We’re back right where we left off last time, at Reg meeting Faputa. Faputa asks what happened to Reg’s arm, triggering old memories in him. He realizes he might have met Faputa before. Reg is from the Abyss after all and lost his memories, so there’s definitely a chance he had an encounter with Faputa at some point. Faputa and Reg run away from the crowd of onlookers with the guardian. We hear Vueko narrate a little bit about Faputa before we jump back into the opening theme. The opening is still brilliant by the way, I’m really enjoying it.
The episode title is Friend and it’s pretty safe to assume this is referring to either Reg or Faputa. Unless something else happens.
Nanachi is a little bit worried about Reg, but she follows Majikaja around town. The CG actually makes the hollows more eerie and I can’t say I dislike it. We get told once again that truth and value are extremely important here but Nanachi has some questions. When asked what is valuable, Nanachi answers Mitty and her friends. Majikaja then agrees and says that Belaf currently has Mitty, who was left behind here by the masked man.
We cut back to Reg and Faputa. Reg is still very much on edge around Faputa and for good reason. The latter has realized that Reg has memory loss. She doesn’t seem hostile so Reg asks her how they know each other, which she doesn’t seem to like. Faputa is voiced by Kuno Misaki by the way, who we might know as Hawk in Seven Deadly Sins, Momo in 3-Gatsu no Lion or Serara in Log Horizon, among a long list of other roles. It’s a very recognizable voice. Faputa wants to inspect Reg to make sure he’s Reg. Faputa stabs Reg in his belly button and licks off the blood, which is par for the course I suppose because Made in Abyss is freaking weird as hell. Oh, she also smells his crotch. The most interesting part of this conversation is that Reg’s name was also Reg when he met Faputa even though Riko gave him his name. Reg decides it’s high time to get out of there, leaving Faputa to cry alone.
Outside of Faputa’s lair, Reg sees the guardian, who looks as intimidating as ever. He ponders some things about his existence and then wonders how his friends on the surface are doing. We now cut to Riko who is naked on the toilet. Have I mentioned that this manga is weird yet? At least the toilet has the Made in Abyss equivalent of a bidet, which is just tongues.
She asks the Bed & Breakfast host where her friends went and she just points outside. Calling for her friends gets the attention of a whole bunch of hollows who look fairly creepy. No Reg or Nanachi though. With a crudely drawn map of the town, Riko and Meinya head out to find the market. She quickly attracts a crowd of hollows that follow her around. Some of these hollows are extremely terrifying. A whole bunch of them attack Riko and Meinya, but Ma comes in with the save. Turns out they weren’t quite dead yet. Ma is very distressed though and Riko befriends the strange creature.
Nanachi and Majikaja are still on their way to find Mitty. Ma and Riko find their way to a restaurant. We get another flashback for advice on what to do when you have diarrhea and Riko remarks that with the food smell is a hint of poo. Have I mentioned yet that this manga is weird? It turns out the food is actually pretty good, but very spicy. It turns out the restaurant owner speaks the common language. Also, the food she just ate was tesicles. And here we meet Wazukyan of the three sages as well as Belaf of the three sages. It’s strange though, because neither of them look remotely human. We now get to why I thought it was a good idea of the anime creators to put the flashback to the three sages arriving in the abyss earlier in the story. Because at least now we have context for who they are. And it turns out that Belaf does have Mitty. And to top off the three sages, we see a quick shot of Vueko as well, but she seems to be captive.
With episode 4 done, we’re now well in the thick of things. This arc still has a while to go but we’ve now covered most of Volume 6 as well as bits from Volumes 7 and 8. I’m still engrossed in the story and grossed out by some of the other things. I know it’s almost a joke at this point, but this is truly one of the weirdest stories I’ve ever consumed and I can’t really put into words why I’m still watching and reading it. I suppose that if you stare at the abyss for long enough, it’ll stare back at you. Either way, thank you for reading and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode in the comments down below. See you next week!
Opal Kaharis 