#irumyuui

Made in Abyss - Manga spine illustration PNGs!

Each volume of Made in Abyss has a different character on the printed copy's spine, and these illustrations can be found on a glossy color page in the manga... save for the first three volumes, which may have been on a separate manga cover?

I've cleaned them up and erased the background elements, just in case you need some cute MiA chibi PNGs!

The first three volumes didn't have a digital version available, so I had to do a bit of smoothing and color correction in Clip Studio Paint. I did my best, yet they're a bit lower quality than the digitals.

Thanks to Onyx for sending me a good quality scan of the Volume 3 Nanachi! 💜

Day 11

I present to you… A remake of the very first Ganja portrait I ever drew!

The first was from 2023, and the remake, therefore, from this year (2025).

And it has basic Language of Flowers symbolism, too:

1. Nanachi meeting Mitty’s copy and Vueko seeing the protector of the village (Juroimoh who takes after the man who abused her) both show how traumatic moments recur and manifest. This is a fundamental aspect of trauma, that the incident(s) which caused the trauma will return to the person’s mind against their will and force them to relive their trauma again and again. (Think about vets and fireworks for example). Seeing Mitty again felt like a physical blow - after everything Nanachi went through with her, and the incredibly difficult decision to ask Reg to use his incinerator….here is Mitty again. It was a gut blow.

2. Irumyuui’s trauma (her exile from her village and implied mistreatment because she is infertile) shapes her wishes when she is given the cradle of desire. Her first wish (to have children) deforms her body and reduces her entire being to a birthing vessel. This is unresolved trauma corrupting her wishes. Trauma will consume you if you don’t have a productive way of coping with it. You can’t live a full life when your life is oriented around trauma. Irumyuui also shows us that sometimes love, family, and friends are not enough for healing. This is such a painful truth (as I am sure many of us have experienced in our lives). Despite the wonderful relationship she builds with Vueko (and Belaf too I think), her life’s desires remain oriented around what she was told she was lacking… Or perhaps it is that healing does not happen fast and Wazukyan’s actions to save all his people take away the chance for Irumyuui to heal in her own time…

3. We know that trauma is inherited, and generational trauma is real. Irumyuui’s trauma is literally inherited and internalized by her child, Faputa, and nearly consumes Faputa too. (Faputa’s one burning wish is to destroy the village and its inhabitants...)

4. Traumatized/oppressed people can be both victims and perpetrators. Wazukyan and the Ganja squad are an example. A group of misfits/abandoned people, searching for their home and a place to belong, who end up committing/condoning horrific acts against Irumyuui in order to survive. Sometimes homes are built on violence. Victims can/do use trauma or their own survival as justification to oppress others. Even though some of them feel guilt, Vueko is the only one who attempts to remove herself from the situation - unfortunately by trying to commit suicide. (Wazukyan feels like Christopher Columbus sometimes, and the indigenous people living near the abyss as parallels to the indigenous peoples in the Americas… Wazukyan is an important reminder that power dynamics are not static. I’m not sure if he is traumatized/someone who has experienced violence like other members of his squad but even if he has, he is the leader now. He exploits a child, imprisons Vueko, and uses their relationship against them.)

Yes Wazukyan please explain how trapping Irumyuui in her own body and Veuko inside her adopted child’s body is ‘crushing injustice.’ The abyss may have enabled what took place but the choice and decision was firmly Wazukyan’s.