There are so many good things about this anime.
The Promised Neverland brought a unique and fresh psychological/horror premise to anime fans. Considering I was able to show my friend who hates anime this series and he is actually intrigued, truely says a lot about the quality of this anime. CloverWorks created an anime with a complex psychological horror narrative. That is conveyed with its soundtrack, animation, and characters. If only season two actually stayed true to its manga counterpart.
The Promised Neverland at first introduces itself as a psychological anime that was building up to a disturbing reveal. To say the reveal was disturbing was an understatement. While there are more disturbing moments in anime, I won’t deny that it was just the build up. The anime introduced the daily life of these characters, a light hearted orphanage where the characters studied and had fun. The reveal of something disturbing was inevitable as the build up was very clear. But despite this build up the atmosphere was somewhat peaceful and nice. After episode one, the atmosphere was morbid and disturbing. The narrative explored the characters conflicting ideologies and moralities. Morality and ethical reasoning are explored throughout the season. As different characters react to the situation in different ways and conflict with how they should solve the present conflict.
The sound design worked pretty well for this anime. The voice acting was pretty good, all the voice actors did a decent job at making the voices of adolescents as they are adult voice actors. The voice performances of each character was done perfectly, as each characters personality felt like it was the same as their voice. Emma’s kindness is in her voice and Ray’s edginess is in his voice. The sound effects were pretty good too, while they weren’t the best part of the sound design as a whole. I do remember that point where Emma broke her leg, the second hand pain I felt from the sound of her leg was on a new level. The soundtrack was pretty good too, it conveyed both the mood of the anime perfectly. The kind of suspenseful yet intense music perfectly conveyed the disturbing psychological atmosphere of the series.
The animation was pretty good to say the least. The lighting, character movement and the environments are the strongest elements of the animation. The colour scheme remained consistent with the lighting of the scene, the colours of both characters and the environment would change to darker colour schemes at night. Or the colour scheme would be bright at day, making the world feel that more realistic. The character movement felt smooth and realistic, characters wouldn’t move in unrealistic ways that conflicted with the way human bodies are structured. The characters blend perfectly with the environment, the environment itself gives of a Victorian aesthetic. The white clothing of the characters and the Victorian architecture adds to the morbid atmosphere. It feels like a clean prison, with the white clothing and tattooed numbers on the characters. The overall Victorian aesthetic is one of the strongest parts of the animation, it feels unique and gives The Promised Neverland its own aesthetic. However, I don’t care what people say, Sister Krone’s character design is kinda racist.
The characters are by far the most interesting part of the series. They have vastly contrasting personalities and ideologies. Emma is a kind person who wants to save all of her family, Ray is moody and is willing to sacrifice them if it means his close circle can escape. Norman is a neutral character that simply goes with the flow and thinks about things logical rather then emotionally. He believes that Emma’s belief in saving her whole family is naive but will follow Emma as it is the ethical thing to do that won’t cause problems. Each of these characters have weaknesses and strengths that define themselves. They are unrealistically smarter then your average adult and seeing how each of these three conflict with their moralities and how they should approach this conflict. Makes them strong characters that feel like real people. I can truely root for these characters and be interested by their approach to their circumstances.
With very minimal flaws, season one of The Promised Neverland offers a fresh and unique premise of a psychological horror anime. The soundtrack perfectly fits with the world of the anime, said world is brought to life with CloverWorks amazing animation. The characters are complex personalities that all feel like real people with goals, weaknesses and fears.
Overall, I rank this 8/10.
