Anime On the Big Screen: “Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Thursday 8 October 2020
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with English subtitles
Length: 105 minutes (main feature), 14 minutes (“Marulk's Daily Life” shorts)
Production Date: 2020
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No

Here we are, several months into the pandemic and I thought I would not be seeing a film inside an actual cinema for at least 12 months after. While pretty much every theatre shut down in the initial stages of the pandemic, most decided to reopen a few months later. But most big studios are extremely wary of releasing films at this time. Some have tried and failed miserably (see the box office bomb that was “Tenet”). Most new films have been delayed indefinitely, though some have been fast tracked to streaming, including a small number of anime features. This has led to the cinemas that are still open to run old favourites. I’m not entirely sure this strategy has worked for them. With the risk of catching the coronavirus still a possibility, why would you pay $15 to see a film you could see for a fraction of the price at home, even if you were in a socially distanced cinema? Independent film distributors however are taking a risk and hoping filmgoers will come out to see something new.  This includes Madman who are releasing this film in both subbed and dubbed versions.

While it rained all morning, it was sunny (albeit with some cloud cover) in the afternoon. It was nice that it turned out to be a pleasant and cool, spring evening. The screening was at their usual time of 6:30pm for anime features, so I decided to get some dinner at an Italian restaurant beforehand which I didn’t realise was a chain restaurant. Regardless it was a pretty good meal. The city felt a bit dead as there weren’t many people about, even for a Thursday night. Most of the restaurants and bars were closed. I accidently got there early and just waited in the cinema because no one was checking tickets. Despite the spaced out, socially distanced seating arrangements, 20 people had shown up for the screening. I suspected less patrons and thought that maybe the cinema would eventually end up going broke doing this. But 20 patrons is far more than the average for anime films in this city. Most were in their early 20’s or late teens and I really felt out of place. Luckily a couple of older women showed up and I didn’t feel so bad. Before I get into the film, I think a quick summary of the TV series is in order;

A gigantic chasm, one kilometre across and seemingly bottomless, was discovered 1,900 years ago on an island in the southern ocean of Beolusk. Inside explorers find lost relics and lost technology far beyond man’s current technical abilities, as well as previously unseen creatures and plants, some of which are deadly to man. An industry develops around the pit, colloquially named the Abyss, with explorers, called Cave Raiders, becoming famous from their discoveries. A large town called Orth develops and encircles the edge of the Abyss. In this world, currently similar to the 19th century, we meet a 12 year old girl named Riko. Currently living in the Belchero Orphanage, her mother, Lyza, is what is known as a White Whistle, one of the elite and famous Cave Raiders. The Belchero Orphanage funds itself by training and sending children in its care down into the Abyss to find artefacts to sell. Riko and her partner Nat are attacked by a creature called a crimson splitjaw. Riko draws the creature’s attention away to save Nat from being eaten. However, Riko is cornered by the creature after trying to lose it amongst a labyrinth of caves and crevices. She is saved by a blinding blast of energy which wounds the creature causing it to flee.

Upon searching for her saviour, she finds a boy robot and hauls him back to the surface with the help of Nat. Riko manages to revive him and with the help of her friends, they concoct a story in order to have him accepted at the orphanage. Riko does this because she cannot realistically hide him and the authorities would take him away and disassemble him if they found out she recovered such a valuable artefact. The boy robot has amnesia and can’t remember his own name. Much to his chagrin, she names him Reg, after her pet dog. Reg has numerous powers and functions such as extendable arms that can shoot out via wire cables and a beam cannon in his hand, which injured the crimson splitjaw. One day, a group of Cave Raiders returns from the Abyss with Lyza’s White Whistle and a sealed document. Inside is a note for Riko saying to meet her at bottom of the Abyss. The document also contains drawings and detailed notes of previously undocumented creatures, including a picture of a robot which looks exactly like Reg. Even though Riko has not seen her mother for a decade, she decides to trek down into the Abyss in order to find her and to help Reg discover his own past.

The Abyss is highly dangerous for humans. Apart from the dangerous creatures that lurk within it, humans can get sicker as they descend into each distinct “layer” of the Abyss. Not only can they go insane, but they can literally lose their humanity, even their physical form as a human, and devolve into other creatures. This means that Riko’s mother could possibly not be in her right mind. There is also the possibility that she may not even be human anymore, or more likely died a long time ago. Regardless, Riko sneaks out of the orphanage and descends into the Abyss with Reg. After many adventures including coming perilously close to death on several occasions, they come across a creature called Nanachi who helps them when Riko’s life is in grave danger. Sent down into the Abyss as a human child with her friend Mitty, they were both tricked and subjected to cruel experiments along with a group of other children at the hands of White Whistle named Bondrewd. The pair eventually escaped Bondrewd’s clutches, but Mitty ended up as a deformed creature in severe pain. While caring for Riko, Nanachi pleads with Reg to help Mitty, who reluctantly complies. When Riko recovers, Nanachi decides to join Reg and Riko’s search for Lyza.

Following on directly from the final episode of the TV series, the movie opens with the trio reaching the fifth layer of the Abyss where a field called the Flowers of Fortitude exists. Reg senses the presence of several Cave Raiders who seem to be following them. One of them seems to cry out in pain, but a closer inspection reveals one of Bondrewd’s underlings, collectively known as Umbra Hand, is standing over what seems to be the corpses of several Cave Raiders. Reg prepares to defend himself and the rest of the group, but the Umbra Hand says he is not here to stop or fight them. Instead he is here to destroy the parasitic insects which have invaded the flower field. The insects have inhabited the bodies of a party of Cave Raiders and keep them barely alive to grow their larvae inside them. The bodies are no more than decimated corpses and make intermittent eerie statements such as asking who is there or manically laugh. Knowing that the insects are about to spawn, the Umbra Hand burns the entire infected field with flame thrower, which upsets the Riko and Reg. However, they know they must leave go to the Idofront, the Forward Operating Base which is the only entrance to the sixth layer. It is also where Bondrewd lives and conducts all his experiments. There they hope to negotiate with him to pass and then use Riko’s mother’s White Whistle to enter a portal to the sixth layer.

Upon reaching the Idofront, the trio are surprised to be greeted by a young girl their age named Prushka who claims to be Bondrewd’s daughter. With the arrival of Bondrewd, the situation becomes tense, however he states that he is more than happy to let them pass through to the sixth layer. Prushka invites them to stay overnight. After not being able to sleep, Nanachi decides to seek out Bondrewd and confront him. He tries to persuade her to join him again to continue his work. Believing that agreeing to his request will give Riko and Reg the best chance to get to the sixth layer, Bondrewd reveals that Reg is a rare and valuable relic that needs to examined.  Meanwhile Riko awakes and finds Reg and Nanachi are missing. Searching for them, she ascends a chained off staircase which apparently leads to a curse. Hallucinating that her body is being ripped apart and dissolving, she awakes to find that she fell flat on her face and her injuries have been attended to by Prushka. Telling Prushka that she can’t find Reg and Nanachi, they both search for them, but find the main door to the rest of the complex has been sealed. With the help of Prushka’s pet, they ascend the staircase while avoiding the curse, but to their horror discover that the Umbra Hand have been conducting painful experiments on Reg. With the help of Prushka, the trio escape, but Bondrewd and Umbra Hand peruse them.

As with the TV series adaptation of Akihito Tsukushi’s manga, pretty much all of the staff and cast returned to work on the film; the director Masayuki Kojima (“Monster”, “Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi”), Hideyuki Kurata (novelist for “Read or Die”) wrote the screenplay, Kazuchika Kise (character designer and director of “Ghost in the Shell: Arise” and character designer for “xxxHOLiC”) adapted the original character designs for animation and Australian composer Kevin Penkin (“Norn9”, “The Rising of the Shield Hero”) wrote and conducted the music. Kinema Citrus (“Revue Starlight”, “The Rising of the Shield Hero”) also retuned to handle the animation production.

As for the content itself, hoo-boy, where to start with this film. So, if you’ve seen the TV series, you pretty much know what to expect; a fair bit of cuteness with an adorable kid looking for her mother she hasn’t seen for a decade (that’d be Riko) and her realisticly human looking robot sidekick Reg, whom she found in a gigantic chasm dubbed the Abyss. The kids at the orphanage are essentially little slaves who bring up relics from a long-forgotten civilization in order to keep the orphanage in the black. In contrast to this is the Abyss, which although has great beauty and wonder, it is also an alien place that is utterly hostile to humanity. If you don’t get eaten by some weird prehistoric creature or poisoned by its exotic flora, the Abyss contains little understood “curses” which can send you literally insane or deform you into some weird blob without humanity.

As Riko and Reg search the Abyss for Riko’s mother, all manner of utterly horrifying things happen to them (Riko mostly). However, Riko loves the adventure and the wonder of the Abyss and usually bounces back like a silly puppy ready to see what is next. As a result, the anime goes back and forth between very cute or wonderous moments to utter terror and horror. It’s certainly a weird mix which should not work but somehow does. People often view it as an allegory for the pain of transition from childhood to adulthood. I myself see it more like a “Brothers Grimm” story which ventures down dark paths. The basic core story of the series also feels similar to the core stories found in Werner Herzog’s “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” or even “Event Horizon”, where adventure ultimately leads to utter madness. Except in “Made in Abyss” it’s not the protagonists who experience this madness, it’s those whom they meet.

The film is far more brutal than the TV series. There’s more body horror in it than your average David Cronenberg film. The cruelty can be utterly astounding. However, it’s not as if the TV series didn’t warn us of this. We were introduced to Bondrewd at the end of the TV series and Nanachi and Mitty’s story makes it quite clear what kind of man he is. I feel his crimes against children, and humanity in general, have parallels to the infamous Unit 731 and the Nazi’s experiments on human subjects. Like those who participated in both, he seems to think he’s doing this for the greater good. I’ve read some reviews stating that Bondrewd clearly loves his daughter. I don’t think that’s true at all. Bondrewd cares and raises Prushka in the same way a farmer would prepare a bull for competition in an agricultural show. But there’s only one real reason why farmers breed cattle. Of course, unlike a farmer, Bondrewd is utterly insane. Being in the Abyss for that long would send you that way eventually.

What got me though was the utter cruelty and violent actions displayed by Riko, Reg and Nanachi. I totally understand they are fighting for their lives against what seems to be an indestructible, immortal psychopath, but it seemed a little out of character for them. The gore also seeped into their meals with the gutting of a fish like creature they caught and prepared. Even the cute, reflective moments seemed incredibly dark. Prushka’s “happy” memories for instance show her partaking in her father’s experiments (though nothing explicitly gory is shown). Unsurprisingly the film was rated R15+ in Japan and received a well-deserved MA15+ rating here for violence. While I liked the TV series, I really felt the gore, violence and treatment of the victims of Bondrewd was quite gratuitous, especially the final moments of Prushka’s screen time. This turned me off the film somewhat.

Coupled with the film are all four shorts of “Marulk's Daily Life” these were short animations which one accompanied the main feature every week for four weeks in its Japanese screening. Luckily Madman showed all four at once. Though in retrospect seeing them all in one sitting did feel a little tiresome. You may remember Marulk in the TV series who is Ozen’s helper at the Seeker Camp deep in the Inverted Forest in the second layer of the Abyss. The four stories aren’t really connected as such; the first has Marulk trying to get Ozen into bed after she falls asleep on the table. The second has Marulk cleaning the rooms of the inhabitants of the Seeker Camp. The third has Marulk running an errand for Ozen on the surface in Orth. The final short is easily the best and chronicles how Marulk began serving Ozen.

At this point it's probably time to address the elephant in the room (for some at least). The accusations from some fans and professional reviewers (sigh, the usual crowd...) that the anime TV series and movie sexualises children is totally off the mark. For starters any nudity almost entirely takes place off screen. References to genitalia or bodily functions (which are almost all dialogue based) is done purely for laughs. One review of the film bizarrely stated that Bondrewd’s actions towards children could only be viewed metaphorically as sexual. That statement blew me away. I think it speaks volumes about how these reviewers and fans view nudity and more disturbingly, how they view children. There is one scene in the first “Marulk's Daily Life” short where Marulk accidently ends trussed up in a very specific Japanese bondage style which could be seen as a bit questionable. However, it is a very short scene and again is played for laughs. While I understand that some panels of the original manga can be construed as voyeuristic of the prepubescent characters, I think if you find any part of the anime adaptation sexual (and it’s far, far tamer than the manga), this says far more about you than it does about the anime. I also find it utterly extraordinary that people find the totally imagined and non-existent sexualisation to be an issue, but have little to say about the explicit depictions of violence and cruelty towards children.

Wrapping up; I did like the TV series, but to a large degree this film is a completely different beast. Having a cinema release meant they could amp up the violence and gore, and they did. I was expecting this, but I did feel a lot of it to be rather cruel and unnecessary. Unlike the final episode of the series which showed the fate of Mitty, there wasn’t much of a post mortem on any of the high impact scenes in the film. For me that’s what made the TV series work; something horrible or utterly hideous happened, but there was space and time for both the audience and characters to digest it. Here that doesn’t happen. We just swerve into the next horror show after the leaving the previous one. Having said all that, there were plenty of moments to enjoy and Riko and company are getting closer to their goal, even if Riko now realises it may not be what she expects or wants. I can only give this film 6.5 out of 10.