A reflection: Dawn of the Deep Soul

Made in Abyss has always been something that stood out in my mind as a fantasy world I love to see, wish could've been mine, but know I could have never been the author of.

It's such a unique, raw, wild idea unto itself that I've always wondered if I was capable of writing something like that. Building a world of wonder, a grand place mysterious and deep, complex and otherworldly without being too unimaginable.

But, the thing about Made in Abyss is that: it's really not about that otherworldly world.

There are stories about character, stories about settings, stories about conflicts and the people involved with them, but at the heart of it all is what lies at the depths of the abyss. Humanity.

How far can people go? How far will people go? If one will can push beyond all obstacles, then what could possibly stop it? Nothing you cannot sacrifice for your dreams, nothing that ties or binds you to this world, nothing to keep you down like even gravity itself. And all the while, somehow, you still have an understanding of things. The way people work. The way emotions bind, the way the heart aches and bleeds.

How is it one can hold people dear and toss them aside at the same time? Perhaps, that's a limit on my imagination. I empathize with my characters too easily. I imagine them as real people, imagine what they might feel, imagine what tortures and traumas would do to them.

As much as I love Made in Abyss for the very nature of the work, I can't help but also be disgusted by it. Cutting and tearing and removing anything unnecessary—I just don't have it in me. I could never be Akihito Tsukushi, but I'm also not him. And for that, I'm glad.

Maybe one day, my heart won't be so malleable. I won't be so easily swayed by things that don't exist, I won't feel for figments of another imagination, or possibly even those of my own. But for now, as I am what I am and there's no changing that, I'll stand by on the sidelines to watch as we plunder deeper into the depths of the abyss.

It was there in the beginning, you know.
Turning back was never an option.