This show is like a pretty looking mystery box, booby-trapped with a dozen poisoned needles. It’s beautiful to watch, painful to approach, and disappointing once you open it. What I mean by that, the only incentive it’s giving you is the scenery porn, the torture porn, and the constant unknown of what lies ahead. All three of which have been proven to be disasters for any title.
The setting of the show is Kaiba gone terribly wrong. In both series, we initially know nothing about the world and the amnesiac main character. By the time the show is over a dozen episodes later, we know everything about Kaiba, and absolutely nothing about the Abyss. It’s a perpetually ongoing mystery, existing for the sole purpose of teasing the viewer, before it overstays its welcome and becomes nonsensical in the likes of Lost.
There is no sense of meaningful adventure. Rico wants to explore the abyss, find her mother, and does neither. Gon in Hunter X Hunter for example, was also looking for his father, finds him at the end, while informing you about every area he was going to. Rico on the other hand didn’t find her mother and didn’t discover anything, since the only thing she knows about the Abyss is scattered information other explorers have already recorded in books.
Said information is limited to items and creatures. It doesn’t say anything about what the Abyss is. There is no lore about what the hell is going on here. Why is there an upside down forest, who made it, for what purpose, why is there still sunlight miles below the surface? You don’t know; it’s just a cool looking scenery. There is no history or logic, and the people exploring it are just looking for artifacts as if they are easter eggs instead of a historical puzzle they are trying to solve.
There are not even any traditions or folklore regarding the explorers and how they are living around the abyss. The hole has nothing to do with them. They just moved there to essentially pillage the place for money, and have nothing to say about their civilization or the culture they are currently tomb raiding. So basically, despite the setting being a very deep hole, there is absolutely no immersion. It’s vapid air, nothing is fleshed out.
Going back to Rico, she is so bad at exploring, to the point she would have died a dozen times without Reg and his “kill everything” beam. You can’t even call Reg a character, since his only motivation is saving Rico because … fuck he knows. He has no motivation; he just appears out of nowhere and becomes her pet. He is literally a walking plot convenience, since he can one-shot any monster, jump around long distances, and never gets damaged because he’s indestructible. He’s just there to debuff an otherwise impossible journey.
And yes, there are cases when can’t overcome a challenge but even then there is an unbelievable amount of plot armor. There’s this crazy explorer who overpowers them, and just about when she is ready to kill them, she goes “trololol, I was just kidding, I never wanted to kill you.” There is another scene Rico gets poisoned and out of nowhere someone appears to save her. It’s all fake suspense, since every time they are in danger, everything is instantly resolved in a lazy way.
It doesn’t help how every character is a plot device, existing either for infodumps or plot armor. Everything they say or do is happening in a forced and artificial way since it happens exactly when it needs to happen. Even the freaking curse of the abyss is a plot device, existing for preventing the characters from moving too fast, instead of having an in-series excuse for being part of the setting.
That is also why every scene with injury and suffering is torture porn, since it’s forcefully happening for the sadistic pleasure of the viewer and is then quickly taken away so the plot can go on like nothing happened. Speaking of viewer pleasure, the characters are shamed by constant sexual teasing and low brow erotic jokes. It doesn’t add anything to their personalities besides fueling fan fiction and deviant doujins.
Even if you filter out the deviance, Rico and Reg are completely basic personalities, and are only defined by a couple of vague features. There is nothing memorable about them compared to the things they experience, effectively falling victims of the curse. Not the one of the abyss, but rather the one of shock factor, where the viewer cares about the horrible experience, instead of the character experiencing it.
The best character ends up being not in the main ones, since it’s the fluffy bunny, for being the only one with a backdrop story and a lot of knowledge to survive with practical skills instead of deus ex machina bullshit. Unfortunately, she is introduced late in the show and most of her appeal is furry fan service, and even more misery porn by being a victimized cute girl.
And that’s why Made in Abyss is nowhere as good as many make it seem. Even Mahoujin Guruguru, a show airing at the same time, does everything better.