Yakusoku no Neverland Episode 12 Discussion

gfsdfgsdgsdfgs said:
So, if removing my bitterness of last episode I enjoyed this one. I would have enjoyed it far more if it was the escape that was led up to or if we saw everything with the more inconsequential stuff being left out. The rock throw rope, the clothes hanger zipline, and the Phil being raised as Ray #2 was pretty awesome stuff. And I felt a sense of tension when Isabella was running to them on the wall even though I knew she would smile at their escape no matter what.

A nitpick for me would be that I had already extracted that Isabella was once an Emma who wanted to escape but couldn't and represents giving up and acceptance. Where Emma goes "we will make the world a place for humans", Isabella goes "I will give my sweet babies as good of a life as they can have in this world", even though I assume she was and has always been a fighter on the inside. Scenes like her knowing how Emma felt about becoming a mom affected me far more than anything Isabella did this episode due to the more subtle realization of it. So, to see what I mostly already knew, she was once a positive little girl with her own Norman, she saw him die and became a mom literally and figuratively, probably breeded in an awful way, and then had to raise that child to be eaten, was too much. I didn't need to know all the awful things she had occur, everything that happened to her was inferable, all her friends did die, and she gave up, and she was forced to accept the situation. I liked leaving it at that or I would have liked a more subtle exploration of those things instead of getting it all at once in a flashback at the very end.

Plus, why did they put a mom in charge of growing her own boy to be eaten? School teachers here cannot even teach their own kid due to bias. Lol... I would have just preferred not to get that plot twist. It felt artificial to me. Funny enough I made up that I saw a spoiler online and told my friends "ISABELLA IS RAYS MOM" before watching it because it was the most cliche spoiler I could think of and it actually happened out of nowhere. That gave me a good chuckle.

Overall, I found the suspense awesome, and I loved the slow world building where we got little pieces of information about the plant and how the world works. I loved being a part of the plan to escape, I actually argued against Digibro and said in this mystery story it isn't a simple carrot and stick game of keeping information we should otherwise know out of our face to keep us coming back. "We too are like the kids trying to escape" I said. Then last episode made fun of me for thinking such a thing and threw everything about the plot I liked out of the way giving me a harsh reality of why a mystery anime like this is reliant on leading up to satisfying conclusions.

I would be okay with secretive, behind the scenes plot movement if I cared more about the characters but after episode 3 I felt they had their gimmicks but were relegated to plot devices who weren't really explored on the basis of who they were as people anymore. Due to this I always liked the main cast but I found them boring, they didn't make me think about them, or why they did what they did, they didn't make me interested to pursue their idiosyncrasies and personalities past what we already knew. Don is the worst example in my opinion as I'd argue he wasn't just unexplored but flawed in his quick acceptance of Conny's death and their situation before being relegated into the background. His arc paired with his personality could have made him a more likable character than even the main three in my opinion.

There's two ways I could have liked this anime more.

1. If it focused on being a "how to escape" mystery/horror anime where we did get all of the clues along the way and were a part in the escape without stuff like last episode occurring.

2. If instead it cared more about showing off the characters as people with different interests, nuanced personalities, different motivations, bigger strengths and weaknesses. We did get some of this near the end and in my opinion in episode 3 but for the most part I would have preferred if this stuff was far more explored than it was. Like I said, I liked them, but liking them on a surface level isn't enough to carry the anime through its carrot and stick mystery/horror story which pulls the rug from under our feet at the end.

5/10, the characters didn't interest me enough and the plot felt like it betrayed me, lol! I enjoyed the plot before I realized I had been tricked and it had some great moments, this episode was a blast and Emma charging down Norman on her crutches was powerful. Overall all the sequences after the leg break up until the reveal in episode 11 were awesome due to me being engaged with the characters for one of the first times since Ray initially joining up with Emma and Norman. But that isn't enough for me to place it higher than 5 because, a 6 to me as an individual means it did more for me than allowing me to like it when it was on screen, it would mean I could reflect on truly loving certain qualities of it after I'm already done with it. In fact, when reflecting on this I'll be more likely to think about how I almost loved it but came out very disappointed.