A running theme in Made in Abyss is innocence and how that can be kept and broken. This is mainly exemplified in the protagonists: The perpetually optimistic Riko who is exploring the titular Abyss as it calls to her, the cautiously optimistic Reg who is a robot boy who is trying to find his origins in the Abyss, and the jaded mutant child (referred to as a narehate or hollow) Nanachi whose innocence was ripped away from them and barely even has the will to go on. There are other characters that tackle the concept of innocence such as Prushka, the daughter of the antagonist of the second arc, but the focal point of this rant is the antagonist of the third and current arc Faputa.

Faputa has the mindset of a child in an animal's body. She doesn't really know what things do, doesn't understand conversational norms whatsoever, and is generally a weirdo. She marks her territory and belongings, the only clothing she wears are a set of goggles she uses as a pseudo-bra she got as a gift, and even curls up in a circle to go to sleep. On the other side of the spectrum, she can be very animalistic. She forces people down, she shreds her kills apart with her razor-sharp teeth and eats them, and is generally a very violent and forceful person.

This makes her into a rather interesting character since she's an unpredictable person but she isn't just angry and rawr kill stuff rawr. She's only really had interactions with Reg so far but they're all very, very interesting. She's very aggressive towards him and outright mutilates him at points, but she also genuinely cares deeply for him and she doesn't really know how to be gentle. Faputa knows him from a time before he was struck with amnesia, so being forgotten deeply confuses her and upsets her even though she owns Reg in her own belief.

What really makes her intriguing is her backstory. To summarize one of my favorite parts of the series and definitely the most morally abhorrent part, she was birthed from a mutated hollow child that grew into a giant village which was exploited by the child's group. Since the group also had killed the hollow's children for sustenance, Faputa was born from the hollow's anger and desire for revenge against those who took advantage of her.

Faputa being drove by her base instincts and desires alongside her primal desire for revenge makes her so interesting. She takes the theme of innocence throughout Made in Abyss and completely turns on its head because she is actively malicious in her intent to take revenge for her mother. While the people within the Village of the Hollows are very morally dubious, none of them are outright malicious like Faputa is. It makes for a very interesting conflict of moral grays with Faputa's innocent mind and raw desires being the crux for it.

When she actually is able to breach into the village, she shreds it and its inhabitants apart piece by piece with her limbs and teeth; she even shreds multiple hollows from the inside by forcing herself into their bodies. Her innocence is her greatest weapon because she's completely savage and merciless in her fighting style. Even when Reg confronts her, he barely spares him from her wrath as he tries to stop her from her massacre and even beats him bloody and unconscious. And while she initially spared Riko and Nanachi since Faputa believes Reg's companions were important enough to him to not spare, her jealousy overtakes her and she attempts to kill Riko after dispatching Reg.

I'm extremely interested in what happens with her honestly. She's shaping up to develop even more interesting. Any way she can be taken I can see myself being happy with: Making her the fourth protagonist could be really cool and a way to further explore her psychology; keeping her an arc villain would leave a major impact on Reg's character that could be explored later in cool ways; and probably other stuff I haven't thought of. I have a lot of faith in the writer to keep exploring Faputa in really interesting ways. I just don't want her to die though, that would honestly be very disappointing since she's such a great character in my opinion.