Made in the Abyss Review or 'Uncle Lovecraft's Happy Fun Time Pit of Eldritch Horrors'

Made in the Abyss is one of the best anime series I've seen in a long time. The series is based on a place called the Abyss, a gigantic unexplored pit full of dangerous monsters and strange valuable relics.

Our story focuses on Rico, a young girl who dreams of exploring the Abyss and finding her mother Liza, a famous explorer who was lost there many years ago. One day she receives a message delivered by a balloon rising from the Abyss, which claims her mother is still alive and waiting for her at the bottom of the Abyss.

Despite Rico being far too young for the journey, she immediately resolves to go. Fortunately she's accompanied by Reg, a 'robot' who appears to have climbed up from the bottom of the Abyss but has no memory of who he is or where he came from.

Reg is frequently referred to as a robot but he seems to be more like a cyborg. I say this because the series calls deliberate attention to the fact that he has a penis.

It calls attention to this a lot.

The two make a very solid team. Rico has been studying the Abyss her whole life and has a virtually encyclopedic knowledge of the creatures and locations inside of it. However she is just a young girl so she's physically weak and regularly at risk by the monsters.

Reg conversely has no memory about anything but he appears to be virtually indestructible. His extendable cybernetic arms serve as grappling hooks to help traverse the Abyss and he also has a powerful attack in the form of his Incinerator; a hand cannon that blasts out an overwhelming amount of power at the cost of draining all his energy and knocking him unconscious for a few hours.

The two are very complimentary in terms of abilities and while this does occasionally result in Rico being a damsel in distress, the show does a nice job balancing the two.

Made in the Abyss's narrative delivers an inversion of the traditional Hero's Journey. Normally the Hero enters the unknown, obtains valuable lessons and powers, and then returns home to share their new insight and strengths with the community. Made in the Abyss upends this trope by introducing what is called "The Curse of the Abyss."

The Curse of the Abyss is an illness that afflicts all Abyssal explorers when they try to return to the surface. Each level down you descend in the Abyss inflicts more damage on you when you try to climb back up. Below the 5th level of the Abyss, the series lore establishes that the descent is a one way trip since no one can survive the stress of the ascent.

This simple change adds a significant kind of tension to Rico and Reg's journey. They are venturing into the unknown and they can't go back.

The show actually does a great job of maintaining a high state of tension throughout the series and it does this by deliberately eschewing and downplaying the threat of literal death during most of the encounters with the monsters.

One of the quickest ways to kill audience investment into your story and your characters' situation is to make threats that you don't deliver on; this is the narrative equivalent of the rule "Never take a hostage you can't shoot."

In layman's terms, your audience will NOT believe you are going to kill one of your main characters in episode four of a 13 episode mini-series. The audience knows you're just stringing them along and they will instinctively disengage rather than let you manipulate their emotions.

Game of Thrones is an obvious exception to this but remember how shocking Ned Stark's death was the first time you read it. It was shocking because the audience didn't believe it would happen and had already emotionally checked out of the scene before he died. Every threat to a main character AFTER that scene was believable to the audience because the author had demonstrated his willingness to shoot the hostage. The shocking nature of the death of Ned Stark proves how little audiences are prepared to believe that the author is willing to kill main characters except during climaxes.

Made in the Abyss does not have a massive cast of main characters since it's mostly trekking through a deserted monster filled waste land. This means it can't spend its character deaths cheaply. It gets around this problem while maintaining tension by rarely asking the audience to believe a main character might die, instead it threatens to mutilate them costing them an eye or a limb.

This type of threat maintains audience engagement since it has a real cost to the character that would be felt for the rest of the series and it is very believable that the author will follow through on the threat in order to make their descent even more difficult and give the character something else to overcome.

Since the story has been very successful at getting the audience to care about these characters, these situations are extremely tense because we don't want our characters to suffer more than they already have and it's very believable that the author will make them suffer further.

The series has a heavy emphasis on exploration and mystery. The audience is never really sure what it will see when the cast descends another level in the Abyss. This is a fantastic thematic element in the series because the audience's primary motivation in watching is the same as the main characters goal: to see what's further down in the Abyss. This synergy makes us identify with the main characters which leads to us caring about them.

The series looks absolutely beautiful with some of the most striking backgrounds I've ever seen in anime. The artwork is really amazing and the "moe" art style nicely juxtaposes against the unsettling appearances of the monsters. Each creature feels like something organic that physically belongs to its own ecosystem as opposed simply being a monster that exists to terrorize small children and the audience. In my opinion, the moe art style and bright colors really makes this anime work as it reinforces the notion of innocent kids descending into a terrifying place. Anime featuring monstrous abominations are a dime a dozen but through its art style and strong characters, Made in the Abyss delivers something fresh and new.

The soundtrack is good but not many tracks specifically stand out as something I want to add to my standard playlist.

The show has only a few flaws but one of them is definitely the pacing. It had a great beginning and a very strong ending that knows how to draw out all kinds of emotions from its audience but the middle section tends to drag a bit and while that's forgivable in a 26 episode series, it's really bad for a 13 episode mini-series.

Another minor criticism is the show's reliance on Reg being uncomfortable with nudity for humor. Although the characters in the series are much older than the moe art style implies, it does get a little distracting. I can't really say that the characters are heavily sexualized because they're not, however a recurring joke is how uncomfortable Reg is every time Rico is partially undressed while he tends to her wounds. This is clearly because he likes her and honestly the romantic tension between the two is well done and unobtrusive to the main plot. I'm just asking how many "boy is uncomfortable around naked girl" jokes you can make before it's just played out. I think realistically by the time the series ends he'd either be entirely desensitized to her being naked or they would have already had sex. Or both.

I watched the English dub version and every character did some impressive voice work. I haven't watched the subbed version so I can't comment on that.

All in all the series really was amazing and I can't wait for season two which is scheduled to premier sometime in 2020.

This series is short but absolutely worth checking out.

Final Score:

9/10