Forum - View topicThe ANN Aftershow - Eating What? Did Made in Abyss Go Too Far?
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1389 |
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Welcome to the Abyss. I'm beginning to wonder if part of what is happening is a literal interpretation of Nietzsche's aphorism about staring into the Abyss and finding that the Abyss stares back. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23885 |
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Who said anything about policing or restricting freedom of expression? I'm merely exercising my own freedom of expression to say that I feel like MiA is starting to feel exploitative to me. No where did I either state or imply that there should be some sort of involuntary creative restraint put on the author. And yes, the characters "belong" to the creator but my reaction to the characters belongs to me. The whole point of a discussion board is to discuss our reaction to stuff that other people created. I think you are right about Berserk - I'm sure some people found it too much but I the fact that horrible things weren't happening to cute child characters all the time probably makes a difference. |
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MarshalBanana
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Chiibi
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Sorry....I've probably been spending too much time on Twitter. lol I apologize. I think the series has always felt exploitive....but that kind of thing...just doesn't really bother me. It does make it difficult to recommend the series to other people though...I will still do it and give them a heavy warning lol |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1389 |
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As I listened to the podcast last night I found myself remembering Now and then, here and there (Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku) as the last anime series that was this unrelentingly bleak and depressing. In that series (which I haven't seen in maybe 15 years) I just remember the ending not being positive so much as being a relief.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2960 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Another one of my favorites but an extremely difficult watch. I think your description of the ending is pretty spot on. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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People keep talking about this one....my curiosity makes me want to check out it for myself. Bokurano is also supposed to be very nihilistic and bleak...though I guess the anime is a poor adaptation of the manga. I'm quite familiar with Shadow Star Narutaru by the same author though...and it did not take long for him to YANK me right out of my comfort zone...and I had to stop watching about halfway in. |
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Philville
 Posts: 158 |
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More like: stare into the abyss and it will take your eyes. 
I was also prepared to adopt Wazukyan’s perspective (as a thought experiment) after watching episode 7 – doing whatever it takes for survival and making sacrifices for the greater good, etc. – but by this week’s episode I have to agree that his position is utterly untenable. The funny thing is, we’re all horrified by the eating of babies here, when there is actually a classic text of English literature – Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal – which uses scathing irony to suggest that the impoverished Irish (suffering from famine) should sell their babies as food to the rich. I feel like MiA is exploring a similar theme here – i.e., cold logic vs. empathy (Wazukyan clearly lacks the latter, as episode 8 makes clear).
I agree that art doesn’t have to be entertaining, and also that there is a fine light between artistic experimentation and exploitation. Still, episode 8 made it abundantly clear that the series’ core themes are longing and hope despite all of the ugliness. I’m not personally on board with the misery porn – I’ve always preferred the elements of adventure, exploration and wide-eyed wonder in MiA, which were much more present in season 1, in my opinion – but I do feel that the series is making a larger point about the need for suffering and sacrifice for the sake of rebirth, renewal and redemption.
I would agree except that, aside from the obvious shock value of all of the sadistic body horror, there is clearly an emphasis on transfiguration (which is made literal with Prushka’s transformation into an actual white whistle). Episode 8 especially placed a lot of emphasis on longing and hope and the sheer endurance of dreams in the face of unimaginable suffering. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5873 Location: Virginia, United States |
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The actual universe couldn't care less about humanity. Suffering doesn't have to have meaning. The characters we care about are quite literally descending into various levels of hell. Suffering is the name of the game and is the background of the series. It is what our characters do, and how they keep or lose their humanity that matters.
Really the question of the series should be, when Riko finally finds her mom, is she going to like what she finds. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2342 |
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But stories aren't about the actual universe; they're not documentaries (and even documentaries tend not to be literal, unfiltered recreations of the world they document). Doubly so for something as exaggeratedly fantastic as MiA. Stories are imbued with meaning, ideas, and emotion by their creators. If they're not, they're much less interesting for it, except in some edge cases where a non-obvious feeling or idea is communicated by absence.
There are definitely intriguing, repeated motifs (like transfiguration, in this arc, as you said; or playing with subjective vs objective notions of value, like a zombified microeconomist). I'm not totally sure what meaning they carry, though. Where do you see the endurance of dreams in this arc? The things that seem to me to have endured best in the hollow village are base, visceral fetishes, and hatred born of intense trauma and (albeit pragmatic) betrayal/exploitation. I will say that the latest episode assuaged my concerns a little bit, in that we got actually got some decent characterization for some of the key players in the village. This is kind of in keeping with the last season, I guess -- we never saw Reg or Riko really develop much, but we learned a lot more about who Nanachi is. I guess I find it frustrating for the story to mostly focus on telling us who these people are only when we meet them, but for them to become kind of unchanging vessels with very little further development once/if they join the main adventuring crew. Put differently: Reg and Riko have been through hell (and, unfortunately, not back again). I'd love to see some focus on how that's changed who they are, and on their relationship to one another -- or, heck, just to know more about who they are, aside from their basic personalities and the RPG-esque goals that were painted for them early on in season 1. Hardship could be a great lens for this. Last edited by NeverConvex on Thu Aug 25, 2022 12:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2960 Location: Email for assistance only |
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I've watched all of Bokurano too (the OP is an ear worm) and there was some conflict between the anime director and the original creator. He has its own unique ending and having read a lot of the manga, it does change quite a bit but I think it stands alone just fine. |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1389 |
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I finally got around to watching Dawn of the Deep Soul (I sort-of knew the story in broad outline), and now I am wondering about the identity of the human who went into making the whistle Riko had been carrying up to that point (isn't that supposed to be her mom's whistle?). |
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Philville
Posts: 158 |
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Spot on. For that matter, there's plenty of art out there exploring the grandeur, mystery and danger of nature or of a vast universe dwarfing humanity, ranging from the literature and art of the Romantic sublime to the cosmic horror of H. P. Lovecraft. Just because the universe can appear indifferent to human suffering doesn't mean that art can't explore our human response to, or suffering in, that universe (which is what all art ultimately does).
It's that sense of discovery and adventure which I've been missing this season, too. That's actually why I thought episode 7, with its emphasis on exploration and survival, felt like a breath of fresh air despite its bleakness. On the other hand, I’m also happy that MiA isn’t just a straight-up adventure story but something that offers a bit more food for thought.
Thanks for your reply. I’m with you 100% on the Village of Hollows. I can’t stand the place, for the reasons you mention (and I’m pretty sure the visual monotony of its nauseating color palette has something to do with it, too). As for the “endurance of dreams”, I’m thinking of a very specific element in this week’s episode (Ep. 8), but I’m new here and haven’t figured out how to use the spoiler function – so, to put it as generally as possible, let’s just say that we are told of a dream that is so powerful and enduring that it literally leads to the rebirth/creation of a new, superior living creature (which comes back to what I was saying earlier about the motif of transfiguration). As I see it, this isn’t just the result of hatred born of intense trauma but also because the dream itself endures. I’m also more willing to see Riko’s dream of finding her mother and being a pioneering cave raider as something more noble and meaningful than a mere RPG-esque goal – I agree that many of these characters could benefit from more development, but there’s also something endearing and uplifting about Riko's enduring optimism and steadfast perseverance in the face of unrelenting horror. |
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Nordhmmer
Posts: 1028 |
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See I believe this season will conclude with chapter 60 Welp here's the thing,that name was revealed in chapter 61. So it's apt (going) to be years before chapter 61 is animated, as it kicks of the current story arc(which currently at four chapters). Keeping the above in mind : The name of the person who became Lyza's White Whistle is - spoiler[Doni]. And other than a real spoiler of a main plot tease, it's all we know about spoiler[Doni] for now. |
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Beltane70
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I feel that the things that Bondrewd did to Mitty, Nanachi, and later Prushka were much, much worse than Wazukyan using Irumyuui's "children" to cure the villager's infection from the pseudowater. If Made In Abyss went too far with Wazukyan's actions, then surely Bondrewd's actions were even more so.
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On the contrary, his art is a lot more realistic to real human people....so I think that'd be a lot more unsettling to see. 
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