Made in Abyss Vol. 1

Made in Abyss, Vol. 1 by Akihito Tsukushi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a town built around a massive cave system called The Abyss, an orphan named Riko trains to follow in her mother's footsteps as a Cave Raider. When she encounters a half-robot boy named Reg, a new path opens for her, a path that may lead to her mother...

I avoided Made in Abyss for months because I thought it would be too cutesy. When I finally caved, I could have kicked myself. This is some great stuff!

While the art is a little cuter than I would have liked, it's gorgeous. There are massive amounts of detail and Akihito Tsukushi uses an ink wash or similar technique to do the shading, giving the art a unique feel.

I love the concept of a town built around the entrance to a massive underworld and the idea that the deeper you descend into the Abyss, the worse the consequences are when you climb back out is brilliant. For instance, if you descend to the fourth level, you'll be bleeding from every orifice when you climb back to the third. It made me want to dust off the dice and manuals and run a D&D campaign in Orth and the Abyss. The concept of kids training to raid the Abyss for relics isn't that much more outlandish than Harry Potter. You have to wonder about Orth's economy, though.

Riko is a great lead, an orphan girl who wants to follow in her mother's footsteps when suddenly she learns her mother may not be dead after all. It makes a trip into the Abyss, foolish as it is, seem believable. There's still a lot of mystery around Reg but hopefully that will be unraveled in later volumes.

I don't really have anything bad to say about this. If I had to bitch about one thing, I'd probably mention the weirdness of having children strung up naked and whipped for punishment. It's kind of unsettling.

Made in Abyss is a very promising beginning to what may become my favorite manga series. It hit all the right buttons for me. Five out of five stars.

View all my reviews