Was Lyza genuinely acting in Riko's best interests by distancing herself from her so her enemies wouldn't realize that Riko is her daughter? Or, as Ozen suggested, was she choosing to continue cave raiding and pursuing her ambitions without a child holding her back?
What was the true nature of Ozen's feelings towards Lyza, and consequently her initial resentment of Riko? Many fans find it easy to read her loyalty as a romantic love that could never be reciprocated, with Riko being a reminder of the father that took Lyza away from her. Others who are less interested in the Les Yay aspects or uncomfortable with it due to their mentor/apprentice relationship choose to read her behavior as typical of an emotionally-attached loner unwilling to share her Only Friend with someone else, or even a mother figure disapproving her pupil's choice of spouse.
Is Bondrewd's fight against Riko and Reg a test or a genuine battle to the death? Given that he was defending the most dangerous layers of the Abyss and he also tried to mess with Srajo before Riko and Reg fought him, it would make sense for him to fight any delvers for a while until he deems them worthy to reach the depths where the punishment for a mistake is just as bad, if not worse than whatever he will inflict to his test subjects. On the other hand, he frequently tries to put people's loved ones on a stake and tries to subject them to a Fate Worse than DeathFor Science!, so there's a very personal incentive towards fighting him. He also chose to let Riko's fleet go after his third resurrection rather than fighting them to the bitter end, which can either be explained by him needing to preserve resources just to prevent being Killed Off for Real (since Srajo already put a huge dent to him prior), or him simply being kind enough to let them go after seeing that they're truly capable of facing the dangers ahead.
Awesome Art: Despite seeming simple at a glance, the manga contains detailed and gorgeous artwork, especially in regards to the scenery.
Awesome Music: The show won the Crunchyroll Anime Awards for best music so it is very clear that this anime has a lot of good tracks.
The main opening, when a new episode came out, the song immediately hyped the fanbase. The whole thing even becomes more meaningful when you translate the lyrics.
UndergroundRiver, the calm and beautiful song that plays as Riko and Nat carry Reg out of the Abyss.
Hanezeve Caradinha, an insert song that really captures the simultaneous sense of wonder and danger that the Abyss poses. It's also become synonymous with the series itself.
Tomorrow, the song that plays over the finale of the anime as the heroes set forth on their journey farther into the abyss. And the Adventure Continues...
Crucifixion, a Nightmare Fuel track that was never used in the show but implied to be made specifically for the flashback elevator scene with Nanachi and Mitty. The composer said he wrote a creepy, ominous-sounding piece for the scene but they ended up using Forest of the Abyss (which is in itself a fantastic piece as well) instead, deciding to focus on the sadness and tragedy of the situation rather than the horror.
Transcendence and Hanezeve, a reprise of Hanezeve Caradinha that makes ample use of choir and orchestral elements combined with the vocals to create a magnificent experience.
Tozo Hanoline, the gorgeous song that plays right before Prushka makes her wish for her sacrifice, followed by Bondrewd's final defeat.
Dark Reg, Nightmare Fuel which plays when Reg has absorbed the power of the Ido Front and goes absolutely berserk in a terrifying form.
The Rumble of Scientific Triumph, which plays during the final encounter with Bondrewd. Title memes aside, it's a menacing song rife with choral chanting from a child choir that really plays up Bondrewd's danger, immense power, and monstrous aspects.
Prushka Sequence, a beautiful song that captures the brightness, curiosity, and innocence of the Flower of Dawn, as well as the tragedy of what happens to her in the end. For extra bonus points, it plays during the flashback of her childhood right before her demise.
Katachi, the opening theme to season 2, is an utterly gorgeous song that perfectly captures the adventure and tragedy of the Abyss.
Old Stories, the song used in many of Season 2's most emotional moments, and as Vueko thinks back at her past.
Creepy Awesome: All White Whistles who have been introduced or named so far have also been portrayed starkly compared to the other whistles, with ominous silhouettes and epithets as well as dark concealing outfits. Besides Lyza, there is Ozen the Immovable, Srajo the Lord of Mystery, Wakuna the Lord of Guidance, and of course Bondrewd the Lord of Dawn. Even Lyza, who is comparatively the brightest and most normal looking White Whistle, is sometimes portrayed in a creepy fashion befitting her violent epithet, with her aptly named pickaxe relic Blaze Reap invoking the scythe of the Grim Reaper.
Crosses the Line Twice: For hurting Meinya by mistake, the balancing takes away Maaa's belongings for compensation. Maa cries in tears as she sees her last toys getting torn apart...but that's still not enough, so the balance ripped her apart immediately after.
Draco in Leather Pants: Many people like to downplay the atrocities of Bondrewd and slap him with a pair of these, claiming he's not that bad of a father and he truly does love his children. While it's true Bondrewd is a morally-rounded character who truly does seem to love Nanachi if his parting words are anything to go by, people seem to forget he put Nanachi and dozens of his other children through horrific experimentation to further his own ambitions on exploring the Abyss, stealing their humanity and reducing many of them to horrible monstrosities, and he shows not (or is literally incapable of showing) a shred of remorse for it. On the other hand, a lot of it tends to be done in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. This... creature (he's not even really a human man anymore by the time the main characters meet him) is so reprehensible in his actions, but his charisma, intellect, conviction, fighting ability (arguably much more so), moral complexity and even life policies and his memetic dialogue contributes to his popularity.
Each White Whistle introduced so far has been a minor character in the overall narrative and gained a significant following for their expertise, varied and complicated personalities, and well-deserved reputation as the best of the best.
Nat won many fans with his voice actor's performance in the anime and his three-dimensional characterization, so much so that there are quite a few who are disappointed to learn he doesn't play a bigger role in the series.
Pakkoyan (the Narehate cyclops who was also Vueko's lover in her Ganja days) is popular among fans for her cute design both as a human and as a Narehate (that sticks out like a sore thumb among the more grotesque and amorphous inhabitants of the village). The fact her love for Vueko was sincere and that she sacrificed her life for her also helped to make fans like her.
Evil Is Cool: Bondrewd has the charisma, intellect and fighting ability, including Frickin' Laser Beams, as well as cool design to make him a quite awesome villain. Many manga readers were utterly ecstatic when the OP of the anime which premiered on Episode 2 teased his revolving base Idofront on the Fifth Layer and a single frame of the man himself with his face-mask lighting up, some even began declaring the anime would become Anime of the Season, if not Anime of the Year due to his forthcoming presence. In fact, he was even nominated for "Best Villain" in the Anime Awards 2017 despite only appearing in the OP and flashbacks in the anime.
Fan Nickname: Bondrewd has acquired various nicknames amongst the fandom, such as Bon-bon, Bonerdaddy, Bonerdude, and of course the incredibly popular "BestDad"
Fountain of Memes: Bondrewd, to a tee. His dangerous intellect, his awesome design, his flair for the dramatic, his pursuits For Science!, his ramblings, his surprisingly tender parenting when he's not horribly experimenting on his "kids" anyway, his fighting skills, his large number of relics with odd names one of which allows him to fire Frickin' Laser Beams from his ELBOW like he's doing a wrestling move, his utter lack of remorse, his unexpected humanity and his Body Backup Drive immortality that allowed him to survive through the arc where he's the main antagonist, all roll into a single character that is difficult to forget.
Friendly Fandoms: A lot of fans of this manga/anime are also fans of Puella Magi Madoka Magica due to the similar nature of being a Subverted Kids' Show with purposeful Art-Style Dissonance where the show starts off kid friendly but ends up being a Cosmic Horror Story in disguise. Some people believe the manga was outright inspired by Madoka because Made in Abyss's manga released in 2012, about a year and a half after Puella Magi Madoka Magica released.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Ozen seems very popular with Westerners, despite her relatively minor role in the story, and her rather cruel treatment of the main characters. Probably has something to do with being a very modern-Batman-esque Anti-Hero. There are also fans that find Ozen attractive for her height, her calm but firm assertiveness, having a caring side beneath her callousness and a potential to bring that side out more, and/or being a "Tall Goth Dommy Mommy" as some who find her hot.
While the manga's reception had always been positive, it was steadily losing popularity and dropping in sales for the first two volumes. The author stated in an interview that he had to rush through Layer Three and create a new character under direction of his editor in a last-ditch effort to improve sales. That character turned out to be Nanachi, whose cute appearance and tragic backstory tying to Bondrewd showcased the full scale of the author's storytelling chops, won fans over, and turned Made In Abyss into a sensation.
He's also admitted in another interview that a lot of worldbuilding that made the story so compelling, were actually backportedfrom the anime, because he only got to really flesh out his world when the animation team started bombarding him with the questions about various small details (including the thread profile on the bolts used in Orth), and a lot of story elements now taken for granted were actually developed by the animation team, and not him.
Harsher in Hindsight: Nanachi's Lethal Chef tendencies are initially Played for Laughs especially in comparison to their otherwise vast survival skills, but it becomes a lot less funny after it's revealed they're a mostly normal orphan no older than the main characters whose skill set is entirely what they came by fending for themself and Mitty in the deep layers of the abyss after escaping from Bondrewd, and they never had the instruction or opportunity to learn how to cook properly.
Misaki Kuno’s performances as both Irumyuui and Faputa, have been praised due to how heartwrenching and different they sound from each other despite sharing the same voice. While Irumyuui sounds like an innocent little child with parental issues (to the point many fans actually thought an actual child voiced her and felt heartbroken with her predicament when her babies end up dying after a few days and later used as food for the Ganja members), Faputa’s sounds raspier and more wrathful as a result of being born to destroy the ones who took advantage of her mother. In particular, Faputa’s speech when she enters the Narehate village about how she’s gonna slay every single one of the inhabitants is considered one of Kuno’s best roles in her career, as her voice gets so low and full of hatred some fans even doubted it was the same voice actress.
Yuka Terasaki’s Vueko has been very well received by the fans due to her soft spoken, meek voice for the character, that perfectly showcases the tragedy and melancholy she lived. This all in spite of her normal roles of young boys or tough girls.
The OST for the anime adaptation is composed by Kevin Penkin, an Australian. Considering Australia's memetic reputation as a real life Death World, it's strangely appropriate.
Nanachi's Japanese voice actress, Shiori Izawa, will end up voicing in a couple of years later Skye in the Japanese dub of PAW Patrol, a very cute Precious Puppy whose job is about helping people in need, just like Nanachi does. Considering the character's relationship with Mitty, this is bizarrely fitting.
In a similar way, Misaki Kuno's role as Faputa is quite hilarious if you take into acount one of her debut roles as a voice actress was as Newt in the Director's Cut Japanese dub of Aliens. The hilarity come with the fact that, while Kuno's role in that movie was dubbing a little girl being pursued by mass-murdering alien abominations, in this show she is voicing an Adorable Abomination who wouldn't be out of place in a proper Alien film, including being spawned from a monstrosity not much different from an Alien Queen, and destroying an entire village with this inhabitants inside.
It Was His Sled: As of 2021, it is practically impossible to introduce someone to the work without bringing up its more iconic scenes. Comments in videos of the opening and ending are filled to brim with dark jokes regarding arm breaking and cartridges along with Mitty emoticons.
Love to Hate: Again, Bondrewd. He is a complete bastard, but his charismatic personality and cool character design make him a very compelling antagonist.
Magnificent Bastard: Bondrewd the Novel, Sovereign of Dawn and one of the legendary White Whistles, is also one of the most brilliant and ruthless among them. To research the Abyss and its Curse, Bondrewd experiments on orphan children while sacrificing his own humanity to create his White Whistle and creating complicated ways to navigate throughout the Abyss through his technology with no physically adverse effects to himself. Even in spite of his objectively monstrous actions, Bondrewd still sincerely loves and cares for the children under his care and takes pains to remember their identities even as he sacrifices them for his experiments, taking one of them as his own daughter and raising her to become genuinely well-adjusted and innocent. Though undoubtedly an amoral Humanoid Abomination dedicated above all else to scientific triumph regardless of the cost, Bondrewd still demonstrates he understands love and family in his own warped terms and operates with perpetual affability and style, comfortable to abandon even his own ambitions to see those with brighter aspiration succeed where he couldn't.
Many fans joked that being hooked to the manga and/or anime is a compulsion of the Abyss.
Uncle Lovecraft's Fun Time Murder HoleExplanation A common description used by fans to describe the Abyss
There are many comparisons of the show's Art-Style Dissonance to another infamous supposedly cutey-style anime that hides countless horrors underneath in its content. Statements regarding the massive Mood Whiplash especially from Episode 10 onward caught like wildfire among the audience, saying that the art and music is all a trap to sucker unknowing people in. One person summed it up best:
"The scariest thing about Made In Abyss isn't the abyss, the characters or the monsters. It's the art style that lulls innocent viewers into a false sense of security, only to jump back out at them and drag them right into the midst of the abyss and it's horrors itself."
-A quote from someone I can't find again.
In light of Episode 10, a lot of dark jokes regarding arm amputation ran rampant.
Bondrewd is BEST DAD!Explanation His usage of children is reprehensible, to say the least. Often accompanied by sentences that word Bondrewd's actions in a way that sounds innocent, such as "he makes all his kids lunchboxes!", referring to his Cartridges, used to deviate the Curse of the Abyss and containing the still alive and conscious remains of children or "he helped his daughter become a White Whistle!", as in the object itself, not a bearer of it. Still, he actually raised his adopted daughter Prushka well enough that she genuinely declared him to be this in chapter 30.
My, my, my, my, my... Explanation Related to the above but with a dash of Curious as a Monkey
SFX: The rumble of scientific triumph. Explanation Cheeky translators of /a/ are fond of the occasional Unsound Effect, this one in particular attributing to him.
SFX: Loli spilling noises. Explanation Same as above, with more than a dash of Black Comedy.
Bondrewd did nothing wrong. Explanation Many like to downplay Bondrewd's horrific actions, jokingly or not. For bonus points, Bondrewd's voice actor is the same as Griffith/Femto and Yoshikage Kira, all who do extremely horrible crimes and are Draco in Leather Pants.
Ah! You mean like Papa's rod! Explanation At one point, a conversation between Riko and Prushka suddenly goes to the topic of Reg's penis. Prushka has no idea what that is, so Riko shows her a crude drawing of one, which leads to Prushka spouting the gem above. Some people have taken it literally and say that Bondrewd just has a really Cool Car. It's worth noting that the author has confirmed that when she says this, she means "the rod used to become a papa" that she learned about in a biology lesson, and that any unfortunate implications were unintended.
Legally: It's Questionable. Morally: It's Disgusting. Personally: I Like It.Explanation The actual quote originates from somewhere on the internet that several memers have tried their best to locate, but it's most commonly associated with a post involving a manga image of Bondrewd in one of his beckoning poses. Countless people that know of him find that the quote fits Bondrewd and his methods to a tee: bordering on the edge of legality even for the screwed up world of MiA, being morally bankrupt and disturbing on every level both In-Universe and out, yet somehow he still manages to be an enjoyable, compelling, and even lovable villain nonetheless.
Moe: The entire child cast can count for this. Riko with her determination, Reg as a Cute Machine, and Nanachi as a fluffy bunny person.
Narm: The Ganja Corps' name becomes quite silly with the knowledge that 'ganja' is a common word for marijuana. Possibly intentional, given that they end up as stone trees.
Nausea Fuel: Being that the series is full of gorn and visceral imagery, this is to be expected.
The entire scene of Riko having her left arm poisoned, bleeding out from every orifice due to the Abyss' curse and the subsequent botched arm amputation in the Episode 10. This whole scene is where it firmly establishes the tone of the series while ensuring that it can only go From Bad to Worse.
The elevator scene in Episode 13 is also another major talking point whenever someone first talks about the anime.
The series was quickly claimed as the Etrian Odyssey adaptation that never was.
The series could be the closest thing we'll ever have to a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. anime.
This can also be considered an adaptation of the first Diablo game.
Aesthetics-wise, the series can also be considered as a Destiny manga/anime.
Squick: The manga is not afraid to play up the Body Horror angle. Such things include: bleeding from every orifice, amateur amputation, human experimentation, rampant mutation, insects nesting in body cavities, characters soiling themselves, gruesome deaths, and more. All illustrated in extremely graphic detail.
Toy Ship: The fact most of the major cast are children means Puppy Love is the primary form of shipping. The main example is Riko/Reg thanks to their major Ship Tease and constantly affirmed support for each other, but there are plenty of others: Riko/Prushka for the Les Yay lovers thanks to them also developing a deep bond, Nat/Marulk for Ho Yay supporters because of their adorable interactions in one of the OVAs, with those shippers writing stories about Nat accepting that Marulk's actually a boy, and Faputa having a history with "old" Reg along with tempering her aggressive attitude to show she truly loves him has resulted in Ship-to-Ship Combat over whether she or Riko should get with Reg.
Ugly Cute: The Abyss's curse may have transformed Mitty into a gruesome and pathetic abomination but you still want to hug her all the same. Her amorphous shape and crooked mouth are a tad unsettling, but her big round eyes and her sweet temperament make her quite endearing.
Values Dissonance: Differing cultural opinions on children are in full blast here. Disregarding the matter of Free-Range Children and child labor (which could be reasonably expected in certain period pieces), there is a lot of child nudity on display, including exposed breasts with visible nipples, exacerbated further by the kids' growing awareness of their own sexuality. The Orth traditional punishment where they hang disobedient kids naked is treated more like a gag, and mentions of penises (especially Reg's) are frequent. While the characters remain the very pictures of innocence (as is the Japanese view on the subject although even many Japanese fans found it going a bit too far in some cases), some Western audiences find this uncomfortable at best, and overly-pandering and creepily sexual at worst. The anime tones this down, using tricks like Godiva Hair to avoid giving the audience any underage full-frontal; the "strung up naked" punishment is still mentioned several times, but only shown once very briefly. Without this bit of censoring, the show would have likely become a case of Americans Hate Tingle instead of an overseas Sleeper Hit. This appears to be in especially full force in America. Europeans meanwhile tend to be somewhat more lenient.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: In a similar vein to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, it looks like it's for children with its cute artstyle. In addition to that, the character designs, backgrounds, and premise would fit right at home with MapleStory or some other MMORPG. However, Body Horror is everywhere in graphic detail, and injuries are treated with grim realism. The OP and ED for the anime may be cutesy and whimsical, but hidden under the surface is a world teeming with abominations and child-unfriendly violence. Never mind the people the heroes encounter...
Pretty much anyone who's met Bondrewd counts, Riko and Reg included, though not nearly to the degree of Bondrewd's other victims. The latter losing an arm is probably the least horrible thing one could expect from him.
Nanachi is possibly one of the biggest cases of this in manga/anime history. Originally, they were orphaned at a young age, bullied by others, and had to scrounge through the garbage to find food scraps. Nanachi then got to make friends with Mitty but ended up getting lured in and manipulated by Bondrewd to be part of experimentation to not be human and had to witness Mitty suffering A Fate Worse Than Death and getting tortured by Bondrewd for a long time. Even though they want Mitty gone so she can't suffer anymore, Nanachi still considers Mitty "their natural treasure" and can't forgive Bondrewd for what he did.
Mitty naturally counts as she's in that And I Must Scream situation due to Bondrewd and was also tortured. Before that, she was also an orphan who had to scrape by to survive and happily partnered up with Nanachi, the two of them being each other's First Friend.
Prushka sounds as far away from this trope as possible at first, until she is turned into a Cartidge which means you still know who you are, deep inside but unable to do anything about it as your organs are removed. She eventually dies due to the strain of the Curse.
Irumyuui when the full backstory of how the Hollow village of Irubru came about. To summarize, she first was cast out of her village and disowned by her family for being cursed with infertility, and thus was given up as a sacrifice for the Abyss and taken in by the Ganja explorers. She found a loving surrogate family with the explorers, particularly Vueko, only for things to take a turn for the worse when they became sick from the Mockwater illness. Irumyuui was given the Cradle of Greed in the hopes that she could use it to heal the others, only to use it to wish for herself the ability to have children... and she proceeded to learn the lesson Be Careful What You Wish For in the most brutal manner imaginable when all the deformed offspring she births die shortly after birth, which emotionally shattered her. On top of that, she was mutated into a horrific monstrosity that went on to become an entire village for the Hollows that her former friends now live a half-existence in, suffering but unable to die.
, when a new episode came out, the song immediately hyped the fanbase. The whole thing even becomes more meaningful when you translate the lyrics.