*Minor Spoilers*

Yakusoku no Neverland is one of the first Manga I'd ever read and after the first arc I was very vocal to my friends in recommending that they check it out. The story starts out with an incredibly 'promising' premise: A world in which demons farm humans to devour their brains. First I'd like to commend the series on setting up this world in an engaging and compelling way featuring the main cast learning about the truth of the world they live in with a harrowing encounter. The story's first arc glued me to my seat with suspense as it was akin to a prison escape but with demons. Later on the story goes into detail about how demon society functions and how the world came to be how it is. Which is all very compelling and well done, however I felt like the story's overall structure really goes down hill after the 'Goldy Pond' arc. Everything feels somewhat rushed after , the buildup was nonexistent, the dramatic tension present early on is replaced with disagreement between humans as to the best way forward which felt somewhat contrived like they were looking for ways to create conflict. From that point on the threat which the demons presented seemed minimal. I felt like the story attempted to recreate some of the political intrigue that was suggested earlier between the various demon factions and the Ratri clan but it never put in the work to develop that appropriately like they did for the demon farm system during the escape arc. Yakusoku no Neverland. had a lot of great things going for it but it neglected the real work that goes into building up a good climax with tension and stakes stuck to internal drama among the human children to the point where the real fight with the demon royalty almost felt anti-climactic. There were also some twists at the end that had almost no buildup at all and everything was just explained in flashback. Overall a rushed conclusion to what could have very well been a truly great manga. I am giving it a 7 overall because I still remember how incredible this series was when it started, maybe this is generous due to the rushed conclusion and unfulfilling climax that did not make best use of Ray or Norman as character and refused to take any risks.