After all the high praise and it's excellent 8.8 rating (at the time of writing this), I decided to check out why this show is so beloved by all those who watch it. I went in blind without knowledge of plot or characters and here is what I found.
The good:
-The show's presentation is brilliant and incites mystery in all of it's aspects
-Visually it is well conceived, The main characters are all unique looking, drawn with a cute chibi style.
The environment is incredibly detailed and varied at each layer.The is also a vast diversity of creatures that dwell within the abyss and the ones our protagonists
encounter are unique and interesting.
-Music was pretty decent but it is heavily subjective and I can see many people loving.The audio design however flip flopped between repetitive,obnoxious or
brilliant and imaginative.I still think it was good overall.
-Story keeps you entertained and curious throughout. After the premise is set the audience gets a taste of the world in the first layer and it sets a precedent for the
rest of the show.
The bad:
-Characters, most characters here are mediocre at best.
-Exploration of the world outside the abyss is poor
-Plot conveniences and inconsistencies
The ugly
-The existence of Riko
-Constant exposition of obvious things
(DISCLAIMER: mild spoilers from here on)
To explain further,
(bad)
The cast of protagonists are bland and uninteresting.Reg doesn't do anything to make me hate him but at the same time I really don't think his character exists beyond "Who am I" and "I want to save Riko". Nanchi,Ouzen and Bondrewd are the only decent characters.
The world of this show extends beyond the abyss (we see that characters are taken outside the area of the abyss and people trade with others outside the city of Orth) but it isn't explored or even explained, the show only cares about the abyss, which is understandable if it want for the fact that the world outside Orth is unaffected and hence may provide clues about the curse.
The show spends an awful amount of time convincing us that the abyss is a dangerous place and that Black and Blue whistles are borderline superhuman.How then does a bumbling 12 year old girl who is incapable of doing anything but cook descend 4 layers without much trouble at all? (trouble starts at layer 5)
The answer is a plot device robo boy who is immune to the 80% of the affects of the abyss and whose sole purpose in S1 was to rescue said bumbling 12 year old.
It undermines all the black and white whistles out there, Riko and Reg luck out too many times.
Now the worst parts,
The existence of Riko hindered most of my enjoyment of the show, she is a useless, irrational brat who wants to push well beyond her ability. Surprisingly however, she gets punished for it but it still seems like they went in with no real plan or preparation, they just decided that they are going fully aware that they will probably die.To be fair, that how children are.They behave irrationally and it's totally understandable that a child would behave like that and make those decisions but unfortunately that leads to a very frustrating watch.It's like watching a toddler try to drive. For the entirety of the show Riko was a burden to Reg(even though he didn't feel that way) and made me want to punch a 2D drawing through my screen.
When it's not Riko's turn to be annoying, Reg takes over (Reg only borrows this role from time to time) in his brilliant observations of obvious things and then repeating those observations verbally. "Show don't tell" doesn't exist in the abyss I guess.
Lastly,
The random pedophilia. A lot of people said that it was gratuitous but for the most part it wasn't. It acts as a way to explore the weird nature of Reg's human/robot tendencies sometimes but it never felt sexualized except for the scene in the finale(even that can be argued as a way to explore Regs human and robot nature).It may make some people uncomfortable and so I mention it but for me it wan't too much of an issue.Nudity doesn't immediately mean sexualization but in the case of minors that can be a very sensitive topic.
