Kara Dennison
August 23, 2021 
There’s a second season of Made in Abyss on the horizon! Soon, we’ll get to journey even deeper into the series’s darkest depths. But what do we do until then? Explore other anime, of course!
If your wanderlust has got you, try these series. They’re also about exploring mysterious, far-off places. And they should keep you busy until the show comes back in 2022!
Kino’s Journey
Get on the road with Kino and the talking motorcycle Hermes as they travel from country to country. But these aren’t the countries we know. Like Made in Abyss, Kino’s Journey takes place in a pretty fantasy world, and explores different societies. But all of them are on the surface, and each has a lesson for us and the show’s title traveler.
The stoic, gun-toting Kino has a rule of spending exactly three days in every country. That’s enough time to learn about the place, but not enough to get attached. Theoretically there’s also a rule about not getting involved, but Kino is bad at following that one. There are two series to choose from: one made in 2003, and one in 2017.
Girls’ Last Tour
Want Made in Abyss, but cold and up? Try out Girls’ Last Tour. The surprisingly cute series follows the adorable Chito and Yuuri through a post-apocalyptic world, where they scrape by and meet other survivors. We never find out what specifically happened to make the world this way, but it ultimately doesn’t matter. What matters is being alive, having a friend, and making discoveries.
The anime adaptation of Girls’ Last Tour doesn’t get as far as the manga’s final chapter — which, as anyone who’s read it will tell you, is memorable to say the least. It’s not the cap stone on the series, though. So when you finish out, Chito and Yuuri will still be out there, journeying up the levels of this destroyed world.
Galaxy Express 999
Long before Made in Abyss, but with just as many horrifying implications about transformations done to young people, there’s Galaxy Express 999. The Leiji Matsumoto classic revolves around Tetsuro, a poor young boy in search of a mechanical body. Once a year, a far-off planet gives them away for free. But you need to take a certain space train to get there.
With the mysterious Maetel, Tetsuro travels in search of his new body. But every stop along the way seems tailor-made to make him question just how much he wants a mechanical body. By the end of the line, things aren’t as simple as they were — and we know much more about Maetel.
Look forward to more Made in Abyss next year!
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