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.
