It's been on my list for a while and one of those shows I had put off. A reputation preceeds this one and while I didn't get spoiled I would've had to have been deaf in order to ignore the cries of: "it's gritty, it's gruesome, it's painful". Is it actually that impactful? Is it an earned tonal shift or a sufficiently dark and dreary setting? I'll go into that and more. If anyone is on the fence, yes it's got some grit here and there and if you can stomach that and see the world as interesting in the first episode, go check it out. Spoilers from here on out.

On a remote island an huge crater with the Abyss at its center has formed. This abyss is incredibly deep and holds relics and odd natural phenomena. A town around this place has formed in order to explore and sell the relics to other nations/expand humanity's understanding of this unchartered territory. At the top of these explorers stand the "white whistle" bearers, delving deepest. A dive into human curiousity and what you're willing to give up in order to slake your thirst for knowledge. Our heroes dive into the abyss to find a mother and learn the mysteries that lie at the bottom of this chasm. Note that we're not getting all the way down there in just this season, though.

We've got a cast of preteen kids and a few sprinkled in adults that are mostly just not doing much. Most of the kids we meet in the first few episodes end up not really mattering much, not that you grow particularly fond of any of them. Our main duo are the MC Riko and a "robot" she finds on one of her excursions, later named Reg. Later on we meet a bigshot named Ozen and much later Nanashi and to some extent Mitty.

And here comes one of the first real issues. This cast of characters being relatively small is something that would be ok. Usually that's a sign that you can focus more on these few and really get a sense of their relationships. Seeing their interactions, their characters develop, all that fun stuff. But our two main characters end up not really being that interesting. Not interpersonally, not between themselves and barely with other characters.

Riko should be incredibly interesting. She's the daughter of an incredible hero, essentially a legend and thus wants to not just follow in her mother's footsteps, but also find her. Very basic goal, but relatable and a good hook. Only problem is that she's utterly unprepared, not really willing to do more than write stuff down and quickly get further down. Now you could excuse that with the backstory we get later. She's actually more like a zombie that's essentially destined to seek the Abyss. She IS Made in Abyss. But apart from the first shock factor that revelation has, this isn't really that meaningful. She doesn't display any crazy oddities, she's not driven to move against her own will and she's not more resiliant to the Abyss' curse. It becomes a throwaway line later on.

Reg is similar to this. He should be intensely interesting. He's apparently some kind of living relic, a near-indestructible robot/android thing that can level the surrounding area with hand lasers. Also connected to Riko's mother in some way. But unfortunately that's where his appeal ends. All he amounts to is being the capable, but scaredy-cat counterpart to Riko's utterly useless, but somewhat knowledgeable behavior. He doesn't get more decisive or emotionally stronger over the season, either.

Ozen was the first time I actually rolled my eyes a bit. Her appearance was such a clear "look through the story to the plot behind it" that the immersion was crumbling instantly. We'd arrived at the halfway point of the season and had been fed little appetizers of world-building. A great mystery was looming and I was hungry for more information. So in comes Ozen, who just exposition-dumps and in order to make her an actual character they tacked on a "rough, but totally loving mentor" facade. Meanwhile nothing she does is actually all that helpful. Tells Riko she's an abomination, almost kills her, loses her temper as she stomps Reg and wants to kill him; very mentor behavior, you see, it was all a trick, after all. She gives them "survival training", which they should absolutely easily nail, given that's how they got through the first days here. It's also something Riko has shown proficiency with super early in the show anyways. Afterwards Ozen passes on Riko's mom's old pickaxe and then they leave. We get some wannabe "in the feels" flashbacks, that really don't hit to make her interesting or lovable. Sorry, but "I have scars I hide with my hair" isn't really gonna cut it.

Nanashi however sorta saves it. She's the first character of the cast I actually came to like and her backstory, while as rushed as anything else in the anime, actually worked out in the end, because the following scenes were just emotionally well done. She's a "successful" experiment conducted by one of the white whistles, who chooses to plunge kids into the depth they can't return from without losing their humanity or dying. Nanashi makes it out, but her friend Mitty is rendered into an immortal blob; unable to die, but still very able to feel pain. Nanashi is a sign of how we can deal with stagnation and how toxic it can become. She attempts to let Mitty move on, but is incapable of doing so, instead living out her life in a mix of resignation and fear of leaving her one single friend behind to eternal suffering. One of my favorite parts about her, that could very well just be headcanon is how she gets shunned as being disgusting and not close to anyone in her backstory (cept Mitty) and carries that feeling over to Reg invading her personal space.

The world of Made in Abyss was immediately transfixing to me. A huge mysterious crater, different levels that make the impossible seem probable and relics that can shape the world in the oddest of ways. On top of all that a mysterious air about the very nature of the crater that seems to force people to either stay or continue onwards, but not to retreat once they've gone far enough. The metaphor here is hard to miss, but that doesn't make it less impactful.

The "invisible" curse in the Abyss actually getting an explanation later on only makes it more interesting. You'd think it detracts from the mystery, but the way it's explained really just adds to it. Just as the "curse" weighs on the characters in the story, does it weigh on your own mind as you ponder situations in which an upward approach would be potentially necessary. And the deeper we go, the heavier these thoughts grow.

The monsters inhabiting this world look fairly interesting and are varied enough. There's not too much focus on any one thing, so at most we get some snippets about behavior, but not really as much as I'd hoped. I'd like to have seen more interactions between all these tough monsters, how they interact with the curse (like Orby) and more dealings with them, rather than just the quick "this is the first layer, here's a corpse weeper, move on to second layer" situations.

The people of the world seem a little like an afterthought, which kinda makes sense, given how fast we leave, but it still feels like a missed opportunity. We get introduced to an orphanage, slums, poverty, exploitation, but after the first few episodes we kinda stop talking about all this or the other bigshot whistlers until Ozen shows up for half a minute and the very end. And that end doesn't really hit that hard, when you can smell the "extremely powerful hero person is actually evil" plot from the very first second.

The soundtrack is quite nice. The added "vocals" really sell the beauty of some moments and the music never felt out of place. Neither overwhelming nor generic. Animation actually surprised me in the first episode. The monsters are this gorgeously fitting mix of real and surreal with their "drawn" look and the animation was actually quite fluid. You really felt this weird snake-thing thrashing around and through caves. After that episode animation fell off quite a bit, but not so much that it looks "bad" per se. Art style/direction was pretty great. Really showcased how otherworldly the Abyss is. What I will have to say, though, is that the potato faces were severely out of place and just looked terrible to me. I get that it's supposed to be a juxtaposition to the tone, but it really didn't work here. Which leads me into:

Made in Abyss, in my eyes, fails at the "cute show, gotcha, it's actually dark" premise. Not because it doesn't get sufficiently dark/real, but because it's not a surprise. And I'm not just saying that, because of the reputation of the show, but also because of the way it's handled. First off, the "omg, I can't watch this" moment comes way too late. We're 10 episodes deep before things go gritty. Secondly, because the groundwork for this was already set. You're not getting the rug pulled out from under you, you KNOW that this world is dangerous from the start. You know that people literally bleed from all orifices when they ascend in a certain depth. You know that this whole place is filled with deadly monsters.

So when Riko gets stung and subsequently asks to have her arm broken and chopped off as she lies there bleeding everywhere, it loses a lot of the impact it could've had. Of course the screams of pain are still hauntingly well done, but the combination of "well, this should've happened much sooner in this world" and "I'm not even terribly fond of Riko as a character" just make this lose its punch. I was fully prepared to bawl my eyes out at this show, to live with dread and nausea after watching, but it just kinda shot itself in the foot by setting the serious tone from the start.

Here's where I would make a comparison to another anime with cutesy visuals and odd faces, that actually pulled off the tonal shift properly, because it's going 180° instead of 20°. If you know, you know.

The only time I got emotionally hit, was the aforementioned Nanashi scene, in which she chooses to part from Mitty, but everyone involved knows how fucked this situation is; how unfair and painful it is, yet still necessary. Nanashi grew on me more in these few episodes, than Reg and Riko in all that time prior.

So overall I can't really sing this show's praises and partake in the "omg, prepare yourself for pain" mutterings surrounding it. At the same time, just losing out on that doesn't make it a terrible show. The characters make it take another dip, but the premise, the world and the mystery really made me keep watching. And the last arc with Nanashi gave me hope that maybe we'll get some more character development like that for the others. Which made me decide on a score of 70 in the end. It's not a must-watch, it's not terrible; just kinda alright.

As mentioned above, if the premise snags you, the world intrigues you and you wanna uncover this mystery, then yeah, watch it. But if you're just curious because of the anime's "infamy" then you'll likely be disappointed.