Yakusoku no Neverland
The Promised Neverland

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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

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 a reupload, due to it being falsely tagged as preliminary)

When it comes to the subject of “series that disappoint”, most people talk about how much potential X series had. And while that’s not totally wrong, I feel like this is a somewhat inaccurate term, since a lot of series that supposedly had potential were actually good for a while. It’s just that they couldn’t maintain that momentum. And nowhere is this more present than in The Promised Neverland. Neverland, from the outset, was already capitalizing on its potential very effectively.

Back in late 2018, to early 2019, I got back into the hobby of ... reading manga. And one of the series that had me jump back into said hobby was The Promised Neverland after a combination of a cool premise, and hearing people rave about it. Among others, like Hero Academia Vigilantes, but that has nothing to do with this. Point is, Neverland had quickly become one of my favourite manga of all time. And for good reason! See, this series has one of the strongest arcs in shonen that I have ever, and since read. I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of THE all-time greats, along with Soul Society, Chuunin exams, Frieza, and even Enies Lobby, for fuck’s sake. Yes, I’m praising it to that extent, because I really do think it was that good.

The first arc of Neverland is intense, and full of thrills. Characters coming up with insane gambits, outsmarting each other, and resorting to the most desperate of tactics. Our villain, Mama Isabella is really threatening, and does have a very intimidating presence. Our main cast of Emma, Ray, and Norman are interesting, and while yes, a lot of their dialogue, and their ideas sound way too smart for 12-year olds, it can be explained in-universe with… Well, I won’t spoil it, but considering the world that the characters live in, it makes sense. I think the strongest aspect about the characters at that point is despite them being really smart, they are, at the end of the day, 12-year old kids. They can be irrational at times, and make bad calls. They make mistakes. Quite a lot. So when they actually manage to win at the end, it really feels earned, as a proper underdog victory should.

The following arcs, while not quite as strong as the first arc, are still good. The sort of ‘interlude’ arc that comes immediately after the first arc allows for us to slow down a little, adds plenty of effective world-building, introduces a few new, and fairly important characters. In general, it’s very clearly meant to be a setup for things to come much, much later on. It does it’s job, and it does it well. No real issues here.

I know Goldy Pond is a somewhat divisive arc, and a lot of people like to point to this being the start of the fall of the series, but I argue that it’s a damn fine arc. If this was in about 80% of other shonen series, this is where they would peak, and this is the part that everyone would talk about. It’s certainly a lot more action-packed than the first arc, and leans closer to the classic shonen setup of characters splitting up, and fighting their own fights, but there’s still plenty of interesting strategies and a lot of interesting revelations here. The new characters that are introduced, while not as compelling as our main cast, still serve their purpose here pretty decently.

And now, this is the what virtually everyone agrees on: The good things REALLY start faltering. After a certain character that I won’t name dies, the story starts to take another dip. There is some good payoff early on in this arc, and it does set up a few mysteries, but the fact that they timeskipped a journey that could’ve been it’s own arc (And just told us what happened) contributing more to the worldbuilding of the series was the biggest red flag. And it becomes a huge problem, when later on in the arc, all the emotional impact and payoff is counting on us to care about these details that could’ve been explored in this timeskipped segment.

I could go on and on about the problems with the first half of the final arc. I could talk about how rushed it was, how a whole bunch of characters end up being relegated to the background (Including Ray, one of the MAIN TRIO), the bullshit talk-no-jutsus, the complete absence of interesting strategies… Really, it’s not good. At all. It’s totally mediocre, bland, and forgettable. But the real meat of the problems comes in the second half of the final arc.

I’m going to jump into spoilers in the next paragraph, so if you’re interested in reading it, then don’t continue.

At this point in the story, it’s basically being carried by the titular “promise”. That was the mystery that this final arc had set up in the beginning. This final bit, however, is about tying up the loose ends of the first arc. We’re going back to Gracefield house, the setting of the first arc, and dealing with Mama. Kind of like what the song Return to Hangar is to the song Hangar 18. Only problem is, that this part is, similarly to Return to Hangar, completely inferior to what it was meant to follow up on in every single way. There are some absolutely pathetic attempts at “redemption” arcs that are so rushed, and weak, that they might as well not even have bothered. A particular spot that stuck out to me was what was meant to be the completion of Mama Isabella’s arc; That is to say, her sacrifice, and death. But there’s absolutely no emotion, no buildup, NOTHING to make it compelling. It just comes out of nowhere. Saddest thing was, that the chapter where we actually see her die is actually well-executed, well-drawn, and is a good example of a death scene. But with so little buildup, and development, it doesn’t hit even an twentieth of how hard it should. Oh, and I forgot to mention that they also have to tie up the loose ends of the first half of this arc though, so they end up just using some plot contrivance to handwave all that. Did that last sentence feel like it came out of nowhere? Yeah, that’s how about 90% of this arc felt.

Believe it or not though, it gets worse STILL. The promise that they’ve been building up to is supposed to be essentially, a free wish that has been heavily implied to require a sacrifice. And everyone’s betting that it’s gonna be the main cast, or something. But nope, they're all going to the human world! And no one has to stay behind. By that point, any remaining semblance of stakes in this series have been completely thrown out the window. They pretend there are some stakes after by claiming that Emma lost her memories of her family, and will totally never reunite with them! Except she does, and still remembers them to some extremely vague degree, so she may as well have just gotten all her memories back, for all the difference it makes. This ending is just so, so, SO weak.

Now I think I should talk about the characters. The main cast, Emma, Ray, and Norman, are pretty clearly archetypes. Emma’s the bright, athletic type, Ray is the serious, less athletic, somewhat cynical guy, and Norman’s somewhere in-between. They’re cliche, but they’re well-executed, and do the job really well. They never were the most fleshed-out, or interesting cast, but they’ve got their flaws, and are certainly developed enough for me to care about them. But later on, Emma becomes the SOLE focus of the trio, and she’s just a flat, boring power of friendship shonen stereotype. Norman’s basically nothing, and Ray may as well not exist. It literally feels like the author kept forgetting that Ray existed, and then occasionally remembered to write a couple of lines for him, and then told the artist to draw him into the panel. I’ve already talked about Isabella throughout this review, and as for the rest of the cast, there’s basically nothing to say about them. Sonju and Musica are basically just plot devices that are there to pull solutions out of the ass dimension, and the other side characters are so forgettable, I’ve literally forgotten all their names, as someone who followed the series absolutely religiously, weekly.

The art’s good. It always remains good. This is something that Neverland never fails to deliver on. Characters are consistently well-drawn, as are backgrounds, and the cover art for the tankobons is consistently wonderful. Posuka Demizu really did the best with what she could. BUT… And this is really not something I say often, her skills were sadly wasted on the later parts of this manga.

The biggest question I have to ask is WHY? Why is this all so rushed? Why did we skip over important worldbuilding? Why did this drop so hard in quality? Like, were they afraid that it was going to be axed, so they just wanted to complete the story? Were there declining sales? Health issues? Was the author bored of writing it? Did the author just run out of ideas? I have no idea, but regardless, Neverland’s final arc is a disaster that will go down in history in the same way as something like Bleach, or Death Note did.

You might be arguing now that a bad ending doesn’t necessarily ruin a good series, but I disagree. A bad ending indeed CAN ruin a series, and will absolutely hurt your impression of it, since this is what you remember; It doesn’t always, but it is totally capable of doing so by rendering what was set up earlier pointless, or not delivering on the promises it made. And this was far more than just a bad ending, this was a bad final arc.

Then you combine that with the sting that I felt reading this compared to the others I just mentioned, because this used to be one of my favourite manga of all time. Frankly, that’s enough to drag down what was originally for me a 10/10 manga down to a 4. To get the most out of this series, just read up to the point that the certain character that I mentioned dies, then stop. And make up a better, more fleshed-out ending in your head that actually required some serious sacrifice, and had some proper emotional payoff.

It starts off great.

You get what is essentially a prison break style story line involving kids escaping their fate using their wits to outsmart enemies. The mind games and twists and turns that went into the first two arcs (~37 chapters in total) almost catapulted this manga to what could be considered a great manga. Unfortunately, those 37 chapters represent the high point of the series. The quality would slowly diminish over the next ~75 chapters. There were good moments in these other 75 chapters, but I began seeing the series lose the qualities that made it initially stand out as a good manga. ... Early on the story was all about the kids struggling to trust each other, trying to survive against great odds using their brains, and having to face tragedy due to the futility of fighting against vastly superior enemies. Unfortunately, that's all absent in the remaining 69 chapters the manga.

For the final 69 chapters, the manga transitions from a survival story with an emphasis on mind games to a battle story with mindless action. The children begin brazenly going on the offensive and repeatedly succeed against their enemies despite the early arcs painting the world outside the farm as being incredibly hostile and dangerous to them... As if they had insurmountable odds to over come. And yet, every time the children are exposed to a scenario that would result in the children coming out on the losing end, or surviving with great losses, the author became unwilling to commit to tragedy and resolved the issues without the children losing much. This kills all the suspense built in first 112 chapters because it never again feels like there are any stakes genuinely at risk.

Have you ever imagined living in a world where another dimension different from our own existed? A world where the monsters you hear from scary stories told as a child and the bogyman hiding in various parts of your room are real?

Have you ever imagined a world where you may never grow up?

If you’re thinking about a certain J.M. Berrie children’s book with pirates, fairies and a boy who flies when looking at the title, you’re far from wrong. This is no fairy tale. The Promised Neverland you are thinking of is far from the truth.

Which is what makes this manga interesting. ...

Story:

At first glance, the story seems very uplifting and bright. There is laughter, smiles, cheerful children. There are children everywhere which is what makes the reader realize this is not a normal manga.

The story is broken in arcs, which follows three certain characters around. The start of the story has a very original plot to start and really hooks the reader well. The pacing and the excitement are there since we know the genre “mystery and thriller” is part of it all. The reader is at once wondering first chapter what is going to happen. Once it picks up and things start to happen, we are left following a group of children running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Things really do start heading downhill from there. A familiar trope is used in the plot to some disappointment at which most of the story is now based around. Not only are the characters trying to find this “new world”, but they are also trying to find what happened to their friend, and in the meantime trying to dodge and fight every single demon that attack them.

That’s pretty much it.

The world building is okay. The author did place some good political stands and religious values on what the culture seems to be like in the demon world. There are some good descriptions on what the place looks like and the setting that brings their adventure together.

The pace at first is good but it soon does become a mess. The author puts events in which can reflect the modern world and affect what happens to the characters, and it just becomes…a bit too predictable. I felt, myself, it lost that excitement and thrill it had beginning to mid plot and became a repeating action.
It leaves us wondering if anything would ever change.

Art:

This art style takes a bit getting used to. It’s a bit wild for my taste. The character design has some strange ways to create large heads and hair on the kids. Emma’s hair is just a massive cow lick that just doesn’t want to stay down. Ray’s design looks rather familiar too if you see what I mean. The faces of the characters also seem like someone stepped on their faces and their facial features got all scrunched up. It makes them look kind of funny and too silly to take seriously in some fighting scenes.

The demon designs are spectacular and what makes this story really eye popping. They’re so original! It seems like they used more inspiration from children’s picture books about monsters and original design then the demons/youkai you’d find in Japanese folklore.

The background art too is very detailed and shows how much the author has placed in the world building. Honestly, they put more effort into the background than the actual characters in my opinion.

Characters:

Children! Children everywhere!

The main characters are children. So if you’re thinking “well, they’re going to grow up maybe?” Well, no. And that’s where that “Neverland” and the Berrie inspiration of never-growing-up comes from. But however much you may think, “oh man, were going to suffer the immature acts of children this entire 181 chapters, then?” well, perhaps not. These kids aren’t too bad as characters at the start. They all do seem determined children! They have their own personality (although seem familiar in ways), but there are some things…

Yeah, there wasn’t a lot of growth in the characters. They do grow – but…how can I say…they just stay the same it seems. There just wasn’t any change from when the first major event happens to the last. Emma still has that determined (and annoying) personality to keep everyone safe no matter what, Ray is still the same “emo-ish” main character who slowly moves into the background, and Norm…well, I think he’s the only one who has a bit of character development I think.

There are also the monsters but they just do what they’re supposed to: eat and kill without care. The same with the adults, but there is one who does a switch near the end thankfully. Yay, character development and things happening!
But I do have to point out there are a lot of characters. And I mean a lot of character you will forget and then they’ll come back after a few dozen chapters for readers to be like “who are you?” and they’ll start doing something important. I had a few of those moments.

Enjoyment:

At first, I really enjoyed going through the chapters and seeing all this mystery and suspense. I kept turning to pages and realizing that I had more questions I wanted answered. Plus, considering I was going through a phase where I was reading every single horror like manga out there, this one really fit my mood. But over time as I finally caught up around chapter 110, I felt like my excitement levels just went down. Maybe it’s because I was waiting for the next chapter weekly that I didn’t get the thrill rush I usually got or maybe it was because, for me, the manga just went down hill after the first few arcs, but reading through the last few dozen chapters weren’t enough to satisfy my horror hunger.

Overall:

It wasn’t too bad overall. It has its ups and down of course. There were times where I was like “OMG WHHHHAAAAAAT!” and other times I was like “Hmmm…okaaayyy? But why?”. I know my decision to read the manga before watching the anime was more due to the fact I wanted to know what was happening as it happened than watch the anime and wait almost a year to know. Therefore, if you really want to know what is happening, I do recommend reading this now, as it has ended, then from waiting for each chapter to be released weekly or waiting for the anime to continue. Then you can go at your own pace than the pace the manga is set at.

I give this manga a 47.5% on the children's scale.

TLDR: If anyone asked me for the definition of rushed, I'd point them to this manga.

After the 1st season of the anime ended I decided to pick up this manga from the beginning. It was great and I couldn't stop reading it until I'd catch up. I remember rating it a 7 here. The first 60 chapters were well written, although the cliffhangers annoyed me a bit but no big deal (the anime was strong on cliffhangers too). Then, around chapter 85 it all went downhill. It has always been a bit rushed but it also started being lazy, badly written, and for some reason, ... after creating such a bold story, the author decided to take zero risks and gave everyone godlike plot armor. It continued being rushed, the stupid cliffhangers happening EVERY CHAPTER only to be solved in the first panels of the next one. It was especially so in the last 20 chapters. Still, I kept reading it until today when it finally ended... I have no words for the final chapter.

I'll never re-read this manga and even though I enjoyed the first few arcs I don't recommend it to anyone.

The Promised Neverland definitely had potential to be amazing but sadly it flopped the ball hard and then it got rushed and in the end it was a mess. The final arc went on for a bit too long between the set up that seemed to never end, the fighting that didnt interest me and the ending which just confused me to the point where i had to drop the manga because I didn't know what was happening anymore.

For me personally peak The Promised Neverland was the first Saga dealing with Mother Isabella and the Orphanage, after that only the 2nd arc afterwards was good ... until it personally started to lose my interest. ​


I personally didn't care for any of the characters outside of Emma (who could be a turn off since shes such a happy go lucky type of character who's ideology and beliefs borderline insanity with just how unrealistically optimistic she is ) and Ray (who is the more rational) and one more character introduced later on who i disliked but grew to love.


Overall, I do recommend The Promised Neverland but only up to a certain point, after that it deviates so far from what it originally was that i lost interest gradually over time and the ending doesn't make up for it.

This manga is unfortunately one of the worst things a manga can be: a total waste of time.

The Promised Neverland generated quite a bit of hype when it was initially released because of its interesting premise. I will be the first to admit I was drawn in by this premise and the first arc was incredibly enjoyable. The characters are likable, the pacing is perfect, and the cat-and-mouse game that the characters have to play is so full of suspense I couldn't stop reading (it reminded me quite a bit of Death Note). "I can't wait to see what kind of trials and tribulations these ... characters have to face next!" said I, after finishing the first arc. Little did I realize that the characters would not have to face any trials and tribulations. In fact pretty much NOTHING happens for the last 15 volumes or so.

This is obviously an exaggeration, but the drop-off in quality after the first arc is significant. The psychological thriller aspect that made the first arc so good is essentially absent from the rest of the story. Characters don't go through any real character development. Sure they are likable at first glance, but as the story goes you eventually realize that it just boils down to Emma being plucky and optimistic, Ray being smart, and Norman being inconsistent. None of the characters actually have to face negative consequences or question their values, which is wild considering they live in such a brutal world.

I strongly believe the author just didn't have any ideas after the first arc. If you are truly curious about The Promised Neverland, give the first arc a read, you will probably like it quite a bit. But if you choose to read beyond that and you find yourself getting bored, just remember that it does not get better and the ending is honestly not that interesting. Just save yourself some time and read something else.