The Journey as Central Motif in Made in Abyss

At the heart of Made in Abyss lies a descent that is far more than a physical expedition. The series constructs a world where the act of journeying downward becomes an intricate allegory for human striving, transformation, and the eternal confrontation with the unknown. Every step into the Abyss pulls its characters—and viewers—into a layered meditation on what it means to seek something beyond the familiar. This article examines the symbolic architecture of that journey, tracing the cultural mythologies and philosophical frameworks that give the narrative its haunting depth.

Cultural and Mythological Foundations

The overwhelming verticality of the Abyss echoes ancient story patterns found across civilizations. Descents into chasms, underworlds, and sacred caves often mark a passage from one state of being to another, and Made in Abyss consciously draws on these traditions while blending them with distinctly Japanese sensibilities.

Katabasis and the Descent into the Underworld

The Greek concept of katabasis—a hero’s journey into the land of the dead—provides one of the clearest archetypal echoes in the series. In tales from Orpheus to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the downward voyage is a form of ultimate trial, stripping the traveler of protections and forcing a reckoning with mortality. The Cave Raiders of Orth are modern katabatic figures: they leave the sunlit surface, descend past the known layers, and face increasingly surreal and lethal environments that mirror internal disintegration. The deeper one goes, the more the physical laws themselves seem to fracture, much as the hero’s identity dissolves under the weight of the underworld.

Yet there is a crucial inversion: in classical myths the underworld is often a place of stasis, whereas the Abyss positively seethes with life. The dense ecology, the relics of lost civilizations, and the strange curse all suggest that what awaits below is not simply death but a kind of relentless, amoral vitality. This reimagining turns the Abyss into a site of creation and corruption intertwined, forcing those who enter to renegotiate their own definitions of humanity.

Shinto and Buddhist Influences

Japanese spiritual traditions infuse the series’ geography with additional meaning. The descent down the 1,000-meter walls of the first layer, through the inverted forest of the second, and eventually into the boiling acid of the fifth echoes a pilgrimage through sacred spaces. Natural features in Shinto are often imbued with kami, and the Abyss, with its sentient-seeming behaviors, can be read as a living shintai—a body that houses a divine spirit. The Cave Raiders’ rituals and the reverence shown toward the Abyss mirror the way mountains and waterfalls are approached with awe in Shinto practice.

Buddhist themes of attachment and suffering also surface powerfully. Because ascending triggers the Curse of the Abyss, the act of returning is physically punished, a narrative device that externalizes the spiritual truth that once certain knowledge is gained, there is no innocent way back. Desire propels the characters downward, but the deeper they go, the more they must abandon—tools, companions, body parts, and eventually their very sense of identity. This resonates with the Buddhist notion that suffering arises from clinging, and that liberation demands a profound letting-go. The Abyss becomes a laboratory for testing how much of the self can be stripped away before nothing is left.

The Hero’s Journey Frame

The series also maps cleanly onto the monomyth framework identified by Joseph Campbell. Riko’s call to adventure—her mother’s letter retrieved from the depths—triggers a departure that is both reckless and inevitable. The subsequent stages are recognizable: crossing the threshold into the Abyss, encountering allies and mentors like Ozen and Nanachi, facing the supreme ordeal in the Idofront, and receiving a boon (the nature of which is constantly redefined). Yet Made in Abyss refuses the comforting promise of the hero’s return wholly transformed. The cycle is brutally suspended. Instead of a triumphant ascent, the narrative insists that the ultimate reward may only be reachable by surrendering any chance of coming back. This dark twist on the hero’s journey challenges the classic tale structure and pushes viewers to ask whether the journey’s value can be justified at all when the destination devours the traveler.

Philosophical Dimensions of the Abyss

Beyond its mythological roots, the series poses a sequence of hard philosophical questions. The Abyss is not just a setting; it is an idea made terrifyingly concrete, where the very act of looking deeper exacts a toll.

The Ethics of Exploration and the Price of Knowledge

The scientist Bondrewd embodies the central ethical tension of the series: the pursuit of understanding at any cost. His experiments, which strip children of their sentience to create cartridges that absorb the Curse, force a confrontation with the limits of utilitarian logic. Bondrewd is not a mustache-twirling villain; he is a man who has willingly mutilated his own body and fractured his consciousness in service of discovery. His philosophy treats sentient beings as variables, and the Abyss as an equation to be solved. The narrative refuses to offer easy condemnation, instead presenting a chillingly coherent argument that deep knowledge may require monstrous actions. This reflects real-world debates about the ethics of scientific research on vulnerable populations, the morality of sacrificing the few for the many, and the way institutions often justify cruelty in the name of progress.

The Curse of the Abyss itself is a brilliant metaphor for the non-negotiable cost of insight. Rising from the sixth layer, a human’s body is irreversibly altered—sometimes turning into a form of organic mucus. This physical corruption maps onto the psychological and moral erosion that accompanies forbidden knowledge. Like the ring of Gyges, which grants invisibility and corrodes the soul, the deeper one goes, the more one sees, and the less one can return to the person they were. The Abyss does not kill curiosity; it monetizes it in flesh and memory.

Existentialism and the Search for Meaning

Each character descends carrying their own fundamental project, to borrow Sartre’s language. Riko’s goal is not simply to find her mother but to validate her own existence as a child born in the Abyss, resurrected by the Curse-Repelling Vessel, and seemingly fated to return to the depths. Her journey is an act of radical self-definition, a rebellion against the idea that she should live a safe, meaningless life on the surface. Reg, with his obliterated memories, wrestles with a more direct existential crisis: if he cannot remember who he is, can he choose his own purpose? His protective bond with Riko becomes the axis on which a new identity turns, a clear illustration of existentialist ethics where action precedes essence.

Nanachi’s struggle with despair raises the stakes further. Having survived Bondrewd’s experiments and witnessed Mitty’s eternal torment, Nanachi faces the classic existential dilemma: can life hold meaning after the worst has been witnessed? The choice to descend again with Riko and Reg, despite everything, exemplifies what Camus called revolt—a conscious embrace of the absurd, a determination to move forward even when hope seems delusional. The characters do not find ready-made answers; they forge meanings in the crucible of the Abyss itself.

The Sublime and the Abyss as Limit-Experience

The visual grandeur and cosmic horror of the deeper layers invoke the aesthetic category of the sublime as described by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant. The Abyss provokes a mixture of terror and awe that overwhelms rational comprehension. When the Garden of the Dawn appears, or when the far-off light of the seventh layer glimmers, the experience transcends mere danger and touches something nearly religious. The characters are not simply frightened; they are dwarfed by a power that both attracts and annihilates. This sublime encounter strips away the ego, making the tiny human figures seem almost irrelevant, yet their perseverance in the face of the incomprehensible is what gives their journey tragic dignity. The series dares to ask: is there wisdom in pursuing a force that will certainly destroy you, simply because you must witness it?

Symbolic Characters and Their Archetypes

The cast of Made in Abyss functions like a pantheon of responses to the call of the unknown. Each major character crystallizes a different philosophical stance or cultural archetype, enriching the symbolic fabric.

Riko and Reg: Innocence, Curiosity, and the Quest for Self

Riko is the pure seeker, a figure almost untouched by cynicism. Her boundless enthusiasm for relics, her encyclopedic knowledge of the Abyss’s creatures, and her reckless courage paint her as a child philosopher who believes that the joy of discovery outweighs all risk. She represents what the German Romantics called Sehnsucht—an aching, near-spiritual longing for a distant, ideal state. Yet her fragility forces a constant question: is such innocence a strength or a fatal flaw? The series never settles the question, instead showing how her naivety functions as a mirror that others protect and project onto.

Reg, on the other hand, carries the weight of unknown origins. His mechanical arm, his energy cannon, and the cryptic marks on his helmet suggest a design with a purpose he cannot recall. He is a golem, an artificial being grappling with emergent consciousness and fierce loyalty. The horror of his forgotten past mirrors the human fear of repressed memory. As he uncovers more, he confronts the possibility that his original purpose was destructive—perhaps even connected to the Abyss’s ancient calamities. His arc is an exploration of whether a created being can transcend its programming through love and choice.

Nanachi: The Alchemist of Suffering

Nanachi survives by transforming trauma into knowledge. Their hollowed form, acquired as a side effect of Bondrewd’s experiments, becomes a living symbol of the alchemical albedo—a phase of purification through suffering. The deep bond with Mitty, who endures an agonizing immortality, gives Nanachi a motivation that mixes guilt, love, and the desperate need to terminate endless pain. Nanachi’s decision to join the descent extends the symbolism: instead of remaining a hermit in the fourth layer, they become a guide, using intimate knowledge of the Abyss’s horrors to help others survive. Their character demonstrates that wisdom gained through trauma is not just a private burden but a resource that can be offered to the world.

Bondrewd: The Ascetic of Knowledge

Few characters in modern fiction capture the dangerous seduction of pure inquiry as chillingly as Bondrewd. Dubbed “The Novel,” he has systematically replaced his body with relic technology, distributing his consciousness across multiple vessels in pursuit of a single goal: to pierce the mysteries of the Abyss without a surviving ego to claim the credit. He is a perversion of the spiritual seeker who fasts and mortifies the flesh—except his mortification extends to others. His willingness to turn children into unfeeling cartridges forces the question: when does the pursuit of truth become indistinguishable from atrocity? The cartridges themselves, sealed in casket-like containers, become macabre symbols of a one-way trip, a sacrificial economy where the vulnerable pay the fare for the elite’s enlightenment.

Ozen and Lyza: The Keepers of Memory

Ozen the Immovable stands as a stark contrast to the reckless descent of Riko and Reg. Her body, reinforced with thousands of relic pins, testifies to decades of survival in the Abyss’s upper and middle layers. She represents the wisdom of limitation, the knowledge of when to stop. Her cryptic warnings and protective cruelty toward Riko reflect a philosophy of restraint: curiosity must be tempered by understanding the abyss within oneself. Lyza the Annihilator, though unseen for much of the series, looms as a mythic figure of attainment—the pinnacle of what a Cave Raider can become, but also a cautionary ghost. Her decision to stay in the seventh layer, sending only letters up, suggests that the ultimate journey may sever all communication with the world left behind. These two pole stars of the narrative frame the journey as a choice between managed ambition and total immersion.

The Abyss as a Metaphorical Landscape

The physical structure of the Abyss is not a neutral backdrop; it is a poetic geography, each layer encoding a different stage of psychological and spiritual transformation. Understanding these layers is key to grasping the full symbolic weight of the series.

The Seven Layers and Their Resonances

  • First Layer – Edge of the Abyss: A place of gentle wonder, steeped in sunlight. It symbolizes the seductive surface of desire, where the quest seems manageable and beautiful. The relics found here are minor treasures, promising greater riches below.
  • Second Layer – Forest of Temptation: An inverted forest populated by creatures that mimic human behavior and use deception. This layer reflects the confusion that arises when one moves beyond the surface of a goal and encounters illusions, false leads, and the first real dangers of predation. It is the domain of the trickster.
  • Third Layer – Great Fault: A vertical plunge into darkness, characterized by raw physical peril and claustrophobic descent. Here the journey becomes a trial by endurance. The absence of light mirrors the dimming of easy optimism, and the relentless falling sensation parallels the loss of control over one’s direction.
  • Fourth Layer – Goblets of Giants: The domain of Ozen and the Seeker Camp, this layer introduces the poisonous condensation of the Curse. The cup-like flora and the constant threat of death-ascent make this a realm of purification through suffering. Staying here too long hardens the soul and the body; leaving becomes almost impossible.
  • Fifth Layer – Sea of Corpses: A frozen landscape of death imagery, where the remains of untold creatures form the very ground. It is the memento mori of the journey, a constant reminder that all things pass and that ambition leaves physical wreckage. The Idofront fortress at its heart is the machine of Bondrewd’s brutal aesthetics, turning the dead into tools.
  • Sixth Layer – Capital of the Unreturned: Entry into this layer triggers the irreversible loss of humanity as defined by the surface world. Time dilates, communication collapses, and identity frays. The Narehate village formed by Iruburu is a society built by those who have already lost their past forms. It interrogates what remains of a person when their body and memories are reshaped by an alien environment. The concept of value becomes literal, as desires are exchanged and consumed, reflecting the deepest anxieties about self-worth.
  • Seventh Layer – The Final Maelstrom: Shrouded in mystery, this layer is the ultimate unknown, the singularity toward which the entire series gravitates. It promises absolute revelation—Lyza’s presence, the origins of the Abyss, perhaps the source of Reg’s power—while threatening total annihilation of the self. It is the abyss that Nietzsche warned gazes back into you, the point where curiosity and doom converge.

This topographical symbolism grounds the abstract themes in visceral experience. Each layer does not just test the body; it confronts the traveler with a new psychological demand, stripping away the protections of normal life until only the naked will to continue remains.

The Unending Descent

What sets Made in Abyss apart from countless other adventure narratives is its refusal to offer a redemptive upward arc. The journey is not a circle; it is a line pointing ever downward. The series insists that the deepest transformations are not reversible, and that the truths found in the abyssal depths cannot be carried back to the surface unscathed.

By weaving together elements of katabasis mythology, Buddhist concepts of attachment, existentialist philosophy, and the aesthetics of the sublime, the story compels us to examine our own metaphorical descents. Every scientific pursuit, creative endeavor, or personal relationship carries its own Curse—the hidden cost of curiosity—and the courage to continue despite that cost is the substance of the human spirit. The characters of Made in Abyss do not simply survive their journey; they become an inseparable part of the mystery they seek, proving that sometimes the most profound meaning is found not in arriving but in the act of descending itself.