Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun

Episodes 9-10

My wife and I lost one of our dearest feline friends a little over a week ago. It was incredibly sudden; we didn't even know he was sick until it was too late for us to do anything. He was only ten, which I know is a good, long life for a cat, but that fact hasn't make losing him hurt any less. It was eleven o'clock in the morning when the vet at the animal ER told us that he had maybe twelve to twenty-four hours left to live, and that he was going to end his life in a lot of pain, unless we opted to euthanize. We only got a few final hours to hold him, and to say our goodbyes. It was once of the worst days, but we could not let our friend suffer. So, we had to make a choice.

Down in the Abyss, having finally awoken from the fog of Belaf's sense-memory dreaming (or scents-memory, har har) Nanachi is told that in order to leave the prison they sold themselves into and rejoin their friends before the Village of the Hollows is destroyed, they must say goodbye to Mitty once again. It is painful, of course, and the hurt is amplified by the fact that this Mitty comes from a time before her body was permanently scarred by Bondrewd's cruelest experiments. Sitting there in her little pot, Mitty almost looks happy, which is a trick that Nanachi knows they're apt to fall for. All they want to do is hold their friend, their treasure, but they've been down this path before. They know that it isn't right to damn Mitty to a life of eternal wrongness, an eternity spent trapped in a cage of flesh and indecipherable squealing. What was made within the confines of the Village cannot exist beyond it, though, and if Nanachi is to do right by their friends—all of their friends—they have to step out beyond that veil, into a world where Mitty cannot be. Nanachi has to make a choice.

You can maybe imagine, then, how much of a wreck I was before “All You Gather” had even gotten to its title screen. Worse yet, I couldn't even be mad at Made in Abyss for reducing me to a sobbing wreck over the loss of Mitty for a second time, because it's exactly the lesson that Nanachi (and I) needed to learn. Goodbyes are hard. Goodbyes hurt. Losing a friend creates a void inside of your heart that will never be filled again. Like Belaf reminds us, though, that hurt matters. The pain does not define you, but it does become an integral part of you, all the same. The memory of the love you've lost is both a scar and a sigil, a defining part of who you were before, who you are now, and who you must become once you start to move forward. And you must move forward.

Every new step is one foot farther, one layer deeper, and each is an active choice that you must make. You must choose to take up not only all of your joy and hurt, but the memories of everyone and everything that could not come with you, and all of the weight that their lack now entails. All that you gather is your value.

I've been fascinated with how these concepts of “choice” and “will” have woven themselves into the fabric of The Golden City of the Scorching Sun, a season that is somehow shaping up to surpass the series' first, as impossible as it might seem. Over the past ten episodes, we have seen characters like Vueko and Faputa, who consistently had their agency and ability to choose their own path stripped away by abusers and prophets and the sheer, cruel power of the Abyss. We have come to know the inhabitants of the Village of the Hollows, who have for all intents and purposes sacrificed their ability to forge ahead through the abyss in exchange for a sedentary existence of eternal hedonism. Wazukyan is the man who burdened himself with the fate of an entire community, and led them all to a ruinous place of merciless, abject hardship in the name of satisfying that gnawing sense of nostalgia that still compels him, even 150 years later.

Aside from the main decision to descend into this pit, Riko has managed to skate by this adventure while largely avoiding the life-altering decisions that have defined all of her companions (she still has all of her limbs and organs intact, after all), though one can only imagine how much longer her foolhardy confidence will shield her from the whims of the Abyss and its inhabitants. Reg has found himself in a situation where the fate of the Hollows may rest entirely in battle against friend he never even knew he had until her teeth were ripping through his flesh, but he is kind at heart, and he is constantly second-guessing his ability to make the hard choice and pull the proverbial trigger. Wazukyan must surely have a sermon somewhere in his back pocket that speaks exactly to what happens to the folks who let kindness guide their way, this deep down.

Then there's Faputa, the scorching sun of pure vengeance that Irumyuui has unleashed upon her other, self-appointed “children”. The righteous fury that the princess displayed in “The Return” was already one of the most cathartic and terrifying moments of the entire series, but it has nothing on “All You Gather”, which is one of the most confident and superbly produced spectacles of wrathful bloodletting that I've ever seen, in any medium. The animation is positively wretched with weight, and grit, and unstoppable momentum. The transitions between the present-day carnage and the sweet flashbacks to Faputa and Reg's first meeting are just flawless. I don't know if I can say that Kevin Penkin's score has never been better, but that is only because it has consistently been one of the best anime soundtracks of all time since literally the opening credits of the series premiere, and both “The Return” and “All You Gather” still manage to offer standout tracks.

If it were simply a matter of being supremely polished and entertaining, Made in Abyss would be a clear season standout, bar none. What elevates The Golden City of the Scorching Sun into masterful territory is how each gorgeously animated frame and every pitch-perfect musical note work in harmony to serve the deeper themes of the story. Its themes have been so sharply honed, and its storytelling is so pitch-perfect in its ability to summon exactly the responses in its audience that it demands, that I'm genuinely in awe of what Made in Abyss is capable of, at this point.

Faputa's rage isn't just something to behold; you feel the pain she holds for the mother whose body has been hollowed out and desecrated to make a home for a village of cannibals. You feel the love that she has for the boy who became her Prince, only to forget everything about her and cast aside the purpose she has sought to fulfill since the day she was born. You feel the bewilderment and betrayal in her voice when she reveals that she was the one who delivered Prushka to the Village, because she could hear the Whistle's pain, and cannot understand how Riko could ignore its plight.

It is not about whether Faputa deserves to have her revenge, or if villagers like Maa and Moogie deserve to be saved. It isn't even really about whether Wazukyan deserves to be punished for what he did to Vueko, Irumyuui, and all of those doomed little children. There is right, of course, and there is wrong, and while I know exactly where I stand on all of those issues (as I'm sure you all do, too), the Abyss is not a place where morality makes its bed. It is a place of awe, and a place of dread, and it holds no quarter for whatever its children may or may not deserve. Faputa must choose whether her mother's vengeance is worth all of this destruction. Reg must choose whether he can cast aside the life he once had for the path he is walking now. Wazukyan had to choose whether finding a home was worth destroying a hundred innocent lives, and he's offered no apologies since. Nanachi had to choose to say goodbye to her dearest treasure, to hold her and kill her with dignity and love, though they don't know if they have the strength to make that choice again.

In the Abyss, there is only your will, and there are only the steps you choose to take. Right or wrong, you must own the path forward that you create, and you must gather and hold whatever blessings and curses you find. Otherwise, the Abyss will choose for you, and it will make the same choice every time, without fail: Annihilation.

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Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.