The disappearance of Lyza, Riko's mother, what starts the real story, feels poor and an excuse for a mystery, as it's simply vague. We already expected the Abyss to hide something important at the bottom and knew that Riko "wanted" to go there, it'd be more original if she had just gone with flow, especially after Reg came up. Even for her, "searching for my mother" seems to be a convenient reason for rushing into the Abyss, since she's not once shown anxious about Lyza's situation after getting in there. Either she is in complete denial or is a shallow character.
Prior to Nanachi's appearance, near the end, the show isn't really telling us anything, it's just the author taking us into a tour through the world he's created and making Riko narrate how fascinating it is.
The Abyss does hold some interesting concepts, however, even if they are only zoomed in by the end of the anime.
I thoroughly believe that the planet in which the anime takes place isn't Earth, but we're given almost zero information about the world apart from the Abyss and the orphanage; not even Riko's hometown is well-explored (at least the area around the orphanage seems poor, but how come?).
Made in Abyss would work better as an open world game, that doesn't need a strong campaign because the exploration makes up for it.
Characters:
Characters are eccentric and have got an eccentric culture that allows children's mentors to tie them up naked to the ceiling and leave them hanging. That arguably makes sense, given the society they live in, made up of people that engage in the Abyss (keeping in mind that it has a curse that can mess with people's head) or are religiously terrified/fascinated by it. Still, that trait creates distance between them and the audience, including me; personally, their reasons feel hard to understand. Also, I believe the author resorts too much to the Abyss for making sense of things, including the characters; it's basically the only thing that matters in that world and that strikes me as pretentious.
Riko is childish enough, what makes sense (although sometimes I feel she's only depicted that way to attract lolicons, for example, when she pees herself out of fear). On the other hand, she's basically an encyclopedia (though she's shown fast asleep during classes at the very beginning of the series) and cooks very well. Those traits are supposed to balance the duo's skills, with Reg's focused on acrobatics and offensive and hers on subsistence and tactics (?), but that's exactly why they feel artificial. Besides, she's done no preparation before jumping foolishly in the Abyss, so I'm not convinced she could have acquired all that knowledge.
Something that is unconceivable to me despite every explanation is that, after a very traumatizing experience, Riko bounces back to her normal high spirits in the blink of an eye, only after a single round of crying. That's made me wonder if the girl is seriously bipolar or broken. Nothing got to her core, if so, only for a fraction of a second (it's seriously creepy). A time-skip seemed to follow every acclaimed awful circumstance she faced, because, after those, it was like nothing had even happened.
Reg is more cautious and cogitative but also seems to leave his suspicions aside easily. For whatever it's worth, though, he's adorable.
Their relationship is cute, but the author forces that, by making Riko appear naked in front of him and Reg's genitals being made a conversation topic more than once. Besides, I understand Reg's attachment to Riko, for her being the first human he came in contact with after losing his memory, but Riko's overly fond of him for such short time, while barely gets homesick or mentions her friends back at the orphanage.
Ouzen's tonic eccentricity, although a little too out there, would've made her authentic if it weren't for the cliché backstory aligned to it.
To sum it up, before Nanachi, I don't see much character growth, except for Reg being more attentive into how to protect Riko, but that's a shallow resolution by itself.
Nanachi, on the other hand, has a little more build-up, with internal conflicts and notably human feelings. She may be seen as part of the tsundere troupe and her (again fully-connected to the Abyss) tragic past may turn easier to simulate depth, but I found her character a plus on the story.
Development:
The author inserts immensely adverse situations and makes their progress natural. Thinking back, though, some things may have been solely for shock value.
The pace is slow and a great deal of screen time is wasted on trivial interactions with characters that aren't going to be treated as relevant for long and don't really help with the main characters' personal development (at least noticeably), especially since important raised topics are easily left aside by the last ones.
Sound and animation:
The soundtrack is remarkable and fitting, making fights thrilling and emphasizing the drama, as well as the voice acting, that in several occasions made me shiver as I felt the characters' despair.
Animation made character's movements smooth, I enjoyed it. Also, the color pallete is really nice. The backgrounds were beautiful as well.
Final comments:
I'd give this a 4, but I considered that the sexualization, which I dislike, being a problem is a matter of audience, so I figure it was just not aimed at me.
In spite of everything, I enjoyed the last double episode, that told us a little more about the society and added to the plot that so far could've been summarized in "must go down", "mean Abyss beautiful" and "'what am I?', says Reg". Therefore, it could be that some major issues I had were fault of the anime, for taking too long on meaningless parts and delaying the real story. After all, the ending was satisfying, leaving room for a villain to show up. Therefore, I'm willing to give the second season a shot.
