"Made in Abyss" as a show overall was a gold-mine of inspiration for me. The world building, the creature designs, the mystery of the Abyss and the characters' journeys are all topics that I want to analyze and learn from the show. But what struck me as the most clever solution for one of my current mission --- to blur the virtual barrier between human and the rest of the animal kingdom --- was the Narehate and the spectrum of humanity left in them. The village of Iruburu, specifically, presented the audience with a wide range of Narehate condition.
Narehate (成なれ果はて) or Hollow are generally known as beings who have survived the 6th Layer's Curse and whose bodies have become deformed as a result, although there are other means of becoming one. They can take many different forms depending on the circumstances of their transformation. Their exact properties as a species are unknown. The word "narehate" comes from the term "narenohate" (成なれの果はて) which means "the shadow of one's former self". (Made in Abyss Wiki)
By being known as formerly humans, these creatures (and even their offsprings in the case of Irumyuui) were automatically regarded with more sympathy compared to the rest of the creatures in the Abyss. Without going into whether each of the species deserve that compassion, I think how we feel towards Narehate versus other creatures are very reflective of the species barrier between humans and animals. How Narehate were depicted with various levels of human-likeness/humanity creates a unique lens that invited us to identify the threshold of human and non-human.
My thoughts on each of the points on the spectrum are below:
Nanachi
Moogie and Wazukyan
Faputa (not included)
Belaf
Maaa
Mitty
Iruburu
Our compassion towards each of these characters is proof that we can be just to those that share this planet with us. Can we extend the same compassion to animals, whom we know, as the matter of fact, experience pains as well as happiness (and arguably more complex emotions than Iruburu could), have memories and bonds (just like all of our characters), have free wills and does communicate (with more vocabulary than Maaa)? Like the Abyss, the inner lives of these fellow Earth-dwellers might forever be a mystery to us. But now that we see how humanity is a loose concept that contains many qualities also displayed in animals. Now that we can see how humanity is not the only reason why anything matters. Should we be so indifferent (if not complacent) of animal exploitation? Allow me to send you off to your own meditation with this quote:
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” - Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
(sheesh, go off 🔥)
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