- Jul 2023
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We are as concerned as anybodyelse at the headlong plunge into the abyss that Western civil-ization seems to be taking.
Apparently every age feels like they're moving into the abyss, even when they're making great strides.
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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we are now like Sleepwalkers whistling a Happy tune as we amble towards the abyss
- quote
- "we are now like Sleepwalkers whistling a Happy tune as we amble towards the abyss"
- author
- Ian McGilchrist
- quote
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- Oct 2022
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www.animenewsnetwork.com www.animenewsnetwork.com
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The sense of wonder and discovery that made all the cruelty of the Abyss worth enduring is gone, replaced with increasingly over-the-top attempts at shock horror that crescendos with a concept so ludicrous it stops being horrifying and starts being embarrassing.
This is exactly right. The first 9 episodes of the first season of Made in Abyss represented some of the best anime of the previous decade precisely because they depicted "[t]he sense of wonder and discovery that made all the cruelty of the Abyss worth exploring..." It was a great, and haunting, adventure story. The end of season one stagnated, the movie went over the line that the first season flirted with, and the second season lost all of the qualities (other than high production values) that made season 1 memorable. The exploring was outsourced to the flashbacks of side-characters, and the whole season was stuck in a single location that was not particularly interesting.
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I love the first season of MiA, even more now than I did when it first aired. And on paper I should be down for more of this fascinating, macabre world of wonders and horrors. But somewhere in this second season, the graceful balancing act that made it all so compelling fell apart. Maybe it's that our main trio feel like barely relevant observers of a story largely divorced from them, loading all of Reg's character development into a flashback he doesn't even remember and relegating Nanachi to a half-season-long nap just so we can retread their goodbye to Mitty. Maybe it's the fact that the slow-burn mystery of the titular city feels as hollow as its main residents, ramping up its increasingly aimless body horror to the point that it starts to feel like an Aristocrats joke that's gone on way too long.
I agree fully with this list of flaws about the second season of Made in Abyss. The first season was terrific, but it flirted with excess in terms of violence and general unpleasantness (excess was achieved in the movie). The second season feels stagnant, sidelines the main characters, and the "aimless body horror" is a good way to describe much of the violence and grossness, which reached Elfen Lied levels of absurdity toward the end.
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- Oct 2018
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www.mnemotext.com www.mnemotext.com
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Yet the obviousness and self-assurance of the average ways in which things have been interpreted, are such that while the particular Dasein drifts along towards an ever-increasing groundlessness as it floats, the uncanniness of this floating remains hidden from it under their protecting shelter.
Heidegger: "Dasein drifts along towards an ever-increasing groundlessness as it floats, the uncanniness of this floating remains hidden from it under their protecting shelter" ||
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- Oct 2015
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cms.whittier.edu cms.whittier.edu
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Davis, the Western city is rapidly coming unglued. It is a runaway train fuelled by equal parts hubris and fear. It is Roadrunner suspended over the abyss. In tapping in to this anxious tradition of writing on cities, Davis is hardly alone. For example,
This detailed metaphor, "Roadrunner suspended over the abyss" is quite a fear inducing way of representing the city and urban representation. My analysis of this quote is that it seems we have a lot of potential energy that provides a substantive way of creation, but the problem is that the embodiment of this conception is surrounded by darkness, an inescapable void similar to a black hole so that our fate seems to be known and not a good one. This makes me anxious.
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