A review of Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul

This return to Made in Abyss took a while. Last year, I watched the first season of this fantasy adventure series that quickly turns into a fantasy horror drama. An extremely impressive one, but one that was also hard to watch at times thanks to the very specific kind of horror Made in Abyss contains.

It took me too long to get around to this, but I finally watched the next part of the anime series. Released in 2020, the film Dawn of the Deep Soul was the third of three Made in Abyss films and the only one not to be a recap of the first season.

So setting those first two aside, let’s rejoin Riko, Reg, and Nanachi deep in the Abyss. As usual with these kinds of posts, I won’t get into the background here that I covered in my review of the first season. Also, extreme spoilers this time, and a more serious warning since this is generally a plot-heavy series. Maybe I should just make a *SPOILERS* graphic at this point. If I had any design skill I might.

The crew evaluating a threat in the field of flowers where Riko’s mother is (maybe) buried.

Dawn of the Deep Soul starts exactly where season 1 of the series left off, with Riko finding the fabled field of flowers that her mother may or may not be buried in, right under her legendary pickaxe weapon stuck in the ground. Riko takes the pickaxe, but as they explore the field, Nanachi and Reg detect danger. Reg encounters a strange masked man in the field, one of the dreaded Bondrewd’s men, who warns him that the field is full of brain-eating flying insects that are just about to wake up because this is Made in Abyss and of course there are fucking brain-eating insects.

The trio are able to escape from the onslaught of insects and follow the masked man down the Abyss to his master/boss/whatever’s base, a massive stone complex with a rotating outer wall to keep out unwanted visitors. The crew manage to get to the entrance, and they’re unexpectedly welcomed in by a cheery girl, Prushka, who says her “papa” is on his way to meet them. And then the man himself appears with his entourage.

Hey, Bondrewd seems like a nice guy. Maybe we were wrong about him?

Bondrewd warmly welcomes Riko, Reg, and especially Nanachi, complimenting them for somehow managing to release Mitty from her suffering. The trio are understandably conflicted by all this to say the least, but in order to make it further down the Abyss, they’ll have to get through Bondrewd’s fortress, and since cooperation seems like the only option at this point they agree to stay the night in one of the complex’s many rooms.

Riko wakes up in the middle of the night and finds herself alone, Nanachi having wandered off to the center of the complex to meet with Bondrewd and try to make a deal to let Riko and Reg at least continue on their journey. We’re still not sure where Reg is, but we learn soon enough when Riko decides to brave a staircase leading up (and here’s a good time to be reminded of how the Curse of the Abyss works: quite literally moving up even slightly causes illness, bleeding, and in extreme cases serious mutilation and even death.)

Prushka, who’s definitely going to make it out of this film in one piece.

Riko can’t make it up the stairs without getting cut up a bit and falling back to the bottom, but Prushka comes along to help her, showing her how she navigates her way upwards with the help of her pet whatever it is, a cute fluffy/blobby entity who guides the girls through the abyssal curse with its special senses.

And up this corridor we learn where Reg is and that yes, this is Made in Abyss: Reg is bolted down to a medical chair surrounded by creeps in helmets holding scalpels and saws, who begin studying him in a horrific manner, tearing off his robotic right arm. Riko collapses in tears, but Nanachi soon joins them when they realize Bondrewd’s plan and attacks the masked men, tearing Reg away from them and escaping with Riko. Prushka is understandably terrified by her realization of what her father is doing and leads them to a boat at the dock outside the complex, promising that she’ll talk to Bondrewd as the trio return to the shore.

Our protagonists now have to deal with getting through Bondrewd and his minions and down to the sixth level of the Abyss after getting Reg’s arm back (and the arm with his massive atomic cannon weapon no less) and all while Bondrewd and his men set out to catch them. Will the crew get out of this bind?

Big ass spoilers from this point on, though this might not be: yes, Riko, Reg, and Nanachi do advance down to the next Abyss level where things are probably even weirder. I figured that anyway since the series’ second season The Golden City of the Scorching Sun aired not long ago. What I didn’t know was exactly how they’d get around this Bondrewd guy, who for most of the first season exists as a terrifying and largely unknown threat looming over the crew. We met him near the end of that first season in Nanachi’s flashbacks, an evil and perhaps insane man with immense power and influence thanks to his White Whistle. The series having built him up so masterfully, this film had a lot to live up to.

Bondrewd isn’t your standard villain, he’s way more fucked up than that

And I’m not going against the consensus this time: Dawn of the Deep Soul indeed lives up to expectations. It’s pretty much a natural extension of the first season; ever since episode 3 or 4 at least I knew how extreme it would probably get, and this encounter has been foreshadowed since Riko and Reg’s stay with Ozen way further up. She calls Bondrewd something like a “real bastard” and one to watch out for — quite a character statement coming from someone as hardened as Ozen.

The man certainly fits that description. Though debatably “man” doesn’t suit him — maybe more like entity. The series has established by this point that the Abyss kills many and twists the few of those from the surface who can live in its depths. Ozen was twisted in just such a way, though she did turn into a mentor by the end of Riko and Reg’s stay.

Bondrewd, by contrast, is not merely twisted but pretty well insane. By the start of the film, we already know a lot of what he’s done from Nanachi’s account, using the poor children of the surface for sacrificial experiments. Nanachi is one of these subjects, one of the only ones to survive in a meaningful way Bondrewd’s forced carnival ride down a pit and then up rapidly to bring on a severe case of the curse. The team is obviously extremely suspicious of him from the beginning, therefore, and when we learn what he plans to do with Reg it’s not a big surprise to anyone aside from Prushka.

man

Given the weight of this encounter, already established by the end of the first season, it’s impressive that Dawn of the Deep Soul still manages to be shocking in a way appropriate to the story. In my review of the first season, I addressed the complaints I’d read about the show’s extreme subject matter, including references to bodily fluids and parts and the horrors inflicted on our protagonists, both naturally by the Abyss itself and by Bondrewd and his minions in Nanachi’s flashbacks.

Deep Soul compounds upon those. I didn’t expect Bondrewd’s adopted daughter to survive the film, at least in any kind of recognizable form, and no surprise, she doesn’t. Prushka follows her father out to the shore when he goes after Riko, Reg, and Nanachi, where they use some nice trickery to catch him in a trap, calling up a group of carnivorous worm/insect-like creatures to kill him and his crew. But Bondrewd being something like a monster, he survives the attack — until Reg faces off with him and manages to quite literally drop a boulder on him.

Here we learn Bondrewd’s true nature: one of his henchmen walks up to his mostly crushed corpse, removes his helmet, and becomes Bondrewd, assuming all his memories and powers. Having shown the protagonists this limited form of immortality, he walks back to his fortress with Prushka, knowing that his visitors will still have to get through him to descend deeper into the Abyss. And just as he expects, they infiltrate the fortress again, Reg managing to cut off its power and absorbing massive amounts of power himself in the process by hooking himself directly to its electrical system.

Reg merging with a group of consciousnesses and going berserk

Here we get the final fight of the movie, in which Bondrewd and a berserk one-armed Reg manage to destroy an entire section of the fortress. After coming back to his senses, Reg works with Nanachi and Riko to bring Bondrewd down by drawing him out of the pit the explosion created and using his severed arm cannon, which somehow still works and is presumably going to be reattached to his body at some point.

In the end, Bondrewd isn’t exactly defeated — he’s more or less an immortal at this point. However, he seems satisfied with his opponents’ resolve and strength and finally allows the group to pass through to the sixth level of the Abyss. But not without a sacrifice, of course: here it’s revealed that he did to Prushka what he’s done to so many of the orphans in his “care”, cutting her to pieces and placing the rest of her, more or less conscious, into a suitcase to use as an antidote to the abyssal curse.

Riko and co. are naturally shocked that Prushka’s own adoptive father could bear to do this to her, but it turns out that he’d been planning on this fate for her all along. Perversely, he still speaks of her affectionately, and he points out that the creation of a White Whistle demands just such a sacrifice. Prushka’s desire to go adventuring down the Abyss with Riko and friends has somehow transformed what was left of her into a White Whistle made specifically for Riko to use. So even more scarred than before, but with even greater determination, the crew takes along Prushka’s remains and her fluffy pet and jumps into whatever awaits them below.

Looking forward to even more horrors to come

My feelings about Deep Soul aren’t all that different from my feelings about the first season of Made in Abyss. The production standards are still excellent, and the music is still impressive and builds upon the series’ otherworldly atmosphere. The fight between the berserk Reg and Bondrewd is especially notable, Reg temporarily turning into a monster himself with what look like metal tentacle-arms, and his face replaced by three black holes for eyes and mouth. I’m not exactly an action anime guy (just look at all the slice-of-life anime listed in the anime index page up top) but Made in Abyss generally and Deep Soul in particular use action scenes effectively by making them nightmarish in parts and providing more than enough characterization and story background for us to actually care about the outcome of the fights and the fates of the fighters. The high production values here only add to that effect.

More great otherworldly Roger Dean album cover settings too, which I always appreciate.

Then there’s Bondrewd himself. This film is his and Prushka’s story as much as it is our protagonists’, and he’s more than interesting enough to justify that focus. The guy is undoubtedly extremely immoral, or at the very least amoral — he’d probably argue the latter, that normal concepts of morality don’t apply in the Abyss, but to my mind and probably most others, anyone who’s sacrificing the lives of orphans and turning them into hellish living meat creatures for him to use as “curse repellent” is the truest of assholes.

Yet Bondrewd really doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with what he’s doing. The man is notably calm most of the time and is even exceedingly polite, at least in his speech and manners, approaching Riko, Reg, and Nanachi as special guests and telling Prushka they’re “important” and that she should befriend them. He maintains this outward politeness even in the middle of a life-and-death fight, taking it all as a matter of course. And then of course, there’s his kawaii and subarashii: Bondrewd finds the horrors he inflicts to be wonderful and even cute, insisting that Nanachi has to rejoin him so they can help him with his work, and calling both Nanachi and Prushka “blessings” of his. In some sense, the fact that he knows the names of each one of his sacrificed suitcased meat vessels (a term I never thought I’d have occasion to use in my entire life) is even more chilling than if he’d simply used and discarded them without thinking.

This contrast between Bondrewd’s outward politeness and the joy he takes in his work, on one hand, and the horrific nature of that work on the other, is a large part of what made him memorable to me, aside from that iconic neon Daft Punk helmet he wears. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a good guy or anything close to it — he’s without a doubt a complete villain — he’s not exactly wrong either, at least in his conclusion about the kind of sacrifice Riko and co. require to advance to the sixth layer. As other experienced explorers including Ozen have confirmed, Riko can’t use her mother’s whistle to open the gate down to that layer, beyond the true point of no return, since each White Whistle is made specifically for its owner and no others. Despite her horrible fate, Prushka in some twisted sense got what she wanted by becoming Riko’s whistle in the end.

Though whether any of the other kids Bondrewd brought into the Abyss under arguably false pretenses were happy with their fates is a different matter. In the legal world, we call that lying by omission. And contracts with children are voidable anyway. But I guess there is no law in the Abyss other than the good old law of power.

There’s an interesting point here — at least I thought it was — about the kind of wonders the Abyss contains. To go on a tangent about language for a bit (I know, I never go on tangents here, so please excuse me) the term “wonderful” is almost always used in a positive way, but the root word wonder has more of a mixed connotation if you dig back to its root. In Old English, a wundor described a miracle or any astonishing thing, but of course something horrible might also astonish, including an atrocity. So it was written, according to my hazy memory of studying old European history at college, that one of the early kings of England around or after the time of the Norman Conquest “committed wonders” in the land — meaning he killed a whole lot of people. (It might have been referring to William I, who did kill a whole lot of people and was a Bastard true to his title in the sense we use it today, but I can’t say that for sure.)

My totally unnecessary and long-winded point is that it’s not exactly wrong to see the Abyss as being full of wonders, both in the beautiful and positive sense and in the horrible and negative one (or see also the common root of awesome and awful — both inspiring awe.) And maybe subarashii has a similar dual meaning, though I couldn’t say that for sure either. Bondrewd sure seems to think so, at least, in his twisted mind.

Riko joyfully telling Prushka about that time she almost fucking died to the Curse and had to have her arm broken without a painkiller to survive. What fun!

Despite all this body and mind horror, Made in Abyss still maintains a positive tone. By the end of the film, Bondrewd and his remaining soul vessel assistants watch as Riko, Reg, and Nanachi descend further into the Abyss, apprehensive but still motivated to continue. It’s very much in the vein of the first season in that sense, and I expect Golden City of the Scorching Sun to continue with it, though considering how absolutely fucked Bondrewd has become living in the fifth layer, there’s a worrying question as to what Riko’s mother Lyza is like these days assuming she’s alive somewhere at the bottom.

But that’s something to worry about once we get there, assuming we ever do. As for Dawn of the Deep Soul, I liked it a lot and would recommend it to anyone with the stomach to handle it. Though you do have to have the stomach for it: the horror in this series is far more shocking and effective than simply having blood and guts flying around, and the couple of surgical scenes might be too much for some viewers considering just how much of a visceral reaction they might cause. Even a bitter, emotionally hardened asshole like me was affected by them. So there’s a warning for you. For everyone else, I hope you’ll enjoy the film and the show as a whole.

I’ll be watching the next season of Made in Abyss, but I need to wash my brain out with something a little lighter first, so you can look forward to more slice-of-life antics soon. Until then!

A review of Made in Abyss (S1)

That anime roulette concept already bore fruit again, didn’t it? Just like Yuru Camp, Made in Abyss pulled me right in — an especially apt metaphor this time too. I’ve already finished the first season and am close to catching up to the now-airing second.

Unlike Yuru Camp, however, Made in Abyss was not always an easy show to watch. That’s actually a compliment, even if it doesn’t sound like one — it’s just to say that despite appearances, this is absolutely not anime for kids or for the especially faint-hearted. (I wonder how many parents made the mistake of looking at these cutesy looking characters going on a grand adventure and sticking their small children in front of it for hours… there’s some trauma for you.)

Maybe nobody actually needs this notice, since Made in Abyss is extremely well known. This 13-episode first season aired in 2017, an adaptation of a popular action/adventure manga. It’s since gotten a lot of acclaim from audiences and maybe even from whatever professional critics pay attention to anime outside of Ghibli movies, and presumably also from those weirdo obsessives in the middle like me who write about these subjects out of pure love.

Before getting into the story and characters and all that, I may as well just say right now that I think Made in Abyss deserves all that acclaim. Though it hasn’t gone without some criticism and controversy as well, which I’ll address too as usual.

The story opens with two children, Riko and one of her friends, Nat, exploring a wilderness up against a steep cliff face. A massive fish-dragon thing knocks out Nat and corners Riko, but before it can eat her, a laser beam blasts it seemingly from nowhere and annihilates it. Riko tracks down the source of the beam: a passed-out boy with robotic limbs and a Mega Man-style cannon inserted into an orb in one of his hands.

Riko and Nat drag this robot boy back to their home at an orphanage in Orth, a city surrounding the terrifying and mysterious Abyss. Riko and her friends, being explorers in training, are duty-bound to turn in all unusual findings or “relics” from the Abyss, which this robot certainly counts as, but Riko isn’t type to follow rules. She instead keeps her robot boy in her room and attempts to revive him by recharging him with electricity.

After getting a nasty shock, the robot wakes up and wonders aloud about who the hell all these kids are, where he is, and moreover who he is, because his memory is entirely gone. Before Riko and co. have a chance to explain the situation, however, their teacher/advisor shows up to find out why the orphanage’s power just blew the hell out — apparently Riko is the main suspect when such things happen thanks to the shit she’s tried before. Robot boy does some quick thinking, using a pair of extendable arms to hide in the rafters and avoid detection. Once the danger of discovery has passed, he takes Riko out the window and down to the field below where she shows him his new home, at least for the moment.

Riko and Reg, two of our three central characters getting ready for their big adventure. I’m sure it will all go well!

Since his memory’s been more or less erased, Riko gives her new friend a name: Reg, the name of a dog she used to have (which Reg is not too happy about, but he takes the name all the same.) As that name choice suggests, Riko wants to keep Reg around, but since she can’t feasibly keep hiding him through normal means, she and her friends decide to hide him in plain sight. Reg presents himself to their instructor, who seems to accept his “I’m an orphan who happens to have robotic limbs for some reason” story and puts him in Riko’s class.

But of course Riko isn’t planning to stick around in Orth. Years ago, her mother, the famous expert explorer Lyza the Annihilator, disappeared into the depths of the Abyss from which few people if any at all can return safely. Riko believes Lyza to still be alive, however, and when she’s shown a set of drawings and notes sent up the Abyss from her mother, she finds a note in an ancient language that translates to “At the Netherworld’s bottom, I’ll be waiting.”

Believing this is her mother’s message to her, Riko decides to secretly descend to the deepest part of the Abyss. Normally such a journey would mean certain death for a kid like her, but Reg’s incredibly long robotic arm extensions and his fighting ability and general sturdiness make her plan at least feasible. Saying goodbye to her old friends at the orphanage, perhaps forever, she and Reg descend into whatever waits for them below.

Before getting into the heavy material/spoiler zone, I should address the aesthetics, because Made in Abyss has a hell of a lot of style and atmosphere. The Abyss is an entire world in itself, divided into layers with different climates, plants, and inhabitants. Most of these layers look otherworldly, a sharp contrast with the surface and the city of Orth Riko and Reg have left behind. The environments are impressive — they feel like they could be real places despite how alien they look. Sort of like a Roger Dean-painted album cover, which a lot of scenes in the Abyss resemble.

The cute chibi art style our main characters are drawn in also contrasts sharply with the monstrous looks of many of the creatures in the Abyss. We get a hint of the danger these animals pose, especially to the young recruit “Red Whistle” explorers, in the first episode. However, flying carnivorous fish-dragons aren’t anywhere close to the most dangerous creature waiting for Riko and Reg as they descend.

The music deserves some mention as well. It’s not always the case with anime that I notice the soundtrack all that much, maybe aside from opening/ending themes, but Made in Abyss is one of those series with even memorable background songs and pieces. My favorites are the atmospheric tracks that fit beautifully with the environments of the Abyss, though “beautiful” in this context is often more on the “awe-inspiring/terrifying” side than the pleasant one. And the ending “Tabi no Hidarite, Saihate no Migite” is nicely done, and sung by the three main characters’ voice actors in-character which I always enjoy. (The ending sequence also gets my personal award for Most Deceptively Upbeat OP/ED, just beating out the Asobi Asobase OP.)

Since that sequence is a bit spoilery in a way, this is a good place to put the massive spoiler warning. Red and bold this time because of a few sort of twists and a few emotionally heavy big plot points revealed near the end of this season, and of course I’ll bring up a few of these major points below, so fair warning if you haven’t seen the show. Or read the manga, but I haven’t done that myself, so no manga-specific spoilers in this post anyway.

Now’s the time to turn back if you don’t have the stomach for some true horror. Just pretend it’s a fantastic version of Yuru Camp and don’t watch past this point.

I mentioned the heavy plot, but at least this first season of Made in Abyss feels much more character-driven than plot-driven. The plot itself isn’t the most complex anyway at this point: Riko’s mom is maybe at the bottom of the Abyss waiting for her, so Riko goes into the Abyss to find her, taking her robotic boy companion along with her. The rest of the season after the third episode almost entirely document their journey down and the hazards, enemies, and friends they meet along the way.

But the characters make this story worth following. After watching the first episode I got the feeling Riko might get under my skin a bit, but she never did despite her whole “I’m going to run ahead blindly on occasion and put myself in danger” attitude. That can be irritating, but Riko’s attitude is pretty understandable — she’s raised from the start to be curious about the Abyss with her famous explorer mother, and this explains her desire to follow in Lyza’s footsteps and to possibly meet her after years of being effectively orphaned.

Riko being likable makes this show all the harder to watch in a way

It helps that Reg is with her as well, and not just because he’s both her companion and her bodyguard/escort on their trip. Reg balances out some of Riko’s more impulsive/insane tendencies with his level head and good sense. He isn’t necessarily mentally stronger than Riko, however — he can get emotional and lose control at times, and just as he tempers Riko’s wilder aspects, Riko helps Reg maintain his strength and fortitude when times are desperate, and even when she’s in mortal danger and under immense stress and pain. As a result, she can’t totally rely on Reg to protect her at all times, particularly since every time he fires his laser he passes out for two hours. The pair have to work together, and luckily they’re both fast friends and very compatible, complementing each others’ strengths and weaknesses.

And near the end of the season, this pair becomes a trio with the inclusion of Nanachi, that fluffy rabbit-looking kid who lives deep in the fourth layer of the Abyss, where the strain on explorers starts to become oppressive. Nanachi enters the story at the time when Riko and Reg need them most, when Riko is poisoned and near death from the effects of the Curse of the Abyss. Even though these two are total strangers, Nanachi takes them in and provides for them, using their healing knowledge to save Riko’s life and help her recuperate. This rabbit child is extremely resourceful and has a world-weary sadness unusual for that age, but for good reason considering their backstory.*

World-weary and a little bitter, but fluffy

All three of these kids are endearing in their own ways, which makes it all the harder to see them suffering. And damn does Made in Abyss like to put its heroes through some suffering. This brings me back to my warning at the top of this post — if you’ve heard anyone refer to this series as full of trauma and sadness, I’m about to get into why and how along with a look into a couple of the more common and interesting criticisms I’ve seen of how the story and characters are handled.

We get some hints of how dark this story might get from the outset. Our heroes’ trek into the Abyss is already incredibly dangerous from the moment they begin. As a beginner Red Whistle explorer, Riko is only officially allowed to explore around the topmost first layer not far from Orth itself, a region that already has human-eating dragonesque creatures flying around as we see in the first episode. While she has a wealth of knowledge about the Abyss and all its layers from her studies in Orth, Riko has never actually seen beyond this first layer, so her descent with Reg into the second is already uncharted territory for her.

Moreover, turning back isn’t an option, partly because Riko is determined to make it to the bottom of the Abyss, but also because of the aforementioned strain on explorers that increases with depth. This strain is both physical and mental, causing headaches, dizziness, and nausea in milder forms and progressing to delirium and more dramatic and even life-threatening symptoms. Strangely, this “Curse” as it’s called only takes effect when an explorer tries to ascend while in the Abyss — descending is easy by comparison, though there are still increasingly dangerous predators to deal with that will gladly hunt kids like Riko and Reg.

Yeah not exactly a happy fun adventure, is it

The first hint that their journey is getting serious comes in the second layer, when the pair manage to gain entry into the “seeker camp”, an outpost controlled by the old warrior and explorer Ozen the Immovable. Ozen helped Riko’s mother rescue the girl when she was a baby, born as she was deep in the Abyss, but despite this connection she initially comes off as cold and perhaps even cruel towards Riko.

The presence of her apprentice Marulk, a child about Riko and Reg’s age who immediately bonds with them, is a comfort to them, but the next day Ozen confronts Riko and Reg with the reality of life in the Abyss and with some of the hard facts about Riko’s birth (my favorite from Ozen’s flashbacks: her reaction to Lyza’s wisp of a new husband, Riko’s father who sadly does not survive the trip out of the Abyss after her birth.) Ozen then attacks Riko and Reg and very nearly gets Riko killed, sending Reg into a rage and leading to a fight in which both almost end up dead a few times over before Marulk gets help from the camp to stop it.

This confrontation turns out to have been planned by Ozen as a test. Episodes six through eight do a great job of establishing her as a White Whistle warped by life in the Abyss to the point that she’s lost a lot of her humanity. Yet she still has some human feeling. Before they can continue their journey, Ozen forces Riko and Reg to spend several days surviving outside the camp on their wits alone, and when they return battered but alive she realizes that they at least have a chance of making the trek down to the bottom and then gives them support and her blessing. Ozen might be warped, but she’s kind in her own extremely hard and realistic way.

Ozen also mentions other White Whistles living in the Abyss who Riko and Reg might encounter and the dangers they represent, with special emphasis on a guy named Bondrewd. Our heroes don’t come face-to-face with him in this season, but Bondrewd turns out to be a true villain in contrast with Ozen’s “fake villain” act. His story is tied up with that of Nanachi and their close friend Mitty, originally two orphans from Orth who, like Riko and Reg, took an opportunity to descend into the Abyss. In this case, the two were part of a program led by the seemingly kind and caring Bondrewd to bring orphans into the Abyss and to give them a chance at getting some kind of experience down there.

Unfortunately, we know where this is probably headed, because it’s immediately obvious in Nanachi’s memory that something is wrong. Nanachi and Mitty at the time were both normal humans, and the pair today are anything but. Nanachi refers to both of them as Hollows, deformed former humans who are in danger of being captured and/or killed by explorers, forcing both to hide in the fourth layer of the Abyss. And of course it was this seemingly nice guy Bondrewd who did this to them — his “save the orphans” program turned out to be a cover for his horrible human experimentation program. Bondrewd uses these children to test the effects of the extreme strain of the Curse deep in the Abyss with terrible results.

He does pull out a justification for what he’s doing, but probably not enough of one to be murdering orphans.

As a result of these experiments, all Bondrewd’s orphan recruits with the exception of Nanachi completely lose their humanity and turn into fleshy, melted monstrosities, with Nanachi somehow only losing their physical form and turning into a rabbit-human hybrid, a “fluffy stuffed toy” as they put it to Reg early on.

Mitty’s fate by contrast is unbelievably horrific, turned into a living lump of flesh without higher brain function. This horror is compounded by the fact that thanks to some aspect of Bondrewd’s experiment on the two of them, Mitty apparently can’t die and has to live on in her degraded form, as Nanachi points out likely forever. Unless Reg uses his Incinerator on her — when Nanachi sees him using his hand cannon in battle, they realize this weapon that breaks down its target into subatomic particles is perhaps their only chance to put Mitty out of her misery. When Reg finally agrees to Nanachi’s request and kills Mitty, it’s a partly sad scene, but really more of a happy one since it means she’s been released from her suffering.

There’s a criticism I’ve seen attached to all the above horror: is it too much? The criticism here has to do with how the story plays with the watcher’s emotions, taking a peppy, likeable, and entirely innocent character in Mitty and having the maniacal Bondrewd turn her into an undying monstrosity. The effect is extreme, especially when you’re dealing with child characters. And the same argument might be made to a lesser extent about what Riko is put through starting in episode 10, when she’s forced to endure an almost fatal poisoning on top of the effects of the Curse when Reg has to ascend to a higher point in the fourth layer to bring her to safety.

I won’t post screenshots here but it’s rough, and this one fits anyway. Death is all around our heroes and they know it.

The interesting question here is whether the story is being emotionally manipulative with all this “cute kids made to suffer horrifically” stuff. Despite how extreme it can get, I don’t think Made in Abyss goes too far, at least in this first season. The immense danger of the trip is set up from the very first episode, and Ozen plays an important role in snapping Riko into reality about what the Abyss is really like early on in their journey. Even though Ozen turns out to be a friend and a support to Riko and Reg, she’s absolutely a hard realist who seems perfectly ready to let both of them die if she had concluded that they couldn’t handle their task.

The same is even true for Mitty and Nanachi’s story. Though Bondrewd naturally comes off as evil and perhaps outright insane, his actions sadly don’t feel unrealistic considering how often the powerless are taken advantage of by those with authority and influence. As a White Whistle, Bondrewd commands massive respect among all of society up on Orth, to the point that the orphans he collects willingly go with him down to the Abyss, even volunteering for the trip and without any clue of what’s in store for them.

The newly transformed Nanachi witnessing pure horror, kept by Bondrewd as an assistant before escaping the facility with Mitty.

The world that Riko, Reg, and Nanachi live in might be beautiful, but it’s also hard and unforgiving. This harsh aspect of the world is built up in a natural way from the beginning of Made in Abyss, so while seeing Riko bleeding from her eyes from the Curse and the horrific human experimentation carried out near the end of the season is terrible, it doesn’t come from nowhere and doesn’t really feel like it’s inserted just for shock value. And it’s not all pure misery, or at least not yet — the season even ends on a positive note, with Riko and Reg sending a note by balloon up to their friends in Orth as they prepare to continue their journey with Nanachi coming along.

The other, more common criticism I’ve seen of Made in Abyss is that it has an unseemly fixation on certain bodily functions and fluids. To put it bluntly, there’s a lot of talk about blood, vomit, piss, and bloody piss (not an exaggeration, that does come up once), and some more generally about nudity and private parts (that last mainly having to do with Reg and him and other characters wondering what a robot needs with those particular parts.)

Aside from plenty of blood and some Curse-related vomiting, we don’t actually see any of this stuff, which is good — most likely this series wouldn’t be hosted on HIDIVE or any other streaming service if that were the case. But some people feel uncomfortable with all this material all the same.

Honestly, snot is bad enough

Considering the fact that most of these characters are just kids, I totally understand that feeling, and there were times I wondered whether this stuff was really necessary. A few times it does feel like the author threw something in just for the hell of it, or maybe for comedic effect (Nanachi telling Reg that Riko has to have medicine injected through the back end, for example.) However, for the most part, I felt the story more or less justified all its talk about bloody piss and so on. While Reg seems to be immune from the Curse of the Abyss, it’s a constant threat to Riko, with symptoms attacking her any time she makes even a slight ascent. Together with the regular physical strain of traveling in this wilderness, the emphasis on the terrible physical effects of the Curse feels pretty natural.

Riko and most of the other characters in this series also have a matter-of-fact attitude towards life and the harsh world they live in. Early on, Nat talks frankly about having to eat rotten and toxic food as an orphan in the poor part of town before he was accepted as an explorer in training, and Nanachi had a similar background before their descent into the Abyss. Riko especially isn’t fazed by anything, a trait she seems to have gotten from her mother — as long as she’s making new discoveries, she doesn’t give a damn. Funny enough, it’s the physically far tougher Reg who has the weak stomach and who gets visibly embarrassed over nudity and the like.

Reg might be a robot, but he acts like and basically identifies as a human. I expect this point will come up later in the series when we learn more about his origins.

For these reasons, I think most of these instances can be either overlooked or accepted as a natural part of the story. Though I should note that I’ve seen far harsher criticisms of the manga and its author Akihito Tsukushi on this point, suggesting that the anime might be toning down some of the weirder aspects of the source material. I can’t say that for sure, anyway, since again I haven’t read the manga. I just dug around on Goodreads last week.

Not that I agree with every review I’ve read on Goodreads. There are some real up-their-own-ass types on that site, so it’s vital to use your own judgment as usual. I don’t even expect anyone to necessarily agree with my opinions here. I just say whatever I feel like on this bullshit blog because it’s the one thing in my life I have any control over at all. A trip down the Abyss doesn’t seem so bad at this point, really.

It’s not all bad, though I don’t know about this water

See, I can’t even go one post without some depression now. That’s life for you. As for this first season of Made in Abyss, I liked it a lot — it was thoughtfully put together, telling a gripping story with interesting characters in a both beautiful and terrifying fantasy world. That said, I get why the more extreme aspects of the series might put some viewers off.

I’m not put off, though. I’ll be moving on to the now-airing second season, but I’ve heard I have to watch the third film Dawn of the Deep Soul first. Apparently the first two films Journey’s Dawn and Wandering Twilight together are just another version of these 13 episodes, so maybe you can get by with watching those instead of the first season if you’re pressed for time, but it’s not necessary to watch both. In any case, you can maybe expect a post about Dawn of the Deep Soul at some point if I have anything to say about it (which considering how damn long this post turned out, I probably will.) Until next time.

 

* Nanachi’s gender is undetermined/never expressed, hence the use of the singular they that I’m honestly still not used to. Still feels awkward to use in writing after constantly having “don’t use singular they” drilled into my head in school, but to hell with that — English doesn’t give us a better option, so that’s what we’ve got. Thanks for fucking nothing, English.

The anime roulette: part 3

Yes, the roulette is back! After watching all of three of the seven series I rolled in the first two posts from back in March, I felt like it was time for a new round. The idea is the same: spin a wheel full of anime three times Wheel of the Worst-style except with hopefully good stuff on it, then watch at least the first episode of whatever I land on. I’ve shaken up the choices a lot since last time I did this four months back, partly because I’ve since watched a few of the first episodes and more of a few of the shows left on the wheel and partly because I don’t have VRV anymore. Ever since the Crunchyroll/Funimation merger, VRV became more or less redundant for me since I was only using it for anime. But since I lost access to the HIDIVE-exclusive shows on VRV, I decided to pick up HIDIVE after quitting VRV.

So now I’ve got two anime streaming service subscriptions, CR and HIDIVE, which are damn well more than enough for me. And conveniently enough I now have access to various shows I didn’t and don’t have access to a few I did. What happened to Detroit Metal City? I have no idea. I thought it was on HIDIVE but apparently it’s not (anymore?) Fucking licensing issues. At this point I’m wondering whether VRV doesn’t still have some exclusive anime I’m currently missing out on, but I’m sure as hell not registering for three subscription services to find out.

I slipped a potential landmine in too; can you find it?

Anyway, here’s the new list. As before, I reserve the right to watch any of these later on if I don’t land on them for this post (and if I don’t land on one but you want to stump for it in the comments, feel free! This doubles as a recommendations post.)

A Sister’s All You Need.
Call of the Night
Chio’s School Road
Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness
DENKI-GAI
Made in Abyss
O Maidens in Your Savage Season
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
Vinland Saga
Ya Boy Kongming!

Nine series that caught my eye for whatever reason or that I was already sort of planning to watch but felt I needed a nudge to actually do so. And that sister show just because of the title, which I’ve always been morbidly intrigued by. A sister’s all you need for what? Do I want to ask that question? Will I find out? Let’s see. Here’s the next spin:

And a welcome result. This is one that I’ve always had in the back of my mind to watch just because of how much good stuff I hear about it, and now I finally have an excuse to make myself start it. On to it:

Spin 9: Made in Abyss

I guess this series needs no introduction to a lot of you, but for anyone who like me has missed out until now, Made in Abyss is about a bunch of orphans tasked with exploring a massive pit (aka the Abyss of the title) in the middle of the city they live in. These were the children of adult explorers who died/disappeared while in the Abyss, which is full of dangerous monsters and environmental hazards as we see while following Riko (above) and Nat on an exploration. The pair are separated and nearly killed by a giant flying fish dragon monster thing until it’s driven off by a sudden powerful laser beam shot.

Riko finds the source of the laser, a powered-down robot boy she and Nat carry back to their orphanage. They manage to shock him back to life, but this mysterious robot seems to have lost all his memories. Riko decides to take him on, naming him Reg (after a dog she used to have, which he’s understandably not very happy about) and keeping him around as a secret between her and her few close friends at the orphanage since apparently they’re not supposed to be taking old “relics” like him for themselves.

Riko and Reg, looking out across the city and landscape at the end of the first episode. I’m a fan of Reg’s hi-tech metal Viking helmet.

So I finally got around to Made in Abyss after five years. The first season aired back in 2017, and while I remember hearing a lot about it at the time, I was barely watching any anime at all back then and it passed me by. But judging by the first episode at least, I can see why it was so popular — the characters and their fantastic world are interesting so far. This episode also sets up plenty of potentially fascinating mysteries to be explored, like what Reg is exactly (he clearly has a human-like personality and has robotic limbs, so is he a full robot or a cyborg? And where did he come from, etc.) and the nature of the Abyss itself. It sounds like the bottom hasn’t been reached, hence all the experienced adult explorers disappearing and leaving behind orphans like Riko.

Riko boasting to her instructor about saving Nat from a dragon creature, though to her credit she’s telling the truth here.

Speaking of Riko, I like her so far as a protagonist (or dual protagonist with Reg maybe?) It helps that she has drive and ambition to match her slight arrogance and also a couple of friends like Nat who are all too willing to keep her in check, and also that she has a real bond with those friends as we see when she nearly sacrifices herself to save Nat from being killed. This sort of character might easily become annoying otherwise — hopefully not, since Riko seems to be one of the central characters in this series. I guess you need a protagonist like her anyway in a world like hers, the kind that needs a lot more exploring.

I only hope for Riko’s sake that all the talk of getting strung up for committing infractions are major exaggerations, because what the fuck is that. And what kind of society sends orphans to their potential deaths exploring mysterious pits full of monsters anyway? Some real RPG logic there, isn’t it? I guess Riko is eager to take part in that, but what about the rest of them?

Though I do love fantastic cityscapes like these. The look and feel of this world reminds me of one of those old Ghibli movies.

I’ll absolutely be watching Made in Abyss — it hits all the right notes for me so far. And conveniently enough it’s just returned to the air, with its second season starting last week. I look forward to seeing where Riko, Reg, and the rest end up, and maybe I’ll even be able to catch up and get current soon.

So that was a successful spin. Now for my next roll:

ಠ_ಠ

Well, shit. I put it there, so I can’t complain. But it’s an excuse to use that old Kannada emote, isn’t it. Guess I’m about to have my morbid curiosity fulfilled, though I don’t know whether I’ll regret it.

Spin 10: A Sister’s All You Need.

what

Okay, it’s not as bad as it looks from the title and the above screenshot. The protagonist doesn’t even have a sister. But damn does he love the idea of having one, specifically a little sister. Itsuki Hashima is a young, up-and-coming author who writes what sound like light novels with a fantasy slant, but also a “protagonist has a little sister who’s way too close with him” slant. Like waking him up naked while on top of him close, and also preparing and sitting down to breakfast with him naked.

Itsuki’s editor is correct. See also Itsuki’s can of UCC Coffee there, a real brand that’s pretty decent. If only canned coffee weren’t obscenely expensive here in the States.

Thankfully his editor is there to slap some sense into him by telling him to cut out all the sister obsession shit in the new chapter of his fantasy novel. After leaving, Itsuki’s little brother shows up at his apartment (thankfully he doesn’t have a weird as hell brother kink, so it’s fine) to make dinner for him and his arriving writer friends and colleagues, who are a mix of normal and also kind of degenerate like him (see the girl at the top.)

Talking shop with other writers is a good time. Too bad I don’t know any others in real life, just other lawyers I can complain along with.

But turns out there’s a little more to this series than a bunch of writers drinking beer and being degenerates together, as we see in the last scene where Itsuki and his maybe or maybe not one-sided love interest Nayuta think about each other and how they met.

Not much else to say about A Sister’s All You Need. The pacing is quick, maybe a bit too quick — that imouto “stamp” that gets slammed over the action every two minutes after a punchline does get irritating. But the humor was good enough for me to possibly want to continue this series. Not right away, but maybe at some point.

It also features plugs for real beer brands apparently, though only ones you can get in Japan, so even if I still drank it wouldn’t help me. This stout does look good though.

So if you like little sisters, probably good beer, and/or degenerate humor in general, maybe this is a good show to check out. But I’ll withhold judgment unless or until I get around to watching the rest.

Now for the last spin this round. Let’s try for 3 for 3:

Now here’s an interesting result. All I know about Call of the Night is that it’s a currently airing series about a guy who meets a cute vampire girl and wants to get bit by her or something. “Cute vampire girl” is always a plus for me (I am a Touhou fan after all, and EoSD has one of my favorite casts) so I’m looking forward to this one.

Spin 11: Call of the Night

Sometimes I find a series that might not actually be very good or make all that much sense but that still resonates with me because it found me at the right time. Maybe this is too embarrassing to admit, but I’m beyond all that now: this first episode of the manga adaptation Call of the Night worked for me on that level at least.

Holy shit is this relatable

Kou is a kid still in his second year at middle school. 14 is a rough age, and Kou is going through it — he doesn’t seem to be fitting in all that well at school, and after pretty bluntly rejecting a girl’s love confession he ends up chewed out by her friends and wondering how exactly he’s supposed to feel about any of that.

Unsatisfied with his daily life, Kou decides one night to sneak out of his family’s apartment and wander the streets of his city, alone with his thoughts. Alone until he meets a mysterious, strangely dressed blonde girl with extremely sharp and pointy canines. This lady takes an immediate interest in Kou, asking why he’s wandering around in the dead of night and about to buy a beer from a vending machine when he’s clearly not of age (I totally forgot Japan sells booze in vending machines; it would be unthinkable to see here in the States. Would have made drinking in high school, and I guess even in middle school, a hell of a lot easier!)

Despite the fact that this girl, Nazuna, is about the most obvious vampire ever to appear in a fictional work the very moment he meets her, Kou agrees to go along with her to her apartment after she promises she’ll “help him sleep.”

Okay, I mean I get it, but still.

Kou is nervous that Nazuna will try something funny with him (though in the more normal sense, since he hasn’t realized the obvious yet) but she assures him she won’t. She instead has him lie down on her futon and, once she thinks he’s asleep, goes straight for his neck. It turns out Kou was faking sleep to see what she’d pull, but she still gets some blood out of him before he gets up.

After he finally realizes what Nazuna is, she reassures him that she hasn’t turned him into a vampire — according to her, a human can only be turned if they fall in love with a vampire, so he’s safe. The pair then leave her apartment, but then Kou decides he actually wants to be a vampire and declares that he will fall in love with Nazuna. She tells him he can do what he likes, but seems embarrassed herself, then decides to sort of take him under her wing since Kou seems like he needs to learn how to enjoy his life or something.

Nice visuals, too

So Call of the Night is a strange one so far. It’s a bit hard to track the logic here — I get that Kou is confused and searching for himself in just the way a kid his age would be, but his decision to become a vampire feels pretty hasty and reckless even for a 14 year-old considering just what being a vampire involves. Nazuna’s special interest in Kou is a bit weird as well, and it might even be called creepy or criminal depending on how far she takes it and how vampire vs. human ages work in this world (remembering that vampires in a lot of fiction tend to be far older than they look.) All that’s assuming this is supposed to be a romance, which it very much looks like right now.

On the other hand, when I was that age, the prospect of getting to run around the streets with a hot blonde vampire girl at midnight would have been extremely exciting to me. So Call of the Night is probably perfect wish fulfillment for boys that age. That would also explain the fanservice material, getting an eyeful of Nazuna in this episode and presumably in most of the others to come.

Horny as hell as you’d expect from most any vampire-related story, but it’s worth asking if this story would be less acceptable to many readers/viewers if the genders were swapped. I’d say yes, but isn’t that pretty much what Twilight was? And that was a huge hit, so maybe people don’t actually care.

Despite all its strangeness and potential issues, I might keep watching Call of the Night. Or maybe in part because of those. There’s still a part of me that’s that 14 year-old boy who wants to drop everything, all the bullshit in my life, and just run out into the night. Of course I can’t and won’t do these sorts of things now in my 30s. But again, and maybe it’s even embarrassing to admit these feelings, that’s part of what I use anime and games and other entertainment for: these are safe ways to live out a few harmless fantasies in addition to their inherent value as art. But I’ve gotten into all that before, so I won’t again here.

And that’s it for this third round of the anime roulette. Possibly a 3 for 3 result this round depending on how Call of the Night turns out and whether I feel the same about it next week as I did today, since I admit I’m at a fairly low point at the moment. I might do one more of these posts soon if I’m feeling up to it, but the next one will likely be a game review for a change of pace, so you can look forward to that. Until then.

Edit (7/24/2022): Usually I don’t bother with adding notes to old posts, but after watching the second and third episodes of Call of the Night I’d like to drop the “might not actually be very good” part up there because I’m liking it a lot more right now. Still too early to judge the series as a whole obviously, so look out for that end-of-season review whenever that’s happening. I’ve also already finished Made in Abyss — you’ll find that review soon on the index page up top.