Venture into the Darkly Disarming yet Charming World of “Made in Abyss: Journey’s Dawn”

Venture Deeper, Venture Darker Perhaps, dear reader, you were just like me and were not aware of Made in Abyss’ peculiar pedigree. Perhaps the 30 second trailer made it seem like a riff on your traditional fantasy adventure stories, and you sat down to watch it with that particular expectation as your only touchstone. You knew nothing of the island town of Orth in the Beoluska Sea, home of the titular Abyss. You only saw the cute anime protagonist adventurer girl and robot-esque boy and thought, surely this is will be a pleasant coming of age of story as they descend into a magical realm. Dear reader, that was my state of mind when I sat down to watch Made In Abyss: Journey’s Dawn, and my god, it was not the correct state of mind to enter. I had a great time during the slightly under two hour runtime, but I was not ready.

Originally written by Akihito Tsukushi, Made in Abyss is a seinen, on-going manga that started in 2012 with an anime adaptation that aired in 2017. Made in Abyss: Journey’s Dawn is a movie that consolidates the events of the few major arcs to tide the fans over until the second season. Directed by Masayuki Kojima, most famous for directing the anime adaptation Monster (a fact that isn’t readily apparently until the second half of the film), and with a screenplay by Hideyuki Kura, Made in Abyss: Journey’s Dawn starts off innocently enough. We get a flashback to 1900 years ago and get the history of the Abyss, about how its odd curios drew adventures and how …