Nanofranne wrote: 2o173r
another one : What about Made in Abyss?
I'm very biased in favour of made in abyss, since it was the first anime I read that I went "I get it" and decided to watch more anime in my own spare time after that, as that was a friends recommendation. In a way, this is the anime that got me into anime
made in abyss is an incredibly good anime which only problem being the fetishes the author has. The concept of the abyss is brilliant, originally being 6 locations, with a 7th theorized one, with it's own aesthetic, rules, flora and fauna, and other weird stuff
there is also the catch that the lower you delve into the abyss, the harder it is to go back up, going lower than the sixth means instant death. This translates into the first few layers being fairly well studied but then being more and more mistery the lower you go.
The anime does start seeming like it's a SoL adventure thing, only going down to the abyss after a fairly long overground segment, which seems to set the tone of the anime, however, while the first layers are fairly cool, the lower they go, the more fucked up the anime gets
so, the abyss structure is giving us a clear picture of what the author wants us to think of made in abyss when you start watching it, but purposely goes scaling up the things slowly, giving space for character developement in the way of the relationship between them and also their survival skills in the abyss. This also sets up a lot of mistery that will be relevant until the end of the anime since chapter 1
the abyss itself is also something that works best in this medium, as if this was just a regular film, doing these sorts of complex environment would be EXTREMELY difficult if not. The artistic decision is also great, using great colors all around, and the decision of having less light in the bottoms of the abyss leads to the lower environment seeming more hostile, fitting the theme of the anime
I feel made in abyss is one of the animes with the best world-building really. Nothing about the world seems cheap or just like a plot device, everything from the zones, the specific creatures, the relics, has multiple purpouses each for the plot, and their simple existance just teases up things from very very early on
for the actual characters, I have less to say, they're just very well written characters all-around, they allow for the story to be funny, to be sad, to have moments of fear, etc, and while I cant really say anything excepcional about them, I cant really ask for a more fitting character
(next sections are just full spoilers)
now, the flow of the anime itself is just wonderful, first, they show all the characters and make you have an emotional connection to them, they show nanachi at the same time as mitty, giving nanachi a lot of character developement really quickly, and allowing it to be a favourite character of many from the first arc with them, even if they had a lot of less screentime all around
not only that, but with mitty you're setting up bondrewd, what regs beam is capable of, and the concept of the soul. With bondrewd they expand on the soul and really make you care about it with prushka, and also sets up a lot of thing about white whistles
with the concept of value of the 6th layer you're using it all, mitty even makes an appearance back again to really showcase all of this, and I just love the concept of value. It allows to show the inner thinking of each character in such a detailed way. Each plot point in made in abyss is: setting up stuff for the future, using set up from a while ago, being emotionally impactful, and leading to more character developement in a way that feels natural, it's just nearly flawless
really, the only problem is that they show a lot of child characters in some weird scenes and poses, which can be pretty uncomfortable at times
the OST is also superb, as it s the atmosphere it's trying to achieve, and the songs itself are also beautiful
so yeah, made in abyss has an amazing plot, amazing characters, amazing world-building and music that takes advantage of the medium, it has it all.
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i've also finished reading billy bat, and i've got to say, i'm analyzing two masterpieces in this one post, as billy bat was an unexpected 10/10 from me
I really like naoki urasawa, I hav read monster, pluto, and 20th/21st century boys, being this later one of my favourite mangas of all time, so yeah, I went into this with high expectations, and holy fuck it did deliver
Billy bat feels in a lot of way very similar to 20th century boys and for good reason, it shares the setting, some of the locations, the symbolism that was used to push the story forward, the story structure with all of the constant time skips and flash backs, and it takes all of these elements for making a story that feels entirely different
billy bat, just like 20th century boys is a VERY dense manga, there isn't a single filler line of dialogue in the entire manga, and near the end, I feel you run out of breath as it ramps up to have plot twist after plot twist after plot twist
the plot follows this american comic writter, who works in "marble" comics, (not particullary subtle), and is doing a comic about a bat that solves crimes and saves the day, the comic is a success, but someone tells him that he had seen a similar character in japan before, and that it was probable that they also saw it and subconciously stole it
so they try to go to japan, and then shit happens, like, a lot of shit, the main point is that he can see the character billy bat going out of the pages and instructing them, giving them also inspiration to keep drawing,
it's also worth mentioning that these comic chapters predicts the future
at the start of a lot of manga chapters you can see a few pages of the actual billy bat comic that it was drawn in the story, having a totally different art-style and more commonly than not, having color
these little bits of the comic are vital to understand the manga, as it has many, many characters and doesn't really focuses on a single one without any interruption, however, the global narrative aids you to understasnding how a character feels torward an event, what a logical response may be, what that characters means for the plot, and other sort of things
there are many side characters that only really appear once or twice, and for those characters the manga does something very smart. Almost every one-off character is based on a real world person, that way they can afford to introduce a character with so little screen time that the audience totally gets. If the manga shows you, I don't know, jesus christ, you know who that character is, allowing the story to keep the flow and without having to really explain many things
to be fair, I don't think I can really explain a lot of the plot itself and take much out of it, and that is because it's just SO FUCKING COMPLEX, really, I had almost never seen a story so complicated in structure while still being pretty understandable, with shows like texhnolyze there are few main elements that you can go "yeah that is uncommon but I can see what the author is trying to pull". However, with billy bat, there are 45 of those elements it honestly just sures the skills I have to really communicate properly in this type of thing
urasawa naoki is just one of the most skilled mangaka/director/writter person i've seen, as doing something of this magnitude just seems unreal
for example, let's take the ending, which is one of the parts that blew me away the most
you know pulp fiction right?, how at the start of the movie they show an event that will happen on the end of the movie, allowing for the audience to understand the characters and also set one thing in the future, in fact, the whole movie is based around tha tidea of achronological story-telling
billy bat had a similar idea, but they took it to the next level
the first scene does happen again in the end, however, the way it's done is totally different, as it is less giving you new information (how the heist for pulp fiction ended), but more like giving you slightly more context for the situation, nothing after the scenes of the start of the manga, but before. The end is not giving you any new information, but giving you more ground for the start of it
however, that extra concept, and the way it almost loops somehow works, as you can now see that start with all the information you've learned across the manga, and you realize, the end of the manga, was already showcased at the start, you just didn't understand it the first time
that is such an INSANE concept, I love it
and the whole manga is full of moments like that, in order to properly go across everything I think it's worth noting I would have to make this post 7 times longer and I just dont think I can do that, you're just going to have to trust me on this one that it's good. I'm surprised that this manga went as undernoticed as it did outside japan, because yeah, this is just god tier
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next: ...suprisingly the ot!book, no mangas left so time to read books, this is the shortest one of all the vn and books rn so it will be the one I do first
also, i'm sorry for just not being able to give the best analysis for billy bat, it unironically is just too complex and I would have to re-read and write a chapter by chapter analysis like I did with shimeji to really know what to say