As September is ending soon and it’ll be time for Greenday to wake us all up, it’s only fitting that this horrifyingly wild ride is also coming to an end. And what better way to do that than with a double length final episode. There will be a lot to talk about so let me not waste more time here and instead let’s dive right into it.
The newly regenerated Faputa, alongside Juroimoh, gets ready to deal with the invading monsters. We get the opening music one last time. Since this is my final time talking about the show, the song used for the opening never really clicked for me. It’s fine, but I doubt I’ll remember it several months down the line. The cuts between present and past are still neat and I have no real complaints about the visuals. The title card for the final episode reads “gold”, presumably in reference to the golden city itself.
From there, we jump back into a flashback where Faputa and the interference unit first meet. The unit is broken and stuck in place when Faputa decides to stay near it. The unit is teaching Faputa speech. It’s also teaching her about value. I feel like Made in Abyss does this a lot, it explains important concepts very late. Often this seems to be on purpose and having once read the story before it feels a lot more sensible. But like I’ve said before in these posts, for my first round through this story I ended up being confused a lot. Moving on to Faputa being named, and her naming the unit Gaburoon, the princess’ guardian. Faputa means “the princess who won’t perish.” We see some of the early events from Faputa’s perspective. Her scary message and taking the stone are all a lot nicer than they seemed. She even makes a beast repellent for Riko and Nanachi, being too shy to talk to them directly.
We cut to the gang traveling on Majikaja’s back, away from the danger. They’re on their way to confront Wazukyan. He’s spent all of his energy and is about to fade out though. He asks Riko if she’s glad to have come here, and she definitely is. He monologues for a while without really saying much that makes sense. He claims to just be an Abyss delver like them, but he wasn’t a good dude. He does ask them to take care of Faputa before he dies. Speak of the devil, a scream is heard in the distance and it calls the villagers to her. It’s the first time she’s doing this and the villagers feel a duty to go. The gang all get up on Majikaja’s back and they head to where Faputa is. Even Vueko is on her way there. She ponders back on the one thing she decided to do for herself and reminisces on her journey with the sages, going down the pit and into the abyss. The bad times weren’t all that they had, after all. As she’s being hollowfied she realizes she was still human all this time.
We see that Juroimoh is straight up not having a good time. Several beasts are feasting on its body while Faputa is still confronting the dragonoid beast as Reg shows up for support. Faputa taps out and speaks to the group that’s arrived, saying she’s going to consume the villagers to help her defeat the beasts. It’s time for Irumyuui to finally be freed. Reg destroys the bridge that Wazukyan built for the beasts, cutting off their point of entry, while Faputa feasts on the villagers. Vueko thinks back some more, but I want to point out something here that’s been stellar throughout the show. The vocals kick in on the backing track for this part and it sounds absolutely amazing. Kevin Penkin did a fantastic job with his team and it really sells the important moments. And with a thundering screech the village comes to an end. No more sages, no more villagers, no more village. All that’s left is the abyss and a falling Faputa.
And there’s Reg with the save. Majikaja’s doing their best to bring everyone to safety. Majikaja sends their soul into Faputa to give them a final fighting chance against the crumbling city.
It finally reaches a quiet and Vueko and Faputa face each other while the rest of the group watches on. At this point, they’re the only two who are left from the expedition in any sense. It’s bothering me a little bit that Riko is a 12 year old child. I’m sure she’s probably a psychopath in a sense but having to go through this many traumatic events this quickly seems like it would destroy any person’s mental stability, let alone that of a child. All her newly made friends just died and she’s still fine.
Vueko tells Faputa about her mother, and how much they are alike. In a sense, Vueko is Faputa’s grandmother. The voice actress nailed this scene, Vueko sounds perfectly happy and sad at the same time. The voice cast for this show has been amazing all the way through. It’s hard to overstate how much value that brings. Faputa explains to Vueko that even after all that suffering and pain, Irumyuui refused to give Vueko over to anyone else. She was her value. And thus the story of a sad, abused and scared girl comes to an end. I can’t help but feel tears welling up when I see Faputa’s sadness. I had the same response when reading the manga. Even though it was hard to follow this arc, there were a few things that were clear throughout. Vueko was the most caring person among all of them, and her finally finding peace is truly a gift to the reader.
Only a second before Riko got the chance to do so herself, Reg invites Faputa to join the group. A gathering of fools, you’re not wrong Faputa. Having someone along for the ride that can hear Prushka’s voice is probably a blessing for Riko. And again, the song playing while all of this is going on is just hauntingly beautiful. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started appreciating the quality of the music and the voices so much more than I did back in the day. Animation is one thing, and for action shows it can add a ton of depth to a story, but a lot of times I feel like the manga ends up being better than the adaptation. The few cases where that’s not true, is where every aspect of an animated show is done with care and love and it just improves the entire thing by so much. Made in Abyss is one of those shows for me. A work of art from start to finish that takes a story that only feels half done and truly completes it. Thank you all for joining me on this journey into the abyss and remember that it’ll always gaze back at you, so don’t look too long. See you next time!
Opal Kaharis 