Marulk-chan no Nichijou

Maruruku-chan no Nichijou (Marulk's Daily Life) is a series of shorts about Marulk's daily life (quite self explanatory). It's a simple and fun short eps that play before the real show: Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul, making it a really good palate cleanser before the main meal.

The four shorts are just about Marulk's daily life helping Ozen around. Seems simple, but Ozen being despicable and Marulk being innocent makes it a bit more fun. The first three fit this format very well, and just show Marulk messing around and being a bit too innocent about what happens around him. The fourth short ... shows his backstory, and takes a bit of a turn compared to the other three.

As it's part of Made in Abyss, the art is the same as the rest of the series, and is done well, bringing out the emotions of all the characters well. Being a spin-off, obviously it doesn't get the same attention as the main series, and therefore, there is no stunning music by Kevin Penkin, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Naomi Niu does a good job with this fun and lighthearted shorts.

Characterisation was done well, as we get a better understanding of what happens in the series when we're not following Riko and Reg (and Nanachi and spoiler) down in the abyss. Of course it's not as in depth as the main series, but we see the real show: how they act normally, and that's what makes the characters here great. No flashy characteristics. Just Marulk's innocence and Ozen's mischief.

Overall, this is a great way to start off the Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul movie. It gives a nice palate cleanser before the film actually starts, and is just a fun and easy thing to watch, which is definitely required before you get to the real show. Trust me, you're going to need it.

These short episodes of one of the side characters and their daily tasks felt like a nice and refreshing contrast to the rather dark and moody story that Made in Abyss can be.
Following Marulk around as they complet tasks for Ozen or just try to do their best to support her friends is really nice. Plus, this short series gives a bit more of a normal side to things as the characters in the main story can come off a bit rough.
Over all, the style is cute, the familiar characters get some more screentime for us to enjoy and the over all feeling is a ... nice break for in between Season 1 and the 3rd Movie.

I had a lot of expectations for Marulk-chan no Nichijou as I really love Marulk and Ozen thinking I would get to see something that would deepen the characters even if it's just a bit by showing a short story. I have no issues with the lenght of the episodes or the amount of content shown, but rather the fact that it's just softcore porn.

Made in Abyss can be incredibly interesting, with a world and rules so fascinating and cool; I did not expect that in the shorts, but rather how a "daily life" looks like in a world like that. I understand that ... there's not much room to do anything, as the house these two live in is very small, but I expected something relatively funny or sweet, but it really was just softcore porn, "ecchi" with no real reason other than "we don't know how to end this" and it's just.. dissapointing.

The only thing that makes this worth it is Marulk and Ozen's flashback in episode 4, as it brings a bit of backstory from when they first found eachother and how they got to live together. I could not find anyone talking about this scene being in the manga or something that "they finally animated!", which leads me to believe this is either non canon or built for these shorts which it's fine but at the same time it makes me mad because there's no way I'm gonna recommend this anime to anyone aside from this episode.

imo it just sucks. Not good even as a slice of life because they just wanted to make fans horny. The watchtime makes up for it so it's not literal torture, thankfully.