Back to Space_Jesus's Profile Space_Jesus's Profile

I originally didn’t want to watch this anime. I thought it would be boring, because I had heard it was slow-paced. Well, as I have discovered with this wonderful, wonderful anime, an very slow-paced story isn’t necessarily bad, as long as what little progression displayed is done in the right way.


STORY

As of episode 10, there is very little real plot, and the story doesn’t seem to be progressing much in most episodes. However, there are hints that suggest that this anime is, in fact, going to end up progressing background information on how the world ended. But as for now, there’s the occasional reference to ... previous episodes, but other than that, it’s mostly mini-plots following our protagonists’ shenanigans. But that’s not a bad thing; just look at episode 5’s Sound of Rain, which has, through some odd phenomenon, become my second favorite episode (or in this case, part of an episode) of this season, only being beaten out by Made in Abyss episode 1.

ART

I’m by no means adept at art critique, yet I can tell you that the art fits the world and the characters spectacularly, with the occasional 3DCGI fitting in decently (or at least, not jarringly) with the rest of the art.

SOUND

As far as I could tell, the sound design was good, but not noteworthy, with a few notable exceptions such as the aforementioned Sound of Rain story.

CHARACTERS

This, being a cute girls doing cute things anime, naturally has cute girls who do cute things. The two main characters are the infinitely likeable Chito and Yuuri, two girls who are bored when not trying to survive after the end of the world or travelling.

CONCLUSION

So, this anime is great and all. However, I do have at least one bit of confusion that needs clarification.

In the OP, the girls ‘dab.’ However, when presented with Chocolate-flavored rations, they were confused as to what chocolate was. Therefore, is it logical to conclude that the ‘dab’ outlasted chocolate? If so, in my own personal opinion, that world deserved whatever they got.

Never before have I seen such a poor excuse for trash in the world. This isn’t your everyday garbage. That would be insulting to garbage around the world. No, this is the MOST trashy, disgusting garbage ever to exist. I may be wrong. There’s probably worse. But I never want to be unfortunate enough to stumble upon it.

I, like everybody else, came because of the memes. I expected a bad comedy, but what I got was much, much worse.

The story is as follows: Our main character writes Light Novels. One day, he finds out that the person who does the cover illustrations for his novels ... is his 12-year old sister, whom he hadn’t seen face-to-face since she moved in with him. Now, all of a sudden, he wants to, and please excuse my vulgarity, fuck his sister. Who is 12. And also his sister. As far as plots go, this is about as dumb as they get.

The art is the best thing about this show, and it’s mediocre and stereotypical.

I was too busy being appalled by the disgusting premise of this show to really notice the sound, so it gets a 3.

The characters are all easy to hate at worst, and dislikable at best. Also, the age cap for females seems to be 12. Adding on to that, all prominent female characters seem to be over-sexualized far too often. Oh, and did I mention how the 15 year old main character wants to have sex with his 12 YEAR OLD SISTER? In case you couldn’t tell, I hate this main character especially.

I was genuinely disturbed by the ever-present romantic feelings the main character has towards all these 12 year olds and exclusively 12 year olds. In fact, I was so disturbed by the common humor and over-sexualization of the characters that any of the rare humor that didn’t try to sexualize the 12 year olds didn’t help to improve the quality of the show for me.

In conclusion: Please don’t watch Eromanga Sensei, for your own sake.

Made in Abyss: When I first stumbled across it, I was reluctant to try it out, because it looked far too cutesy and peaceful for my tastes at that time. Eventually, though, the artwork had my curiosity peaked, so I began watching it. What I was greeted with was a first episode that was about as close to ‘perfect’ as anything I had seen before. I was officially hooked from episode one. And while some following episodes didn’t quite live up to the first episode’s quality, that was to be expected with the bar set so high. Everything in this show was presented fairly naturally, ... and any exposition felt like it fit quite well into the show without breaking immersion.

Our main characters are Riko and Regu. Riko is a 12 year old ‘Cave Raider,’ someone who ventures down into the deep chasm that the world is centered around. Regu is a robot (or maybe cyborg?) boy who saves Riko from being attacked in the first episode, and his origin is one of the central intrigues of Made in Abyss. The two primary characters play off of each other very well, often to either comedic or adorable effect. A series of events leads Riko to believe that her mom is deep in the Abyss, so she and Regu start an adventure to the bottom of the Netherworld. The greatest thing about these characters is that, even though they have simple personalities that are easily summed up, they behave flexibly and are believable in the context of the world. For example, Riko, although being naïve and childish, is also rather brave and knowledgeable about the Abyss, likely because of her aspirations of becoming one of the highest ranking cave raiders.

The art is also phenomenal, and one of the show’s biggest draws. Made in Abyss has 3 distinct art styles. There’s the beautiful, painterly background that helps convey the World of Made in Abyss, and does a mesmerizingly wonderful job of it, too. Then there is the chibi character art, used to display the characters as cute (and that’s pretty much it). Finally, there’s also the fact that may of the creatures found in the Abyss are drawn in a completely different style than characters. You’d imagine that this would lead to chaos amongst the clashing art styles, but you’d be sorely mistaken. In fact, it does a wonderful job of making the creatures fit in with the world, while making the characters appear unnatural in comparison, which works really well with this world.

There is also the phenomonal sound design. Made in Abyss features a magnificent soundtrack, courtesy of Kevin Penkin. Also, the general sound effects vary from either very realistic to very cartoonish, which helps to convey the current tone of the events taking place. Additionally, the sound design can also be horrific (in a good way). This applies especially to the horrendous, gut-wrenching scenes, which were disturbing on their own, but made significantly more so by the incredible sound design. This also applies to the phenomenal voice acting, which also helped convey said scenes in the most fittingly disturbing way possible.

In general, I consider Made in Abyss to be my number 1 anime of all time. However, there are a few serious gripes, as with any other show. My only real gripe, personally, is the sexualisation of a twelve year old girl, which I do not find O.K. However, I do my best to ignore it, as it isn’t ever presented in an overtly sexual manner, thankfully. A major gripe I have seen, however, is that those who read the webcomic say that the pacing is too slow. I would have to say that I disagree with that, however, and I would have honestly preferred if the anime were a few episodes longer so they could have slowed down the pace even more, specifically in the First Layer.


Final Comments

Made in Abyss is my personal favorite Anime, and I would highly recommend it if you think you are prepared for the (surprisingly intense) horror scenes that comes later on in the series.