I Watched Made In Abyss S2 (And now so do you…) | GR Anime Review
Made in Abyss, Season Two The Golden City of the Scorching Sun, not to be confused with any unannounced third season because really after the film which is essentially like a half season in and of itself this very much felt like “Season 3”, this season progresses on from the aforementioned film and continues to follow three children who progress deeper and deeper into the terrifying abyss that threatens to torture and or brutally maim them beyond all recognition! But thankfully this season does not add to the small amount of anime that have made me cry over the years.
Because it still only counts as one! I walked into this season confident. I felt that, you know, I have witnessed some of the heaviest hits that the show could dish out between the original season and the fantastic feature film. I knew of course that the series was going to try and at least match some of the emotional beats that it had shown us previously. But I felt that I could handle it. I should have known better. Especially since I felt the EXACT SAME WAY when I waltzed into watching the film. Oh I know Made in
Abyss, I can handle this because it can’t possibly be as bad as what we’ve already seen! But then the audio breaks and the music
your music for a reason good sir, you know what you did. They are all bastards. So now that we got that out of the way I can explain why this is currently my favorite anime of all time. Unless of course this video ends up being sponsored, in which case take it away future me! This video is sponsored by both Toyko Treat and Sakurako! Monthly subscription boxes full of Japanese snacks for your mouth to enjoy. The Tokyo Treat box focuses on snack foods more specifically, with up to 20 limited edition, exclusive, and seasonal Japanese snacks. With
the upcoming box labeled as their “Spooktacular Snackin” box. Halloween has always been a very snack focused celebration in the west and Japan is no stranger to it either. We got things like Halloween Caramel Corn, Maple Pumpkin loaves and Sweet Potato Kit Kats The Sakuraco box is a little bit more cultural, containing 20 traditional, authentic, and artisan Japanese snacks. This month focusing on the Ibaraki Harvest. Fall means harvest season! So to celebrate this box contains plenty of snacks with that in mind, like a Sweet Potato Cake, Strawberry Tart, and a wonderful piece of tableware. I got
a plate in my box but apparently it’s a surprise as to what exactly you get in yours. There is also Tea of course! since almost everything in the Sakuraco box pairs well with tea! I know that because of the accompanying booklet for both boxes that lets you know what everything is, some bonus Japanese culture information, as well as allergy info for those who need it. There will be a coupon code in the description for $5 off your first box, alongside links to both individual boxes! These specific boxes will only be available for a limited time
before they swap over to a new theme so if anything I end up showing off looks interesting, you should click on the links and check them out sooner rather than later! Your stomach will thank you. So thank you to our sponsor for this video, and now let us continue… our descent. So, one of the things I like to look at for any kind of sequel is what does this add. Are we literally just continuing on from previous seasons where if one were to watch them back to back you wouldn’t notice that there was a break
in between? Like how right now as I am speaking a new season of Spy x Family is airing, but it’s not really a season two and even most labels online just continue the episode count from the previous cour without interruption, or is there a clear distinction between seasons and if so does that distinction help or harm the series as a whole. Does the sequel make you enjoy the series less. Sometimes narratives are finally able to take off in their second seasons because they are no longer burdened by character introductions. We know the stage, we know
the players, and we can hopefully either continue the existing narrative or begin a similar narrative immediately. Made in the abyss does both things, it continues on like nothing happened while also burdening us with character introductions. The start of this season introduces us to a brand new slate of characters, who have begun a journey to both find the mystical abyss and begin their dive into the depths of it. We did not know these characters beforehand and must once again try and get a read on them before continuing on. It’s like how it was at the beginning,
but Abyss surprisingly makes this actually entertaining by flipping around the information narrative. You see, back at the start of season one a viewer of this series has no idea about the abyss, we don’t know the culture of the people who live above it, we don’t know the curse that affects people inside of it and we don’t know about the child mutilating bastard who lives in the middle of it SUBARASHI We just don’t know! We lack information. But at least some of those things are known by our characters. Riko knows about the abyss, she knows about
her mother who is one of their society’s experts on the abyss identifiable carrying a coveted white whistle and she gets to explain her knowledge both to us the audience and to Reg who wakes up not knowing anything. That was the character introductions at the top of this series. But here in this season, while we don’t know Wazukyan or Belaf or Vueko, we do know the Abyss. And it’s a very different feeling watching people dive through the initial layers of this monstrosity when you know just how serious it is vs before when we were just, blissfully
unaware. That’s how the initial episodes are made interesting here, watching these characters we don’t know interact with things that we do. And we start to learn about this new party of adventurers with the additional information that what we are watching takes place far before the events of the story we have so far witnessed. Leaving the very important question of what happened to these characters before Riko and co arrived. This of course is the major mystery of this arc, and since this is Made in Abyss, you can imagine that the answer to that mystery is not
all that pleasant. Especially since we have traversed even deeper into this pit of despair and as such the consequences are that much worse. As a quick recap, The Abyss contains a curse that affects people trying to leave it. The further into the abyss you go the worse the physical toll is for trying to climb back up. For example, climbing back from the second layer may induce headaches, nausea, or a feeling of numbness in your limbs. While trying to climb from the 4th layer includes harsher consequences like Internal and external bleeding out of every orifice. To
emphasize these consequences, nearly every layer of the abyss has a multitude of examples in the series to show the audience of these effects actually occurring on a character. While some of these are on no-name characters during some exposition, occasionally they occur on a named character in order to show us that the most dangerous thing in the abyss is STAIRS. This season takes place in the 6th layer, past the “point of no return”, since the consequence of trying to climb out of it is not a simple headache or bleeding out of every orifice, but instead the
complete and utter loss of your humanity, turning you into a grotesque being of flesh wishing for the sweet release of death. You’ll notice that I did not show example footage of this occurring in the show like I may have for the others. Because that would be spoilers. *OMINOUS SPOILER SOUND* The thing about the abyss that seems to be prevalent throughout all of it’s layers however is that both the beings that exist on any given layer, and the activities of those who have dived to this depth and stayed there for a reasonable length of time all
have aspects about them that are usually far worse than the consequences of trying to escape from that layer. Like the aforementioned child mutilating bastard who lives at the bottom of the 5th layer. *SUBARASHI INTENSIFIES* If that is what resides there, what hellspawn exists even further down. What could possibly exist in the 6th layer that’s demonstrably worse than losing all of your humanity? Theocratic Capitalism. The gang come across the city of Iruburu, a fleshy colored tower located somewhere in the 6th layer. The city is inhabited by a type of Narehate, beings who have suffered the curse
of this layer and lost their humanity. The most interesting thing about this city, barring its founding and tragic backstory that becomes the foundation of this arc’s tragic narrative, is that it runs on a system of “Value”. “Welcome to the Circus of Value!” /bioshock Everything that exists in the city, or brought into the city has a value. From raw materials, to hairs on your head. And the residents barter with one another for the things they want. However, the “value” placed on any given thing is all dependent on both how much you want the item, and how
much the being who owns the item values it. “Oh so it’s like regular bartering!” You might think. Well not exactly. In the real world, while bartering a person can arbitrarily change the value they place on any item, and as long as they find a buyer willing to pay that price, or a seller willing to accept that price. But that doesn’t work here. The value of any object is precisely how much the owner personally values it. They can’t take some unused object from the back of their kitchen cupboard and swindle someone by claiming to some seller
that it’s worth the cost of a car or house. Because this is Abyss, there’s always a catch. If someone tries to barter for a high value item with something of lesser value the city itself knows this and commences “The Balancing”. Because the city itself understands any object’s value it makes sure that everyone is paying the correct price. If you cannot cover the payment with items or currency alone, your body can and will be used to cover the difference. Scary thing is this doesn’t just apply to bartering. This applies to everything of value within the city.
If you destroy something of value to someone else, the balancing will make sure you pay for it. *OMINOUS SPOILER SOUND* The series refers to Iruburu as the Golden City, not because it’s actually a city made of gold, but because people normally equate gold to having a high value, so this place is instead, the city of value. Now I already said that the city itself was interesting, but do you know what’s even more interesting about this city within the abyss, and this concept of value? The fact that this is not at all a new concept and
in fact is the basis of the entire narrative so far. That’s why It’s probably no coincidence that from the outside, Iruburu looks like a giant vertical shaft, similar to the Abyss itself. In Made in Abyss, characters have continually been forced to give up something in order to gain something else. This has been represented with simple things like Riko giving up her peaceful life on the surface, for the adventure within the abyss. Or others like the inhabitants of Iruburu giving up their own adventures through the abyss for the relative safety of the city. But there are
more complicated examples as well, as even the curse of the abyss acts in a very similar way to the Balancing, where someone needs to give up something or trade their pain in exchange for the toll of traveling out of the abyss. There’s also the exchange that must occur for someone to have a white whistle made for them. This series has always been about cost, value, and a metaphysical price to be paid. It’s only in this arc where it’s a lot more blunt in its messaging. Unless you want to talk about Religion, which is suspiciously not
as blunt, because despite me jokingly mentioning that the 6th layer contains theocratic capitalism, the theocratic portion of it is just as well pronounced as it has ever been, which is to say not very, with the only exception being the tragic origins of the city itself that makes up the basis of the entire arcs narrative. But that would be spoilers. No, while there might be one character who dives into religious missionary territory, it’s more as an explanation for his motivations to reach the bottom of the abyss and care for the people that follow him. In contrast
to Riko who wants to reach the bottom because that’s where she might find her mom, and she cares about those who travel with her because she’s probably the nicest character in the entire series with probably more empathy then is healthy given her environment. She’s one of the reminders that this is still a traditional anime because at least with her the power of friendship is super strong. I suppose one of the disappointing things about this series, at the start at least, was how little it focused on the story already presented. Like on the one hand the
whole season does spend all this time introducing these new fantastic areas, characters, and themes. All worthwhile, and in several cases great for building the story of the characters like Nanachi and Reg, on top of those newly introduced. Because the real story is the friends we brutally mutilated along the way. Also the friends we make, they add a new party member like with every arc. Technically. But on the other hand, the overarching story, the story of Riko’s desire or compulsion to reach the bottom of the Abyss. Most of that is sidelined for the entirety of this
arc. And in manga terms this arc takes up almost half of the entire narrative at this point for how long it actually ran for. Now to make up for it there are plenty of new and interesting characters, and the world of the 6th layer holds even greater tragedies than those of the layers above. But if you, like me, were seriously hoping for some kind of nugget about Riko’s mom and her status or more revelations on what happened this far down into the abyss that kick started this journey in the first place, well that’s not here.
We get a bit of time showcasing what Reg was like pre-amnesia but even that Reg was on his way out of the abyss, which we already knew was a thing. What we didn’t know and still don’t is why. Perhaps in another 5-6 years if we are lucky enough to get another season or film to help showcase that, because man is there like no Manga left to adapt at this moment. Like if you end up looking at the upcoming manga chapters, you might notice that at the time of this video there are only like 4 new
ones. The Anime has surprisingly caught up very close to the manga, which means if we are hoping for the series to continue in anime form we need to wait. A long time. But that’s probably by design. It’s like the waiting is our Curse of the abyss. But the result of the hard work done by those making this series is our blessing. While we wait though, there are people, mostly me, looking at the new manga characters and already taking bets on who is going to die in such a painful way that we regret activingly anticipating their
demise! This is a thing I did during this arc as well because it’s surprisingly easy to do. This is because a particular pattern has emerged throughout the narrative that seems to be holding true until it just won’t anymore. That pattern being that adults are horrible monsters who will all inevitably be dealt with accordingly by the curse of the abyss, and children are either new party members or bundles of innocence who will also be dealt with accordingly by the curse of the abyss. Sometimes it’s BOTH, because Nanachi just is not allowed to have a good day
apparently! Made in Abyss does seem to take great pleasure in Killing off characters, both main and secondary. But killing characters for the sake of killing characters isn’t what makes a story good, so that rarely happens here. Instead it’s when the story and the characters are already engaging that the danger of death or suffering enhances the experience. Season two of Made in Abyss succeeds in introducing a very large handful of new characters, the vast majority of which will not be seen, most likely, in future arcs. But for the small amount of time we get with them,
I still feel like they made an impact on both the story and our own lives. You might only spend a few episodes with some of these characters but the show still makes you seriously care if something happened to them. Like if I had a dollar for every time Abyss made me care about a pink blob of flesh that doesn’t speak a discernable language, well I’d have two dollars but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. Also if I had a dollar for everytime I made that joke in successive videos I’d also have two dollars, but it’s
weird that it’s happened three times. All of this to say that The Golden City of the Scorching Sun is a fabulous edition to this wonderfully terrible world and stands above all the other anime that I have watched this past season, nay this entire year. Few other shows allow me to actually think about deep complex topics, or make me have an opinion on things like “hey would I do this morally dubious thing that will cause a lot of pain but also provide shelter and nourishment for these people in the abyss for like over a Century? The
answer is a spoiler. And if you somehow survived watching it all the way through the series as I have, I’m sure you will probably agree with my praise. Because who else would watch through two seasons and a movie of this shit without either being a Superfan, a Masochist, or someone who is emotionally dead inside. Am I all 3? Yes. Except no I’m not, because if I was emotionally dead inside I wouldn’t have finished this series with a question that I believe any sane and now emotionally unstable person might have. WHERE THE HELL IS MAAA? *OMINOUS
SPOILER SOUND* And thus we have reached the end of the video, a very big thank you to all of my patrons who support my work, support the channel, and make it possible for me to do this and give me the ability to feed myself. And if you are a patron, thank you oh, so much. And if you’re not a patron, there will be a link down in the description to join up on patron and to help us out. I know that there’s already a lot of links down there, but this one I think personally is
very important. Go check that out if you would like. And of course, a very special thanks to those patrons who help out just a little bit more specifically patrons Ryefan Bonaparte, Ross Emerson, Omar Shoman, Hector Montemayor, Wago 221, and Siri Yamiko for being especially awesome. And until next time, ladies, gentlemen and others watch more anime…and Stay frosty.
