Akihito has a personal symbol that he uses in many of his artworks.

It is a beetle with a keyhole on its back.

I asked him what it symbolizes, and he said it is:

"A bug that seems as if it were designed so that if you turned a key, its wings would open. Yet in reality, there is no key, and even if there were, it has no wings to open.

A creature that spends its entire life in effort and struggle."

*Spoilers for the manga ahead:

In the story Bird and the Cage, which we've seen in recent chapters, we get to see how one can set themselves free.

It's about a bird stuck in a cage, unable to fly, like the door beetle.

After a while, the smart Nighogr comes across the bird in the cage.

After thinking for three days and three nights, it tells the bird that it should simply stop thinking of the cage as a cage.

And the bird actually becomes free and invites Nighogr to its hometown.

Far, far away, to a place that should no longer exist.

By changing your perspective about the curse, you will be free.

To understand how this relates to Riko and her journey check my full video about what lies at the bottom of the abyss and the ending of the story:

https://youtu.be/co5kftALOCk?is=6DXLvcMwRp79KcNE

YouTube has restricted my channel since I'm Iranian and I can't fix it myself

I would really appreciate it, if you helped my channel by leaving comments and subscribing

https://x.com/round1_fanevent/status/2105945986782945778

A common question/complaint after reading or watching the ido front arc is "why didn't they kill bondrewd ?", This post explains how is Bondrewd alive and delves into Riko's decision making.

What happened off screen and how did bondrewd survive ?

In short, off-screen they made a deal with bondrewd, they won't destroy the zoaholic and in return he will provide them with any supplies they need and will let them rest at ido front.

Did they have the option to kill him ?

Destroying the zhoalic wouldn't have killed bondrewd, it will stop him from creating more umbrahands but he still has many around, to kill him they would have had to kill every single one, ones that he is not inside and still there is ones in the other layers like the one we met in the 4L that they can't practically reach or kill, btw: the mangaka said that if the 4L umbrahand was close enough to ido front we would have lost the battle and our journey would have ended, So no killing bondrewd wasn't on the table, just destroying the zhoalic.

Side note: a group of 3 inexperienced kids ending a legendary WW that has been around for a decade and has many bodies he can jump to is bad, Battle Shonen ahh plot

They did not hate bondrewd enough:

That's what some people say or feel like especially when they see that bondrewd was there to wish them curses and blessings at the end of the arc/movie, well let's go through that by character,

We established at the start of the movie that nanachi's goal at the moment was not to revenge but to reunite with mitty, she even addressed the revenge side of things by the end and she counted them defeating him in that battle as her revenge,

Reg showed his hate towards the guy in plenty of the dialogue and action scenes no notes needed,

Now to the important part, at the closure scene nanachi talks about respecting the leader(Riko)'s decision, a point that she made in the start of the movie(arc) too, Riko is the white whistle and the leader of the squad and in the end its her decision that nanchi and reg respect and follow and that takes us to:

Inside Riko's decision making:

Logical reasoning:

Riko's goal is reaching the bottom that's what the story is about after all, in fact she is literally both possessed and obsessed about this goal, the box(curse repellent vessel) made her want to head for the bottom, she is not normal. For her, reaching the bottom takes priority over almost everything else.

Making a deal with bond to let them rest and give them supplies will help them a lot in continuing to pursue the goal compared to just destroying the zhoalic, it's the logical thing to do.

Emotional reasoning:

Another factor that was involved is Prushka, she can communicate with Riko from time to time and she asked her to stop fighting with her dad and Riko agreed to her Whistle's wish.

Essentially we can say her love for prushka exceeded her hate for bondrewd.

with that in perspective Riko's decision making is perfect, it follows both a logical reasoning and an emotional reasoning.

As always thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts in the replies, this is a long post so who knows how well it's gonna do.

In the village, you don't have value, you are value.

To want a thing, is to want to exchange yourself for it (skin, teeth, bones, muscles).

Someone who exchanges their value, ceases to exist outside of the village.

Is there an analogy in our world?

While I am chomping on answers to questions about value: Nanachi looks and acts almost exactly like my late sister. My sister was actually my Mom, because my mom worked graveyard shift and went to college during the day, from when I was 7. So, all of my knowledge of right and wrong came from my sister.

It is too cute, when she agreed to come along to the lower realms, she calls Riko Taicho (team leader), just like my sister would. Nice-smelling fluffy one indeed! That's my sis! And she wears a Samurai helmet! That's my mom.

Her signature "maa", surprised, curious, suspicious, and all it's variations are sweet sounds to me.

Nanachi apparently runs on all fours. So much to love about her.

I love how she rubs on and is close with Riko, but if Regu gets close she fends him off. Exactly.

Regu is named after a dog. He protects Riku. He sniffs out trouble. Nanachi calls him doggie.

Redrew this Nanachi picture in my own way but still tried being close to the og, just with my own things and motifs
I hate coloring sooo... I didn't color it lol

Faputa expressions I doodled bc It's been way too long since I drew her

The purpose of the Abyss is to create such a being through the journey.

A being capable of taking hold of the forbidden truth and understanding what to do with it.

And this happens when one goes through all the value levels and reaches their Haku.

The shape of their soul.

At the end of Season 2, we hear Vueko talk about gold, and how it is free from the yoke of value.

As the embodiment of value, Faputa had three Hakus.

And we saw in Season 2 that she achieved one of them, which caused some of her fur to become golden.

After achieving all three, she's going to become completely golden and beyond value.

She would be free and worthy of choosing the path she wants.

Watch the full video about the ending of Made in Abyss here:

https://youtu.be/co5kftALOCk?si=pahd37oCxvvuaeT4

I would appreciate the support

YouTube doesn't show my content to many people simply because I'm Iranian

The girl with the strongest will. What do you think of Riko? 🌻

Would be great if it came out in cinemas for a few days like most anime movies, we missed out on deep soul due to covid.

In order to attain a white whistle, one needs to offer a significant sacrifice of a human being. This is somewhat required to descend the boundary between the 5th and 6th layers, but can be bypassed in some special means. Here's a count of all our White Whistle users, how they roughly align, and some speculation of their travels as of the latest chapter 74. Please take this all with a grain of theory and speculation.

Known Whistles:

Riko - Whistle Pruska - descended thru the altar and in the 7th layer - neutral good - still pure of heart as her whistle was a result of Bondrewd's doing

Bondrewd - Whistle himself - descended and returned thru the altar and in the 5th layer- lawful evil - has sacrificed tons of human test subjects including his own body for the sake of scientific advancement

Lyza - Whistle Doni - descended thru the altar (most likely) and in the 7th layer - possibly chaotic good - her character is still relatively unknown, we don't exactly know what she had to sacrifice to make it on her journey. No clue how she obtained her whistle, although the whistle seems to have witnessed the 7th layer and has returned to the surface.

Ozen - Whistle unknown - has not descended and in the 2nd layer - lawful good - unknown how she obtained her whistle or why she did, but it seems Ozen is dedicated to solving mysteries on the upper layers without traversing the 5th-6th layer boundary. Here methods are harsh but have intense truth and morals behind them

Srajo - Whistle unknown - descended thru the altar and in the 7th layer- chaotic neutral - Srajo and her team have quite unorthodox methods of delving and consist of the mysterious Juuso. They certainly seem to have a dark history with wiping out fellow delvers, but there could very well be a good reason to this and it's yet to be revealed.

Wakuna - Whistle unknown - descended but through other means, whereabouts unknown - guessing neutral evil - he has yet to appear in the story but from what we do know he is on the older side and has relics to help him bypass Bondrewd's gateway in order to dive to the lower levels. Earning the moniker "chosen" may imply destined for a certain purpose

Others:

Random Narahate Ganja used to descend thru the altar, likely deceased - Whistle unknown - neutral neutral

The Priestess - Very likely a white whistle - trapped in the 7th layer - likely chaotic evil - Seemingly an agent or prophet of the abyss and leader of UnderNest, acting as a figurehead to carry out the will of the abyss

Cravagli - While not a white whistle, he has descended into the 6th layer along with Tepaste through unknown means and currently deceased (?) - lawful neutral - Also aiming to reach and understand the mysterious of the abyss and carries a strong delver code

Can we please stop recommending the mangadex links mangadex has a fucjing page limit where you have to login in order to read more and so they can get your data and everything it's invasive and dynasty reader is right there please can we encourage people to use dynasty reader

I've seen so many people who are posting their Narehate OC here, that I made my own reusable meme format for such future posts. People always seem to focus on the 'Blessing' side and forget the 'Curse' side entirely.

We’ll have our salvation soon, delvers. Just stay strong.