Stories about 'stalkers' exploring special places where laws of physics work differently and danger awaits at every corner are nothing new. After all, the novel that became the source of this very word - 'Roadside Picnic' by the Strugatsky brothers, Soviet sci-fi writers - was published half a century ago.
It's not a coincidence that 'Made in Abyss' is actually mentioned in Wikipedia in the end of the article about 'Roadside picnic' as a story exploring similar topics. It tried to, but...
What a difference between these stories. The deeper the characters get into the Abyss, the shallower the story becomes, finally ending in typical Japanese 'guro' with a close-up on bodily injuries and deformations, violence and blood, which does its author no credit.
Brave children who venture into the unknown and succeed even more than grown-ups - this isn't new either. But hey, it's hard to sympathise with the characters who knew exactly what could happen in the pit and took no weapons with them. Or with the characters who stayed on the surface and made no attempt to stop or bring back or help the young children. I have to remind that the Abyss had been explored at least for several decades, all creatures within the anime frames were listed in textbooks, and adult cave riders were even met as deep as at the 4th level.
The horrors of 'Roadside picnic' made me sympathize with the characters and think about their reasons, actions and fate. The horrors of 'Abyss' made me want to vomit.
Reducing a mystery to explicit shock-content devaluates it completely. In this case, killing all pleasure that the setting could promise, all the wonderful views of the imaginary world and all the magical soundtrack. Did you have to create all this beauty just to forget it ever existed and show tortures for an hour and a half?
At some point, when fantastic landscapes are left behind and the author starts to enjoy depicting gore instead, I lost all hope in Abyss.
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