3 Episode Impression: Made in Abyss

Synopsis

The Abyss, a large and mysterious chasm the delves who knows how far into the depths of the earth. Discovered to hold a variety of unique and valuable artifacts, individuals known as Divers explore this large chasm at different levels. For one young diver named Rika, she dreams of becoming a white whistle Diver, the highest of ranks to receive, just like her mother but constantly gets into trouble. During one of her raids, she finds herself nearly devoured by a monster only to be saved by a mysterious robot boy.

The Good

In the first few scenes of the episodes, it’s as if the viewer is brought into the story mode of a video game with its art brought to life. The details and colors are striking and the designs of the characters is new and interesting. Many aspects of the art leave a visual pleasure to the viewer in the natural and surreal aspects of the story. The same could also be said in the smoothness of the animation, like the movements of the monster and the impact it has on its surroundings.

The plot itself also holds a very interesting concept and in terms of exposition, brought a well done world building. It is a mysterious but fascinating world with strange things hidden within, and the same could be said about the characters. It is a rare thing that very young children are made as the protagonists and actually act as children compared to other works.

The main highlight of what was seen so far was the amount of mystery that they had built up and boiling over to Riko and Reg heading down to the Abyss. Overall, the art and animation are a delight, the plot is interesting with plenty of potential in store, and the characters are interesting and endearing in their own way.

The Bad

One of the main things that was noticed so far was that one of the characters, simply known as “Leader” eerily looks similar to that of a certain prince from the series, “Snow White with the Red Hair.” Though the art style is unique, the designer could have been more dynamic with the regular characters.

On the note of characters, Riko had quite the fast backstory reveal with only the second episode out and already it is shown that in the future there will be a special case for here with having been born in the Abyss but survived with the use of an artifact and only having her eyesight affected. With the flow of the first episode, the buildup to Riko’s past could have worked out better in execution.

Then there is also the music, while the opening was fine and the insert song interesting, enough, the ending song did not fit so well with the general tone of the series. Overall, the character design could have been better, the build-up and execution could have been better and the ending was not so great.

Conclusion

As stated, it is as if the art of a video game have come to life and the animation runs just as well. But with the case of the characters, while the art style is unique, certain character designs could have been made more dynamic. The story however holds an interesting concept and highly fascinating world building that holds high potential with how much is told on the “Abyss.” It’s fun to see kid characters act like kids but at the same time, there is a depth to them. Overall, the art and animation is great, the characters are interesting and the plot is highly fascinating.

Rating: 8/10