I always come back every season with a ting of hope in my heart. “Maybe this time a studio with some talented people WHO CARE about their work will make a show that will be worth watching.” A lot of seasons have come and gone. I would be lying if I said there hasn’t been any good shows for a long time. Many great animes have released over the last few years, yet I was yearning for something that wasn’t just a show with a great plot twist, or even a show that wrote believable and memorable characters.
I wanted an anime that stole my heart.
Made in Abyss was a series I never even heard of before Summer 2017. In fact, I didn’t even know of its existence till half-way through the Summer season. When I first saw the picture for the show here on MAL, I was unimpressed. The art came across as childish and goofy. The rating, on the other hand, was extremely high for a show I dismissed as “childish,” at first glance. Thank you MAL faithful, if it wasn’t for the oddly high score, I would have passed on this show.
Now, you aren’t sitting there reading this review to hear how I had the wonderful accident of crossing paths with this anime. You want to know why you should watch it. After all, you are probably wondering how this show got to the top 50 highest ranked shows on MAL. I’ll tell you how:
They tried.
Firstly, the characters are the heart of this great anime. I can go on about describing how they look one-dimensional and at first you may be confused as to how these little children can even begin to be involved in a fantastical original story, but I won’t. You see, Made in Abyss isn’t a show to be described. It is a show to be experienced. The art, the music, and the characters are done in such a way that if you took a step back and analyzed it all, you would see the love and care the original manga author and the anime creators had for them. They aren’t just here to entertain the audience, they are here to take the audience on a journey with them.
The journey is full of trials and triumphs, heartache and despair, yet they aren’t shoved down your throat. It all unfolds naturally before the audience’s eyes. The originality drips from this anime like sweet and soothing nectar for my soul. My heart could only take so many “video game worlds” and “moe overload” animes. Finally, a fantasy adventure that doesn’t tell me how to think or what to feel. The only small complaint I can conjure for this master-level display of originality and heart is that the plot doesn’t start to unravel until the tail end of the series (see what I did there fellow Nanachi fans?), yet the world and characters more than make up for this small shortcoming.
Again, I could write an in-depth analysis on why the opening episodes are brilliant, how the music accompanies the atmospheric art and sets the tone for certain scenes, how the characters are naturally fleshed out, how the actual world the characters live in feels like a character itself, or how the story progresses at just the right pace. But I won’t. Listen, I may not know what you look for in an anime, but I can tell you why I love anime, and I why I continue to watch it even when more than half of the shows that come out every season are literal garbage. I want to find that one anime that can steal my heart. Even if it may be for one season. I want it to take me for a ride I won’t forget. Fate/Zero, Eureka Seven, Code Geass, Fullmetal Alchemist – they are all great animes, don’t get me wrong. However, they didn’t steal my heart.
Made in Abyss stole my heart.
