Made in Abyss (original) (raw)

This review skims through the main story, but trust me, there's nothing to spoil.

If you asked me about this manga five years ago, when I just picked it up, I would've told you the most complementary review you could imagine. The artstyle is very pretty, it has this soft murky look to it, to give where credit is due, Tsukushi's landscape design and character design have remained on point over all these years.The setting is cool and atmospheric, the main mystery is very enticing, and the side characters (in the first half at least) are written quite well. The initial premise of the story is... executed just well enough to keep you longing for more.

But if you ask me in the year of out lord 2025, I do not recommend even starting this manga. Mostly because the main plot has barely advanced in these five years. Ever since the main characters reached layer 6, the manga has been rapidly devolving into author's fetish compilation more than a cohesive story. Don't get me wrong, the bits and pieces of the weirdness were scattered all over the story from the start, but at least in the first tomes it's heavily overshadowed by the main mystery and the thrill of exploration of a world filled with quirky creatures and sprawling landscapes, which makes it easy to gloss over an awkward bath scene or two.

Sadly, chapter 40 - 45 and onwards the manga's story becomes this homeopathic substance, where one teaspoon of world exploration and character development is dilluted in two gallons of torture scenes, naked lolies and just plain misery porn. The whole village arc just put the original main characters on pause for several YEARS just to end up with the most basic revenge story about a bunch of characters with barely any personality to them being massacred by a character with at least some personality to her.

The saddest thing is, the current state of manga kind of makes the better parts of it worse in retrospect. The initial surprise of the first bloody scenes hits with a hard, but realistic twist: the wild nature is a harsh place, and the unprepared (let alone, children) are most likely going to die, be it of poisoning, of blood loss, or the claws of some exotic predator. But this shock wears off later on when you realise there's so many more of these absurdly cruel scenes going forwards, it makes you wonder whether the initial dark twist of the manga was merely an accident. Maybe there was no twist at all, maybe the author was just acting out his perversions on paper from the get-go. Maybe Ozen's self-inflicted deformities on her body weren't telling a story of being obsessed with the work of your life to the point you start giving up your very humanity to succeed. Maybe it was just author exercising his sadistic fantasies. Maybe Bondrewd's willingness to put others through painful experiments wasn't an author's take on a scientist that is too eager to achieve knowledge to the point of treating morals and laws of society as an obstacle. Maybe it was just a way to insert more loli torture scenes - the real main story of the series so far.

The initial main characters and the story premise weren't some groundbreaking writing, but it was enticing enough to read because you would assume it would get elaborated on. What is Reg's backstory? What happened to Rico's mother? What lies in the bottom of the Abyss? Yet here we are more than a decade after the first chapter was posted, and barely anything has been revealed. And I'm afraid, it won't be. Even if the author lives to finish the story (which is unlikely given his age and posting schedule), his writing has been on the decline for years. The only real story the manga is following at this point is the author's complicated history with hentai addiction.

Wasted potential/10