Made in Abyss is a breathtaking adventure that paints the explosion of a creation's imagination with a story that is dark, depressing, interesting, unpredictable and EXTREMELY creative. The fear of the unknown, not many shows I can say have pulled it off as good. The setting of the abyss, it's layers, the concepts such as the curse of the abyss, whistles of cave raiders, and the different creatures and the way those creatures work from a fantasy standpoint to a biological standpoint are so well thought out and structured, hats off the creator Tsukushi Akihito, who did outdid himself creating such a detailed environment that is unpredictable, grand, scary, confusing (in a good way) and claustrophobic. I love the pacing of the story, it progresses significantly better with each episode but it's never too much that you can't digest or too less to not fill you up.
The characters are what make the show a lot more fun, they are cute and provide comedic relief, especially two of the main three, Reg and Riko who get most of the screentime. But although they look cute I must say some of things they do and their experiences, their background are quite mature, almost quite depressing. I don't want to spoil and I'm not going to but There is one scene in the second half that really fucked me up. I knew I was in for something dark but that was beyond anything I had expected. The side characters and the ones they meet in their journey are pretty interesting as well, they all have something unique which makes it notable that they are part of that environment, they are diverse and what they offer to the story is quite interesting, I gotta say about all their dresses, it's kind of like a mix of modern and historic design.
The art and animation is fantastic as well, Probably the best work of Kinema Citrus. Beautiful landscapes, great usage of color, they've done justice to the microscopic detail of the abyss, The action scenes really show the effort they put into each frame, it's just smooth as fuck. Don't even get me started on the musical score and insert songs, they had this english song playing in the first episode, it automatically tells you shit is going to be epic! some of the sound effects like when reg is blasting his hand ray or whatever it's called and that extra bass sound that they give when they're trouble, it adds so much to the overall experience. The voice acting is too cartoony though, especially notable in Ouzen's character, but it kinda works, almost like it is perfectly blending a kid show with something that a kid shouldn't be anywhere near of.
My only problem with this anime is that I was left wanting for more, I would've preferred this to be 20+ episodes and with the momentum and popularity that it has been buiding throughout the course of the season, I'm sure it would have helped the studio that is yet to make a commercial super hit, This might be the one for Kinema citrus. And each episode has like a four minute outro and the two minute ED which took away 6 minutes of the entire episode, gladly it didn't mess with the overall pacing of the show.
Made in Abyss does a great job balancing it's light and dark elements and providing content that is both grand and heavy, executing it almost flawlessly that resulted in a show that is simply pure value for entertainment. Do yourself a favor and go watch this stunner.
My rating - 9.25/10
