Made in Abyss

Made in Abyss is a 13-episode TV anime from 2017. It is based on a manga by Akihito Tsukushi, which started in 2012 as a web comic. The studio Kinema Citrus made the show, with Masayuki Kojima as director. The music is by Kevin Penkin. The show looks soft and cute, with round faces and bright colors. But the story slowly turns dark and scary, and many viewers remember it for that surprise.

The story takes place in Orth, a town built around the edge of a giant hole in the ground. People call this hole the Abyss. Nobody knows how deep it goes. Inside are strange animals, odd plants, and old objects from lost peoples. These objects are called relics, and today's people cannot build anything like them. Brave diggers go down into the hole to find relics and bring them back to sell. The best of them carry a white whistle, the highest rank a diver can earn.

The hole has one big danger. Going down is not the hard part. Coming back up is. Anyone who climbs upward feels a strange sickness called the Curse of the Abyss. Near the top it may only cause a headache or an upset stomach. Deeper down, the curse grows much worse, and at the lowest levels it can change a person forever or kill them. The hole is split into layers, and each layer has its own land, weather, and monsters.

Riko is a young orphan girl who lives at the Belchero Orphanage in Orth. She is curious, cheerful, and a little careless. Her mother, Lyza, was a famous white whistle diver who went into the deep and never came home. Riko wants to become just like her. One day, while hunting for relics on the first layer, Riko is saved from a monster by a boy she has never seen before. He seems like a human child, but his body is part machine. He has no memory of who he is. Riko names him Reg and hides him at the orphanage.

Soon a message seems to arrive from the bottom of the hole, and it gives Riko hope that her mother may still be down there. Riko and Reg decide to go down together, even though they know they can never really come back. Their trip becomes a test of courage, trust, and friendship. Along the way they meet adults who are kind, strange, or frightening, and each layer teaches them how cruel the Abyss can be.

The show mixes many feelings. It has the joy of a big adventure, the wonder of exploring a new world, and moments of real horror and pain. It also asks hard questions about what people will give up for their dreams. Some scenes are very violent and sad, so it is not a show for young children, even though the main characters are kids.

Made in Abyss was praised as one of the best anime of the 2010s. It won Anime of the Year and Best Score at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2018. Its story later continued in the film Dawn of the Deep Soul (2020) and in a second TV season in 2022.