Nanachi
From Made in Abyss
Nanachi is a main character of Made in Abyss, a Narehate who joins Riko and Reg's party as medic and guide. Nanachi is voiced by Shiori Izawa in Japanese and Brittney Karbowski in English. Once a human child used in Bondrewd's experiments, Nanachi can see the curse of the Abyss and knows its creatures and medicines better than anyone.
About Nanachi
Nanachi is a Narehate in Made in Abyss, a former human child who survived the curse of the sixth layer and came back changed: furred, long-eared and able to see the Abyss's curse as a visible field. Living in hiding in the fourth layer, Nanachi saves Riko's life and joins the descent as its doctor and guide. Behind the dry humour is the series' saddest story, and its most loyal friend.
Appearance
Nanachi looks like a small upright rabbit woven into a child: cream and brown fur, very long ears, a fluffy tail, whiskers and sleepy, knowing eyes under a fringe of pale hair. Nanachi wears scavenged cloth wraps, bells and a weathered hat at times, and carries medical tools and herbs gathered from years of living off the fourth layer. The design is soft enough that new viewers consistently underestimate what Nanachi represents: this is what the Abyss does to children, and Nanachi is the lucky outcome. The horror sits quietly inside one of the cutest designs in the series, which is the most Made in Abyss trick imaginable.
Personality
Nanachi is dry, blunt and funny in a seen-it-all way, signing off observations with a 'Nnaa' and treating Riko and Reg's chaos like weather. The detachment is armour. Nanachi spent years hiding from Bondrewd, feeding a dying friend who could no longer speak, a mercy that still haunts every moment. Nanachi's knowledge comes with guilt: the skill that saves Riko was learned in the laboratory that destroyed Mitty. What changes Nanachi is being needed by people who accept what Nanachi is. Riko's party offers a future instead of a past to hide from, and Nanachi's thaw, from recluse to the group's heart, is the series at its most moving. Nanachi is a fine cook, and secretly loves being petted.
Background & Story
Nanachi was a street child from a frozen northern country, Sereny, recruited with other unwanted children by Bondrewd for his research station Ido Front in the fifth layer. There Nanachi was raised kindly, taught medicine and anatomy, and paired with Mitty, a cheerful girl who became Nanachi's dearest friend. The kindness was preparation. Bondrewd sent the two children down to the sixth layer and raised them back through its curse to study its effects: Mitty, taking the full weight of it, lost her humanity entirely and became a suffering, regenerating creature, while Nanachi, shielded by receiving the 'blessing' side of the experiment, kept mind and memory in a transformed body. Nanachi escaped with Mitty and hid in the fourth layer for years, keeping Mitty alive and searching, in vain, for a way to let her die. Reg's Incinerator finally gives Mitty peace, with Nanachi holding her at the end. Freed of that vigil, Nanachi joins Riko's descent as medic and guide, carrying Mitty's memory down past the man who made them, and into the sixth layer where it all happened.
Powers & Abilities
- Curse sight: Nanachi can see the force field of the Abyss's curse as flowing currents, reading where it is thin or dangerous and guiding the party through it. Few beings in the series can do this.
- Abyss medicine: Trained at Ido Front and hardened by years alone, Nanachi is a surgeon and pharmacist of the depths: setting bones, treating poisons and performing the operation that saves Riko's arm.
- Abyss survival knowledge: Nanachi knows the creatures, plants and weather of the middle layers intimately, including which beasts to feed, flee or ignore, knowledge the party would die without.
Key Relationships
- Mitty: Nanachi's dearest friend, transformed by Bondrewd's experiment into a suffering creature Nanachi cared for for years. Giving Mitty a merciful death is Nanachi's deepest wound and release.
- Bondrewd: The White Whistle who raised, taught and experimented on Nanachi. Nanachi hates him, fears him and understands him better than anyone alive, a knot the series never simplifies.
- Riko: Nanachi saves Riko's life and then, unexpectedly, gains a friend who sees a person, not a monster. Riko's trust is a large part of why Nanachi descends again.
- Reg: It is Reg's Incinerator that frees Mitty, and Reg's gentleness that makes Nanachi feel safe. Fellow non-humans in a human obsession, they understand each other quickly.
Quick Answers
Who voices Nanachi in Made in Abyss?
Shiori Izawa voices Nanachi in Japanese and Brittney Karbowski voices Nanachi in the English dub. Izawa also sings the ending theme Tabi no Hidarite, Saihate no Migite with the other leads.
What is a Narehate in Made in Abyss?
A Narehate, or Hollow, is a human who survived ascending from the sixth layer and lost their humanity to its curse, returning in a changed body. Most lose their minds as well. Nanachi is the rare one who kept intelligence and memory.
What happened to Nanachi and Mitty?
As children they were used in Bondrewd's experiment to study the sixth layer's curse. Mitty took the full curse and became an immortal, suffering creature; Nanachi received its blessing and kept a mind in a transformed body. Nanachi cared for Mitty for years before Reg's Incinerator let her die.
Is Nanachi a boy or a girl?
The series deliberately does not say. The original work avoids defining Nanachi's gender, and the official English adaptation follows that choice, so this page does the same.