It's best to begin with prefacing that Made in Abyss is must watch TV. It is unlike any other anime series you will come across, and the studio producing it [Kinema Cirtrus] has put so much effort/passion into it. When you watch a shonen, no matter which one it is, they all give off a similar feel. However Made in Abyss doesnt feel like it can be thrown under one single category or genre.
Leading up to S2: Golden City of the Scorching Sun
The first season of Made in Abyss has a pretty dull start. Everything that happens above ground in the mining town looking back was fairly unmemorable. This is where one of the biggest problems, and one that still plagues the show in S2, is started. The character of Riko. She is simply not a very good nor interesting character for being the MC. Regardless, when they finally descent into the abyss the show truly takes a jump in quality. And when the climax of the season comes around when they meet Nanachi, it is some of the most emotional scenes in any anime. The movie continues this heightened quality, with the introduction of characters even better than the two main ones, as well as keeping up the emotional pulling at heart strings.
With a Second Season came a massive drop off in Quality Writing
A lot of the technical properties of Made in Abyss were just as strong in the second season when you disregard the plot. The animation was at its peak, and the setting creating for the story was captivating with its color palette. The music doesn't even need to be brought up, because its obviously peak. But these things can not alone carry a show. Made in Abyss S2 doesn't do anything drastically egregious. It doesn't pull an AoT ending or a Fairy Tail friendship card, however it does make many many small mistakes that brings it down.
The Problems with Season 2 of Made in Abyss
- Too many details of the story are simply not explained well, or at all. I think anytime you watch a show and after have to go and search what a term is, or what a characters purpose was is a major knock on the narrative aspect of a show. The Village is plagued with this problem. Ideas are brought up (cradle of desire, how all these people reached the village, etc) without actually explaining them. The biggest proponent of this flaw is one of the second characters, Wazukyan. He is a mysterious man with some sort of plan hes been trying to enact behind-the-scenes, however it is never clearly explained. Is it that he wants to ascend past humans? Is it he wants to continue exploring the abyss? We dont know. Because his character is only ever given extremely vague sub-hints. Even in his dying moments, nothing is explained. At times it looks like hes helping the Village, and at times it looks like hes pulling strings to get what he wants.
- Pacing. I hate that this term is constantly brought up when criticizing anime, but sometimes the pacing of a show is noticeable bad. I dont think anyone would deny the first 3-4 episodes are incredibly slow. Slow =/= bad, but at some point the pacing just kicks it into overdrive. Wayyyy too much happens in the story once Reg goes to see Faputa for 2nd time. But then in the hour long special final episode, the pace slows down considerably. This back and forth is annoying
- Similarly to the Nanachi story at the end of the first season, this season is focused around a new character named Faputa. You can honestly draw a lot of similarities between the two story lines, in their depressing tones. Faputa however unlike Nanachi, is not a likeable character. She is self-centered, selfish, and absolutely refuses to listen. The writers try to make fans attracted to her by making her all sweet and cuddly to Reg and giving her a high-pitched VA, but it doesnt work. When the climax of the show comes, as Faputa is finally given the chance to avenge her mother.... it just leaves fans scratching their heads. What is she even doing this for??? Because a small percentage of the current villagers ate her mothers offspring hundreds of years ago? Most of the current villagers came from after all of that happened and killing them is just needless genocide. This idea that they were evil for doing this is absolutely ridiculous writing. The offspring Iruyuumi was creating never had the chance to live. They were born to die. Instead of just letting the dead bodies pile up, they took action to survive. Faputa was given the most screentime out of any character this season, so for her to be so unlikeable and as a viewer feel so detached from her is a massive miss.
- On the contrary, Vueko's character was done beautifully. The way they did intertwine the backstory of the Ganja with the current events going on was great creative storyboarding. Made in Abyss loves introducing characters to just show off super depressing backstories, and then just killing them off. And Vueko was no exception. Having Vueko die from forgetting about the curse of the abyss and losing her humanity from a logical standpoint makes sense, but it just feels like such an important character deserved to have a more symbolic ending.
- Introducing Mitty again was pointless. In fact it almost seemed like they only brought her back (as a sort of illusion) just to make it so Nanachi wasnt on screen for most of the scenes unfolding. Nanachi is by far and away
the fan favorite character, so giving her less screentime than Moogie the green octopus-like Hollow is questionable.
- Killing Maaa off offscreen was such a dumb unnecessary moment. Im sure some fans even question if shes even dead, which is a sign of unclear writing.
I actually think Riko's character really improved in this season, which is one of the few things that this season actually excelled at. Her ability to connect with people has always been her strength, but she finally showed actual combat strength this season with her plan in the Luring as well as her new white whistle.
A 73/100 is not a bad score. The show is enjoyable, and more or less good. But the countless small mistakes the show makes is otherwise disappointing for such a great show from the 2010s.
tl:dr - the second season of made in abyss is one in which you really need to turn your brain off and not try to reason through it. if not, you will instead find yourself every episode thinking to yourself "this makes no sense" or "what even was the point?" enjoyable show, but certainly with 12 episodes could have been fleshed out better.
