All right! The city is behind our heroes, and it's time to head for the absolute point of no return as they descend to the 7th layer...right? Sadly, wrong. Half of this volume is spent on the backstory of a corpse they stumble across. I...really don't care about that at this point in the journey. Sure, it does establish another character they run into, but I'm not terribly thrilled about that either, because their crossing of paths seems like it's leading into another time sink of a stop. I really just wanted to see what else the Abyss had in store for them, but instead we've got another slew of characters who are going to take up their time for who knows how long?
And yes, there's the chance that this group might end up being as endearing as the last group we got to know, but we just got done with that arc. And that really does illustrate some pacing issues with Made in Abyss: It seems like it took almost no time at all to get down to the 5th layer, but since then progress has really slowed down. Which is a shame that's compounded by the fact that the 6th layer...really doesn't have much to distinguish itself. The effects of ascending are a lot worse, and I guess the creatures tend to be bigger, but aside from that? Compared to an upside-down forest, or giant bowl-shaped plants filled with pools of acidic water, the 6th layer kinda looks a lot like the 1st: some unusual plants and the occasional weird rock, but fairly indistinct. The 7th layer is heavily implied to be a reality-bending maelstrom of chaos; I would very much prefer to be seeing some of that, rather than palling around with another group of hollows who've set up shop in the 6th layer.
I still like the series overall, but this volume was a bit of a disappointment.