This Week in Anime

Made in Abyss Ignites Firestorm in K-Pop Fandom

Steve
Look, it's Courting Controversy Week here at TWIA, and if our comrades are out there slinging the strongest pebbles they have at the goliath that is MAPPA, then it's only fair we tickle the tail of the dragon that is K-pop stans.

I also won't pretend to have any knowledge of or context for any of the idols implicated in this "incident," and all I know about the scene is the, ahem, passion of its cohort of fans. So, I'd like to begin by setting the record straight that everything I say in this column is satire, and please don't send an assassin to my apartment. That said, I kind of love this whole mess if only because it introduced me to one of the greatest Instagram posts of all time: a pair of Astro Boy boots next to a casually strewn eleventh volume of Made in Abyss. It belongs in a museum.

(Pictured: TAEYONG's boots and Made in Abyss volume 11)

Agreed! I put the second season on my list of favorites from last year. I've found both the anime and manga to be a compelling melange of adventure, abject horror, and ruminations on what drives humanity to be humanity. I also don't want this to look like us fanning the flames of a kerfuffle that seems to have all but succumbed to the unforgiving yet goldfish-short memory of online warriors. The K-pop tabloids already had their fun, but I think we can treat this as a jumping-off point for more persistent patterns of internet discourse. Most importantly, this gives me another excuse to post the shot of Nanachi, where they look like a suction-cup Garfield in a car window.

I'm still not a fan of this spiky lad, that's for sure.

Made in Abyss, while popular, is certainly not for everybody. It's quite intentionally provocative. The core premise takes a cast full of characters who look like Precious Moments figurines and throws them into a hole full of things trying to kill and/or torture them in highly graphic fashions. That's gonna rankle some audiences.

Like the titular Abyss, there are many layers on which one might find the series' content objectionable. One of the deeper layers is the series' propensity towards the bodily functions of its cast, which is played for humor and horror. It's weird. It stands out. Even for a Made in Abyss megafan and longtime anime enjoyer like me, it's uncomfortable.

And this is where I break away from sentiments like the ones expressed in the article at the top of the column. Do I agree that Tsukishi is probably into some weird shit that he sublimates through his art? Absolutely. Do I think that alone makes him a degenerate criminal, which further means that anyone who enjoys his work must also be irredeemably twisted? No.

That's such an important point! If Tsukishi is ever arrested, that'll be an entirely different conversation. But as it stands, I don't care if he drew a machine that collected Reg's urine; you can't just go and call him a pedophile. The increasing wantonness with which that label is thrown around, both in and outside the anime sphere, only dilutes the potency of legitimate accusations like the one above. That's actually harmful.

It's canonical that Nanachi smells good. Maybe he was joking about that, and people can't decode subtext. Or maybe he has a designated Nanachi plushie for smelling, so why do you care, weirdo? Maybe you'd think differently if you got a whiff of Nanachi's fur.

I'd even argue that there's merit to Made in Abyss' grosser content. Both the potty humor and abject horror remind us that we're just tubes full of meat, bone, and bile. We are the disgusting summation of basic biological processes, and even at our strongest, we can be brought down by life's inherent frailty. Made in Abyss consistently interrogates its heroes' will to persist and pursue the unknown despite that danger, and it argues that there's something quintessentially human about reconciling those disparate, irrational parts of us.

Not to say that justifies everything thrown into the mix, but I also wouldn't want to take a knife and start lopping off every portion that makes me uncomfortable. I don't think that's any way to approach any art.

It's trite to say out loud, but everyone has their tastes and limits. That's normal. I think there's always value in being cognizant of your box and being willing to step outside of it occasionally, but there's no intrinsic moral value to liking or disliking certain kinds of art. That's where I see a lot of conversations, especially from younger people, going off the rails. A big part of that problem is a social media environment that throws everybody into every conversation because human brains have not evolved to handle those magnitudes of interaction. But it's imperative for people to eventually mature past the point where they're equating liking an anime with being an abuser.

And that's still one of my favorite shows from this year! I'm incorrigible!

Let's not get crazy. I have standards and like good anime. You won't see me vehemently defending the sociopolitical commentary in World’s End Harem. However, I will defend the one girl who drank a lot.

What also really rankles me in situations like the recent K-pop Cancelation Conundrum is when people dress up and cry for censure in the language of social justice. There's this insidious rhetorical trick where the best way to be progressive becomes reinstating the Hays Code but worse and for everything.

Oh, I know I'm the old man yelling at a cloud, and this problem certainly isn't unique to the current generation (even though I'm not enthusiastic about what a childhood spent with the internet is doing to the human psyche collectively). It's just frustrating because, historically, censorship always hurts the populations that are already disadvantaged. For instance, the strides queer art and culture have made in recent decades; I'd hate to see that undermined in part by an obsession with policing any expressions of sexuality besides the most orthodox. That isn't me slyly defending World’s End Harem after I said I wouldn't. But on principle, I'd rather be in a world with World’s End Harem than in one without.

Art needs to be a space where people feel safe exploring facets of themselves they might otherwise be afraid of or unable to process. It also needs to be a space where people can go just hog wild. It's all ultimately fiction. We're built to imagine and play. If we didn't have art as an outlet, I shudder to imagine how colorless humanity would be.

Funny story: I just read all of Scott Pilgrim for the first time this past week. And after over a decade of secondhand exposure to the discourse, I was surprised by how explicit the comic was about Scott being a scumbag who gets constantly and rightfully roasted by his cadre of companions. That's what the whole comic is about! He has to grow up and gain some modicum of self-awareness! That's his arc!

From what I've read, it's just nuts to me that the creators felt like they had to spell that out in even greater detail in the new anime. It's not even subtext in the comic. It's just the text. And I know it's more nuanced than people just lacking critical thinking skills, and there are still arguments to be made about how Scott is depicted versus his actual actions. And I think it's cool the anime does something different! But man, do not ever trust conventional wisdom on something you haven't read/watched/etc. yourself. You can still listen to friends you trust to look out for your best interests, but there's no substitute for wrestling with a complicated work with your own metaphorical bare hands.

It's a wide anime world out there. We both write about it for a semi-living, so obviously, we're passionate about it. You can be passionate about other stuff. You can draw your lines. But it is only when you open your heart and mind that you can witness the full extent of beauty and splendor that this medium can hold.