basis and eat
monsters that eat humans without batting an eye because that's just how their world is, meaning amnesiac stranger Reg gets to act as our
convenient viewer insert straight man who grounds our perception of the world so we can remain aware that this whole situation has
transcended just being disquieting and entered full-on macabre.
It's not weird that Reg finds a skeleton to be a frightening, disconcerting discovery,
It's weird that Riko doesn't. She's 12.
The added irony of the robot acting the most like a human in the entire story gives it a little extra edge -
Especially when we reach some of the more monstrous inhabitants like fashion queen Ozen, or the absolutely just straight-up
obvious Nazi Germany analog effectively
100% Joseph Mengele wearing armor from Destiny whose name is Bondrewd. The normal people acting normally in abnormal
situations shtick is always really striking and almost frightening in an interesting way -
I think a lot of Kemono Friends' intrigue and appeal hangs on this as well - of having people who shouldn't be where they are
treating a strange bizarre world like it's completely normal
gives you that little sense of
"hold on, hang on a second, where's *this* rondo going?"
And it's a very effective set up for a show that'll grab ahold of you and not let go until it's squeezed you to near death.
Seriously, it's been like a month since I watched the most visceral episode, and I cannot unclench.
The throughlines for each series of episodes are depicted in sort of Bebop-esque vignettes that detail Riko and Reg's
adventures in each of the layers
culminating in the descent to the fifth, which puts us at about three episodes per layer.
Whilst meandering around trying to think of things to say about the show that would make me feel smart, I ended up choosing the word "mechanical"
in reference to the show's pretty straightforward plot progression.
As the gruesome twosome descend further into the abyss, they meet a person or group of people, learn to like them a lot,
and then say a tearful goodbye to them
as they go deeper down into the progressively less pleasant, more dangerous layers
going further and further away not only from civilisation, but also all of their friends
There are a lot of allusions present in the narrative:
as I said before there's some pretty obvious Auschwitz imagery in there with Bondrewd and his train full of children to experiment on
but there's also the idea of being trapped in your body,
euthanasia, and terminal sickness with the character of Mitty;
addiction in the ways people just can't leave the abyss alone
and of course the regular old inevitability of death with the abyss itself;
this isn't a show that dabbles in light themes.
I can't say that this is a show that handles all of the myriad plates it's spinning flawlessly;
sometimes the hard shifts to high drama or comedic levity can feel a bit *too* jarring
but it never really felt like it was bending over backwards to force those themes on me
nor did it feel like it was utilizing them for shock value
which is impressive when you're doing a Josef Mengele impression with one hand
and throwing a dead child into the air with the other.
Pulling that off with dramatic consistency
whilst avoiding feeling gratuitous is something absolutely worth commending.
Made in China is an eminently gripping piece of media, then
but the first of the clammy, grasping digits to wrap around your shivering, terrified form
is almost certainly going to be how utterly beautiful the show looks,
which came as a distinct surprise to me.
An anime about kids going on a big adventure into a cave
was something that conjured images of dark, dim
corridors bored into rock
which there certainly is some of
but the grand majority of Abyss' runtime
looks like it's taking place in a national park rather than the anus of the earth
which is especially odd considering there's a lot of analogues to old Dante's Infernum.
Comparisons to Studio Ghibli were frequent while I was watching the show so it should be no surprise that the art's director is none other
than Osamu Masuyama, notable for being behind the background art of Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle,
Ponyo, and more recently the phenomenal Your Name,
and the artistry shows.
There's a lot of words I could use to describe the watercolor, painterly, soft,
varied and vivid work on display here, but since those are at a premium,
I'll just call it breathtaking.
the second thing that hits you
- at least, it hit me second -
is the sound design.
Kevin Penkin puts on an absolute clinic over here as far as the OST is concerned, with the ethereal, filmic score
lending itself perfectly to the goings-on inside that dang old hole on the ground.
Riko is extremely excited to go on this adventure
but she also doesn't expect to come back from it
and the music manages to capture these two polemic feelings so marvelously.
The track "Remembering Home" especially,
whilst not being as profound a hitter as the majestic "Hanazeve Caradhina,"
clearly emulates a funeral dirge and it manages to convey that sense of wistful longing in the drawn-out violin
with the knowledge you can't go back again in the mournful piano
And it just works so extremely well.
The levity of the lighter moments and the gravity of the darker ones twist around each other through the score
and it's a sublime set of work.
Perhaps even more impressive than the stellar music though is how amazing the sound effects are.
It feels like nearly everything today draws from the same pool of 15 or so sound effects
so when Rico dipped a spoon into a bowl and
it sounded like someone had dipped a spoon into a bowl in real life right next to my head
it was actually so realistic it was jarring
like if a real, actual live action human
just walked onto the screen.
As I said before, there are parts of this show that I just went into full-on shock from
because this is not a show about kids that wears kids gloves.
Brutal, nasty things happen down in that hole
and Abyss doesn't flinch from showing it,
even if you yourself do.
There's a certain point later on that was so completely horrifying that I felt like I was choking watching it,
and the conversation with the friends I was watching it with devolved into sharp inhalations of breaths and various strained noises like:
Again, it doesn't pull its punches
but the grotesqueries on display here are presented
much like the fanservice, if you can call it that:
it's just a fact of life down there.
It's never presented with fanfare, or a dramatic camera zoom in.
that said, it would be remiss of me not to advise you to proceed with caution.
The melancholy, traumatizing an artistry abyss presents
can be absolutely captivating.
And it's a testament to the skill inherent of the staff at Kinema Citrus that they managed to swing this one so impressively.
Even if it ends on a cliffhanger that, whilst suitably climactic,
does demand a second season.
It's not that often that I show devoid of a conclusion ends so conclusively,
and this is without question one of the strongest finales I've seen in the medium.
It could probably beat up my dad.
So yeah, watch Made in Abyss.
It's definitely not for everyone - those with weak constitutions especially -
but I couldn't tear my eyes away from it
and as far as impact goes, Made in Abyss made a bigger one than anything I've seen recently.
So it turns out that Made in Abyss *was* actually pretty special, after all.
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