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Made in Abyss Season 1 Review

Made in Abyss is a 2017 anime series directed by Masayuki Kojima. It’s such a great, incredibly dark series that sticks with you long after seeing it.

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“I want you to kill Mitty“

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The story follows an orphaned young girl, Riko, who finds and befriends a humanoid robot Reg and descends with him into the titular “Abyss”, that leads deep into the Earth, in hopes of finding her mother. This is only the first season of a story that just has to continue as they ended it on such a tone that begs for a sequel. And that was my biggest problem with the show – the bad pacing.

For a thirteen-episode season, the first half is way too slow and the second half felt very rushed. All of it was very badly paced with the ending making me somewhat disappointed as they did not conclude it with confidence, but instead made it obligatory to watch a second season that who knows when it will arrive.

But besides that, the show is excellent. The first half would make you believe that you are in for a children’s series, but oh boy would you be mistaken to think that as evidenced by that dark second half. It wasn’t just dark, but it was brutal beyond belief. I honestly gasped watching the entire story that unfolded in this half with the finale being particularly devastating.

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That whole flashback where we realize what happened to Nanachi and Mitty was just difficult to watch. Although I personally think that they went a bit too far with this storyline, I still couldn’t help but admire the bravery to do such a story. Dealing with child abuse and horrific genetic modification, this is where the show became not just dark, but one of the most brutal in all of anime, which is saying something for sure.

Nanachi is so well developed and her arc is excruciatingly tragic. Of the other characters, Ozen is also very memorable and strikingly eerie and creepy. As for our main duo, I liked both of them, and I found their friendship beautiful. Riko could be annoying at times, but this is a child, so of course children can be annoying.

Her innocence and optimism is perfectly contrasted with Reg’s stoic and humorless character. The two function very well as a team, but I did find it interesting that she was basically useless in terms of strength while he did all of the work. Couple that with his robotic background and you’ve got a clear winner in terms of character development. But overall, I gravitated toward both of them.

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The animation in Made in Abyss is all over the place. The kids look a bit too cute and cartoony to be inhabiting this ultra-realistic and painterly world, but then again that was maybe the point to make the horrors that they face even worse. The world building is truly incredible here with the creatures all looking not only disturbing, but also genuinely authentic and unlike many others in similar shows. The score is also pretty good as is the fun opening while the dialogue is also solid and the emotion is definitely felt.