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<p>[QUOTE="Drathnoxis, post: 13885, member: 212"]</p><p><u>Talking forever about Iruburu.</u></p><p></p><p>The Iruburu arc is a bit of a different beast compared with what has come before in Made in Abyss. Not only is it nearly as long as the rest of the prior story combined, but it's quite different in many ways in terms of setting, atmosphere, and characters. Unfortunately, to me it feels like a departure from much of what I enjoyed about Made in Abyss. There were some aspects to enjoy, for sure, but on the whole I feel like it is a marked decline from what has come before.</p><p></p><p>Let's start by talking about the atmosphere. Until now, it has mainly been one of children exploring a world so ancient and decayed that it's origins are unknowable. The world is unforgiving and hostile, despite being beautiful, and it doesn't pull it's punches towards anyone small and defenseless. We've spent much of the story thus far focusing on the curse, artifacts, and the Abyss in general. However, Iruburu is quite different. First off, it's not so much a hostile world, but instead a perverted one. The series up until now has had its share of kinks, but for the most part it's been occasional and they haven't seemed overly out of place in the context of the story. Iruburu is the time when I started seriously wondering whether Tsukushi is simply satisfying his own kinks or is actually drawing on fetish culture as inspiration to give his story a feeling of weirdness. It's present to that extent. The residents of the village are all defined by their fetish (or desires, as the characters put it), so much so that they actually represent them visually. You've got the guy that likes putting tubes through his body, and the guy that likes being walked on, you've even got a toilet that's actually a person with coprophilia. Heck, Juroimoh, pulls a dick sword out of the vagina on his chest surrounded by sharpie arrows that are only missing the words "insert here".</p><p>[spoiler]</p><p>[ATTACH type="full" alt="210"]210[/ATTACH]</p><p>(Jesus Christ! Also second prolapse of the arc...)[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>I could go on for a while detailing the fringe fetishes that get representation, but suffice it to say that there's a lot. There is so much fetish theming and imagery that I just have to start wondering what I'm even reading. The most pressing threat facing our protagonists in the village is that they will be sexually assaulted by the villagers (which happens twice).</p><p></p><p>Next point, is that the curse is not even present throughout most of the arc. Now this is rather inevitable, due to how the world has been constructed. Once we hit the irreversible symptoms there simply isn't any other plausible way to have a story revolve around staying close to a fixed location other than to ditch the sprawling, tumbling landscape we've seen of the 6th layer and set it in a flat plane. It's simply implausible that the characters could live in a world such as we've seen without ever ascending as little as 10m. Other than removing the curse, the story would have to focus on a constant descent, and we can simply look at Star Trek: Voyager for an example of how well it works when you try to have recurring characters and conflicts while your protagonists are making a constant journey in one direction. Now whether or not it is necessary, removing the ever present threat of the curse from hanging over Riko's head certainly changes the feel of the story.</p><p></p><p>Lastly, we learn the origins of the village, and it's not really related to the ancient origins of the Abyss, not in any direct sense. We hear the story of its creation in full, which is a bit of a first for the series. Now, solving mysteries is a good and necessary part of a story, but it's undeniable there is a difference in tone between a mysterious place with an unsolvable mystery and a place with clearly defined origins.</p><p></p><p>That brings me to looking at the world building of the village specifically. Unfortunately, the origins of Iruburu don't really make much sense or fit in with much of our introduction to the village. Seriously, what's with all the perverts? These are all people that were both skilled and driven enough to make it down to layer 6 of the Abyss. The longing of delvers to find the answers at the bottom of the Abyss is well established by this point. So how does the guy who's biggest desire is for someone to take a dump in his mouth fit into that personality type? I bet he could have found someone to do that on the surface. Where does the balancing come into effect? It's just a thing that starts happening, but as far as I can tell it doesn't have anything to do with anything that Irumyuui wished for or desired. I can't really work it in with Wazukyan either if we are to assume that he actually got a wish off and didn't just blow his arm apart in the attempt. Wazukyan wanted to keep exploring the Abyss, how does a value based economy help with that? Yeah, it's convenient to have a self enforcing set of rules so you don't need to establish a police force, and it certainly makes the village unique in the way it operates, but it doesn't really help with any of the established goals of any of the characters involved in the creation of Iruburu. Why/how are Irumyuui's dead/unborn 'children' carrying out the balancing? Why do they care if Meinya gets its butt squeezed out? If anything would have made sense it would be that all of Ganja should have been balanced to death for eating Irumyuui's 'children', but instead they were just made into (ageless?) hollows that match their personalities. The balancing can also apparently be used to replicate anything or anyone for some reason, as we see with the perfect copy of Mitty, right down to her soul. Especially since all of the wish granting eggs have been inside Faputa since shortly after Iruburu's creation this whole aspect of the village really has no justification or origin beyond 'activity and value' somehow making everything possible. It feels very flimsy in contrast with the world building we've previously seen throughout the story. We can also group in literal wish granting artifacts in the same category. Personally I'm not a fan of plot devices that can make anything happen 'just because', but these eggs are a particularly egregious example. Not only are they really plentiful (Ganja easily gathers at least 6), but they apparently aren't even single use items and can be used and re-used as the plot demands as is seen in the creation of Faputa. It kind of kills the mystery of the Abyss somewhat because now the answer to everything can simply be 'wishes made it happen,' and, in fact, it's kind of necessary that it is, at least partially, to explain their existence. It's also just far too early for wish granting in my opinion. If anything the wish granting artifacts should have been at the very bottom, because wishes are kind of hard to top, even if they are rather difficult to use wishes.</p><p></p><p>Now let's take a look at how the Iruburu arc utilizes our protagonists. To a large extent our main trio are secondary to the plot of this arc, the plot mainly revolving around the creation of the village and Faputa's conflict with it. Nanachi especially is hard done by, spending the majority of the time sleeping, but let's not forget that the entirety of volume 8, save a couple pages, consists of flashbacks giving backgrounds to the new characters introduced this arc. It kind of blows my mind that the story is being told in a way so divorced from our protagonists. Now, Tsukushi has always relied on flashbacks to flesh out new characters to a certain extent, but the Iruburu arc really takes it to an entirely new level. It really gives me the impression that Tsukushi was kind of burned out on the initial plot and characters that he planned out for Made in Abyss and just wanted to tell a different story consisting of new characters, but due to obligations he had to work it into MIA.</p><p></p><p>To start with, let's see what Nanachi gets up to during her time in Iruburu. It's pretty clear that Tsukushi just doesn't know what to do with her anymore, because like I stated above, she spends most of the page count either asleep or re-hashing her Mitty plotline. However, as I've already [discussed the Mitty clone at length], I'll suffice it to say that I don't think it was a fantastic use of her character. Near the end of her arc when she wakes up we learn that Belaf had been having her breathe in his memories the entire time, and, hold on, this is quite a strange plot point. It's understandable why Tsukushi felt the need to write this, as she's been asleep for over 2 1/2 volumes Nanachi is rather out of the loop on the current events of the arc. However, as it's written, it feels very contrived. Why is this even something that Belaf can do? We know his origins, and magic memory transfer hadn't been a part of it. As is typical in Iruburu, narratively convenient things are just possible, further explanation unnecessary. Probably something resulting from the wish granting eggs that are no longer even present in the village. Anyway, the important thing is that Nanachi is now up to speed and can inveigle a stake in the plot vicariously through Belaf's memories. As much as I like Nanachi and want her to be involved and useful, the whole thing feels like blatant pandering. When she shows up in her brand new armor, tossing out one liners like a shonen protagonist with a fresh power up, it feels completely undeserved, and comes across as an attempt to trick the reader into believing Nanachi actually has a role to play here. She doesn't.</p><p></p><p>Next up, Reg. Reg undeniably has the most ties to the plot out of our trio, having previously been in layer 6 and spending an undefined amount of time with Faputa. At first this seems like a pretty big revelation, and we expect that we are going to finally going to answer some of the mysteries of his past, but in the end we don't really learn much of anything. We learn that before he lost his memories he was still kind and pretty much the same as he is now, except he used to wear a bra on his helmet. Faputa is not involved in his goals and he doesn't share them with her. The flashbacks really only serve the current arc and characters without developing Reg at all. Apart from this Reg mainly spends the rest of the arc getting beaten up and abused, mainly by Faputa, but some other creatures get their kicks in too. He also gets a cool looking transformation, furthering the series' slide into shonen territory that had started in the Bondrewd arc. You'd think there'd be more to say about Reg's involvement in the arc, but flashbacks and abuse are pretty much the extent of it, as his mission to save Nanachi comes to something of a dead end and resolves itself without his involvement.</p><p></p><p>Riko. Riko comes off a bit better in this arc than the rest of our trio. While she isn't exactly inextricable from the plot, she is at least involved and, more importantly, gets a couple moments to shine on her own without being overshadowed by Reg or Nananchi. I suspect this is part of the reason that Nanachi was sidelined here. Since her introduction, Nanachi had taken on something of a leadership role over the party (despite her own claims otherwise), providing knowledge about threats present in the Abyss and formulating strategies. Unfortunately, this had previously been Riko's role, but Nanachi handles it much more capably. However, with Nanachi taking a leave of absence, and Reg running back and forth across the map, Riko needs to fend for herself (somewhat) and take charge of the situation. She organizes the offensive against the goo monster during the luring and saves the village from destruction (of its own making). This is pretty much her high point during the arc, and unfortunately, due to later events, it doesn't really end up mattering a whole lot. Riko also gets her white whistle allowing her to power up Reg at great strain to herself. This is good as it allows her to be more directly involved in fights, albeit still in a supporting role. Riko is also the most involved in the village of the current day, and for the duration of the plot that focuses on it she feels relevant. Despite a rocky start, Riko once again utilizes her odd sensibilities to form bonds with this village of perverts. We can add sexual assault to the list of things that slide off Riko like water from a duck. Apparently, almost being raped in an alley isn't enough to dampen Riko's impression of a place. While it lasts, it's fun enough to see Riko exploring a new culture, and making friends with weirdos (despite the fact that most of the characters she befriends are neither very interesting or well defined). The big hitch is that by the end of the arc the village is destroyed and everybody that was introduced dies rather pointlessly. This makes most of the time we spent exploring it with Riko feel kind of meaningless. Riko has 3 main goals throughout the arc, those are to recover Prushka (which she does early and quite easily), to save Nanachi from Belaf (which happens unrelated to Riko's actions), and to protect the village (which she ultimately fails at). In the end of the arc, like the rest of our trio Riko moves on, not having really accomplished anything, nor having grown much through her ordeals. Will she even so much as be a little more careful about what rotting disgusting food she puts in her mouth going forward? I kind of doubt it. She has a new whistle, but that's about it.</p><p></p><p>Prushka. Prushka was a rock, and becomes a whistle. Pure character development.</p><p></p><p>Now we come to our new cast of characters: Vueko, Belaf, Irumyuui, Wazukyan, and Faputa. These are the real movers of the plot in the Irumyuui arc, their goals and actions directly impacting the creation and destruction of the village. Like I said before, their backstory takes up an entire volume, and unfortunately, I didn't find it especially compelling. We'll leave Faputa alone for now, so as to take a proper run at her later, and deal with the rest of Ganja together, mostly, because I don't have too much to say about any of them in particular (save one). Despite spending so much time on their backstory, I didn't really feel attachment for anyone in Ganja, they felt disposable for the most part. This is exemplified by how their group always seems to be about the same size despite losing members constantly. There was only the one small ship of theirs that actually made it to the Abyss, but they seem to be able to absorb infinite losses. Actually, I'm not sure how these guys were able to make it through the first 5 layers based on what we see of their performance. Obviously the named characters get a bit more depth, but I still never really felt like I cared about their journey. Probably because despite being interminable in length, as far as flashbacks go, it was still rather short to develop 4 new characters and deal with all the events that it tries to include. Also, it's never great for the pacing of your story to interrupt it mid-stride to tell a different story, I'll admit that I initially read through volume 8 with a bit of impatience for getting back to finding a solution to save Nanachi.</p><p></p><p>Ganja, more than anything feels like they were introduced to be tragedy porn. This is something I see Made in Abyss accused of from time to time, but for the most part the tragedy has served to enhance the plot and add depth to the characters. When Riko gets poisoned by the Orb Piercer, it worked because we'd already come to love Riko over 3 volumes focusing on her, and despite being suddenly thrust into a life-threatening situation, it felt very grounded and real, and the subsequent recuperation made our characters feel vulnerable. When I saw Irumyuui twisted into a huge monstrosity, licking the birthing fluid off of the giant hamsters she had just spewed from her chest, I'll be honest, I laughed out loud. It was just so ridiculous. Irumyuui is a character that has hardly any depth beyond 'wants a mom', and 'can't have babies' -- actually, how the heck did the villagers even know that? Honestly, the fact that this is even a major plot point for a child character is yet another uncomfortably pervy aspect of this arc. Anyway, Irumyuui comes across as a character blatantly added to the story to be a dumping ground for tragedy. It didn't feel like she was a engaging and believable character that had something terrible occur to her, it felt like her primary purpose was simply to have someone to transform into a village. Then having Vueko sitting there for eternity naming all her unborn/dead children...I don't know. I'm not sure I understand what I'm expected to be feeling, but I'm pretty sure I'm not feeling it. Why is Vueko ageless anyway? Just another Iruburism I expect. We seem to be intended to blame Wazukyan for this state of affairs, but I'm honestly not sure why. For one, his 'divine prophet' status is rather dubious. Besides the fact that he is the first instance of non-artifact related magic in the series, and we are given no origin for his powers, he doesn't actually do a very good job guiding Ganja for someone with supposed foresight. To me he seems nothing more than a charismatic cult leader who has made it this far with luck and good intuition. Second, he made the right choice. When Irumyuui was popping out babbies day after day, and everybody was complaining how they were starving to death, eating the hamsters were my thoughts exactly. They only live a day and show no sign of sapience, and aren't even really Irumyuui's children. They are products of the magic rock in her chest and have no connection otherwise to Irumyuui, neither genetically, mentally, nor does she even carry them for a very great period of time. That she claims them as her own and protests their injury is solely a product of her childish ignorance and deranged state of mind. The point is that she messed up the wish, and Wazukyan simply made the best of a bad situation. It only makes sense to take advantage of a source of infinite resources.</p><p></p><p>Before moving away from Ganja, I want to take a closer look at Belaf in particular. He is the most inconsistent character of the lot and almost makes me feel that Tsukushi hadn't properly planned out the arc and was simply writing by the seat of his pants, Toriyama style. When Nanachi first meets Belaf he's been happily sucking on Mitty for years, he loves it! He just can't get enough of eating Mitty. Along with the whole body part trade that seems prevalent in Iruburu you get the impression that this is how Belaf became so big and powerful. Since you can trade yourself for the creation of seemingly anything in existence Belaf the reverse must be true and Belaf became so big and had gotten so many limbs through the accrual of much value or much consumption. The only way trading for Mitty makes sense is if he consumes her long enough he will be able to regrow or re-buy his limbs, length, and sensory organs. But no, Belaf was always huge, we see that when he's transformed. It wasn't a gradual accumulation of power that made him a sage, he's just a sage because he's a sage and he always was. Okay, so why does he want to suck on Mitty all day long? Food doesn't seem to be particularly short in Iruburu, and even if Mitty tastes really, really good, he wouldn't have known that before trading half his body and all his limbs for her. Beyond that how can we reconcile this with Belaf's character as (soon to be) previously shown? Belaf is an upstanding, moral individual who is diametrically opposed to anything resembling cannibalism. He begs to be left to die rather than forced to continue eating Irumyuui's children. He admits that he cannot resist eating when it is given to him, but shows a more violent revulsion and guilt than anybody else in Ganja, Vueko included. This is the person who is now eating out Mitty day in and day out? I understand that he doesn't have his memories, but he's just a completely different person. Now there is an argument to be made for the fact that we are all products of our experiences, and if the slate were to be completely wiped clean we may act in a way that yesterday would have appalled us. However, this is in opposition to what we see with Reg, and doesn't seem to be a question MIA seems interested in exploring in depth. From his interactions with Faputa in the past, we can see that Reg is pretty much the same person without his memories as he was before. So why is Belaf the way he is? Aside from the fact that <em>someone</em> had to eat Mitty and barter for Nanachi and Riko to drive the plot, I don't think that there is a good explanation. This is further supported by the fact that once Faputa enters Iruburu he somehow gets his memories back for no reason at all, and promptly does a complete 180 on his initial characterization, lines himself up with his flashback characterization and just lets Nanachi and Mitty go for free. Then he goes and commits suicide, because killing yourself had become the popular trend in Iruburu and everybody was doing it.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, everybody in the manga seems to be under the impression that she is simply a misunderstood protagonist, and this is where the bottom falls out of an already unfocused and poorly constructed arc. Everybody is wearing kid gloves around her, even when she's going on a murderous rampage, it's so bizarre. Let's take a moment (or longer) and catalogue her offences. She stabs Reg in the belly-button for no reason at all. Right off the bat, in our very introduction to her no less. Reg quickly decides that this isn't the sort of person he can trust and that he'd like to have nothing else to do with this psycho... for about 5 minutes, then he thinks "ah, it's not so bad, what's a little shocking body horror between friends?" Next we need to jump forward a couple volumes to just before her massacre, she rips off her own ear and arm in order to force him into agreeing to help her commit genocide. She won't even tell him her terms before she's maimed herself. How can Reg possibly refuse her now? Now as far as her crimes go, this is lower down on the list, but we may as well be thorough. It's plain manipulative and definitely dirty dealing. Next, and now we're getting into the real meat, she massacres the villagers. I don't even think they understand that she intends to murder them, because they adore her (for some reason) and seem to be cheering as she arrives. It's a pure slaughter too, all of the villagers together don't have a hope of resistance, it's like turning a tiger loose in a kindergarten. Next, when Reg wakes up 2 hours into her genocidal rampage he attempts to stop her, because he's a nice guy like that. While Reg is obviously holding back, and mostly trying to talk her out of it (like that's going to work), she shoves her arm down his throat and pummels him from the inside while he flails around like a grasshopper impaled on a fishing hook. Seriously, this is easily the second hardest to watch scene involving Reg, and considering what he's been through, that's saying a lot! Once she's done deep throat-and-stomaching Reg, his response is:</p><p></p><p>[spoiler][ATTACH type="full" alt="211"]211[/ATTACH][/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Seriously, he reacts like she just farted in his face or something, not brutally assaulted him in an uncommonly horrific manner. It's fine though because he has some vague memory of her smiling or something. Then she chokes him until he passes out. Next she works herself into a jealous rage (in addition to the genocidal rage) and tries to murder Riko. Luckily, her best friend and guardian takes the nearly fatal blow instead. Haha, whoops, what a scamp that Faputa is! Faputa, having had a nice break mutilating her friends, is raring for some more genocide and starts with Belaf. Belaf, letting Faputa kill him, gives her his memories too (seriously, why can he do this?). Faputa seeing how kind Belaf and everybody was to Irumyuui and all the struggles they went through together realizes... not much of anything really, but she would really appreciate it if people would stop trying to make her feel guilty for little things like murder. Anyway, Belaf says some comforting things to the person that just killed him in cold blood, then dies. Now the abyssal beasts start storming the village and begin massacring the villagers and this <em>really</em> ticks Faputa off, not because Belaf's memories have changed her outlook and made her no longer want to murder everyone, but because <em>they are killing the people SHE wants to kill!</em> She then starts fighting the beasts and gets torn to shreds in a way I personally found to be satisfying comeuppance. Then a weird thing happens. The remaining villagers (how are there any left at this point?) start to show up around Faputa and begin... feeding themselves to her, to heal her. So, Reg's reactions have been really strange, but this is on a completely new level. This is as good a time to talk about it as I'll get, but the villagers actions are just incomprehensible in a way that makes them completely unrelateable. Nobody seems to have any self preservation instinct. Earlier, the little hollows that were surrounding the sleeping Nanachi walk through the barrier and pointlessly kill themselves in order to give her some new armor and now we have the little vore orgy around Faputa. I can understand giving your life to protect something you value, I can understand giving into despair and desiring a quick end to pain, I can't understand what's going on here. They don't care about their lives in a way that is completely alien to me. They seem to still love Faputa for absolutely no reason at all.</p><p></p><p>[spoiler]</p><p>[ATTACH type="full" alt="212"]212[/ATTACH]</p><p>(I don't know either Moogie, and that's the problem.)[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>I can't relate to any of their actions and I can't care about their lives if they don't. And you know what? I think that was Tsukushi's intention. He wanted Faputa to commit atrocities, but he also wanted her to be a protagonist, so he needed her to genocide a race of people that weren't all that bothered with being genocided. It's gross. Anyway, now that Faputa is all healed up again from the sacrifice of the villagers she kills the beasts while protecting the the few villagers remain-- whoops! As if. I meant to say she kills the beasts while <em>eating</em> the few villagers remaining. And then Reg asks her to join their group. Yeaaaahhhh...</p><p></p><p>Ok, so Faputa has done awful, terrible, abhorrent things, but it's all justified in some way. Apparently. Well, you see Ganja, despite doing only what was absolutely necessary for their survival, did eat Irumyuui's mutant spawn, so they are just getting their just desserts right? Well, if the villagers actually consisted of mostly Ganja you might have a point (kind of, but not really.) Except, what language does Ganja speak? The common language, same as Riko, right? Ok, and what's the primary language in the village? Irumyuui's language, and in fact, most villagers don't even <em>understand</em> the common language. We only see Maja Kaja and Moogie speak it, and they are clearly not Ganja either. This means that the majority of the villagers are completely innocent of the only crime Faputa has any right for revenge over. In fact, most of the villagers were probably from the same village as Irumyuui, at least that's the only explanation I can see as to how the primary language would shift to what it is. So robbed of any moral justification, what other reason is there for Faputa's genocide? Just that it is a part of her nature to want to destroy the village. But why is it? Irumyuui's wish was responsible for the creation of the village, and even if there was somehow interference from Wazukyan's attempted wish, surely it was within her ability to simply balance them out of existence rather than to give them new ageless hollow forms, as much as it was within her ability to create Faputa. Beyond that, is something being part of one's nature blanket justification to commit crimes? Racism is a natural part of human nature, should we just allow bigots to do whatever they please because it's part of their nature? Should we allow pedophiles to abuse children whenever they want because it's part of their nature? Or do we expect them to suppress those aspects of themselves, and behave in the responsible and moral manner that they are capable of as reasoning beings. Faputa is no less. We are told that she is incredibly intelligent (as well as strong, immortal, curse immune, and capable of talking to magic rocks. A bit much, no?), and must be capable of rational thought and reason. If we are to accept her as a protagonist, how can we rationalize her remorseless slaughter? We can't, or rather, I can't. Faputa is a villain as far as I am concerned, and just the thought of her accompanying Team Riko further into the Abyss like nothing has happened fills me with disgust. Her actions have been absolutely irredeemable, and to see her get off free of charge and be welcomed with open arms is simply too much. I couldn't accept Vegeta shacking up with Bulma and I can't accept this, guess I have some weird hang-up about mass murderers. I could have lived with the Iruburu arc, flaws and all, but Faputa is reason enough for me to drop the manga, and I don't care how good her butt smells.</p><p></p><p>And that's it. That's all I have to say about Iruburu. I'm sad that the series has gone in the direction it has, because I honestly feel that up to the end of Layer 4 Made in Abyss was one of the most well written mangas that I've read (ok, I haven't read that many so it's not a super high bar). But after Iruburu, I really feel like it's not the series I thought it was, and it's not really for me. Anyway, I did like it enough to write over 10k words getting my thoughts ordered on it, so that's something.</p><p>[/QUOTE]</p>
[QUOTE="Drathnoxis, post: 13885, member: 212"] [U]Talking forever about Iruburu.[/U] The Iruburu arc is a bit of a different beast compared with what has come before in Made in Abyss. Not only is it nearly as long as the rest of the prior story combined, but it's quite different in many ways in terms of setting, atmosphere, and characters. Unfortunately, to me it feels like a departure from much of what I enjoyed about Made in Abyss. There were some aspects to enjoy, for sure, but on the whole I feel like it is a marked decline from what has come before. Let's start by talking about the atmosphere. Until now, it has mainly been one of children exploring a world so ancient and decayed that it's origins are unknowable. The world is unforgiving and hostile, despite being beautiful, and it doesn't pull it's punches towards anyone small and defenseless. We've spent much of the story thus far focusing on the curse, artifacts, and the Abyss in general. However, Iruburu is quite different. First off, it's not so much a hostile world, but instead a perverted one. The series up until now has had its share of kinks, but for the most part it's been occasional and they haven't seemed overly out of place in the context of the story. Iruburu is the time when I started seriously wondering whether Tsukushi is simply satisfying his own kinks or is actually drawing on fetish culture as inspiration to give his story a feeling of weirdness. It's present to that extent. The residents of the village are all defined by their fetish (or desires, as the characters put it), so much so that they actually represent them visually. You've got the guy that likes putting tubes through his body, and the guy that likes being walked on, you've even got a toilet that's actually a person with coprophilia. Heck, Juroimoh, pulls a dick sword out of the vagina on his chest surrounded by sharpie arrows that are only missing the words "insert here". [spoiler] [ATTACH type="full" alt="210"]210[/ATTACH] (Jesus Christ! Also second prolapse of the arc...)[/spoiler] I could go on for a while detailing the fringe fetishes that get representation, but suffice it to say that there's a lot. There is so much fetish theming and imagery that I just have to start wondering what I'm even reading. The most pressing threat facing our protagonists in the village is that they will be sexually assaulted by the villagers (which happens twice). Next point, is that the curse is not even present throughout most of the arc. Now this is rather inevitable, due to how the world has been constructed. Once we hit the irreversible symptoms there simply isn't any other plausible way to have a story revolve around staying close to a fixed location other than to ditch the sprawling, tumbling landscape we've seen of the 6th layer and set it in a flat plane. It's simply implausible that the characters could live in a world such as we've seen without ever ascending as little as 10m. Other than removing the curse, the story would have to focus on a constant descent, and we can simply look at Star Trek: Voyager for an example of how well it works when you try to have recurring characters and conflicts while your protagonists are making a constant journey in one direction. Now whether or not it is necessary, removing the ever present threat of the curse from hanging over Riko's head certainly changes the feel of the story. Lastly, we learn the origins of the village, and it's not really related to the ancient origins of the Abyss, not in any direct sense. We hear the story of its creation in full, which is a bit of a first for the series. Now, solving mysteries is a good and necessary part of a story, but it's undeniable there is a difference in tone between a mysterious place with an unsolvable mystery and a place with clearly defined origins. That brings me to looking at the world building of the village specifically. Unfortunately, the origins of Iruburu don't really make much sense or fit in with much of our introduction to the village. Seriously, what's with all the perverts? These are all people that were both skilled and driven enough to make it down to layer 6 of the Abyss. The longing of delvers to find the answers at the bottom of the Abyss is well established by this point. So how does the guy who's biggest desire is for someone to take a dump in his mouth fit into that personality type? I bet he could have found someone to do that on the surface. Where does the balancing come into effect? It's just a thing that starts happening, but as far as I can tell it doesn't have anything to do with anything that Irumyuui wished for or desired. I can't really work it in with Wazukyan either if we are to assume that he actually got a wish off and didn't just blow his arm apart in the attempt. Wazukyan wanted to keep exploring the Abyss, how does a value based economy help with that? Yeah, it's convenient to have a self enforcing set of rules so you don't need to establish a police force, and it certainly makes the village unique in the way it operates, but it doesn't really help with any of the established goals of any of the characters involved in the creation of Iruburu. Why/how are Irumyuui's dead/unborn 'children' carrying out the balancing? Why do they care if Meinya gets its butt squeezed out? If anything would have made sense it would be that all of Ganja should have been balanced to death for eating Irumyuui's 'children', but instead they were just made into (ageless?) hollows that match their personalities. The balancing can also apparently be used to replicate anything or anyone for some reason, as we see with the perfect copy of Mitty, right down to her soul. Especially since all of the wish granting eggs have been inside Faputa since shortly after Iruburu's creation this whole aspect of the village really has no justification or origin beyond 'activity and value' somehow making everything possible. It feels very flimsy in contrast with the world building we've previously seen throughout the story. We can also group in literal wish granting artifacts in the same category. Personally I'm not a fan of plot devices that can make anything happen 'just because', but these eggs are a particularly egregious example. Not only are they really plentiful (Ganja easily gathers at least 6), but they apparently aren't even single use items and can be used and re-used as the plot demands as is seen in the creation of Faputa. It kind of kills the mystery of the Abyss somewhat because now the answer to everything can simply be 'wishes made it happen,' and, in fact, it's kind of necessary that it is, at least partially, to explain their existence. It's also just far too early for wish granting in my opinion. If anything the wish granting artifacts should have been at the very bottom, because wishes are kind of hard to top, even if they are rather difficult to use wishes. Now let's take a look at how the Iruburu arc utilizes our protagonists. To a large extent our main trio are secondary to the plot of this arc, the plot mainly revolving around the creation of the village and Faputa's conflict with it. Nanachi especially is hard done by, spending the majority of the time sleeping, but let's not forget that the entirety of volume 8, save a couple pages, consists of flashbacks giving backgrounds to the new characters introduced this arc. It kind of blows my mind that the story is being told in a way so divorced from our protagonists. Now, Tsukushi has always relied on flashbacks to flesh out new characters to a certain extent, but the Iruburu arc really takes it to an entirely new level. It really gives me the impression that Tsukushi was kind of burned out on the initial plot and characters that he planned out for Made in Abyss and just wanted to tell a different story consisting of new characters, but due to obligations he had to work it into MIA. To start with, let's see what Nanachi gets up to during her time in Iruburu. It's pretty clear that Tsukushi just doesn't know what to do with her anymore, because like I stated above, she spends most of the page count either asleep or re-hashing her Mitty plotline. However, as I've already [discussed the Mitty clone at length], I'll suffice it to say that I don't think it was a fantastic use of her character. Near the end of her arc when she wakes up we learn that Belaf had been having her breathe in his memories the entire time, and, hold on, this is quite a strange plot point. It's understandable why Tsukushi felt the need to write this, as she's been asleep for over 2 1/2 volumes Nanachi is rather out of the loop on the current events of the arc. However, as it's written, it feels very contrived. Why is this even something that Belaf can do? We know his origins, and magic memory transfer hadn't been a part of it. As is typical in Iruburu, narratively convenient things are just possible, further explanation unnecessary. Probably something resulting from the wish granting eggs that are no longer even present in the village. Anyway, the important thing is that Nanachi is now up to speed and can inveigle a stake in the plot vicariously through Belaf's memories. As much as I like Nanachi and want her to be involved and useful, the whole thing feels like blatant pandering. When she shows up in her brand new armor, tossing out one liners like a shonen protagonist with a fresh power up, it feels completely undeserved, and comes across as an attempt to trick the reader into believing Nanachi actually has a role to play here. She doesn't. Next up, Reg. Reg undeniably has the most ties to the plot out of our trio, having previously been in layer 6 and spending an undefined amount of time with Faputa. At first this seems like a pretty big revelation, and we expect that we are going to finally going to answer some of the mysteries of his past, but in the end we don't really learn much of anything. We learn that before he lost his memories he was still kind and pretty much the same as he is now, except he used to wear a bra on his helmet. Faputa is not involved in his goals and he doesn't share them with her. The flashbacks really only serve the current arc and characters without developing Reg at all. Apart from this Reg mainly spends the rest of the arc getting beaten up and abused, mainly by Faputa, but some other creatures get their kicks in too. He also gets a cool looking transformation, furthering the series' slide into shonen territory that had started in the Bondrewd arc. You'd think there'd be more to say about Reg's involvement in the arc, but flashbacks and abuse are pretty much the extent of it, as his mission to save Nanachi comes to something of a dead end and resolves itself without his involvement. Riko. Riko comes off a bit better in this arc than the rest of our trio. While she isn't exactly inextricable from the plot, she is at least involved and, more importantly, gets a couple moments to shine on her own without being overshadowed by Reg or Nananchi. I suspect this is part of the reason that Nanachi was sidelined here. Since her introduction, Nanachi had taken on something of a leadership role over the party (despite her own claims otherwise), providing knowledge about threats present in the Abyss and formulating strategies. Unfortunately, this had previously been Riko's role, but Nanachi handles it much more capably. However, with Nanachi taking a leave of absence, and Reg running back and forth across the map, Riko needs to fend for herself (somewhat) and take charge of the situation. She organizes the offensive against the goo monster during the luring and saves the village from destruction (of its own making). This is pretty much her high point during the arc, and unfortunately, due to later events, it doesn't really end up mattering a whole lot. Riko also gets her white whistle allowing her to power up Reg at great strain to herself. This is good as it allows her to be more directly involved in fights, albeit still in a supporting role. Riko is also the most involved in the village of the current day, and for the duration of the plot that focuses on it she feels relevant. Despite a rocky start, Riko once again utilizes her odd sensibilities to form bonds with this village of perverts. We can add sexual assault to the list of things that slide off Riko like water from a duck. Apparently, almost being raped in an alley isn't enough to dampen Riko's impression of a place. While it lasts, it's fun enough to see Riko exploring a new culture, and making friends with weirdos (despite the fact that most of the characters she befriends are neither very interesting or well defined). The big hitch is that by the end of the arc the village is destroyed and everybody that was introduced dies rather pointlessly. This makes most of the time we spent exploring it with Riko feel kind of meaningless. Riko has 3 main goals throughout the arc, those are to recover Prushka (which she does early and quite easily), to save Nanachi from Belaf (which happens unrelated to Riko's actions), and to protect the village (which she ultimately fails at). In the end of the arc, like the rest of our trio Riko moves on, not having really accomplished anything, nor having grown much through her ordeals. Will she even so much as be a little more careful about what rotting disgusting food she puts in her mouth going forward? I kind of doubt it. She has a new whistle, but that's about it. Prushka. Prushka was a rock, and becomes a whistle. Pure character development. Now we come to our new cast of characters: Vueko, Belaf, Irumyuui, Wazukyan, and Faputa. These are the real movers of the plot in the Irumyuui arc, their goals and actions directly impacting the creation and destruction of the village. Like I said before, their backstory takes up an entire volume, and unfortunately, I didn't find it especially compelling. We'll leave Faputa alone for now, so as to take a proper run at her later, and deal with the rest of Ganja together, mostly, because I don't have too much to say about any of them in particular (save one). Despite spending so much time on their backstory, I didn't really feel attachment for anyone in Ganja, they felt disposable for the most part. This is exemplified by how their group always seems to be about the same size despite losing members constantly. There was only the one small ship of theirs that actually made it to the Abyss, but they seem to be able to absorb infinite losses. Actually, I'm not sure how these guys were able to make it through the first 5 layers based on what we see of their performance. Obviously the named characters get a bit more depth, but I still never really felt like I cared about their journey. Probably because despite being interminable in length, as far as flashbacks go, it was still rather short to develop 4 new characters and deal with all the events that it tries to include. Also, it's never great for the pacing of your story to interrupt it mid-stride to tell a different story, I'll admit that I initially read through volume 8 with a bit of impatience for getting back to finding a solution to save Nanachi. Ganja, more than anything feels like they were introduced to be tragedy porn. This is something I see Made in Abyss accused of from time to time, but for the most part the tragedy has served to enhance the plot and add depth to the characters. When Riko gets poisoned by the Orb Piercer, it worked because we'd already come to love Riko over 3 volumes focusing on her, and despite being suddenly thrust into a life-threatening situation, it felt very grounded and real, and the subsequent recuperation made our characters feel vulnerable. When I saw Irumyuui twisted into a huge monstrosity, licking the birthing fluid off of the giant hamsters she had just spewed from her chest, I'll be honest, I laughed out loud. It was just so ridiculous. Irumyuui is a character that has hardly any depth beyond 'wants a mom', and 'can't have babies' -- actually, how the heck did the villagers even know that? Honestly, the fact that this is even a major plot point for a child character is yet another uncomfortably pervy aspect of this arc. Anyway, Irumyuui comes across as a character blatantly added to the story to be a dumping ground for tragedy. It didn't feel like she was a engaging and believable character that had something terrible occur to her, it felt like her primary purpose was simply to have someone to transform into a village. Then having Vueko sitting there for eternity naming all her unborn/dead children...I don't know. I'm not sure I understand what I'm expected to be feeling, but I'm pretty sure I'm not feeling it. Why is Vueko ageless anyway? Just another Iruburism I expect. We seem to be intended to blame Wazukyan for this state of affairs, but I'm honestly not sure why. For one, his 'divine prophet' status is rather dubious. Besides the fact that he is the first instance of non-artifact related magic in the series, and we are given no origin for his powers, he doesn't actually do a very good job guiding Ganja for someone with supposed foresight. To me he seems nothing more than a charismatic cult leader who has made it this far with luck and good intuition. Second, he made the right choice. When Irumyuui was popping out babbies day after day, and everybody was complaining how they were starving to death, eating the hamsters were my thoughts exactly. They only live a day and show no sign of sapience, and aren't even really Irumyuui's children. They are products of the magic rock in her chest and have no connection otherwise to Irumyuui, neither genetically, mentally, nor does she even carry them for a very great period of time. That she claims them as her own and protests their injury is solely a product of her childish ignorance and deranged state of mind. The point is that she messed up the wish, and Wazukyan simply made the best of a bad situation. It only makes sense to take advantage of a source of infinite resources. Before moving away from Ganja, I want to take a closer look at Belaf in particular. He is the most inconsistent character of the lot and almost makes me feel that Tsukushi hadn't properly planned out the arc and was simply writing by the seat of his pants, Toriyama style. When Nanachi first meets Belaf he's been happily sucking on Mitty for years, he loves it! He just can't get enough of eating Mitty. Along with the whole body part trade that seems prevalent in Iruburu you get the impression that this is how Belaf became so big and powerful. Since you can trade yourself for the creation of seemingly anything in existence Belaf the reverse must be true and Belaf became so big and had gotten so many limbs through the accrual of much value or much consumption. The only way trading for Mitty makes sense is if he consumes her long enough he will be able to regrow or re-buy his limbs, length, and sensory organs. But no, Belaf was always huge, we see that when he's transformed. It wasn't a gradual accumulation of power that made him a sage, he's just a sage because he's a sage and he always was. Okay, so why does he want to suck on Mitty all day long? Food doesn't seem to be particularly short in Iruburu, and even if Mitty tastes really, really good, he wouldn't have known that before trading half his body and all his limbs for her. Beyond that how can we reconcile this with Belaf's character as (soon to be) previously shown? Belaf is an upstanding, moral individual who is diametrically opposed to anything resembling cannibalism. He begs to be left to die rather than forced to continue eating Irumyuui's children. He admits that he cannot resist eating when it is given to him, but shows a more violent revulsion and guilt than anybody else in Ganja, Vueko included. This is the person who is now eating out Mitty day in and day out? I understand that he doesn't have his memories, but he's just a completely different person. Now there is an argument to be made for the fact that we are all products of our experiences, and if the slate were to be completely wiped clean we may act in a way that yesterday would have appalled us. However, this is in opposition to what we see with Reg, and doesn't seem to be a question MIA seems interested in exploring in depth. From his interactions with Faputa in the past, we can see that Reg is pretty much the same person without his memories as he was before. So why is Belaf the way he is? Aside from the fact that [I]someone[/I] had to eat Mitty and barter for Nanachi and Riko to drive the plot, I don't think that there is a good explanation. This is further supported by the fact that once Faputa enters Iruburu he somehow gets his memories back for no reason at all, and promptly does a complete 180 on his initial characterization, lines himself up with his flashback characterization and just lets Nanachi and Mitty go for free. Then he goes and commits suicide, because killing yourself had become the popular trend in Iruburu and everybody was doing it. Unfortunately, everybody in the manga seems to be under the impression that she is simply a misunderstood protagonist, and this is where the bottom falls out of an already unfocused and poorly constructed arc. Everybody is wearing kid gloves around her, even when she's going on a murderous rampage, it's so bizarre. Let's take a moment (or longer) and catalogue her offences. She stabs Reg in the belly-button for no reason at all. Right off the bat, in our very introduction to her no less. Reg quickly decides that this isn't the sort of person he can trust and that he'd like to have nothing else to do with this psycho... for about 5 minutes, then he thinks "ah, it's not so bad, what's a little shocking body horror between friends?" Next we need to jump forward a couple volumes to just before her massacre, she rips off her own ear and arm in order to force him into agreeing to help her commit genocide. She won't even tell him her terms before she's maimed herself. How can Reg possibly refuse her now? Now as far as her crimes go, this is lower down on the list, but we may as well be thorough. It's plain manipulative and definitely dirty dealing. Next, and now we're getting into the real meat, she massacres the villagers. I don't even think they understand that she intends to murder them, because they adore her (for some reason) and seem to be cheering as she arrives. It's a pure slaughter too, all of the villagers together don't have a hope of resistance, it's like turning a tiger loose in a kindergarten. Next, when Reg wakes up 2 hours into her genocidal rampage he attempts to stop her, because he's a nice guy like that. While Reg is obviously holding back, and mostly trying to talk her out of it (like that's going to work), she shoves her arm down his throat and pummels him from the inside while he flails around like a grasshopper impaled on a fishing hook. Seriously, this is easily the second hardest to watch scene involving Reg, and considering what he's been through, that's saying a lot! Once she's done deep throat-and-stomaching Reg, his response is: [spoiler][ATTACH type="full" alt="211"]211[/ATTACH][/spoiler] Seriously, he reacts like she just farted in his face or something, not brutally assaulted him in an uncommonly horrific manner. It's fine though because he has some vague memory of her smiling or something. Then she chokes him until he passes out. Next she works herself into a jealous rage (in addition to the genocidal rage) and tries to murder Riko. Luckily, her best friend and guardian takes the nearly fatal blow instead. Haha, whoops, what a scamp that Faputa is! Faputa, having had a nice break mutilating her friends, is raring for some more genocide and starts with Belaf. Belaf, letting Faputa kill him, gives her his memories too (seriously, why can he do this?). Faputa seeing how kind Belaf and everybody was to Irumyuui and all the struggles they went through together realizes... not much of anything really, but she would really appreciate it if people would stop trying to make her feel guilty for little things like murder. Anyway, Belaf says some comforting things to the person that just killed him in cold blood, then dies. Now the abyssal beasts start storming the village and begin massacring the villagers and this [I]really[/I] ticks Faputa off, not because Belaf's memories have changed her outlook and made her no longer want to murder everyone, but because [I]they are killing the people SHE wants to kill![/I] She then starts fighting the beasts and gets torn to shreds in a way I personally found to be satisfying comeuppance. Then a weird thing happens. The remaining villagers (how are there any left at this point?) start to show up around Faputa and begin... feeding themselves to her, to heal her. So, Reg's reactions have been really strange, but this is on a completely new level. This is as good a time to talk about it as I'll get, but the villagers actions are just incomprehensible in a way that makes them completely unrelateable. Nobody seems to have any self preservation instinct. Earlier, the little hollows that were surrounding the sleeping Nanachi walk through the barrier and pointlessly kill themselves in order to give her some new armor and now we have the little vore orgy around Faputa. I can understand giving your life to protect something you value, I can understand giving into despair and desiring a quick end to pain, I can't understand what's going on here. They don't care about their lives in a way that is completely alien to me. They seem to still love Faputa for absolutely no reason at all. [spoiler] [ATTACH type="full" alt="212"]212[/ATTACH] (I don't know either Moogie, and that's the problem.)[/spoiler] I can't relate to any of their actions and I can't care about their lives if they don't. And you know what? I think that was Tsukushi's intention. He wanted Faputa to commit atrocities, but he also wanted her to be a protagonist, so he needed her to genocide a race of people that weren't all that bothered with being genocided. It's gross. Anyway, now that Faputa is all healed up again from the sacrifice of the villagers she kills the beasts while protecting the the few villagers remain-- whoops! As if. I meant to say she kills the beasts while [I]eating[/I] the few villagers remaining. And then Reg asks her to join their group. Yeaaaahhhh... Ok, so Faputa has done awful, terrible, abhorrent things, but it's all justified in some way. Apparently. Well, you see Ganja, despite doing only what was absolutely necessary for their survival, did eat Irumyuui's mutant spawn, so they are just getting their just desserts right? Well, if the villagers actually consisted of mostly Ganja you might have a point (kind of, but not really.) Except, what language does Ganja speak? The common language, same as Riko, right? Ok, and what's the primary language in the village? Irumyuui's language, and in fact, most villagers don't even [I]understand[/I] the common language. We only see Maja Kaja and Moogie speak it, and they are clearly not Ganja either. This means that the majority of the villagers are completely innocent of the only crime Faputa has any right for revenge over. In fact, most of the villagers were probably from the same village as Irumyuui, at least that's the only explanation I can see as to how the primary language would shift to what it is. So robbed of any moral justification, what other reason is there for Faputa's genocide? Just that it is a part of her nature to want to destroy the village. But why is it? Irumyuui's wish was responsible for the creation of the village, and even if there was somehow interference from Wazukyan's attempted wish, surely it was within her ability to simply balance them out of existence rather than to give them new ageless hollow forms, as much as it was within her ability to create Faputa. Beyond that, is something being part of one's nature blanket justification to commit crimes? Racism is a natural part of human nature, should we just allow bigots to do whatever they please because it's part of their nature? Should we allow pedophiles to abuse children whenever they want because it's part of their nature? Or do we expect them to suppress those aspects of themselves, and behave in the responsible and moral manner that they are capable of as reasoning beings. Faputa is no less. We are told that she is incredibly intelligent (as well as strong, immortal, curse immune, and capable of talking to magic rocks. A bit much, no?), and must be capable of rational thought and reason. If we are to accept her as a protagonist, how can we rationalize her remorseless slaughter? We can't, or rather, I can't. Faputa is a villain as far as I am concerned, and just the thought of her accompanying Team Riko further into the Abyss like nothing has happened fills me with disgust. Her actions have been absolutely irredeemable, and to see her get off free of charge and be welcomed with open arms is simply too much. I couldn't accept Vegeta shacking up with Bulma and I can't accept this, guess I have some weird hang-up about mass murderers. I could have lived with the Iruburu arc, flaws and all, but Faputa is reason enough for me to drop the manga, and I don't care how good her butt smells. And that's it. That's all I have to say about Iruburu. I'm sad that the series has gone in the direction it has, because I honestly feel that up to the end of Layer 4 Made in Abyss was one of the most well written mangas that I've read (ok, I haven't read that many so it's not a super high bar). But after Iruburu, I really feel like it's not the series I thought it was, and it's not really for me. Anyway, I did like it enough to write over 10k words getting my thoughts ordered on it, so that's something. [/QUOTE]
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