Made in Abyss

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Japanese: メイドインアビス

More titles

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: Oct 20, 2012 to ?

Genres: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Serialization: Web Comic Gamma

Authors: Tsukushi, Akihito (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.72¹ (scored by 59,514 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #59²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #63

Members: 180,339

Favorites: 10,800

Available At

Official Site

Resources

Wikipedia

8.72

Ranked #59Popularity #63Members 180,339

MangaWeb Comic GammaTsukushi, Akihito (Story & Art)

Add to My List

Volumes: /?

Chapters: /?

Edit
Synopsis

The Abyss, a hole of unprecedented depth—one young girl and a robot brave its dangers to find the truth.

The town of Orth is a special one, as it is built around the edges of the massive Abyss, a wonder which has never been fully explored. Those who venture too far down never return, but those brave enough to traverse its territories are known as "Cave Raiders" and are heralded as legends. Within this town lives a young girl called Riko, the child of one of the most famous Cave Raiders of all time who disappeared on an expedition many years ago.

One day, Riko's life changes when she meets a strange robot called Reg, who seems to appear from within the Abyss. Believing this to be a sign from her mother stuck at the bottom of the Abyss, Riko descends into its depths with Reg, ready to confront all the dangers within it.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit
Background

Made in Abyss ranked 13th in the 2018 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! for the Male Readers division. In 2018, the manga was nominated for the 11th Manga Taisho Award and placed eighth in the final ranking. It won the Excellence Award at the 52nd Japan Cartoonists Association Awards in 2023.

The series has been published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment since January 23, 2018. It has also been published in Mexico by Panini Comics since February 13, 2019; in Italian by J-POP since March 14, 2018; in Spain and Argentina by Editorial Ivrea since May 3, 2018, and May 18, 2018, respectively; in French by Ototo since May 18, 2018; in Brazilian Portuguese by NewPOP Editora since July 13, 2018; in German by Altraverse since June 21, 2018; in Polish by Kotori since September 14, 2018; and in Turkish by Bang! Çizgi since September 2019.

Edit

Related Entries

More characters
Characters

Nanachi

Main

Reg

Main

Riko

Main

Bondrewd

Supporting

Ouzen

Supporting

Faputa

Supporting

Vueroeruko

Supporting

Mitty

Supporting

Prushka

Supporting

Maaa

Supporting

Reviews

Feb 6, 2025

Thereisnoonehere

Recommended

Preliminary (69/? eps)

Door of the abyss opened.

Made in abyss has one of the best world building I have seen in a while in the manga/anime sphere, it truly feels out of this world and manages you to immerse you in it, it feels mystique and mysterious and even at the latest chapters we only have a grasp of what it could hide.
The art is pretty good and gets even better as the story progresses and the feeling of grandeur only gets amplified as the story progresses, the world is truly living whether our characters are part of it or not.

One critique that could be made to Made ...

Open

Gift

Sep 16, 2025

midas123

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (32/? eps)

The premise of Made in Abyss is so damn sick it’s hard not to be immediately drawn in. You have this massive, world-defining pit that goes down into the earth, with each layer holding its own unique biomes, terrifying monsters and ancient relics. The deeper you go the harder it is to come back alive thanks to a mysterious "curse" that wrecks your body on the ascent. The worldbuilding is incredible; you’re immediately introduced to the society built around the Abyss, the different ranks of explorers/whistles and the core mysteries that drive the plot forward. It sets a pretty fantastic stage.

The story kicks off with ... two really enjoyable kids. You have a main girl who’s obsessed with the Abyss and wants to follow in the footsteps of her legendary mother and a mysterious robot boy who shows up with no memories of who he is or how he got there. The hook is simple but effective; a message from the mother arrives from the deepest part of the Abyss, telling her daughter she’s waiting at the bottom. And so the two of them begin their descent. The artstyle adds a other layer to the experience. It’s very unique with a soft, almost cutesy look that makes the world feel like a fantastical storybook. The characters look like wholesome kids on a grand adventure and for a while that’s exactly what it feels like. The start is incredibly promising and gets you genuinely intrigued for the journey ahead.

But for all its conceptual brilliance the actual experience of reading this manga can be a chore. The biggest problem is the pacing, which is painfully, agonizingly slow. This is an incredibly dialogue-dense series and it constantly grinds to a halt for massive lore dumps. Now, I can handle dialogue-heavy stories if they’re grounded and psychological, but Made in Abyss is a full-blown fantasy and it wants you to know every little detail about its made-up world. For someone who loves fantasy for fantasy’s sake, this is probably a dream come true. You’ll read about every ingredient they find for their meals, every tool they use, every specific rule of the ecosystem. For me it’s just boring. It feels like 70% of the manga is just dragging your feet through unnecessary exposition, and it really kills the momentum of the otherwise interesting story. I found myself wanting to know what happens next but absolutely dreading the process of getting there.

The manga also has this reputation for being one of the darkest, most disturbing things you’ll ever read and honestly, I just don’t see it. I went in expecting something that would hit me in the guts. So far it was just… mild. Yeah there are moments that are dark and fucked up, but it’s nowhere near the soul-crushing psychological horror it’s hyped up to be. What is genuinely uncomfortable though, is the author’s very obvious fetishes. The guy is clearly not sneaky about his thing for lolis and it’s just gross. You’ll have characters, who are literal children, put in weirdly sexualized situations, like being hung up naked as a punishment when it could have been shown in any other way.

Ultimately, Made in Abyss had a completely reverse effect on me. For a manga that’s supposed to be so dark, I actually found it to be a weirdly cute and soothing adventure story at its core. If you strip away the occasional dark moments, the art, the characters, and the atmosphere create this beautiful, whimsical feeling of exploration that I really love. And you can tell the author is incredibly passionate about the world he’s built. The potential here is massive. But I just can’t continue it right now. The pacing is too slow and the reading experience is too much of a slog for me to commit to, especially with its ridiculously long release schedule. I’m not dropping it, but it’s going on hold until the day the final chapter is announced. It gets a 7.5/10 from me. I really want to love it, and I know I’ll be back, but I need to be in the right mindset to survive the slow, tedious descent.

Open

Gift

May 9, 2025

etchedmonolith

Not Recommended

Preliminary (69/? eps)

This review skims through the main story, but trust me, there's nothing to spoil.

If you asked me about this manga five years ago, when I just picked it up, I would've told you the most complementary review you could imagine. The artstyle is very pretty, it has this soft murky look to it, to give where credit is due, Tsukushi's landscape design and character design have remained on point over all these years.The setting is cool and atmospheric, the main mystery is very enticing, and the side characters (in the first half at least) are written quite well. The initial premise of the story is ... executed just well enough to keep you longing for more.

But if you ask me in the year of out lord 2025, I do not recommend even starting this manga. Mostly because the main plot has barely advanced in these five years. Ever since the main characters reached layer 6, the manga has been rapidly devolving into author's fetish compilation more than a cohesive story. Don't get me wrong, the bits and pieces of the weirdness were scattered all over the story from the start, but at least in the first tomes it's heavily overshadowed by the main mystery and the thrill of exploration of a world filled with quirky creatures and sprawling landscapes, which makes it easy to gloss over an awkward bath scene or two.

Sadly, chapter 40 - 45 and onwards the manga's story becomes this homeopathic substance, where one teaspoon of world exploration and character development is dilluted in two gallons of torture scenes, naked lolies and just plain misery porn. The whole village arc just put the original main characters on pause for several YEARS just to end up with the most basic revenge story about a bunch of characters with barely any personality to them being massacred by a character with at least some personality to her.

The saddest thing is, the current state of manga kind of makes the better parts of it worse in retrospect. The initial surprise of the first bloody scenes hits with a hard, but realistic twist: the wild nature is a harsh place, and the unprepared (let alone, children) are most likely going to die, be it of poisoning, of blood loss, or the claws of some exotic predator. But this shock wears off later on when you realise there's so many more of these absurdly cruel scenes going forwards, it makes you wonder whether the initial dark twist of the manga was merely an accident. Maybe there was no twist at all, maybe the author was just acting out his perversions on paper from the get-go. Maybe Ozen's self-inflicted deformities on her body weren't telling a story of being obsessed with the work of your life to the point you start giving up your very humanity to succeed. Maybe it was just author exercising his sadistic fantasies. Maybe Bondrewd's willingness to put others through painful experiments wasn't an author's take on a scientist that is too eager to achieve knowledge to the point of treating morals and laws of society as an obstacle. Maybe it was just a way to insert more loli torture scenes - the real main story of the series so far.

The initial main characters and the story premise weren't some groundbreaking writing, but it was enticing enough to read because you would assume it would get elaborated on. What is Reg's backstory? What happened to Rico's mother? What lies in the bottom of the Abyss? Yet here we are more than a decade after the first chapter was posted, and barely anything has been revealed. And I'm afraid, it won't be. Even if the author lives to finish the story (which is unlikely given his age and posting schedule), his writing has been on the decline for years. The only real story the manga is following at this point is the author's complicated history with hentai addiction.

Wasted potential/10

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Zoficore

by FoppishCrow

50 Entries · 1 Restacks

Good ongoing Series of the 2010s

by tmoney23

50 Entries · 27 Restacks

Stellar Art

by Madaostar

35 Entries · 5 Restacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

View All

More news
Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for March

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for March. Week 1: March 4 - 10 Anime Releases Akira 4K + Blu-ray [SteelBook] Bakeneko Anzu-chan (...read more

Mar 9, 9:27 AM by Aiimee | Discuss (5 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for April

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for April. Week 1: April 2 - 8 Anime Releases Black Bullet Complete Collection Blu-ray [2024 Re-re...read more

Apr 2, 2024 12:38 PM by Aiimee | Discuss (1 comment)

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Made in Abyss Chapter 71 Discussion Satou0Kun - Aug 8	8 replies	by Dumb »» Nov 18, 12:38 PM
How will they get back up? RealityChanges - Jun 16	18 replies	by Haunt88 »» Oct 30, 7:10 AM
Will there be live action? Absurdo_N - Jan 9	17 replies	by Zimzky »» Aug 31, 10:19 AM
Poll: Made in Abyss Chapter 70 Discussion Satou0Kun - Apr 4	10 replies	by hafoeki »» Jul 7, 10:27 AM
Poll: Made in Abyss Chapter 69 Discussion Satou0Kun - Aug 31, 2024	40 replies	by JackB001 »» May 8, 7:20 AM

Made in Abyss
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Related Entries

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More characters
Characters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

More featured articles
Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Made in Abyss Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

EditSynopsis

EditBackground

Related Entries

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More charactersCharacters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations Recommendations

More newsRecent News

More discussionsRecent Forum Discussion

More featured articlesRecent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Made in Abyss
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More characters
Characters

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

More featured articles
Recent Featured Articles