Made in Abyss: Retsujitsu no Ougonkyou Episode 8

I’m emotionally drained. These past two episodes have been mesmerizing, heartbreaking, dark, cruel, and downright depressing. The worldbuilding and writing is phenomenal but I won’t lie in saying that it’s left me feeling absolutely exhausted. Also the ending’s visuals and the lyrics make complete sense now. The song starting off with “I still remember you, the love we shared” just makes me so depressed.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know what I can even say that the episode hasn’t done already. We already know that the group had no choice but to consume Irumyuui’s children in order to survive. What’s worse is that the babies were taken right as they were born while alive, so Irumyuui didn’t even have the chance to spend time with them. She just gave birth, they were taken, and killed. And she was left alone to scream and wail until she probably knew it was no use because it was going to keep happening, and so she fell silent. And again, Wazukyan’s nonchalant reactions and words are extremely unsettling and downright cruel. Again, I know this was the only way for them to survive but it’s the fact that Wazukyan shows zero remorse and doesn’t even show a bit of respect for Irumyuui. It’s cruel they have to do this but it’s for their survival. But there were no words of peace or comfort for Iru, no explanation, no nothing. Just forcefully take the babies and kill them. It sucks because it’s such a complex issue and it really hurts, but the least Wazukyan could have done was at least show some sympathy and respect to this situation. But no, he even uses more Cradles of Desire that caused everything we see in the rest of the episode. It’s really hard to paint Wazukyan as a villain, but I can’t say I exactly like him either, especially when he forced Iru to use for Cradles. He’s pretty complex himself, though I still am not sure about him being an actual prophet or he just deemed himself one.

So in the end, Irumyuui is the village itself and we’ve been seeing her this whole time. It’s REALLY dark because I remember when Riko and the others found the place the first time, she had said the entrance looked like a corpse and I didn’t understand what she meant. Of course she didn’t know, but the fact that Riko was technically right is insane. I think I was a little lost, but I think the reason why everyone turned into Hollows was because of Wazukyan’s wish when he used a Cradle? That part was a little confusing to me so I hope I didn’t understand wrong.

So I wasn’t too far off about Faputa. It was easy to think she was just Irumyuui because they look similar and even have the same voice actress, but it turns out that Faputa is Irumyuui’s final child that she was able to have in secret. We now know that Irumyuui had indeed been suffering, as Faputa was born with all the rage and pain that her mother felt during that whole time. We now understand why she’s referred to as a princess as they had called Irumyuui their Queen. I’m guessing that the promise Faputa and Reg made all that time ago was to get revenge for her mother and destroy the village, and from her reaction at the beginning of the episode, it looks like she’s going to do whatever it takes to fulfill that promise. And honestly…I can’t even blame her. I’m angry for her but I know there’s plenty of innocent people there, so hopefully Vueko will be able to convince her to change her mind.

It was interesting to see how Vueko became imprisoned, where we now know was inside Irumyuui’s head with the souls of her dead children. Just typing that makes me sad. And during all that time of imprisonment, she stayed with the children and became sort of like their mother. It makes sense why she would take the time to give them all names and such, and again it’s so painful. I’m shocked that Vueko didn’t lose her sanity, and even she had that thought as well, but she had to stay mentally strong for Irumyuui’s sake. The one that lost his mind was Belaf and I felt so horrible for him. The way he reacted was how I thought Vueko was going to react, and it was a really realistic reaction. I’ve seen a few people not understand why it was Belaf that reacted the way he did, but it makes perfect sense. Belaf has always been the moral compass. He understood Irumyuui’s wish because he had overheard Vueko and Iru’s conversation about not being able to have children and being cast away because of it. He knew how important that was to her and I’m sure once he found out about it, he felt extreme disgust and guilt for consuming her children for survival, and even liking it. I think it’s a normal reaction and I felt for him. I’d love to see how he became this value-loving being now since he doesn’t seem like his usual self from before, while Wazukyan seems the same. Belaf always intrigued me so I hope we can get a little more out of him.

Now that we have this excruciating backstory out of the way, it looks like we’re going to hit the climax of the story next with Faputa’s rampage. We’ll see if she can be stopped.