Made in Abyss (Manga Thread)

I guess it also has to do with the fact that a direct route to Layer Five might not be as practical as one may hope, mostly because the Sea of Corpses is a barren and desolate location. I'm pretty sure you can find some neat stuff, but it must be tough finding food compared to the other, more lush Layers. It would certainly explain the nutrient rations.

edited 7th Oct '17 8:00:20 AM by ChefFailure

This is pretty cool. (don't mind the thumbnail, this isn't a video about that >.>)

…Wait, should this go in the anime thread instead?

edited 7th Oct '17 11:55:21 AM by Lyendith

Nah, it's good here. I'm giving it a whirl right now.

Well, Faputa is a very interesting character. I wasn't expecting her to be at least somewhat an antagonist.

Also, please, PLEASE can we have Ozen air-dropping herself from the second layer to the fifth/sixth, because Ozen.

My God, that would be awesome. She'd still have to fight her way through the Idofront, but Bondrewd getting more of his shit kicked into the ground seems like a pretty good deal to me. (I mean, one-on-one against Ozen with a non-combat specialized body and most of his fancy Relics destroyed? Even Bondrewd can't beat those odds.)

As attractive as that idea might be, nobody in Orth is exactly what you'd call a Hero of Justice. Delvers just don't have time or resources to pay retribution, main heroes included.

You know, seeing that Nanachi is officially of Ambiguous Gender, I wonder why everyone (myself included) immediately assumed she was female… Outside of the long sidetails, she doesn't really have any obviously "girlish" traits − or obviously "boyish" ones for that matter…

edited 9th Oct '17 11:51:27 AM by Lyendith

Just an observation, but I think it's specifically because of her hairstyle that the automatic assumption for Nanachi's gender would be female. When's the last time you'd seen anthropomorphic "male" rabbits with definitive head hair?

Personally, I gravitate towards female because her interactions with everyone else (Mitty and Reg in particular) come off as cuter that way.

It's definitely ambiguous given her appearance in the flashbacks and her choice of personal pronoun, but she does read more clearly as female in some respects (for instance, her reactions to Reg's wiggly fingers and lack of similar reaction to Riko doing about the same thing).

Also, the chapter where Jiruo visits the Seeker Camp confirms that Marluk is male, more or less (Jiruo doesn't recognize Marluk at first, then asks what he's doing in such an outfit). Also comes with a prime example of Ozen being the concept of looming personified.

She does it so well in either unarmored or armored states. One looks like a phantom shadow with a human mask, and the other is the colossus casting that shadow that cast away most of it's face. Both are bigger than you in nearly every way possible, and her decreasing her height by hunching over actually increases that effect.

You know, it's occurred to me: up to the point the anime adapts, two of the three main characters have had two severe, lasting emotional traumas inflicted on them: Nanachi has her entire backstory and Mitty's death, while Reg has Riko's near-death and the act of ending Mitty's life. Sure, they're both still the cheeky Bunny and distilled essence of cinnamon roll we know them to be, but Nanachi's reconnecting with the better parts of human nature and Reg's really getting tired of the Abyss's BS.

But then there's Riko. Everything that's happened to her is either something she knew might happen or something that further justifies her journey. And she just shrugs off any trauma like an Ozen shrugging off anyone else's punches. However, people should have picked up on a certain quirk of her personality by this point: the only times she's been emotionally hurt are when she knows that someone close to her has been hurt. And volume 5 hammers this home like Ozen punching anyone else. But that's just one moment to the other's two. And given her track record with the Abyss's curse so far... ooooh we's having another notch on the body count soon.

Just some musing on character arcs. But I guess that's another thing to add to vol. 5's craziness: something makes a lasting effect on Riko's psyche.

I just wish Pruschka had been able to go along with them. In a real sense, not... what happened.

Why are you spoiler-tagging a volume number?

Riko's archetype is not that uncommon when you think of it: she's the classic "I don't care what happens to ME but I do care what happens to YOU" type. Except taken to an extreme.

She’s female Gon in that sense

, Those in addition to possible Orth-isms kinda just makes her seem rather "out there", I guess.

Heck, Mitty is in a lot of ways like her but with a less alien outlook and behavior, based on what we've seen of her.

Man, trying to map out Orth's culture and values would probably lead to some Blue-and-Orange Morality.

edited 12th Oct '17 6:52:30 AM by Ikiniks

I wonder about that, actually. We haven't seen anything too out of the ordinary in Orth, aside from the general acceptance of orphans going down into the death pit, and that's not too out of the ordinary for 'the ends justify the means' when the ends are world-changing Relics and hefty sums of cash and the means are generally obscured by the fact that what happens in the Abyss stays in the Abyss with the corpses.

I'm not entirely convinced that money or power are the primary underpinnings of Orth culture. Everything so far indicates that delver attitudes are largely a result of Abyss addiction/obsession. "The ends justify the means" doesn't really cover all their behavioral quirks shown so far, in so far as material wealth and power are concerned. Rather, they seem to be welcome side results of exploring the Abyss.

Ozen only lied about one thing, and that speech about delver spirituality wasn't it. It holds a lot of implications about Orth natives, especially when Nanachi confirmed that Abyss faith is a real thing.

Or yes I may be exaggerating. But I still think it's worth looking into. Something just feels off about the whole thing. Like an Uncanny Valley for civilizations.

edited 13th Oct '17 9:30:10 AM by Ikiniks

Nah, that's a very good point, especially the faith in the Abyss.

The Faith of the Abyss is honestly one of the most fascinating things in this universe to me. The fact that the very place they live in largely defines their system of values gives a whole other level of consistency to the world. Something that would almost seem like Blue-and-Orange Morality to the other peoples…

…Also, I wonder if it's a coincidence that the initials of "Made in Abyss" are "M.I.A."…?

Probably not. It's also probably not a mistake that 'made', transliterated into Japanese as メイド, is a homophone for 冥土, which is 'underworld' or 'Hell'.

Got a new Avatar.

It can also be translated into "Maid". To be fair, we do have a literal Maid in Abyss.

Another weird thought, whenever I see the word "Abyss", it somehow gives me Dark Souls flashback even though it has nothing to do with the Abyss here.

At one point, I was imagining that, perhaps, an Expy of Artorias would appear later on, in the form of a BFS-wielding former Cave Raider who tried to hunt down all Narehates indiscriminately only to end up becoming one himself when the curse catches up. Bonus point for being voiced by Ai Nonaka ^note go ask the voice actress of Mitty for the reason.

edited 17th Oct '17 11:44:01 PM by Mhazard

on the YMMV, someone added "Prushka sounds as far away from this trope as possible at first, until it's [spoiler]implicitly revealed that she continuously sleeps with her dad[/spoiler] " with a link to the 'parental incest' page

i would like to contest that statement, since "implicit" makes it sound like they SEVERELY hinted at it, when it was one off-hand remark that she has seen "papa's rod", which could happen in a number of ways that aren't sexual. such as it could be just from taking a bath together. i also wouldn't doubt it if bondrewd sleeps in the nude and she doesn't knock.

Yeah, seems like a stretch. Riko doesn't flinch at the remark either.

Yeah, that's not an accurate reading of the situation. Prushka's something like 13 or 14; the idea that she knows what a penis is doesn't mean there's anything untoward going on there, aside from the usual Bondrewd untowardness.

Hm, so…

…Any news of that? =[