I just caught up to the anime and wanted to share some thoughts
Hey, I'm an anime-only watcher, I recently finished season 2 and I wanted to share some thoughts. Overall, I'm a fan of the series and I'm fascinated by its core ideas, but I do have some criticism and "disappointments" (for lack of a better word).
First things first, I watched season 1 in 2018 and only got back to the series around a month ago, when I decided to rewatch season 1 and catch up to the movie and season 2.
Season 1 feels imperfect, but the result is still amazing. Truly a unique story with its combination of beauty and violence, hope and despair, and also one of the most potent tales about the will to not only figure out the mysteries of the world, but simply to live. I think what hits me the most is the fact that, yes, it is a "dystopia" in some sense, but only because of its fantastic setting - I'm sure all of the same tragedies would happen in the real world, like the Mitty situation.
Two moments are stuck in my mind, which are: (1) the ending of episode 1, with the awe of such an outstanding journey up ahead, one in which you can only hope to learn the most you can, but certainly far from all the mysteries in that world; (2) the ending of episode 12, because it carries an insurmountable amount of emotional weight. It feels miraculous that the message gets to the surface, and maybe it is. Obviously, both moments are greatly enhanced by a great score.
What I don't like about season 1, and what actually comes to "bite" the story later on, is that it's all so fast. There's this whole introduction about different layers and how they affect people differently. In 12 episodes, they're already at layer 5 - not to mention that a kid did it. It's not that I didn't want them to get there, or didn't believe that they did it. It's just that it feels like the whole Abyss "lore" is just some early pep talk to get you interested, but then the journey itself doesn't matter. We don't get to learn more about the environments, relics are basically forgotten, we basically don't see any other raiders along the way... it just feels like a missed opportunity, and, in some ways, it also makes it feel like the journey wasn't that hard, which shouldn't be the case.
About the movie, I liked it. I think it hit many emotional notes - just like season 1 did - but it also has some of the same problems. Layer 5 feels like it should've been something really important, and then we rushed through it. The 5th layer experience is basically about Bondrewd and the effects of his actions on Nanachi, which I appreciated. But surely we could've learned more about that world. How did it get to that point? Who built that stuff? Was Bondrewd a trailblazer of that layer? What about the politics behind it? Which also reminds me... will we ever even hear about the people on the surface ever again? Were they really just a 2-episode thing?
And then comes season 2. I won't go deep into the details about its story. It was interesting, and I overall enjoyed it, but I believe it was much weaker than season 1.
It just feels a bit too messy. We finally get to such an important layer, and the story is all about a "different" society. Sure, I appreciate it. But then the society is over by the end of it, which makes it feel... a bit pointless? The layer existed before the society. Will this be all about the layer again? This feels like some sort of hangover from the fast pace of earlier moments in the story. We just skydived to layer 6 and now here's this big ass side story which will also end here. I was loving the idea of seeing the first humans to get to that point, but their dive happened in the blink of an eye, and, well, there are some points which I didn't even fully understand (such as why or how so many hollows got to that society, and why Lyza was unaffected by entering the membrane). Faputa is also too uninteresting if compared to the original crew, but this is subjective.
I have no idea what the next steps are - I hear that the next movie will likely catch up to the manga, and I wouldn't be surprised if the authors might be a bit confused about what to do. I'll keep watching Made in Abyss and it has a special place in my heart, but it feels like it will also forever be a "what if" when it comes to such a uniquely perfect concept that unfortunately could've been much more thoroughly explored.