Yakusoku no Neverland
The Promised Neverland

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*CAUTION*: Contains minor spoilers. Skip to the last two paragraphs for the summary.

It is really a twist of cruel irony that The Promised Neverland has lived up to its name in a way I did not expect it to: it continually PROMISED a clever, poignant story but NEVER followed it through. (I'm sorry I couldn't LAND this joke better.)

TPN became an object of hot discussion among the manga-reading crowd already after the first few chapters. For all the good reasons, too: it was, at the time, a competently done psychological thriller, something that Weekly Shonen Jump typically didn't feature, which immediately made it stand out ... from the endless conveyor of action and sports series, low-brow comedies, and various mixtures thereof. And not just that—right from the beginning TPN had established a gripping conflict with clear stakes, believable balance of power, and an awesome antagonist. Wow, what's not to like?

All of this, combined with Urasawa-esque cliffhangers, made the first arc of TPN one of the tightest pieces of writing to come out in Weekly Jump this entire decade. Not perfect by any means—but damn impressive nonetheless. And more than that, it was a story that really wanted itself to be taken seriously. It was the first manga in many years that took relatively normal characters—without any sort of superpowers or the like—and put them in a relatively realistic setting where actions have intentions, words have meaning, and decisions have consequences.

And then it just... took a bungee-jump off the cliff. Each and every time the plot itself would stretch a helping hand for the author to make a turnaround, they would high-five it and plunge deeper down the abyss of mediocrity. And if I were to identify every little bit that went wrong, you'd probably be reading this all day, so I'll just call out the most glaring, deal-breaking issues.

CORE PROBLEM #1: Emma is far too sterile to be a protagonist.
Don't get me wrong, Emma is not a bad *character* in principle. Her goals are lofty but ultimately agreeable. She is very one-note but could potentially work in a supporting role, considering both Normal and Ray are deeper, more relatable characters with some inner conflict that could work as a premise for a proper character arc. But the way she's written into the story makes the whole thing a farce. She's an overly optimistic Mary Sue with an unshakable conviction and a resilient physique, a set of traits typical of a better half of Jump protagonists of the last three decades at least. What makes this walking pile of cliche much worse, however, is that she is constantly put in charge of decisions based chiefly on her optimism, and this leads to situations where she is (or, by extension, her followers are) put in unnecessary danger or required to make some morally ambiguous choices...

...Thankfully, in *every single one* of those situations she suffers no long-term consequences and never actually *has* to make those morally ambiguous choices herself because others are eager to do it for her. For example, in the second major arc of the story, Emma—who at that point is already averse to all loss of life—needs to pick a weapon for herself, but Ray suddenly picks one for her. Why does he do this? We learn the reason later when she reluctantly has to shoot said weapon to protect herself, and—lo and behold!—it just happens to be the only non-lethal weapon in that entire arsenal, which is something she didn't know about and never gave it a second thought. The enemy was then killed by somebody else, which was totally okay with her! Didn't even deserve a passing mention! Isn't it just wonderful when you get to cheat your way out of a situation that challenges your morals?

And the same thing happens every time, really. She plays the card of the goody two-shoes, and the world's logic bends and contorts violently to her aspiration of never getting her hands dirty. If an enemy has to be killed, they will be killed by someone else; plenty of other characters are conveniently willing to take the fall, and Emma doesn't complain. If she makes a risky or erroneous choice, she never has to deal with the consequences herself, at least not for long—somebody else will, anyway. Her obstinacy never comes into question and never really gets her into trouble... well, unless your definition of trouble is other kids yelling "Emma, you big dummy!" while crying profusely. Emma never processes her losses in a way that makes her question her methods going forward.

What this means, essentially, is that there is no real progress to her character. She starts off as an unrealistically perfect, morally immaculate human being and ends the story in the same exact state. She never changes and never needs to. Her development stops several chapters into the story pretty much completely, and any further attempts at it end up with nothing of consequence. Naturally, even her last big sacrifice, which is already made on unreasonably favorable terms, ends up forgiven (read: cheated away) soon afterwards—because the only semblance of consistency the story has is Emma consistently having her cake and eating it, too. She's got no business being as successful as she is; it simply feels undeserved and fake.

Considering that she already starts the story with some pretty high specs—being a top-quality human material and all, already smarter at 11 y.o. than most adults—she fails to serve as a source of inspiration or a role model because the real world is never so overwhelmingly convenient. You don't start out as an overachieving genius with unquestioned leadership qualities, and it clearly isn't enough to just believe in yourself to attain an ambitious goal. In the real world, you won't conveniently have adults and/or helpful cues left by them that would tell you what to do every time you're at a loss. You will often be wrong, and just as often will fail to present convincing arguments even if they're sound. You will often find that there are no ready-made solutions for your situation and you will need to come up with new solutions by yourself. You will often find out that your humanity is actively working against you—not helping you. And, in the unfortunate case of having a close brush with death, you will find the experience deeply traumatizing. You will need to adapt to circumstances and be flexible. You will need to make hard decisions and be ready to pay the price if you take the hard way out. All of these simple principles could carve a great character out of an amorphous blob of stereotypes, but Emma's example teaches you nothing that could be realistically applied in the real world because she's cheating at *every single step* of the way and just coasting on her plot armor. You cannot do what Emma does and achieve even similar results, period. It would be the literary equivalent of telling a homeless person who has lived in poverty and misery most of their life to save for a house, or telling an incel virgin in their 30s to go seduce a beautiful woman, or telling an obese person with severe eating disorder to just eat less—because that's clearly what they're equipped to do successfully if they only believe in themselves™. It's never relatable but it's always extremely frustrating.

One might say this is the norm for a shonen protagonist—but no, this is not the case at all, either! I mean, let's take perhaps the most typical, most Weekly-Jump-esque MC around: Luffy of One Piece (doubly relevant, as TPN's editor Sugita has also worked on it at some point). He is also overly optimistic, is unshakable in his convictions, with a clearly stated end goal and a badass physique. Sounds very similar to Emma on the surface. However, before he got to that point, he grew up in a literal lair of bandits, was best friends with trash scavengers who pretty much made him go through an obstacle course every time he wanted to play with them, had one of said friends apparently be killed before his eyes, and trained for years to master his unusual physique before he even got to leave the hometown. His morality is also remarkably grey in that he doesn't explicitly want to do good deeds and doesn't care for anyone who isn't his friend, crewmate, or family. By the D&D alignment system he would be somewhere on a fringe between a Chaotic Neutral and a Chaotic Good. He selfishly puts his crew through dangers for his own dream but also doesn't shirk from taking the hits for them. He makes rash and unfortunate decisions and in many cases pays dearly for it. He is traumatized by personal loss. He's also an actual criminal who has taken from others and made unprovoked attacks on the Navy, and the story does not pretend this will be written off even if he saves a nation or two. He bears the full weight of his sins, knowingly so, and does not expect a happily-ever-after when he's done. Not quite a Gary Stu, is he? Luffy is undoubtedly cartoony, but aside from the fantasy attributes coming from the setting and personal quirks like the narcolepsy and love for meat, he is, for the most part, a surprisingly grounded, fallible, well-balanced and three-dimensional character. His past informs his present, he has good and bad sides complementing each other, his self-confidence is grounded in the fact that he and his crew are some of the most ambitious and capable people in the world in their respective areas, who have spent their entire lives working their ass off to become better at what they do. I want to underline that at no point this is taken for granted, and both the in-universe characters and the readers know how much pain and trauma they had to go through to attain their amazing expertise.

In contrast, Emma is a certified Lawful Good who grew up in a sheltered, happy, unproblematic environment with no hardships to strengthen her character, nor choices to make when there's an adult whose job is to decide everything for her, nor facilities to make her into a trained soldier she so very quickly becomes on demand (I'm pretty sure most of us had played outdoors as kids but not everyone grew enough bulk from it to run long distances over deserts and forests with rifles and such). Her self-confidence is based on second-hand knowledge, unreasonable extrapolation of her relatively minor past experience onto the unknown, and her family, well... being good at being family, I guess. How this setting managed to produce such an all-around capable, successful, mentally resilient character, or how she managed to end up less down-to-earth than the protagonist of the high fantasy setting of One Piece is utterly beyond me.

To go on a yet another tangent, most of the other children aren't much better in this regard, with none of them so much as soiling themselves or becoming catatonic after multiple actual near-death experiences. (I mean, this is still presented as a thriller series, right? Act the part sometime.) But all of them would bawl their eyes out every time they have to say goodbye to anyone or have an otherwise emotional scene with forced melodrama, of which there are plenty. How does this even work? This is neither the genre nor the setting where these discrepancies fly well; even if a story is fictional, it still has to be self-consistent and maintain enough realism to suspend disbelief. The way it is, almost the entire cast becomes completely unrelatable and, consequently, unlikable.

CORE PROBLEM #2: Every antagonist after Isabella is a goddamn joke.
It is no secret that many genres of fiction, especially thrillers, live and die by their antagonist. TPN has several major arcs, each having a main antagonist of sorts, for a total of four. For the opening arc, this is Isabella, the "mama" of Grace Field House, and she has been fantastic in this role. Being a human just like the other cast members, she is familiar, which leads the characters—and the audience, by extension—to question that which they *think* they've known, and this is very cool. Her motivation is also inherently human, and the backstory compelling enough that you don't have to question why she ended up this way. She is, above all, a relatable person, so one ends up accepting her ruthless demeanor not as an act of petty villainy but as a necessary trait for survival in her unfortunate position. These traits—humanity, relatability, and deceptiveness—are pretty much universally shared between all of the best literary antagonists out there, in manga or otherwise.

But the other three antagonists of TPN are so boring and cartoony you'd have to pay anyone to care about them and their agenda. This will be the shortest section of this review because there's just so little to be said about these guys.

The first one is a psychopathic, prideful, gluttonous, overpowered villain demon that hunts humans for fun and riles them up on purpose so that they come for him with extra bloodlust... so that he feels more thrill killing them. He also has superhuman strength, superhuman speed, superhuman endurance, and his mask is tougher than the rest. (Just typing this up makes me apathetic.) This is also where the "but this is just what we humans do to animals in our world!" metaphor breaks apart, because this guy is a certified criminal who would be charged guilty of animal cruelty and put into a mental institution at the very least if he were real. This is not what "we humans" do to animals—no, in fact, this is something for which we humans *punish other humans*. Naturally, the guy is completely flat and uninteresting, and is disposed of in a very disappointing manner in a lazy shonen shoot-out that is nowhere near as gripping as the mind games of the first arc.

The second one is also a psychopathic, prideful, gluttonous, overpowered villain demon, but with one-tenth the creative budget. She has even more superhuman strength, etc. She's so non-descriptive and uninteresting I don't even know what else to write about her. I couldn't come up with any antagonist more boring and faceless even if I'd tried. Oh, but she's *literally* faceless. I guess that checks out?

And then there's a human edgelord who would have been the principal antagonist of the entire series if his presence ever amounted to anything but a temporary setback for Emma and her rescue rangers. His personality? Of course, he's psychopathic, prideful... well, you get the idea. They're all cardboard cut-outs made from the same basic stencil, neither engaging nor relatable. This guy in particular dies the most hilarious death. It's so stupid and wonderfully convenient I can't even mock it better than it mocks itself. The whole sequence is completely devoid of logic and reads like satire.

Of course, without good antagonists, the psychological thriller aspect breaks down completely, and all unresolved conflicts become a pile of loosely connected garbage you don't want to sift through, let alone empathize with protagonists who choose to. There's just no point nor reason to care anymore. But you know who would be a great antagonist? Norman! He's somebody we are inherently invested into, somebody who is smart and relatable, with an ultimately well-meaning motivation that is just a step away from being corrupted by fear and newfound power, and he is close enough to Emma that it would force her to think and make some very hard decisions instead of taking the easy road for the win/win scenarios. Sounds perfect, right? And he's almost set up that way... but nope, we have to deal with these sorry losers instead.

I have no idea who came up with Isabella and Sister Krone, but I find it hard to believe it was Kaiu Shirai, judging by their laughable attempts to write anybody else and always arriving at the *exact same* poor result. The sad part is there have been plenty of opportunities to make actually good antagonists and a more engaging power play if only the author was willing to take some risks with the characters. Unfortunately, herein lies the core problem #3...

CORE PROBLEM #3: Kaiu Shirai is, after all, a weak, risk-averse writer without any clear message to tell.
This is probably the most damning one. The Promised Neverland has a really good premise and would have been an all-time hit if it had played all of its cards right. And make no mistake—there were a *lot* of cards to play. Opportunities to take the story in much more convincing, daring, interesting directions were aplenty. Instead, the author almost always chose to tread by far the safest, most predictable and least controversial paths. Even the brightest plot ideas were beaten into the most trite, cliche-ridden pieces of uninspired shonen action. Furthermore, it would often be muddled even more—and on purpose!—by sudden tonal shifts from completely serious to comedic, as if the author were actually scared that the audience would take the already shaky narrative seriously after setting up such a convincing world that demanded better.

To put the changes in more concrete terms... The horror and mind game aspects from the opening arc evaporate almost completely along the way and are replaced by dumb action (where the solution is quite literally "bring better guns") and occasional tone-deaf comedy. The ethical dilemmas raised so sharply in the beginning are dodged and resolved in increasingly convenient, low-stake manners—the author would not hesitate to use deus ex machinae if needed. Characters become able to achieve unrealistic feats of hardware and software engineering which are hand-waved by "well, they're geniuses, duh" without ever accounting for the fact that making anything complex or precise requires reference materials and tools that enable that complexity or precision in the first place—and I doubt they would be conveniently lying around in an alien world which looks like it's gotten stuck in the Bronze Age. The kids' athleticism and control over their body also becomes so comically exaggerated that at one point a girl in her mid-teens can be seen shooting two heavy machineguns, each of them probably half her entire body mass, while standing on a tree branch, unsupported, without any regard for the recoil. So yeah, they basically gain physics-defying superpowers as well.

Naturally, this means that every message, every piece of social commentary that is normal to have in any given story—as either an attempt to put an idea forth or to discuss its implications—falls completely flat in TPN. Even the pro-vegan message that everyone had considered to be on the nose in the beginning ended up nothing more than a red herring in the end. I'm not sure if this was an attempt at subversion (subverting veganism with a herring?) or just an admittance of failure to make a convincing point, but either way it went nowhere. Both the premises and the resolution to the conflict between the eaters and the eaten undermined the argument that could be made in favor of veganism, or at least in favor of not engaging in livestock breeding. And I don't even subscribe to any particular side of this or other arguments—I just wanted them to be convincing and self-consistent in their presentation!

There are other themes, concepts, ethical dilemmas, and questions that could have been explored but were only briefly touched, such as:
* The dangers of recklessness (raised but never explored).
* Machiavellianism (toyed with but snuffed out and forgotten).
* The law of the jungle (invoked multiple times but miraculously averted each time the opponent was a human).
* Corruption of power (briefly mentioned but not explored).
* Life fulfillment (briefly mentioned and promptly dealt away with).
* Utilitarianism (raised multiple times but mostly dodged).
* The ethics of euthanasia (touched upon but never explored).
* Redemption arc (invoked multiple times but was almost comically shallow in every case).
* Forgiveness of cardinal sins (something Emma and others are all too eager to do for both humans and demons, but it's never discussed).
* Likewise with all of the hinted-at religious undertones and many more aspects that were either never explored or were dealt away with in the most crude and hamfisted manner.

There are tons of other manga that have done these and more; perhaps not at once but in a much more elegant and thoughtful manner—which is more important. Even the blockbuster Attack on Titan, which many people only perceive as a dumb schlocky action romp, has actually addressed many of these concepts quite thoroughly and from a more balanced viewpoint.

There is also the issue of overusing cliffhangers and—worse still—exaggerating scenes at the end of a chapter and then retroactively modifying them at the beginning of the next one (such as by inserting extra dialogue or moderating them to be less impactful). To put it into perspective, somebody like Naoki Urasawa executes a cliffhanger by arranging the presentation of events such that the engagement peaks right at the end of a chapter, so the only thing he has to do there is cut the chapter off at the right time, like when a character reacts to something. When Shirai does a cliffhanger, they're *misrepresenting* the events to be more exciting than they appear in the next chapter, thereby artificially doping the engagement. In other words, "oh, it didn't actually happen like that—that was just me messing with you" is what happens. This deliberate sabotage of narrative consistency between adjacent chapters is a pretty egregious offense by any literary standards. It is such a cheap, aggravating way to engage the audience I'm surprised the editor allowed a continuous abuse of this trick. Right up there with that Shinsekai Yori scene where the MC mistakes one character for another *for no reason* other than to rile up the audience's expectations for the next episode. I'm normally against corporal punishment, but public flogging of such authors suddenly sounds appealing to me.

But the most baffling part, perhaps, is that the blueprint for the entire story had been completed—get this—*years in advance* while Shirai and their editor were looking for an artist. There was more than enough time to flesh out the narrative and make the characters—particularly Emma—more complex and three-dimensional. Again, the opportunity wasn't taken, and it's all conforming to a consistent trend of being lazy, cowardly, and/or uncreative. At this point I'm fully convinced that the better parts of the story were coined by somebody else entirely; I refuse to believe that an author who could do so well in the beginning and had this much time on their hands to work on the story could ruin it to such an extent. But even if that is actually the case, it only drives home the point that in the end it's not the ideas that matter but their execution.

To summarize, The Promised Neverland is a story that could have been fantastic and had continuously promised to do better but barely managed to escape utter mediocrity by the end of its run. The first arc is a high 8 out of 10 on its own, but the rest averages out to a weak 5. So my resulting score is a 6 as a nod to all the squandered goodness. Disappointing, very disappointing.

My advice would be to read the first arc (or, alternatively, watch the first cour of the TV adaptation, as it covers the whole arc and does it just about as well as the manga). If you notice something in it that annoys you or may become a potential deal-breaker, be sure that from that point on it will only get much worse, so it's best to stop there and treat it as a self-contained story. But if you were perfectly happy with how it went, proceed at your own risk. Some have enjoyed this to the end, after all.

2022/04: MAL now has Interest Stacks, a feature that allows creating thematic listings, so I've made one for similarly disappointing manga with a good start: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/2361.

The Promised Neverland was one of the first manga I ever read, the first manga I bought and was a manga I stuck with for many years, so I clearly feel a little bit sad that this manga is finally complete and the journey was over. But sadly those emotions are also clouded by tons of disappointment by the end as it was almost depressing seeing how far this manga fell from grace overtime.

Story & Writing (3/10)

The manga in my opinion, easily has one of the best starts in all of manga for me with the Escape Arc. It's a simple concept but with the ... showcase of mindgames between Isabella and her children in the orphanage as they tried to find a way to escape and survive, it was incredibly thrilling, captivating, mysterious and left me on the edge of my seat. Each single step towards escape was well crafted and planned, and seemed to have a good payoff too.

But then after the arc, as the mystery themes faded a bit and it transitioned to a new kind of storyline, mainly focusing on survival and discovery, The Promised Neverland was slowly faltering a bit. It still was progressing fairly well in the Goldy Pond arc with good mysteries and plot elements being set up to understand what is happening with the world, but minor cracks were showing here and there with it.

Unfortunately after that arc, that's where the manga starts to fall apart for me - with the final arc.

All the plot twists, cliffhangers, tension building, well crafted storytelling for its mindgames and world building, were all thrown out of the window as the manga lazily tried to end the entire storyline in the most passive, underwhelming ways possible. Twists felt like they underdelivered massively with payoffs, or some twists felt incredibly rushed, some felt like it was too easy to solve or that the consequences were barely present that it came across as comedic. All the amazing detail and writing just washed away and the manga ended in such a timid, and mediocre fashion that it truly was depressing to witness as a long term fan of the past. Shame that Shirai could not tie the plot threads together whatsoever and instead just slapped on some bullshit to somewhat end it.

Characters (4/10)

The main trio were very likable at the start. You have the optimist and charming girl in Emma, and the guys who were incredibly smart and observational and cunning too in Norman and Ray. With a main trio that's likable, well written and even fascinating to watch at the start, as they try to scheme against an interesting villain in Isabella, the caretaker, the cast was well set right from the get-go. Even the other children were fairly nice too.

But again, after Goldy Pond, a ton of characterization felt incredibly wasted due to meaningless twists, ruining the potential of what could have been a great cast. Not to mention, a lot of the motives were one dimensional and that led to affecting the plot massively, especially with Emma in the second half of the manga not being able to change her ways of thinking which led to her acting as a driving force for a ton of the plot issues that led to happen afterwards. Norman's character was just a massive clusterfuck too by the end with so many inconsistencies added to his character that resulted in little payoff whatsoever.

Not to mention, the antagonists in general were mediocre as hell except Isabella. Uninteresting, underwritten and as one dimensional as Emma. Even stupid to a degree I would say.

Art (9/10)

I feel bad for Posuka Demizu since her art actually was really good except some inconsistencies at times with designs, especially with Norman in the middle of the manga.

Her art was very expressive, with great character designs and amazing cover art that look truly wallpaper worthy. The designs were fantastic, the setting was well portrayed and even the antagonists and monsters looked good. Sadly, Shirai let her down with poor storytelling big time.

Enjoyment (4/10)

The enjoyment was a 10 for me in the first half, but a 0 for me by the end given the number of failures in writing that occurred every single chapter, leading to more and more issues and frustrations.

Overall, a manga that had everything amazing going for it, but washing it away with its final arc due to bad writing and failures of solving mysteries and delivering great payoffs for the amount of tension and twists that were setup that led to a 10/10 worthy manga limping all the way to an average rating.

It's amazing how many Shounen Jump manga have brilliant starts but throw it all the way in the middle or at the end, and The Promised Neverland may personally be the most painful example of that for me. What a shame.

Score 4/10

[Spoiler Warning]

The first arc of this story is one of the best self-contained stories I've ever read. You're always kept guessing, due to the unique setting and sheer drought of information that is present. The protagonists are fun and endearing, the antagonists are cool, sympathetic and very intimidating, all round great.

However, that's only a quarter of the story so far. After its' conclusion, the story begins to degenerate into a post-apocalypse story with so many genre-trappings, tropes and predictable story beats that, as a fairly genre-savvy person for this kind of story, things have only gotten less and less interesting as the mediocre storytelling is ... propped up by a depleting list of mysteries about the greater world, with most revelations being kind of underwhelming anyway.

I would say that the story only really began to lose me after chapter 112, which is the vast majority of the story so far. So if you want to know whether you should read it, you should! Even if just for the first arc, but the rest of the story before the current arc begins after chapter 112 is also really engaging and fun, if not a bit unoriginal. But I'm afraid that without a change to the plot or setting as radical as the first arc to the second, the story seems to be going down a pretty bad path.

PS: Nearly every single panel in which Gillian appears is absolutely hilarious and golden. She's the best.

This manga, albeit very new has gotten my attention well enough to prompt me to write a review. With the ending of popular series like Bleach and Naruto, myself and many other people have high expectations from the newer generation of authors. And I believe that the authors of Yakusoku no Neverland have great potential.

YnN starts off with Emma, a happy go lucky girl who spends the days of her life in pure bliss along with all the other orphans. All the kids there enjoy their carefree everyday activities like playing tag, eating delicious food, and taking an extensive IQ test with absolute focus... wait. ... It is at this moment you realize that this is no ordinary orphanage, but the kids who grew up there are completely oblivious to that. It is not until Emma witnesses the horrible truth about the purpose of the orphanage that is encircled in walls that she and some other orphans begin to wonder about mysteries outside the orphanage.

I kept my summary vague to keep the element of mystery intact, which the authors do a phenomenal job of keeping you intrigued while still maintaining a steady pace. It is especially important because that is one of the aspects that keeps you coming back for more.

The other one are the characters. The main character Emma is at first glance the typical shounen character beaming with optimism. Her character is somewhat reminiscent of Gon from Hunter x Hunter, that is, a feral, stubborn, bright, but also very calculating. In fact all the main characters are depicted to be smart in their own way and for a good reason. Unlike many shounen characters who are frustratingly stupid, the characters in this manga would do and think about all the things the readers are thinking.

My only fear for this manga is that it hopefully won't reveal it's overarching mystery too soon, and characters don't stay true to what they are already established as of now. But the way the authors are going, makes me hopeful that they know what they're doing. Could this potentially be the new Hunter x Hunter? One can only hope.

I will update this review after this manga has reached Ch. 100 and blown up in popularity.

Note: this review contains some minor spoilers

Yakusoku no Neverland is a manga that started great, then lost its drive for a mediocre middle part, picked up a bit of the steam for the later part with a different driving force for the interest but failed to do a satisfactory/interesting ending.

As mentioned, the first part is the best. Unfortunately the rest of the manga fails to catch up to the hype by both the first arc of the manga itself and by the well done anime adaptation of the said arc. The protagonists, the villains, the revelations, there is not a dull moment in ... this arc. One thing about the characters is that you have suspend your disbelief to accept that those very young kids are perfectly capable of waging Death Note-esque mind wars, but this is at least somehow excused by the setting being orphanage that focuses on creating extremely gifted children.

Regrettably, those engaging mindgames recede into the background as the next part focuses more on fighting capabilities and firepower. Some smartness is still included, but it can be abbreviated to running around, hiding and gunning down the demons while occasionally being hunted in turn. Or maybe the other way around. This is undoubtedly the weakest part that feels a bit repetitive and most importantly far from the uniqueness of the first part. It's still not bad, mind you, but it's still not exactly great either.

Now, contrary to the popular opinion, I don't believe Yakusoku no Neverland only went downhill. I, for one, enjoyed the demon politics, hierarchy and the power struggle between them. I also enjoyed the changes within a certain character that made them grow colder as they had to sacrifice their feelings for a personal good, which also helped to make a contrast with Emma and quite surprisingly made her something more than just a generic goody two-shoes "everyone must be happy" character. While she still is beamingly positive, it is shown that those are not just reflexive reactions and she too is willing to go to greater lengths for what she believes is the greater good. Emma wasn't my favourite, but this part certainly made good job of making the reader understand her closer.

The later part also has one of my most favourite moments in the whole manga to which I will refer as to a "dog girl" to avoid giving too much spoilers. It was one of the greatest twists in the series that really makes you feel and consider some other sides of the story. Reversal of expectations, in a good way. Compared to for example the final "villain" turning out to be a weird goblin with riddles who seemed to create the whole conclusion just for the lulz it makes out the uninterestingness of the ending stand out even more.

The finale just doesn't fit the mood. Heroic sacrifice that gets toned down to what is just a minor inconvenience in the context of the overall situation feels just like pouring boiling water on your ice-cream. I certainly expected some more ballsy ending than this. Emma is shown to be stubborn lawful good and for this to have a character pay-out her decisions should have their full consequences to give weight to actions she did to follow through with her belief.

Overall this is still an enjoyable watch that compensates for its weaker parts with the brilliant parts. You might not enjoy every part of it, but as a whole you'll most likely like it.

Being a relatively new manga, I'll be basing this review off of the currently released chapters. I've never reviewed a series so soon after the original release, that's how good this manga is.

Story: 9/10
I'd honestly like to give it a higher score... but because I'm only going off of the few chapters that have been released, I have to give the story a 9 for now. The story is EXTREMELY original, well-paced, with just the right amounts of darkness and lightheartedness. I'll just be reading along, and all of the sudden, my stomach balls up, turns over, and shrivels with tension and real fear. Best ... part?... only takes one turn of a page to do it.

Art: 10/friggin10
Jaw dropping. Magnificent. Bubbly, rounded and soft at all the right times (with all the right characters), yet sharp, angular, and intensely disturbing just when you're not (quite) expecting it. Detailed backgrounds and characters provide for an wonderfully immersive experience.

Character: 8.5/10
Like with the story line, I can only give this an 8.5 for now because I'm waiting on further character development. But for me to be so invested in and attached to these characters with so few chapters released... doesn't happen often for me. Happens rarely, in fact. Each character is complex and interesting in their own way. They bring out of you real affection, suspicion, and intrigue... as well as the dark rumblings of a fear you don't yet fully understand.

Enjoyment/Overall: 9.5/10
Read everything I've written above ^
And then read this manga. You won't be sorry.

Well, if you like a story that have a lot of twist in it, you would probably love it. You would be overwhelmed by the twists in this manga. It has a beautiful character development. Every character has their own characteristics and uniqueness. There might be naive and too kind character, but that doesn't mean that they are dumb or something (this kids are geniuses). This would be a great manga to read since the end of a few so I call it "giant" in the manga industry. Try it out and you'll most probably like it (unless you like a lot of blood, intestines ... and some other body parts gushing out, then I would suggest Happiness and Tokyo Ghoul :re)

The Promised Neverland has an extremely strong start. The first arc is a genuinely fantastic thriller with interesting characters and a very compelling mystery. Unfortunately, the series starts to go downhill around the point where the anime ends, and becomes extremely repetitive. Combined with a very unsatisfying conclusion, this leads to the series not even reaching close to the potential its strong start showed. If you do view The Promised Neverland, I recommend stopping reading it at the end of the first arc. Many of the central mysteries of the premise, such as "what are the demons", do not have satisfying answers.

I came to the manga from the anime. This is important because the anime covers the arcs of the manga that take place in the orphanage. There is a clear split in the reader base in regards to which part of the manga is actually good. That will also affect how you view the anime. In my opinion the anime handles a lot (but not all) of the manga material far better. It's also blessed in that you don't have to deal with every inane, absolutely god forsaken plot point that comes after the orphanage escape arc.

The arcs in the orphanage are a tight, ... albeit flawed thriller. The characters are constantly using their wits against each other, and for once the antagonists are just as good as the protagonists. It's like the good part of Death Note for dozens of chapters. On top of that the world is interesting and mysterious, truly fascinating. The character designs are incredibly bland, with Ray frequently looking like Sasuke, but I found myself actually caring about these kids as the manga went on.

Then they leave the orphanage, and it goes downhill. Soon no one thinks about anything. The solution to problems becomes guns. There are some chapters that are just actual gun fights between adults, in the military. The plot becomes typical of the shounen genre in every possible respect. The manga goes through the same godawful transformation that Gantz, Dolly Kill Kill, Magical Girl Apocalypse, and countless others do.

This is why some people prefer the later stages of the manga. It's easier to follow, it's more familiar, it's far less ethically uncomfortable. No longer do people have to worry about if they need to sacrifice one of themselves to be eaten alive for the plan to continue and maybe work. Sacrifices are done heroically, in a hail of gunfire, when the cast grows too big. The horror leaves the manga completely.

What's worse is that the manga begins to lean hard on some of the weaker points in the writing that have been there since the beginning. Often times in the early stages of the manga, characters seem to teleport away from an area. Considering they're super humans more or less, it really doesn't seem totally implausible that they could run long distances in a short period. By the time you get to the middle of the manga, people are surviving things that they outright have no business surviving. Normal humans surviving explosions that take out entire bases just for some extra scenes. It's impossible to take seriously, because nothing means anything. Nothing that happens matters.

Early-mid stage manga had issues inserting past events in at random. It resulted in a 'Emma says something happened' and that's the resolution. Even when it's literally impossible that this happened. You kind of take it with a grain of salt however. By the mid-late stage of the manga everything is solved, or taken care of with a time skip and then Emma relays to you that something happened. That's the other problem solving strategy besides guns, cutaways and flashbacks.

Ultimately the obvious human conspiracy plot, the increasing levels of super powers in the main casts, telegraphed character revivals, side switches, and bland world become routine. You can't even say that they're done better than other manga, because they aren't. The art is also not particularly good most of the time, the character designs are weak, the writing dies.

It's clear in a lot of shounen and shounen-adjacent works like Naruto and Attack on Titan that the author planned out the initial arcs, and then just had an idea of where to go from there. And when they got there their ability to ad lib wasn't very good, and they likely changed some plot points entirely. The idea Norman, Emma, and Ray were being saved for a special feast is repeated constantly in the original few arcs, but is clearly impossible by the end of the Orphanage saga, let alone 110 chapters in.

This manga really coasted for me on the first 30 odd chapters. I would say if you want to, watch the anime then never touch anything else. The anime has its flaws, but overall presents everything far better than the manga and on top of that it doesn't carry on after. If you still want to read the manga after watching the anime, be warned that if something annoyed you in the anime it will be 100 times worse in the manga.

It really, really hurts to see Neverland end with a whimper like this. To say the series started off strong would be an understatement, it grabs you by the balls within the first chapter and never lets go… well, until the end of the first arc, that is. Afterwards, things start to take a slow decline in quality, until it enters its final arc and absolutely nosedives into irredeemable garbage territory.


Let’s start off with the thing I didn’t mind too much about it by the end.


Art: 8/10


Posuka’s art isn’t the most complex, but it’s very charming, and adds a lot of style to the ... series. Her coloring and composition skills in particular are absolutely top tier, just glancing at the volume covers should tell you that much. The art ends up a little odd at times towards the end of the series, but it’s nothing all that noticeable. Overall, this is by far most consistent aspect of the series, props to Posuka.


But now that that’s out of the way, well...


Story: 1/10 (First arc: 9/10)


The first arc of the series is by far one of the best starting arcs in any manga. Hooks you right way, and then it never stops being tense, interesting, and an absolute thrill to read through. This is due to the fact that this starting arc had already been meticulously planned by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu prior to publishing, as a STANDALONE STORY. This detail is very important, because it’s the reason this arc is so insanely well executed. Perfectly paced, perfect foreshadowing, perfect ending, it’s great, works just fine by itself. The problem, though, is that after this arc, they had absolutely no idea where to go next, and it shows. With the addition of some plot devices, they manage to justify extending the series as a full weekly shounen manga, and the story after this point changes drastically.


The series ditches its super intense mind games to become a fantasy adventure manga, and to be completely honest, it’s not all that bad at first. It’s not as good as the escape arc, sure, but the Goldy Pond arc manages to be decently tense and fun to read through, despite not being part of the original plan. The issue comes right after this, when it’s starts to become clear they don’t really have any clue where they’re going with this story, and they’re just making up stuff along the way and hope they manage to stick the landing eventually.


And man, they did not stick the landing. After a 2 year timeskip, the series enters its final arc. An absolute atrocity of storytelling. It starts off alright, then it trails off into an incoherent mess of plot points, themes and character motivations that all add up to a completely worthless experience that invalidates anything that came prior to that point. Whatever redeeming qualities the series had completely vanish. Plot points get introduced, and forgotten about within 2 chapters. Characters that were once important are now background characters. Conflicts are extremely bland, and impossible to care about when you know they’ll get resolved by the unbeatable talk no-jutsu. And dear god, the worst of all, the pacing. This felt like 150-200 chapters worth of story condensed into such a tiny space that any and all enjoyment that could be derived from it got squeezed out, and only a series of plot points remain. For a series with such a strong start where the writer proved he could do good stuff, the fact that we managed to get here is baffling.


Characters: 1/10 (First arc: 8/10)


Emma, Norman and Ray weren’t any kind of insanely complex protagonists, but they did the job well. They were all unique from each other, and worked super well together. Watching them figure out things and succeed was very satisfying, watching them fail miserably felt heartbreaking. I admit, I got very invested in the little brats by the end of the first arc. The side characters weren’t too bad either, and the villain especially stood out as both empathetic and absolutely terrifying, almost singlehandedly giving the arc an oppresive, tense atmosphere like nothing I’ve ever seen. I really did love the cast, which is why I’m livid at just how poorly mishandled they have been, and it’s all due to one character: EMMA.


After the first arc, Ray gets reduced to nothing more than a glorified yes-man. He completely loses any individuality he had, and doesn’t do anything other than agree with Emma, and hang out in the background of panels sometimes. Norman’s treatment has been even worse. As the one interesting character still remaining in the final arc, in the span of one chapter Emma manages to make him do a completely 180 on his beliefs and destroy whatever semblance of character he still even had. They’re not even the only ones treated this way. Hell, sometimes characters come back from the dead just to help her. With the power of talk no-jutsu and friendship, she single-handedly defeats any kind of obstacle that ever came in her way, and single-handedly ruined any kind of tension or stakes the manga had left. No doubt, the single biggest reason this manga went to shit like it did. Fuck Emma.


Enjoyment: 0/10 (First arc: 10/10)


The Escape arc is one of the best experiences with manga I’ve ever had. I remember seeing the name The Promised Neverland offhandedly mentioned somewhere, looked it up and saw the cover, thought it looked pretty cool. Started reading it completely blind, and little did I know I’d be taken on an adventure filled with intrigue, heartbreak, betrayal, sacrifice, and triumph, no doubt one of the wildest rides I’ve ever been on with any story. For this reason, seeing the series turn into a shell of its former self and eventually into one of the biggest steaming piles of doo-doo WSJ has ever seen has been absolutely depressing.


After the dip in quality after the first arc, I was one of the dudes still defending the series, holding out for the moment it becomes good again. And I waited. And I waited. But that moment never came. The series did nothing but plummet deeper and deeper into oblivion, until any hope I had left was gone. The series becomes nothing. There’s nothing to like about it, nothing to get invested in, nothing interesting it tries to say or do. It might as well just be blank pages for 100 chapters, there’d be the same amount of enjoyment in it. I feel as if someone killed one of my loved ones in front of my eyes, skinned them, then taxidermied them, and now all I’m looking at is an empty husk that barely resembles them. It’s really, really bad.


Overall: 3/10


Having just finished the final chapter, you’d think I’d feel something considering this was a series I was deeply invested in at one point. But nope, I feel absolutely nothing. I’m even kind of happy the series is finally done and I don’t have to read it anymore. It becomes clear that the series never had any kind of point to it to begin with. It betrays any expectations I had for it, and ironic to its name, never delivers on its promises. By the end, I didn’t end up with anything except regret that I didn’t drop it before it got to this point, and a whole lot of time I’ll never get back.

This is really a masterpiece, even though Im not a Shounen fan, (as mater of fact I hate this genre), But I enjoyed reading this manga, The unique story, the characters development, the Unique atmosphere of this manga everything was 10/10 for me, I didn't like the drawing that much though, It was much better in the anime, The anime was perfect in everything I liked it much more than the manga If I could I would've give in it more than 10 as a rate, However the manga was also great And I enjoyed it my single complaint was about the art style, but ... it wasn't that much of a problem and it won't prevent me from giving it the full score!

The Promised Neverland or Yakusoku no Neverland is a true masterpiece created by Kaiu Shirai.

Let's start with the summary. This story takes place in an orphanage and the protagonist is Emma, a bright and cheerful girl that lights up everyone around her. Every orphan has a number etched on their neck and after their 6th or 12th birthday, they are given off to a "foster family". One of the rules of this orphanage is that they are never allowed to go outside. One day, Emma and her friend find out the secret behind this orphanage that would change their lives forever.

That is the summary. ... I've tried my best to be as subtle as possible.

Now on to the characters. They are absolutely brilliant. These children are nothing like regular shonen or shojou manga. The character development is excellent and most of them are smart which is something you don't often see in a shonen or shojou manga.

The manga will grip you tightly and will not let you go. I started this manga on a whim and I finished all 94 chapters of this maga(till date) in 2 hours. The suspense, the story line, the plot... Everything is all a manga reader could wish for.

I'd give this manga a solid 10. I haven't been so emotionally invested in a manga in a very long time. You'll see what I'm talking about

I just keep thinking of what an explosive gripping start this manga has yet, it continues to sputter out the longer and longer it drags out. The first arc of this manga is absolutely incredible. It could've been a complete 1 shot(As the anime somewhat is) and would've left you completely satisfied. Unfortunately, it is very clear that the author put most of their thought into that first arc and slightly after that arc but, not much into the moments leading up to the conclusion of the story.

This manga also relies a lot on things happening off screen. Which is good to keep you ... on your toes and making characters feel prepared and that they're using their brain to solve things but, since it keeps happening it starts to feel like a convenient way to make sure the characters cannot lose.

I'm not sure if it was because I was able to marathon through 2 major arcs for instant gratification and now I have to wait weekly for new chapters is affecting my enjoyment but, I find that the core elements of that first arc aren't present in these later chapters. The characters feel like they're doing cliche things and that the plot is doing cliche things.

Demizu's art is consistently beautiful and well drawn. I never felt that there was a dip in quality. Her style is extremely unique, soft when it needs to be and jarring or terrifying when it needs to be.

I still enjoy it but, while I felt that I couldn't put the story down or wait for the next chapter...now I find reading it to be a slog and just a general desire to see how it all ends.

warning: minor spoilers

Story: 9/10
The story is amazing. The author is extremely good at always surprising us and somehow showing how astonishingly genius the children are. The writing is very smart, a lot of curveballs are thrown in our faces and we can never guess how the characters would defeat these challenges, yet somehow they always do. Simply genius.
The first (approximately) 30 chapters were very thrilling: and I LOVE thrillers (e.g., Erased, FMAB, Steins gate, etc). There were so many moments where my heart just stopped.

The manga did become quite slow in the Secret Hunting Village arc. The arc was still amazingly good, and it honestly ... didn't feel like it spanned over 30 chapters (which it did).


Art: 9/10
I have no objections with the art style. It is a very unique style, not like the generic, cutesy and appealing anime style. It has a gritty feel to it sometimes, which I reckon adds to the overall feel of the manga: to the horror and sense of dystopia at times. The artist also has a way to make the toddlers and younger children look ADORABLE with their large eyes.


Character: 8/10
The main three characters are AMAZING. The three of them are GENIUS children and I love how they keep proving it by how continuously finding new ways to show how unexpectantly smart they are.

Everybody else is pretty okay and not too unique and astonishing. Exceptions are: Phil, Mama Isabella, Sister Krone, and maybe others I can't really think of.

Phil is one of my favorites from the start since he is SO CUTE and it was revealed he was unbelievably smart as a four year old. It's a shame the author didn't really use him well as a character (unless there are plans in the future for Phil to have a larger role).

Everybody else feels pretty insignificant or only has very few instances where they shone.


Enjoyment: 9/10
Let me just tell you a bit about my history with this manga.
I started reading this when it barely had an chapters. I was already hooked, the first few chapters enticed me right away. However, I stopped reading around when chapter 20 came out (almost two years ago), not because of the manga itself but simply because of school. I recently discovered it was getting an anime, and decided to read it again.

I am VERY glad I decided to reread the first 20 chapters rather than just continue on from where I left off, because those 20 chapters were just as good as I remember.
Within ONE day (8th November 2018) I read the ENTIRE 110 chapters because I couldn't put it down!!!

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Overall: 9/10
There are so many components and unanswered mysteries. It is not a predictable or generic manga at all.
Definitely would recommend to everybody, especially those who like thrillers and psychological manga.

To be honest, I would separate TPN into two sections. The first 3 or so arcs (first 99 chapters I believe) is a solid 8.5/10 for me. The world-building is top notch, characterization is great, and the series has a wealth of complex relationship building while crafting great strategies and mysteries.

After that though, the story takes a pretty big nosedive, almost immediately. I fail to see how the series now is anything higher than a 5/10 at most. It feels like the authors want to rush everything and have just invalidated all the careful planning those first 99 chapters seemed to set up. Characters are ... simply caricatures of what they once were, none of the antagonists are as good as those in the first 3 arcs, and the world-building is laughably nonexistent, and the conflicts reduced to simple 'good vs bad'.

Anyway if you came here for ratings, here are mine separated for TPN's first 'half' and second 'half':

Story (first half): 9/10
Story (second half): 5/10

Art (first half): 8/10
Art (second half): 7/10

Character (first half): 8/10
Character (second half): 3/10

Enjoyment (first half): 9/10
Enjoyment (second half): 4/10

Overall (first half): 8.5/10
Overall (second half): 4/10

The Promised Neverland - The Best "JUMP Start" Manga.

This is the definitive manga of JUMP Start.
And I do not say this just because I like it, I say it because it is what "feeds" me as a reviewer and I do not want to look bad to dictate anything but "Yakusoku no Neverland" (original name) is the manga that gave me that level of hype since I begin reading the shonen gender.

The new series of Kaiu Shirai (story) and Posuka Demizu (art) premiered on August 1 in issue 35 of Shueisha's Shounen Jump magazine.
The first chapter had 54 pages with a colorful opening ... page. Shirai and Demizu had previously worked together in a one-shot called "Popy no Negai" in February. To further increase the hype, the manga "Yakosoku no Neverland" is already among the standard Jump lineup of the American Jump - which is not very common, since the new series usually only appear there with the first chapter. I sincerely hope that Viz Media will make the physical version of this series, I will buy it for sure !!

The story begins with a narration telling how the days at the orphanage were happy, which already leads to understand that the narrator's time is the future and he recounts memories. Then it becomes clear that we actually have a (female) narrator. That's right, we have a protagonist this time, her name is Emma.

As the synopsis shows, this tells the story of Emma and her friends living a very good life in the orphanage in which they grew up. Although the rules are strict, the caretaker of the children is kind and has the image of a "mother" for all who live there. But why are they forbidden to leave the place ...?
-> Answer: That has more where it is said.

Half of the 1st chapter shows 3 important points to understand the "sweet" and "cute" scenario in the history: How the orphanage works with it's 38 children and is entirely controlled by a single woman they call Mama (as the mom = mother of the orphans); As everyone is happy and well treated as true brothers; As the protagonist stands out in means to others. Then the darker points of the orphanage begin to appear.

First we see that each one has an identification number tattooed on the neck and this is handled naturally. Then all the children go through a kind of daily test where they have to answer 60 difficult questions of calculation and mathematical logic in 10 seconds, and with this test we find out that Emma, Ray and Norman are the smartest interns.

After the tests, everyone is free to play, but the sequence has the function of showing the reader that at the end of the orphanage grounds there is an immense gate and a kind of wall that surrounds all. They have knowledge of the "outside world" through some books in the library, and many dream of what to do when they leave the place. It is that in this part also we found that the main trio have 11 years old and that the age limit to stay in the orphanage is until the 12 years old. But that ends up being no rule.

In short, this first chapter was spectacular! With beginning, middle and end well defined and very well developed, the desire to continue reading is very great and the expectation is up there for the next chapters. I do not think anyone expected a plot like this happening in this scenario (as sometimes seen as a superpower scenario), and the passage from the quieter parts of the chapter to the heavier ones really came as a surprise and may have scare many readers.

My view of art is this: the draftsman is very good at creating the darkest part of the story. The monsters were very detailed and really scared to look at them. And if there were the best page drawn in the year, the scene where the little girl's body is found would be a strong candidate to win.

In the beginning part of the chapter the art became simpler and was not so spectacular, even because it did not go to detail, unlike the end. I really hope the story goes to that more serious tone, but since it's shonen, not seinen, then it should stay in the middle. Although the attitudes of children seem strange at times because of their age, this is understandable because of the tests that are submitted every day. So it was a beautiful surprise.

The only problem I see in the series is that it drags the story too much in order to be too slow and currently in chapter 19, the story is still about getting out of the orphanage.

It is hard to conceptualize suspense and "horror" into a manga opposed to a motion picture and Neverland as excelled greatly at capturing these elements without the need of competing in the contest of "who can draw the most creepiest creature" or jump scares.

Starting off with the Story(1010):
The story is suspenseful. As the time of writing this,(25chapters or so), weekly this series DOES NOT fail at the slightest in chapter quality, maintaining the suspense and keeping you wanting more and more. Humans are fed to monsters and are raised in a "farm" where they have to take tests and such. Our protaganists, Emma, ... Rey and Norman are all trying to escape with EVERYONE, without knowing anything about the world.
There is sooo much mystery , which is primary what reels you into the story. The plot is minimal, simple, but it has potential to open so many doors. I would say Neverland is the perfect balance between simplicity and "complexity".
Similar to Death Note, if you like brains vs brains, you'll definitely like how this story is handled.

Characters(10/10):
Our characters are very unique and mysterious. From a psychological standpoint, it is very interesting to see how they interpret the truth of the situation about being cattle.
What matters in this category really is if they are distinct and that you can set them aside from other series. Not going to write too much since the series is still in it's early stages.

Enjoyment(10/10):
A PAGE TURNER. Itching for the next chapter, constantly delivering quality spot on chapters that leave you shunned in suspense. An intense battle of wits, a huge cloud of mystery that awaits!

Overall(10/10):
Death Note fan? Brain vs brain? read this. This series excels in capturing horror, suspense, and delivers blow after blow of suspenseful quality chapters.

Okay lemme level with you - this really just hit differently. A lot of people have left quite negative reviews and I'm doing my duty to clean this nonsense up.

Story - 10

The story of this manga starts off with a group of children living in an orphanage who find out that they are actually being raised as food for demons to eat. After finding this out they begin to plot how to escape this fate in the few months before the next child will be "shipped." As a vegetarian myself I found this premise and the ethics/morals surrounding it very interesting and have always ... enjoyed hearing other peoples reactions to this storyline in comparison to what we as humans do. Throughout the whole series this topic is shown in more gruesome detail with storylines featuring mass production factory farms, animal (here human) testing and experiments as well as exploring the topics of hunting. It is honestly hard at times to read and while reading the comments on the chapters it seemed a lot of people were forced to face their own morals and became a little more aware about their actions. Of course, even if you're not a vegetarian this theme isn't too shoved down your throat and you can enjoy the ethics and morals around it.

The first major arc definitely differs in genres to the rest of the story but that isn't to say it doesn't stay good. A lot of reviews state that the first arc is a 10/10 and the rest of the story afterwards is average at best. I disagree.

If you like the idea of an escape arc filled with psychological twists and horror but don't like the idea of the fantasy world afterwards and the further exploration of the above topics - watch the anime. The anime in my opinion did the first arc better than the manga did. I enjoyed watching it and it worked so much better as an anime. However if you're interested in the plot point more then pick up the manga instead. Despite the genre's changing the storyline and plot stays the same.

Another common theme in reviews is how the Goldy Pond arc is where it peaks and the ending is rushed and disappointing. I agree the Goldy Pond arc is one of the best arcs in any anime/manga I've experienced. However, this doesn't mean the rest falls short. You might feel like some aspects are a little rushed - but as someone with a short attention span I actually appreciated that every chapter something was happening and it wasn't dragged out. Time skips were used effectively to make sure that main topics weren't rushed but also weren't dwelled on. These timeskips allowed for characters to plan what would happen next and it was able to take place without loads of chapters of planning and exploring.

The ending appears to get a lot of hate but as someone who actually prefers unhappy endings, this ending was somewhere in the middle between happy and unhappy. It's not terribly typical but also doesn't exactly hold the same consequences as the reader may want. I mean it made me cry so that's a win for me.

Characters - 9


Well the opinion on the characters is once again - split. The main three characters are Ray, Emma and Norman. I personally found other side characters enjoyable and cared when they were in trouble and was excited when they came to help.

Let's start with Emma - Emma is optimistic, stupid and caring. She puts others before herself and attempts to understand everyone no matter what they've done. If you enjoy characters like Naruto then you will enjoy this overly happy dumb knucklehead. At times Emma's optimism can be annoying but it's honestly not too bad though. It's refreshing in this world where corrupt is accepted and she is challenged by her friends multiple times and has to actively prove why her optimism is the correct way. People begin to trust in her because she proves herself - it's not blindly or unjustified. Emma does try as well. She tries so hard to become stronger and smarter and more wise so she can reach her dreams and goals while keeping everyone safe.

Now Ray. Despite being the most liked character, Ray is the worse of the main three in the manga. I love Ray and in the anime/escape arc he was amazing. He was given so much character development and twists and acted as such a crucial part to the story. This is why he is a fan favourite in the anime and it is well deserved. However sadly Ray's development sort of stops after chapter 40. Ray becomes the Sakura to Naruto. This isn't meant as an insult, I love Sakura myself. But despite having his strengths he is overshadowed by Emma's strong personality and decision making and ultimately if you removed Ray, the story would be no different. This isn't to say he's a bad character, you can still enjoy him but he just doesn't get any plot point between chapter 40 and 180.

And then there's Norman. Norman is my personal favourite. In the escape arc Norman plays as the middle man between Emma and Rays contrasting views on the situation however he admires Emma and ultimately wants to do what makes her happy. [Warning: heavy spoilers, it's hard to avoid when talking about Norman, skip to next character to avoid] Later on after Normans experiences he becomes the opposing force to contrast Emma's opinions and both of them hold justifiable views. Norman does indeed become a main plot point for the ending and despite not appearing as much as the other characters, he does indeed cause the most impact in the manga as a whole.

There's main other characters that I felt were so well written and of course there's some with more development than others.

Mama I constantly found myself split on, I could never quite tell if I liked her or forgave her actions. I did feel sometimes her actions contradicted her words however given her situation this could be justifiable. Krone is similar although not as further explored - she sorta acts as more background to the system and Mama's situation if anything.

Yuugo and Lucas were both very sweet written characters and although not a main focus in the story for long they were very impactful and no one can deny their lovability.

The Grace Field children ranging from Phil to Gilda, some of them may serve mainly as background characters but some are important. Although again not a main focus, these characters act to explore some topics aside from Emma which gives you a breathe of fresh air away from her. The other children met all had their moments however you'll probably find one particularly interesting and notice them a little more than the rest (for me it was Gillian, what a girl).

Sometimes the demons were a little hard to follow, I'm bad with Japanese names at the best of times, let alone when the demons don't have many defining characteristics. Due to this, which is my own personal issue, I never found myself too invested into any of the demons aside from Muscia, Lewis and Sonju. But I did enjoy these ones (altho Lewis' 180 was a bit confusing).

Art - 9

The art at the start was perfect for the horror elements and later on the fantasy world building was drawn beautifully. Emotions were portrayed so well, I found myself smiling at their smiles and tearing up with them. Perhaps sometimes simplistic or different *Norman* but nonetheless I never remember thinking "oh this page doesn't look great..."

Enjoyment - 10

I was worried when I read the reviews and I almost didn't read it. But I enjoyed Norman a lot and needed to know what happened after the anime and I'm so glad despite the critical reviews on this page that I decided to pick it up anyway. This manga quickly turned into my favourite and I enjoyed whenever I was able to read it.

Overall - 10

Overall I find the story interesting, the characters well developed and the art enjoyable and emotional. Perhaps if you're only interested in the escape arc with the psychological aspects watch the anime but if you find the plot point interesting then do give the book a read instead.

This is my first review so let's see how it goes.

So, recently I was craving a psychological manga and randomly picked this up.
What a pleasant surprise.

Story: 10/10*
The story starts off in our main setting: the orphanage. The sun is shining and the birds are singing and the big happy family is having a meal together. Well, almost. This does not last for long, despair and sorrow will soon follow. This is the day when the main characters stumble upon the secret behind their home and its origins. The story is unlike any other manga I have read before and shows great potential. There ... are many plot twists in this story and I hope it continues to surprise. It also explores themes of philosophical and ethical nature which make you question your own values.

Art: 9/10*
Clean, consistent and most importantly, very good at adapting its style to the emotions behind each scene. Of course, this is a psychological drama and whenever you need a reminder, it will remind you. The scenery is always beautifully drawn. The world that has been created looks intricate and original. I also want to point out something that I rarely see done right in manga/anime. That is, the way different races are represented. I feel that there is good detail given in racial features which makes the art more realistic and universal.

Character: 8.5/10*
I would like to give this a higher rank, however, the main characters are rooted in some almost stereotypical themes.
BUT! This is executed in such a way that it does not bother me. I will briefly talk about the 3 leads (of the same age).
The main character, Emma, has the typical "I will be Hokage" attitude and while not the smartest of the 3, she shows great insight in times of need. She does not lack any emotional or physical strength and it's a breath of fresh air to see that in a female lead.
The third lead, and probably one of the most complex, Ray, is the typical lost soul, smart soul gone emo. His backstory is explored a bit more and we get to see the reasoning behind his actions.
The second main, Norman, is this virtually perfect character. He is as smart as they come and acts almost as a mediator between the 3, meticulously choosing his course of action in order to reach the best outcome.
If you are hungry for sharp-witted characters similar to the likes of L and Light Yagami look no further. And yes, that was pun intended.
There are of course plenty of other characters and many of those play with your head in terms of being classified as good or evil.

Enjoyment: 10/10*
I found myself so intrigued in this story, bonded with the characters and in awe of what happened. The pacing of the story is appropriate to its complexity and every chapter kept me on the edge of my seat.*

Overall: 9/10*
What I would like for the future of this story is more character development and a chance to expand and explore its world.

*This rant is based on the first 56 chapters of the manga so please keep that in mind while reading this review.

Some recommendations:
~ Go blind into reading this manga!
~ As a comparison of similar themed stories, this manga is a grandchild of Made in Abyss + Attack on Titan. This is based solely, on their anime related content as I have not read their original stories. If you have enjoyed similar themes of survival and raw emotion then you will enjoy this manga.

I only picked up the manga because I loved the first season of the anime but I was extremely disappointed with the second one, so I had some expectations. That means the first part of the story, the initial escape, I already knew and love. Great story, concept and pacing. The second part was practically all new to me and it was good fun. A lot of new characters that helped make this world feel alive, and a great adventure that never felt too grand for our main cast. I loved how all the characters were important, not necessarily to the plot but to Emma ... (our main POV), with such intensity that you really cared for them all. The worldbuilding was really good too, giving this story very solid surroundings that never felt like they had any conceptual holes.

In the end, it didn't open my third eye but I did tear up a time or two and the work is definitely of quality. Not a favourite, but a very solid recommendation that I'm sure a wide public can enjoy.