HIDIVE has been an up-and-coming force in the anime scene for quite a few years. Launching in 2017, the service has been going strong and has been gradually building up its library of exclusives with some of the best anime in the industry. Grabbing series like Oshi no Ko, the Urusei Yatsura remake, and the highly underrated Dark Gathering, the AMC-owned streaming service has been proving to fans that it genuinely cares about delivering quality content to Western anime audiences. Recently, HIDIVE announced in their April update that the streaming service would be adding one of the industry’s most complex franchises to their roster – Made In Abyss – a series with a very rich and deeply complex world that is often overshadowed by some of the writing’s less savory aspects.
Made in Abyss follows Riko, an orphan, who lives in Orth, an isolated town surrounding a massive hole that descends deep into the earth called the Abyss. Many of the villagers work as Cave Raiders to discover and investigate the many mysterious relics hidden within. Riko’s mother was once among these Cave Raiders before going missing on one of her delves, with Riko deciding to take her chances by sneaking into the Abyss with her friend Reg to try and reunite with her mom. While Made In Abyss does provide its audience with a hauntingly beautiful and horrific world, the suffering the characters introduced throughout the series is incredibly grotesque, pushing many boundaries among anime fans regarding what actually constitutes as justifiable versus being gratuitous for pure shock.
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Is Made In Abyss’s Shock Value Too Much For General Audiences?
It goes without saying that Made In Abyss is a series with a massive amount of potential, boasting an otherworldly, almost eldritch terror in the Abyss. An ancient, unexplainable “curse” plagues the hole, inflicting delvers over time the deeper they go, and beyond a certain point, it’s unknown if one can return to the surface at all. For the main protagonist of the series, Riko, her longing to reunite with her mother and to join her in becoming a White Whistle ultimately drives her to continue her delve despite the risks, and as she begins to learn more about the complexities surrounding the Abyss, she too becomes ensnared in its madness. With so many positives surrounding its world – the problems with Made In Abyss lie solely with how it chooses to portray the bad things that happen to its underaged characters.
It’s not uncommon for anime, especially shows that veer into the horror genre, to depict violent things happening to teenagers, but in the case of Made In Abyss, its main character is only 12 years old when the series begins. It’s understandably put some audiences off from watching the anime, given the other graphic content prevalent throughout its run, especially in the first season. There’s also quite a bit of crude humor spoken by and directed toward the show’s younger characters, which can deter general audiences from being fully immersed in what the world has to offer. It’s unfortunate that a show that has an extremely dark, mysterious world has to seemingly hinge on gratuitous shock value, but again, it’s a major aspect of the series that should be heavily considered when sitting down to try out Made In Abyss. Regardless of its faults, the series is still ongoing with many fans praising it for how far it’s willing to go to show audiences how twisted the world can be.
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