In animation and cinematic storytelling, world-building often distinguishes a memorable narrative from a fleeting spectacle. Rather than serving as a mere backdrop, a meticulously constructed universe becomes a narrative engine, shaping character decisions, reinforcing thematic undertones, and inviting audiences to suspend disbelief in profoundly immersive ways. Two works that epitomize this alchemy are Made in Abyss (2017– ), adapted from Akihito Tsukushi’s manga, and Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning film Spirited Away (2001). Although they belong to different subgenres and target distinct viewer sensibilities, both productions showcase world-building strategies that transform their respective settings—a vertical chasm and a bustling spirit bathhouse—into active participants in the story. This analysis compares the architectural, cultural, and emotional layers of these fantastical worlds, revealing how each environment functions as a crucible for growth, sacrifice, and self-discovery.

Why World-Building Matters in Animation

In any fictional medium, world-building involves the deliberate arrangement of geography, history, rules, and sensory details that render a setting believable. Animation magnifies this need because every frame is constructed from scratch; there is no found location to borrow authenticity. Effective world-building creates internal consistency, ensuring that the audience understands the limits and possibilities of the diegetic space. It also acts as a mirror for character psychology: a hostile environment reflects internal struggle, while a whimsical one can underscore innocence. Moreover, richly imagined worlds allow stories to address complex themes indirectly, embedding allegory within the landscape itself. As animator and director Hayao Miyazaki has often emphasized, the environment in an animated film is not a stage set but a living entity that interacts with characters. This philosophy is equally evident in Made in Abyss, where the Abyss’s ecosystem reacts to intruders with both wonder and horrific consequence. To appreciate how these two masterworks employ world-building, we must first understand the core principles that govern their creative universes.

The Labyrinthine Depths: How ‘Made in Abyss’ Constructs Its Universe

Few fictional settings are as simultaneously alluring and terrifying as the Abyss, a colossal pit that plunges an unknown distance into the earth’s crust. Surrounding the edge of the island town of Orth, this chasm houses relics of a lost civilization and unique organisms that have adapted to each layer’s extreme conditions. The official anime website (miabyss.com) describes the Abyss as “the last unexplored frontier,” and the series treats it exactly that way: a place where the promise of discovery is always shadowed by the threat of death. World-building in Made in Abyss operates through a tight integration of physical rules, social systems, and deep-time lore, forging an environment that feels simultaneously ancient and alive.

The Spatial Logic and the Curse of the Abyss

The Abyss is divided into seven known layers, each with a distinct biome, atmospheric pressure, and a supernatural phenomenon called the “Curse of the Abyss.” The Curse is a brilliant narrative device: ascending from a layer inflicts increasing physical and psychological damage the deeper one goes. From nausea and headache in the upper layers to loss of humanity and, ultimately, certain death at the sixth layer’s ascension, the Curse imposes an irreversible downward momentum. This spatial rule transforms simple travel into a high-stakes gamble, forcing characters to weigh their curiosity against the very real possibility of never returning. The verticality of the world is not just a map; it is a narrative trap that underpins every decision made by the young cave raiders Riko and Reg. The addition of “force fields” that act as one-way barriers further complicates navigation, echoing the theme of irreversible knowledge—once you learn what lies below, you cannot unlearn it.

Lore, Whistles, and the Economy of Sacrifice

World-building in Made in Abyss extends beyond physical geography into the cultural framework that surrounds the Abyss. Delvers are ranked by whistle color—Red, Blue, Moon, Black, and the legendary White Whistles—each signifying expertise and the depth they are permitted to explore. These ranks are not arbitrary; they reflect a society that has commodified exploration. Relics retrieved from the Abyss power Orth’s economy, and the rarest artifacts, known as “Grade-1” or “Special Grade,” can grant extraordinary abilities. The White Whistles, such as Ozen the Immovable and Bondrewd the Novel, represent the ultimate state of obsession, having sacrificed aspects of their humanity to continue their descent. This layered social structure and its attendant mythology are communicated through brief flashbacks, guild-like organizations, and the chilling fact that a White Whistle is crafted from a human life. The series reveals these details gradually, treating the audience as fellow explorers who piece together the horrific cost of progress. A feature on The Artifice argues that this slow-drip exposition makes the world feel immeasurably larger, as if entire civilizations have been lost to the depths before the story even begins.

Visual and Auditory World-Building

The aesthetic choices in Made in Abyss are inseparable from its world-building. The upper layers are lush and pastoral, bathed in soft sunlight and populated by harmless fauna, while the deeper layers descend into bioluminescent fungi, crystalline mazes, and nightmarish predators like the Orb Piercer. Composer Kevin Penkin’s score blends orchestral grandeur with ethereal vocalizations, reinforcing the sense of awe and dread. The art style contrasts childlike character designs with graphic body horror, a deliberate dissonance that mirrors the Abyss’s deceptive beauty. Every layer’s flora and fauna are rendered with an almost scientific attention to ecological plausibility, suggesting that the world operates according to invisible but coherent laws. This commitment to internal logic allows even the most surreal elements—such as the village Ilblu in the sixth layer, where living beings barter with their own bodies—to feel organic. By making the Abyss a character in its own right, the series transforms the act of descending into a philosophical meditation on the price of knowledge.

Entering the Spirit Realm: World-Building in ‘Spirited Away’

Where Made in Abyss builds its world through vertical isolation and escalating danger, Spirited Away creates an expansive, horizontal society teeming with rules, hierarchies, and cultural rituals. Ten-year-old Chihiro’s accidental entry into the spirit world through an abandoned amusement park immediately establishes a realm governed by a different temporal logic and moral economy. The film’s official page on the Studio Ghibli website (ghibli.jp/works/chihiro) describes it as a story about “a girl who wanders into the world of the gods,” and every detail of the spirit realm functions to disorient and educate both Chihiro and the viewer.

The Bathhouse: A Hierarchical Enclave

The Aburaya bathhouse serves as the beating heart of the spirit world. Operated by the witch Yubaba, it is a place where myriad gods and spirits come to rest and cleanse themselves. The bathhouse operates under a strict social order: Yubaba at the top, her minions and the giant baby Boh, the workers, and then the guests. Chihiro’s transformation into Sen—Yubaba stealing and controlling her name—literalizes the loss of identity that the world demands. The bathhouse is a microcosm of capitalist labor, where work is the only currency to stave off disappearance. The physical architecture mirrors this hierarchy, with Yubaba’s opulent penthouse perched high above the grimy boiler room where Kamaji the spider-like stoker toils. Radish spirit, stink spirits, and the faceless No-Face wander through corridors that seem to reshape themselves, emphasizing the realm’s fluidity. This enclosed, almost theatrical setting allows Miyazaki to pack the environment with social commentary: greed is punished, kindness is rewarded, and environmental neglect transforms a river spirit into a polluted monster.

Shinto Beliefs and Ecological Metaphors

The world-building in Spirited Away draws heavily from Japanese Shinto traditions, where natural objects and phenomena are inhabited by kami (spirits). The polluted river spirit that Chihiro cleanses is a direct reference to real-world river pollution in Japan, and the Haku dragon embodies a river spirit that has lost its home to urban development. An insightful piece by Tofugu unpacks how the film’s spirits reflect the Shinto belief in the interconnectedness of all things. The film does not explain these references; instead, it trusts the audience to feel their weight through visual storytelling. The soot sprites (susuwatari) and the turnip-headed spirit are not just background decoration but reminders that the mundane and the magical coexist. This cultural grounding gives the world a depth that feels ancient and lived-in, even though the viewer only visits it for a single night in the human world—which translates to a protracted, dreamlike stay for Chihiro.

Character Design and the Language of Spirits

World-building in Spirited Away is also expressed through character design. Yubaba’s exaggerated Western features and lavish jewelry suggest a powerful figure who has assimilated different worlds; her twin sister Zeniba, living in a humble cottage, represents the reverse side of greed. No-Face, a translucent entity that consumes and mirrors the emotions around him, embodies the bathhouse’s transactional culture. The varied spirits—from the giant chicks to the bouncing hopping lantern—create a sense of a world that operates by its own internal physics. Miyazaki has stated in interviews that he wanted the spirit realm to feel like a place that has always existed, one that humans have merely forgotten. The audience’s gradual understanding of its unwritten rules—don’t eat food meant for spirits, don’t look back—mirrors Chihiro’s learning process, strengthening emotional identification with her journey.

Divergent Architectures of Fantasy: A Comparative Lens

When placed side by side, the world-building techniques of Made in Abyss and Spirited Away reveal fundamentally different philosophies about how a fictional environment should interact with its protagonists and audience. While both worlds are constructed with meticulous care, their structural designs, relationship to danger, and thematic resonances diverge sharply.

Structural Design: Vertical Descent vs. Enclosed Society

The Abyss is defined by its verticality; the entire premise rests on descending into unknown depths. Each layer is isolated from the others, and progression is linear and increasingly perilous. Information becomes sparser the further one descends, and the outside world becomes a distant memory. In contrast, the spirit world of Spirited Away is horizontally expansive, a self-contained society that functions like a small city. The bathhouse, the surrounding town, the train station, and Zeniba’s cottage all exist within a single plane of reality, connected by water and rail. There is no irreversible descent, but rather a ritualistic passage: Chihiro must cross a threshold and eventually return across it. The Abyss demands permanent sacrifice; the spirit world demands temporary growth. These architectural choices reflect each work’s central themes—obsessive discovery versus self-reclamation.

Protagonist-Driven Discovery: Riko vs. Chihiro

Riko enters the Abyss intentionally, driven by a fierce, almost self-destructive curiosity to find her mother at the bottom. Her character is an active agent of exploration; the world reveals its secrets only to those who dare to go deeper. Chihiro, on the other hand, stumbles into the spirit world and initially wants nothing more than to escape. Her growth is not about conquering the environment but learning to navigate its social rules. Thus, the world-building reflects each protagonist’s relationship to the unknown: the Abyss is a puzzle to be solved, while the spirit realm is a society to be integrated into. This distinction shapes how information is revealed. In Made in Abyss, lore is discovered piecemeal through relics, hidden messages, and the testimony of other delvers. In Spirited Away, lore is absorbed through daily work—Chihiro learns that the spirit world has a physical toll (her body begins to fade) and that names hold literal power, but these rules are experienced through direct consequence rather than explained.

Thematic Resonance: The Cost of Knowledge vs. The Preservation of Identity

Both worlds are thematically dense, but they leverage their settings to explore different human anxieties. Made in Abyss uses the Abyss to interrogate the limits of curiosity and the ethical horror of using others as tools for progress. The Curse of the Abyss is a metaphysical transaction: you can see the wonders of the universe, but you leave a piece of yourself behind. The world-building thus becomes a sustained meditation on the nature of sacrifice—echoed by the fact that the most powerful artifacts in the series are forged from living beings. Spirited Away, by contrast, employs its world to explore identity, trauma, and environmental degradation. The polluted river spirit, Haku’s forgotten name, and Yubaba’s theft of self all illustrate that a world can function as a psychological map. The bathhouse is a place where characters literally lose and find themselves, and the environment’s rules are designed to facilitate moral education rather than physical conquest.

The Narrative Function of Danger and Wonder

World-building that solely relies on awe risks becoming a hollow spectacle. Both works understand that true immersion arises from the interplay between beauty and danger. In the Abyss, the breathtaking vistas of the inverted forest of the fourth layer coexist with the raptorial Orb Piercer. The visual splendor of the field of Eternal Fortunes in the fifth layer masks the monstrous Fuzosheppu. Similarly, the bathhouse’s vibrant communal eating is undercut by the abattoir-like atmosphere of the spirit processing corridors, and the intoxicating gold No-Face produces leads to chaotic gluttony. By consistently marrying the wondrous with the terrifying, each world feels unpredictable—and therefore real. Audiences are never permitted to rest comfortably in either setting, which maintains tension and emotional engagement over the course of the narrative.

Emotional Anchoring Through Immersive Environments

The most profound effect of meticulous world-building is its ability to make a story’s emotional beats hit harder. When Mitty is transformed into an immortal blob by the Curse in Made in Abyss, the horror is not just in the scene itself but in our understanding of what the Abyss can do to a person—a rule established over hours of world-building. Nanachi’s entire existence as a hollow is a world-building detail that becomes a heartbreaking character study. In Spirited Away, the moment when Chihiro remembers Haku’s real name (the Kohaku River) fills us with relief because we have learned through the world’s rules that names are the key to freedom. The train ride across the flooded plains is one of the most emotionally resonant sequences in animation precisely because the landscape—silent, submerged, and ghostly—evokes a sense of passing from one state of being to another. Without the prior world-building establishing the spirit world's separate temporality and the cost of disconnection, these moments would lose their weight. The environment, in each case, is not merely a container for the story; it is the emotional language through which the story speaks.

Conclusion: The World as Mirror and Mentor

Made in Abyss and Spirited Away stand as towering examples of how world-building can elevate animation into a profound narrative experience. One constructs a vertical dungeon ruled by irreversible sacrifice, while the other elaborates a communal spirit realm governed by identity and memory. Yet both prove that the most enduring fictional universes are those that function simultaneously as mentor and mirror: they teach characters who they are, and they reflect back the consequences of their choices. By examining these two approaches under a comparative lens, we gain a deeper appreciation for the art of immersive storytelling. In an age where audiences increasingly seek stories that transport them completely, the lessons drawn from the Abyss and the bathhouse remain more relevant than ever: a world, no matter how fantastical, must feel authentic in its rules and emotional in its impact to truly resonate.