Made in Abyss's film series reveals Nishagora
New stills from the first instalment of the Made in Abyss theatrical series introduce Nishagora, a month before the film opens in Japanese cinemas.
The first instalment of the Made in Abyss theatrical series has shown off a handful of new scene stills, and with them a first look at Nishagora, a character making her debut in the film. The images arrived on 19 September, a little over a month before Made in Abyss: Awakening Mystery opens in Japanese cinemas on 23 October 2026.
The film picks up directly after The Golden City of the Scorching Sun, following Riko, Reg, Nanachi and Faputa as they descend towards the Abyss's seventh layer. That is territory the manga has been mapping for years, and it is the first time the anime has followed them into it, which makes the theatrical format the sensible home for material this dense.
Kinema Citrus returns with the same core team
Kinema Citrus is handling animation production again, with Masayuki Kojima directing and Hideyuki Kurata on screenplay. Yuka Kuroda and Kazuchika Kise of Production I.G take character design, Kevin Penkin returns to compose, and the theme song, Chain of the Abyss, is a Penkin track featuring the virtual artist Mori Calliope.
Most of the principal cast is unchanged, with Miyu Tomita as Riko, Mariya Ise as Reg, Shiori Izawa as Nanachi and Misaki Kuno as Faputa. Two newer names join the line-up for this entry: Sumire Morohoshi as Tepaste and Takanori Hoshino as Cravagli. The film's site is also running two-part theatrical screenings of the second season from 18 September, a warm-up that puts the previous arc back on Japanese screens before the new one arrives.
Readers outside Japan should hold their expectations for now. The 23 October date is the Japanese release only, and neither a UK nor a US cinema run has been announced.
Our opinion
Made in Abyss has always been sold on unease dressed up as wonder, and the franchise's move to a theatrical series is a quietly smart piece of self-awareness. The manga's later layers are slower, stranger and far less episodic than the early arcs, and a film format lets the production stop pretending those chapters need to be chopped into twelve tidy episodes. Nishagora's arrival matters less as a character reveal than as a signal that the adaptation intends to keep following the source instead of pausing at a comfortable stopping point.
The caution is that theatrical releases concentrate the risk. A film has to work for people who have not read the manga, and Made in Abyss has reached the part of its story where the pleasure is in accumulated knowledge. That is a fine thing for the fans who have spent a decade in the Abyss, and it is a harder sell to anyone walking in cold. Given how good Kinema Citrus has been at making this world feel physically cold, damp and hostile, the benefit of the doubt is earned.