Yakusoku no Neverland

-will include spoilers for chapter 74-

Yakusoku no Neverland is an amazing story with huge potential. The story started amazing, was great in the middle, and ended horribly.

To start, I thought the story was great. Everything seemed so planned out and connected so well. I loved how they truly showed you everyone's side of the story, even the demons. In the end, it had me loving all of the mothers and feeling sad for the demons.

I honestly loved the manga but an issue I had with it was the pacing between events. In the cuvitidala arc, there was a huge time skip? I guess I understand why since it was just a lot of traveling but it just seemed odd. Aside from the cuvitidala arc, I really loved how they took their time to introduce certain things (lambda, Phil's check-in, etc). I think it would've been honestly kind of overwhelming if they had introduced those so early on. I get wanting to just know what's going on but I really loved how they took their time to show these events.

The characters I instantly loved, and even the ones I wasn't a huge fan of started to grow on me. You get to see each of the kids grow in their own ways and see the importance of family to them. I loved how they really showed how you can hate a character but love them at the same time. An example of an extremely dimensional character I thought was Isabella. Isabella had us all hating her at the start, but you get to really see that at the end of the day the situation is kill or be killed. I am also really happy they re-introduced Norman and used him to show the other types of farms. I think killing norman off in the first season would've been so unnecessary so seeing him alive was definitely something that made me like the series more.

-HUGE ending spoilers-
Now, something I honestly really disliked about the story was how it ended. It was so rushed and they could've done so much better with it. It was really unsatisfying to see an amazing story be so hurriedly wrapped up. Duke Leuvis being shown to have not actually died was really lame to me, and he was just so suddenly able to convince the demons to give up on the humans? And Emma and the demon gods (?) deal was pretty unnecessary. They basically showed Emma losing her entire memory, and reuniting with everyone else in 2 chapters. It was so hurried along and I honestly think the ending could have been amazing if they hadn't rushed it.

(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 ranks among Bleach, Food Wars, and from what I’ve heard, Seven Deadly Sins.

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.

A convulsed mess of a story, the initial arc was astounding well done, but what came after that it's just a mess of "good will" and half done risks, Art in general is fine, some panels can be hard to read into because sometimes the art suffers from a mesh of effects and splatters all around it. Hell even in the final arc, suddenly. a character literally comes back as a "Deus Ex Machina" method with no risk at all.

What gave it such a strong head start, only rewards the viewers with comfort food will barely any risk at all, nonetheless its still a decent read but it's a dissapointment with how things turn out in the end.

I had higher expectations than what was given. That didn't mean it wasn't interesting, but I was a little disappointed with how things rolled out.

I feel like the story would have been better had there been a hundred more chapters. A lot of ideas are presented that wasn't really explored enough to my taste. There's a message that the Promised Neverland tries to convey to the reader in the latter half, but I didn't think it was generally convincing. I found it very tell, not show. I agree, just given what the message is, but I don't think the narrative sufficiently showed that.

I agree that the first arc was really strong. It was smart and it kept me on my toes, desperate for the next chapter. However, past that first arc, I could not feel any tension and even though high stakes were presented, I wasn't convinced. The way death is handled, whether it happens or it doesn't, is a serious weak point.

The art is beautiful. I love the shading and the panels and the color pages. The design of the characters is well done too. I know all I need to know about a character from their design. It's fun to read because the manga is that beautiful.

I think the villains are great. They pose a real challenge and they're intimidating.

The main cast, however, is kind of disappointing. All you really need to know is that Emma and Norman are the main characters. What I mean by that is that the majority of the cast is irrelevant. I don't know the names of any of Emma's siblings besides Don and Gilda. Before you can even get to know them, we are bombarded with more characters and the only thing that makes me care about their death is that they're children and that they're friendly with Emma.

Also, the relationship dynamics are kind of disappointing. The romance, if you can even call it that, is unnecessary and I disliked it. If it was going to be so insignificant, then why even put it. And then... I don't want to spoil, but there are these two really specific things that happen in near the end that's just so... frustrating and unbelievable that... man, it really let me down. Again, it COULD have been an interesting relationship, but the execution flubbed.

I feel like my review was being very negative, but it just makes me frustrated that it was so good, but then the finale was so lackluster. Every time, I thought "Is it going to talk about this? Are they gonna go more on this plot point or this character?" and then we reach the end and it turns out no, the manga isn't gonna do any of that.

The art is beautiful, the story had potential, there are so many ideas that could have made for interesting arcs. Just another hundred chapters and we would have got there.

tl;dr I enjoyed Promised Neverland because of how interesting it was in art, concept, and in the ideas it threw out. But the execution was where it faltered. I'll always remember this manga for being very good, but quite a long way from great.

I watched the first arc via the TV show and it was really good. So, rather than waiting for the next season, I took the unusual step of reading the manga. And it was quite good, for the first half. I'd say the first three arcs were all very fun and interesting. I couldn't put it down for volumes at a time, and learning more and more about the setting was always intriguing. The shift in power dynamics when they start taking the fight to the demons was delicious. It's absolutely worth your time to check it out if you're into stories about super-smart kids (who never act like kids) or about complicated plots that get constantly explained in a thrilling fashion.

But, Jesus Fucking Christ, the last arc (which is at least 80 issues long—almost half!) revolves around a very peculiar, toxic expression of the Shounen manga trope that you should convert your enemies into friends. Essentially, Emma just decides that she doesn't want to kill the demons and the narrative contorts in extreme ways to make her seem justified and the people who want to kill the demons seem insane. It is this dril tweet given form: "the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: 'theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron.'" No. Emma's position is completely unjustified and dangerous, especially when it extends beyond the demons to their other enemies. There are no consequences for eliminating your enemies to tie up loose ends once you've won, and stories like this are written to get impressionable people to believe the lie that there are, so they allow evil people to keep festering the world from positions of power.

Another thing that bothered me through the whole second half was how the story kept concluding that the world would be better off if better people were in charge of the same systems. No. Sure, they may have abolished the farms, but they still would have the monarchy that was built from the lies that the farms built up. Rather than overthrow the entire system and start from scratch, we're supposed to believe that things will be fine once someone else takes power. What if nobody was "in power?" Not seriously considered. Likewise, the humans' goal of getting to the human world became very grating after a while because we knew nothing about the human world at all, and were meant to presume that it was basically just the real world. What's the point of escaping the symbolic representations of real world oppression when your plan is to run to a world or oppression or continue to cling to the trappings of your system of oppression? I was somewhat surprised and relieved when this was FINALLY addressed in the concluding chapters.

Art was phenomenal, especially during key scenes where you could feel the extra effort.

Another big criticism is that the characters other than Emma rarely, if ever, seemed well-used. They fall to the background when they're not in focus, and may as well not exist during those times. Even Ray, who is ostensibly one of the main characters, frequently disappears for what would have been months of serialization time. He doesn't really matter much after the first arc. Phil never really matters. His popularity is utterly baffling to me, considering he is barely a character.

Despite all the problemas this manga has after the ending of the first arc, and if I am 100% critical and honest, there’s a frigging lot, I really enjoyed overall. I’ve spent three days nonstop reading and I don’t mind that much the issues, the important thing is that you have a good time and that at the end you learn something and take something with you forever. If you are reading this reviews because you don’t know if you want to read it, just do it. It’s a great story.

The characters are fun and relatable, very cute also, the worldbuilding and the mystery of the world are very well constructed, even if some things are not that clear, but who cares, yous don’t need to everything about everything, leaving some things unknown is not the worst.

So, yeah, imho you should read it, and then consider whatever you want, but read it first.

26 chapters out so far.

I have that Manga a 10/10. I highly recommend it to everyone who is looking for a serious and dark but still beatufull story with a lot of mind games and depth. The characters are developing with the story and are very well and detailed. Nothing to complain about, unique characters and as "tropy" as they look after the first few chapters.

The pacing is very well, very fast but not too fast. The setting is unique, overall this Manga is bringing a lot of fresh ideas in the scene. You should give it a try. Just read the first chapter.

I am very impressed by the way the Manga is going currently, the last few chapters blew my mind!

Go out and read it! Its worth it!

alright, i waited until this was over to make a review and here we are :) (this review contains minor spoilers)

yakusoku no neverland is by far my favorite manga series of all time..the story, the art style, the characters..everything about it is enjoyable. i highly anticipated each week's chapter and couldn't wait. people call this series trash because it's predictable and boring, it's not actually. it's very diverse (mainly in the beginning) and not generic.

the story lasted 181 chapters and each one was a ride. the very first arc, the escape arc, was definitely the best arc i've ever witnessed in any manga. ever. the entire story is very different, the protag was 11! people call the fullscore trio poorly written because they got out of situations easily and that they're too smart..that's the whole thing. they are the smartest children in gracefield and probably some of the smartest kids in their world in general!

story: 9/10
i love the plot of yakusoku no neverland more than anything else. children finding out that they are not actually in an orphanage and they have to escape to the outside world..which is unknown. it's filled with adventures and amazing characters. there were rarely any plotholes, i know there were a few but not too big that it stuck with me the whole time. this manga is the only manga i started reading for the story. i'll admit, it sounds a little weird..children being eaten. but it's deeper than that, it's a very complex and interesting story. my least favorite arc was the 7 walls, i felt they dragged it out a little too long. i do love the arc, but it felt like it was being milked when in reality it should've just covered 15 chapters max. during the royal capital arc, this is when i started to see some generic shounen things going on. fights where the mc comes out victorious no matter what, it seems like the enemy didn't even fight back at all despite being said to be extremely strong. the queen, the demon god and william minerva seemed to be the most important characters other than the fullscore trio, yet we barely got to know anything about them. if you don't like the horror/shounen genre, i don't see why you have the right to call this series trash. if you can't understand the story for what it is, then you shouldn't be saying anything.

art: 10/10
i LOVE the art style. so much. when i was first introduced to the series, i remember commenting on their faces and how small they looked. but i ended up falling in love with it, it's a very unique style and demizu did an amazing job showcasing it! the way the faces are drawn just give me good vibes and is one of the reasons i fell in love with the story & characters. it doesn't have a realistic style or typical anime looking style, this is a different approach in my opinion and i love it. the color spreads were GORGEOUS and i love the coloring style. the amount of detail put into backgrounds or background characters is great, every character was drawn and you could always tell where they were. in the beginning there was a lot less detail in the backgrounds, but as the story progressed, i noticed a lot more background work being done. especially when emma and the others reached the bunker & the hideout.

character: 10/10 (spoilers !)
the amount of love i have for emma, norman and ray is indescribable. the 3 main characters are written so well, i don't see how anyone could dislike the fullscore trio. emma is a very happy and cute main character, she gets serious when she needs to and is very smart. norman is a very knowledgeable character, he puts his family and friends first and wants to make sure they're always happy (same with emma :)). ray appears as your typical emo shounen character, but he is actually a very complex and kind guy, he may not show emotion like emma, but he does still greatly care for his family. don & gilda are both very lovable ! other characters like isabella, yuugo, oliver, gillian, zazie, peter ratri, sonju, mujika, etc. are all so well written. it's hard to believe that there is so much information on these characters that give you tons of valid reason to either hate or love them. when emma and ray first met yuugo, he did not like them at all. he wanted them to leave him alone, but he eventually did start to care for them greatly! the character development in this manga is so amazing, there are so many lovable characters that it's hard to pick a favorite. my all time favorite anime character is norman. i felt attached to each individual character throughout the entire series and even if i didn't like them, i knew a lot about them and their backstories and it was kind of hard to hate anybody...isabella, andrew and peter are still my least favorites. (spoilers) especially smaller characters like phil, who didn't have a lot of screentime but everyone still loved, got their time to grow and achieve their goals. i think by the time emma reunited with phil, i was already bursting with love for everyone. it just continued to grow and i just don't see how people can think anyone in this series is poorly written. they're all very diverse and amazing characters with great backstories and designs.

enjoyment: 10/10
of course, with ynn being my favorite manga, there's no question in why i enjoy it so much. there is so much more i want to say, but i have no idea how to word it and i would just end up rambling on for hours about how much i love norman lol. i don't think i'll ever find a series i enjoyed as much as yakusoku no neverland. it shattered my heart when it ended and i really hope there'll be a spin off/sequel. only time will tell :)

in the end, it is up to you whether you like it or not. but for me, i have yet to find something i enjoyed more !:) i hope you check this manga out and i hope you like it as much as i did. this is definitely a unique shounen and it deserves to get way more recognition than it already has. if you like this series, please buy the manga volumes and support shirai and demizu!<3

The art is not totally my type but the story is really amazing and well-paced.

It can be in line with Shingeki No Kyojin and Tokyo Ghoul though less gore and more outhinking the enemy and planning against all odds. I love those stories who used their brains and not just fight with each other. I love that the protagonists are not stupid but really smart. This one reminds me of Maze Runner and Hunger Games. I am gonna wait for an animation of this.

You won't be able to stop once you read this. I don't usually give a 10 but I am really amazed about this manga considering that I just read it yesterday.

I've given it a 10. Based on 10 chapters. I rarely give 10. And to think I picked it up because I was searching for substitutes for Bleach!!!!

This manga has potential. Just as much potential as SnK had when it came out. Moreover, it has the potential to be everything that SnK was NOT. ( These days SnK is EXTREMEMLY slow paced )

The story is extremely fast paced. It developed in 10 chapters what SnK had taken nearly 1 years to. It revolves around a group of trio; Emma, Ray and Norman as they try to escape from their orphanage. Every chapter in this manga has new developments, new progressions. Exquisite!

The art of the manga is chibi-ish. But considering that we are looking at boys and girls under 13 years of age, it's very apt.

I believe in the potential of the manga. Truthfully, I WANT to believe in the potential of the manga. Honestly, I am a great fan of dystopian fantasies. I truly hope that this becomes a great manga, doesn't reduce to a crawl like SnK did and, on the day that this manga reach the stage where it is known worldwide and people eagerly wait for the anime adoption, I'd be happy. I'd be happy because I found a gem in the dirt, and I would be the one to recommend this to others. I'm proud of this manga, and would like to see it recognised.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

The first arc starts off very strong, it's got an interesting prison escape story and I'd probably give it an eight but after that the series goes down hill and fills lazily tangled together almost like the writer didn't know how to continue writing the story. As the story progresses Emma becomes someone who isn't fitting to be this series mc since she changes her stance and decides not to kill the demons. The art can also be very mediocre at times but it does have some really good key panels. I also find myself not really enjoying any of the character designs, lots of the human characters have weird proportions while the demons look, how they're supposed to because of this.

warning: minor spoilers

Story: 9/10
The story is amazing. The author is extremely good at always surprising us and somehow showing how astonishingly genius the children are. The writing is very smart, a lot of curveballs are thrown in our faces and we can never guess how the characters would defeat these challenges, yet somehow they always do. Simply genius.
The first (approximately) 30 chapters were very thrilling: and I LOVE thrillers (e.g., Erased, FMAB, Steins gate, etc). There were so many moments where my heart just stopped.

The manga did become quite slow in the Secret Hunting Village arc. The arc was still amazingly good, and it honestly didn't feel like it spanned over 30 chapters (which it did).


Art: 9/10
I have no objections with the art style. It is a very unique style, not like the generic, cutesy and appealing anime style. It has a gritty feel to it sometimes, which I reckon adds to the overall feel of the manga: to the horror and sense of dystopia at times. The artist also has a way to make the toddlers and younger children look ADORABLE with their large eyes.


Character: 8/10
The main three characters are AMAZING. The three of them are GENIUS children and I love how they keep proving it by how continuously finding new ways to show how unexpectantly smart they are.

Everybody else is pretty okay and not too unique and astonishing. Exceptions are: Phil, Mama Isabella, Sister Krone, and maybe others I can't really think of.

Phil is one of my favorites from the start since he is SO CUTE and it was revealed he was unbelievably smart as a four year old. It's a shame the author didn't really use him well as a character (unless there are plans in the future for Phil to have a larger role).

Everybody else feels pretty insignificant or only has very few instances where they shone.


Enjoyment: 9/10
Let me just tell you a bit about my history with this manga.
I started reading this when it barely had an chapters. I was already hooked, the first few chapters enticed me right away. However, I stopped reading around when chapter 20 came out (almost two years ago), not because of the manga itself but simply because of school. I recently discovered it was getting an anime, and decided to read it again.

I am VERY glad I decided to reread the first 20 chapters rather than just continue on from where I left off, because those 20 chapters were just as good as I remember.
Within ONE day (8th November 2018) I read the ENTIRE 110 chapters because I couldn't put it down!!!

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Overall: 9/10
There are so many components and unanswered mysteries. It is not a predictable or generic manga at all.
Definitely would recommend to everybody, especially those who like thrillers and psychological manga.

*CAUTION: Contains minor spoilers. Skip to the last two paragraphs for the summary.*

It is really a twist of cruel irony that The Promised Neverland has lived up to its name in a way I did not expect it to: it continually PROMISED a clever, poignant story but NEVER followed it through. (I'm sorry I couldn't LAND this joke better.)

TPN became an object of hot discussion among the manga-reading crowd already after the first few chapters. For all the good reasons, too: it was, at the time, a competently done psychological thriller, something that Weekly Shonen Jump typically didn't feature, which immediately made it stand out from the endless conveyor of action and sports series, low-brow comedies, and various mixtures thereof. And not just that—right from the beginning TPN had established a gripping conflict with clear stakes, believable balance of power, and an awesome antagonist. Wow, what's not to like?

All of this, combined with Urasawa-esque cliffhangers, made the first arc of TPN one of the tightest pieces of writing to come out in Weekly Jump this entire decade. Not perfect by any means—but damn impressive nonetheless. And more than that, it was a story that really wanted itself to be taken seriously. It was the first manga in many years that took relatively normal characters—without any sort of superpowers or the like—and put them in a relatively realistic setting where actions have intentions, words have meaning, and decisions have consequences.

And then it just... took an express line downhill. Each and every time the plot itself would stretch a helping hand for the author to make a turnaround, they would high-five it and plunge deeper down the abyss of mediocrity. And if I were to identify every little bit that went wrong, you'd probably be reading this all day, so I'll just call out the most glaring, deal-breaking issues.

CORE PROBLEM #1: Emma is far too sterile to be a protagonist.
Don't get me wrong, Emma is not a bad *character* in principle. Her goals are lofty but ultimately agreeable. She is very one-note but could potentially work in a supporting role, considering both Normal and Ray are deeper, more relatable characters with some inner conflict that could work as a premise for a proper character arc. But the way she's written into the story makes the whole thing a farce. She's an overly optimistic Mary Sue with an unshakable conviction and a resilient physique, a set of traits typical of a better half of Jump protagonists of the last three decades at least. What makes this walking pile of cliche much worse, however, is that she is constantly put in charge of decisions based chiefly on her optimism, and this leads to situations where she is (or, by extension, her followers are) put in unnecessary danger or required to make some morally ambiguous choices...

...Thankfully, in EVERY SINGLE ONE of those situations she suffers no long-term consequences and never actually HAS to make those morally ambiguous choices herself because others are eager to do it for her. For example, in the second major arc of the story, Emma—who at that point is already averse to all loss of life—needs to pick a weapon for herself, but Ray suddenly picks one for her. Why did he do this? We learn the reason later when she reluctantly has to shoot said weapon to protect herself, and—lo and behold!—it just happened the only non-lethal weapon in that entire arsenal, which is something she didn't know about and never gave it a second thought. The enemy was then killed by somebody else, which was totally okay with her! Isn't it just wonderful when you get to cheat your way out of a situation that challenges your morals?

And the same thing happens every time, really. She plays the card of the goody two-shoes and the world's logic contorts to her aspiration of never getting her hands dirty. If an enemy has to be killed, they will be killed by someone else; plenty of other characters are conveniently willing to take the fall, and Emma doesn't complain. If she makes a risky or erroneous choice, she never has to deal with the consequences herself, at least not for long—somebody else will, anyway. Her obstinacy never comes into question and never really gets her into trouble... well, unless your definition of trouble is kids yelling "Emma, you big dummy!" while crying profusely.

What this means, essentially, is that there is no real progress to her character. She starts off as an unrealistically perfect, morally immaculate human being and ends the story in the same exact state. She never changes and never needs to. Her development stops several chapters into the story pretty much completely, and any further attempts at it end up with nothing of consequence. Naturally, even her last big sacrifice, which is already made on unreasonably favorable terms, ends up forgiven (read: cheated away) soon afterwards—because the only semblance of consistency the story has is Emma consistently having her cake and eating it, too. She's got no business being as successful as she is; it simply feels undeserved and fake.

Considering she already starts the story with some pretty high specs—being a top-quality human material and all, already smarter at 11 y.o. than most adults—she fails to serve as a source of inspiration or a role model because the real world is never so overwhelmingly convenient. You don't start out as an overachieving genius with unquestioned leadership qualities, and it clearly isn't enough to just believe in yourself to attain an ambitious goal. In the real world, you won't conveniently have adults and/or helpful cues left by them that would tell you what to do every time you're at a loss. You will often be wrong, and just as often will fail to convince people even if you aren't. You will often find that there are no ready-made solutions for your situation and you will need to come up with new solutions by yourself. You will often find out that your humanity is actively working against you rather than helps. And, in the unfortunate case of having brushed with death, you will find the experience deeply traumatizing. You will need to adapt to circumstances and be flexible. You will need to make hard decisions and be ready to pay the price if you take the hard way out. To summarize, Emma's example teaches you nothing that could be realistically applied in the real world because she's cheating at EVERY SINGLE STEP of the way and just coasting on her plot armor. You cannot do what Emma does and achieve even similar results, period. It would be the literary equivalent of telling a homeless person who has lived in poverty most of their life to believe in themself and just buy a house, because you read that a scion to a well-off family could do it and so you think everyone else can.

One might say this is norm for a shonen protagonist—except no, this is not the case at all. I mean, let's take perhaps the most typical, most Weekly Jump-esque MC around: Luffy of One Piece (doubly relevant, as TPN's editor Sugita has also worked on it at some point). He is also overly optimistic, is unshakable in his convictions, with a clearly stated end goal and a badass physique. Sounds very similar to Emma on the surface. However, before he got to that point he grew up in a literal lair of bandits, was best friends with trash scavengers who pretty much made him go through an obstacle course every time he wanted to play with them, had one of said friends apparently be killed before his eyes, and trained for years to master his powers before he even got to leave the hometown. His morality is also remarkably grey in that he doesn't explicitly want to do good deeds and doesn't care for anyone who isn't his friend, crewmate, or family. By the D&D alignment system he would be somewhere on a fringe between a Chaotic Neutral and a Chaotic Good. He selfishly puts his crew through dangers for his own dream and also doesn't shirk from taking the hits for them. He makes unfortunate decisions and in many cases pays dearly for it. He is traumatized by personal loss. He's also an actual criminal who has taken from others and made unprovoked attacks on the Navy, and the story does not pretend this will ever be forgiven. He bears the full weight of his sins, knowingly so, and does not expect a happily-ever-after when he's done. Not quite a Gary Stu, is he? Luffy is undoubtedly cartoony, but aside from the fantasy attributes coming from the setting and personal quirks like the narcolepsy and love for meat, he is, for the most part, a surprisingly grounded, fallible, well-balanced and well-written character. His past informs his present, he has good and bad sides, his self-confidence is grounded in the fact that he and his crew are some of the most ambitious and capable people in the world in their respective areas, who have spent their entire lives working their ass off to become better at what they do. I want to underline that at no point this is taken for granted, and both the in-universe characters and the readers know how much pain and trauma they had to go through to get to their level.

In contrast, Emma is a certified Lawful Good who grew up in a sheltered, happy, unproblematic environment with no hardships to strengthen her character, nor choices to make when there's an adult that decides everything for her, nor facilities to make her into a trained soldier she so very quickly becomes on demand (I'm pretty sure most of us had played outdoors as kids but not everyone grew enough bulk from it to run long distances over deserts and forests with rifles and such). Her self-confidence is based on second-hand knowledge, unreasonable expectations of extrapolating her relatively minor past experience onto the unknown, and her family, well... being good at being family, I guess. How this setting managed to produce such an all-around capable, successful, mentally resilient character, or how she managed to end up less down-to-earth than the protagonist of the high fantasy setting of One Piece is utterly beyond me.

To go on a brief tangent, most of the other children aren't much better in this regard, with none of them so much as soiling themselves or becoming catatonic after multiple actual near-death experiences. (I mean, this is still presented as a thriller series, right? Act the part sometime.) But all of them would bawl their eyes out every time they have to say goodbye to anyone or have an otherwise emotional scene with forced melodrama, of which there are plenty. How does this even work? This is neither the genre nor the setting where these discrepancies fly well; even if a story is fictional, it still has to be self-consistent and maintain enough realism to suspend disbelief. The way it is, almost the entire cast becomes completely unrelatable and, consequently, unlikable.

CORE PROBLEM #2: Every antagonist after Isabella is a goddamn joke.
It is no secret that many genres of fiction, especially thrillers, live and die by their antagonist. TPN has several major arcs, each having a main antagonist of sorts, for a total of four. For the opening arc, this is Isabella, the "mama" of Grace Field House, and she has been fantastic in this role. Being a human just like the other cast members, she is familiar, which leads the characters—and the audience, by extension—to question that which they think they've known, and this is very cool. Her motivation is also inherently human, and the backstory compelling enough that you don't have to question why she ended up this way. She is, above all, a relatable person, so one ends up accepting her ruthless demeanor not as an act of petty villainy but as a necessary trait for survival in her position. These traits—humanity, relatability, and deceptiveness—are pretty much universally shared between all of the best literary antagonists out there, in manga or otherwise.

But the other three antagonists of TPN are so boring and cartoony you'd have to pay anyone to care about them and their agenda. This will be the shortest section of this review because there's just so little to be said about these guys.

The first one is a psychopathic, prideful, gluttonous, overpowered villain demon that hunts humans for fun and riles them up on purpose so that they come for him with extra bloodlust... so that he feels more thrill killing them. He also has superhuman strength, superhuman speed, superhuman endurance, and his mask is tougher than the rest. (Just typing this up makes me apathetic.) This is also where the "but this is just what we humans do to animals in our world!" metaphor breaks apart, because this guy is a certified criminal who would be charged guilty of animal cruelty and put into a mental institution at the very least if he were real. This is not what "we humans" do to animals—no, in fact, this is something for which we humans *punish other humans*. Naturally, the guy is completely flat and uninteresting, and is disposed of in a very disappointing manner in a lazy shonen shoot-out that is nowhere near as gripping as the mind games of the first arc.

The second one is also a psychopathic, prideful, gluttonous, overpowered villain demon, but with one-tenth the creative budget. She has even more superhuman strength, etc. She's so non-descriptive and uninteresting I don't even know what else to write about her. I couldn't come up with any antagonist more boring and faceless even if I'd tried.

And then there's another human edgelord who would have been the principal antagonist of the entire series if his presence ever amounted to anything but a temporary setback for Emma and her rescue rangers. His personality? Of course, he's psychopathic, prideful... well, you get the idea. They're all cardboard cut-outs made from the same basic stencil, neither engaging nor relatable. This guy in particular dies the most hilarious death. It's so stupid and wonderfully convenient I can't even mock it better than it mocks itself. The whole sequence is completely devoid of logic and reads like satire.

Of course, without good antagonists, the psychological thriller aspect breaks down completely, and all unresolved conflicts become a pile of loosely-connected garbage you don't want to sift through, let alone empathize with protagonists who choose to. There's just no point nor reason to care anymore. But you know who would be a great antagonist? Norman! He's somebody we are inherently invested into, somebody who is smart and relatable, with an ultimately well-meaning motivation that is just a step away from being corrupted by fear and newfound power, and he is close enough to Emma that it would force her to think and make some very hard decisions instead of taking the easy road for the win/win scenarios. Sounds perfect, right? And he's almost set up that way... but nope, we have to deal with these sorry losers instead.

I have no idea who came up with Isabella and Sister Krone, but I find it hard to believe it was Kaiu Shirai, judging by their laughable attempts to write anybody else and always arriving at the *exact same* poor result. The sad part is there have been plenty of opportunities to make actually good antagonists and a more engaging power play if only the author was willing to take some risks with the characters. Unfortunately, herein lies the core problem #3...

CORE PROBLEM #3: Kaiu Shirai is, after all, a weak, risk-averse writer without any clear message to tell.
And this is probably the most damning one. The Promised Neverland has a really good idea and would have been an all-time hit if it played all of its cards right. And make no mistake—there were a *lot* of cards to play. Opportunities to take the story in much more convincing, daring, interesting directions were aplenty. Instead, the author almost always chose to tread by far the safest, most predictable and least controversial paths. Even the brightest plot ideas were beaten into the most trite, cliche-ridden pieces of uninspired shonen action. Furthermore, it would often be muddled even more—and on purpose!—by sudden tonal shifts from completely serious to comedic, as if the author were scared that the audience would take the already shaky narrative seriously after setting up such a convincing world that demanded better.

To put the changes in more concrete terms... The horror and mind game aspects from the opening arc evaporate almost entirely along the way and are replaced by dumb action (where the solution is quite literally "bring better guns") and tone-deaf comedy. The ethical dilemmas raised so sharply in the beginning are dodged and resolved in increasingly convenient, low-stake manners—the author would not hesitate to use deus ex machinae if needed. Characters become able to achieve unrealistic feats of hardware and software engineering which are hand-waved by "well, they're geniuses, duh" without ever accounting for the fact that making anything complex or precise requires reference materials and tools that enable that complexity or precision in the first place, and I doubt they would be conveniently lying around in an alien world. The kids' athleticism and control over their body also becomes so comically exaggerated that at one point a girl in her mid-teens can be seen shooting two heavy machineguns, each of them probably half her entire body mass, while standing on a tree branch without any regard for the recoil. So yeah, they basically gain physics-defying superpowers as well.

Naturally, this means that every message, every piece of social commentary that is normal to have in any given story—as either an attempt to put an idea forth or to discuss its implications—falls completely flat in TPN. Even the pro-vegan message that everyone had considered to be on the nose in the beginning ended up nothing more than a red herring in the end. I'm not sure if this was an attempt at subversion or just an admittance of failure to make a convincing point, but either way it went nowhere. Both the premises and the resolution to the conflict between the eaters and the eaten undermined the argument that could be made in favor of veganism, or at least in favor of not engaging in livestock breeding. And I don't even subscribe to any particular side of this or other arguments—I just wanted them to be convincing and self-consistent in their presentation!

There are other themes, concepts, ethical dilemmas, and questions that could have been explored but were only briefly touched, such as:
* The dangers of recklessness (raised but never explored).
* The end justifies the means / the necessary evil (toyed with but snuffed out and forgotten).
* Kill or be killed (invoked multiple times but miraculously averted each time the opponent is human).
* Corruption of power (briefly mentioned but not explored).
* Life fulfillment (briefly mentioned and promptly dealt away with).
* The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (raised multiple times but mostly dodged).
* The ethics of euthanasia (touched upon but never explored).
* Redemption arc (invoked multiple times but is almost comically shallow in every case).
* Forgiveness of willful murder (something Emma and others are all too eager to do for both humans and demons, but it's never discussed).
* Likewise with all of the hinted-at religious undertones and many more aspects that were either never explored or were dealt away with in the most crude and hamfisted manner.

There are tons of other manga that have done these and more; perhaps not at once but in a much more elegant and thoughtful manner, which is more important. Even the blockbuster Attack on Titan, which many people only perceive as a dumb schlocky action romp, has actually addressed many of these concepts quite thoroughly and from a more balanced standpoint.

There is also the issue of overusing cliffhangers and—worse still—exaggerating scenes at the end of a chapter and then retroactively modifying them at the beginning of the next one (such as by inserting extra dialogue or moderating them to be less impactful). To put it in perspective, somebody like Naoki Urasawa executes a cliffhanger by arranging the presentation of events such that the engagement peaks right at the end of a chapter, so the only thing he has to do there is cut the chapter off. When Shirai does a cliffhanger, they're *misrepresenting* the events to be more exciting than they appear in the next chapter, thereby artificially doping the engagement. In other words, "oh, it didn't actually happen like that—that was just me messing with you" is what happens. This deliberate sabotage of narrative consistency between adjacent chapters is a pretty egregious offense by any literary standards. It is such a cheap, aggravating way to engage the audience I'm surprised the editor allowed a continuous abuse of this trick. Right up there with that Shin Sekai Yori's scene where the MC mistakes one character for another FOR NO REASON other than to rile up the audience's expectations for the next episode. I'm normally against corporal punishment, but this calls for public flogging.

But the most baffling part, perhaps, is that the blueprint for the entire story had been completed *years* in advance while Shirai and their editor were looking for an artist. There was more than enough time to flesh out the narrative and make the characters—particularly Emma—more complex and three-dimensional. Again, the opportunity wasn't taken, and it's all conforming to a consistent trend of being lazy, cowardly, and/or uncreative. At this point I'm fully convinced that the better parts of the story were coined by somebody else entirely; I refuse to believe that an author who could do so well in the beginning and had this much time on their hands to work on the story could ruin it to such an extent. But even if that is actually the case, it only drives home the point that in the end it's not the ideas that matter but their execution.

To summarize, The Promised Neverland is a story that could have been fantastic and had continuously promised to do better but barely managed to escape utter mediocrity by the end of its run. The first arc is a high 8, perhaps even 9 out of 10 on its own, but the rest averages out to a weak 5. So my resulting score is a 6 as a nod to all the squandered goodness. Disappointing, very disappointing.

My advice would be to read the first arc (or, alternatively, watch the first cour of the TV adaptation as it covers the whole arc and does it at least as well as the manga—if not even better). If you notice something in it that annoys you or may become a potential deal-breaker, be sure that from that point on it will only get much worse, so it's best to stop there and treat it as a self-contained story. But if you were perfectly happy with how it went, proceed at your own risk. Some do enjoy this to the end, after all.

Note: this review contains some minor spoilers

Yakusoku no Neverland is a manga that started great, then lost its drive for a mediocre middle part, picked up a bit of the steam for the later part with a different driving force for the interest but failed to do a satisfactory/interesting ending.

As mentioned, the first part is the best. Unfortunately the rest of the manga fails to catch up to the hype by both the first arc of the manga itself and by the well done anime adaptation of the said arc. The protagonists, the villains, the revelations, there is not a dull moment in this arc. One thing about the characters is that you have suspend your disbelief to accept that those very young kids are perfectly capable of waging Death Note-esque mind wars, but this is at least somehow excused by the setting being orphanage that focuses on creating extremely gifted children.

Regrettably, those engaging mindgames recede into the background as the next part focuses more on fighting capabilities and firepower. Some smartness is still included, but it can be abbreviated to running around, hiding and gunning down the demons while occasionally being hunted in turn. Or maybe the other way around. This is undoubtedly the weakest part that feels a bit repetitive and most importantly far from the uniqueness of the first part. It's still not bad, mind you, but it's still not exactly great either.

Now, contrary to the popular opinion, I don't believe Yakusoku no Neverland only went downhill. I, for one, enjoyed the demon politics, hierarchy and the power struggle between them. I also enjoyed the changes within a certain character that made them grow colder as they had to sacrifice their feelings for a personal good, which also helped to make a contrast with Emma and quite surprisingly made her something more than just a generic goody two-shoes "everyone must be happy" character. While she still is beamingly positive, it is shown that those are not just reflexive reactions and she too is willing to go to greater lengths for what she believes is the greater good. Emma wasn't my favourite, but this part certainly made good job of making the reader understand her closer.

The later part also has one of my most favourite moments in the whole manga to which I will refer as to a "dog girl" to avoid giving too much spoilers. It was one of the greatest twists in the series that really makes you feel and consider some other sides of the story. Reversal of expectations, in a good way. Compared to for example the final "villain" turning out to be a weird goblin with riddles who seemed to create the whole conclusion just for the lulz it makes out the uninterestingness of the ending stand out even more.

The finale just doesn't fit the mood. Heroic sacrifice that gets toned down to what is just a minor inconvenience in the context of the overall situation feels just like pouring boiling water on your ice-cream. I certainly expected some more ballsy ending than this. Emma is shown to be stubborn lawful good and for this to have a character pay-out her decisions should have their full consequences to give weight to actions she did to follow through with her belief.

Overall this is still an enjoyable watch that compensates for its weaker parts with the brilliant parts. You might not enjoy every part of it, but as a whole you'll most likely like it.

To be honest, I would separate TPN into two sections. The first 3 or so arcs (first 99 chapters I believe) is a solid 8.5/10 for me. The world-building is top notch, characterization is great, and the series has a wealth of complex relationship building while crafting great strategies and mysteries.

After that though, the story takes a pretty big nosedive, almost immediately. I fail to see how the series now is anything higher than a 5/10 at most. It feels like the authors want to rush everything and have just invalidated all the careful planning those first 99 chapters seemed to set up. Characters are simply caricatures of what they once were, none of the antagonists are as good as those in the first 3 arcs, and the world-building is laughably nonexistent, and the conflicts reduced to simple 'good vs bad'.

Anyway if you came here for ratings, here are mine separated for TPN's first 'half' and second 'half':

Story (first half): 9/10
Story (second half): 5/10

Art (first half): 8/10
Art (second half): 7/10

Character (first half): 8/10
Character (second half): 3/10

Enjoyment (first half): 9/10
Enjoyment (second half): 4/10

Overall (first half): 8.5/10
Overall (second half): 4/10

The Promised Neverland is one of the most recent manga series to have exploded in fame and popularity, and after a nearly 4 year stint in Shounen Jump, it has finally come to a close. This sci-fi thriller mystery has been a great joy to read, so what did it do well?

TPN has a very unique and well-developed world that you don’t often see in other series. Imagine a world where you are brought into and raised, only to be harvested as food, just like livestock, where the world the orphanage resides in is dominated by demons. The main goal for the main trio is to escape Grace Field, but what lies ahead of them will prove to be their greatest challenge yet. Throughout the 180 chapters, we get to see them explore different locations such as the orphanage, the bunker, Goldy Ponds, Seven Walls, and the Imperial Capital, each location adds a lot of world building and mystery to the world’s lore. Each location is used efficiently and implemented naturally to further progress the story, enough information is held back to keep the sense of mystery and curiosity intact, rather than info dumping unnecessarily and ruining that sense of surprise.

The story is split into 11 different arcs, and each one of them focuses on a different event which all tie into each other. As everyone is enjoying their lives at the orphanage, Norman and Emma go out towards the entrance of the facility only to find that they are all in serious trouble. They plan to escape, but they are challenged by the staff members who work at the orphanage, Isabella and the other mothers and the demons who stand guard. The first arc has everything a perfect thriller has to offer, though the later arcs presents the story as a more sci-fi post-apocalyptic story rather than purely as a horror thriller, the story is still enjoyable as we see the characters strive to escape back to the human world. If you don’t mind the tiny dip in quality in the story, you can find a lot of enjoyment out of this.

The artwork isn’t what you’d call great, but it isn’t bad either. At its high points, where the horror and dark scenes are highly expressed, the artwork can be really really good, highly detailed and capturing the essence of the moment. In other times, like in non-important frames or often times when the frame features a character, it feels more like a doodle than a good drawing. Though it might be unique to the artist’s style, I think it still suits the series very well and you’ll get accustomed to the different art.

The characters are very unique and very good. We have the children from the orphanage, we have Musica and Sung-Joo, we have the nobles, and we have the other escapees and harvested children. The characters are all well-written and don’t go to waste. Lewis is best boy, Isabella is a great and sympathetic villain, and Phil is the MVP. I won’t write anymore about the characters as it could lead to potentially massive spoilers. Just know that there are some very likeable characters.

Overall, I’d say this has been a very fun and interesting ride. The manga was able to keep me intrigued and drawn in as the story develops, and it has the right length to present enough information and story to start from beginning to end. If you want a good sci-fi thriller series, check out The Promised Neverland, definitely worth the read.

8/10

I just keep thinking of what an explosive gripping start this manga has yet, it continues to sputter out the longer and longer it drags out. The first arc of this manga is absolutely incredible. It could've been a complete 1 shot(As the anime somewhat is) and would've left you completely satisfied. Unfortunately, it is very clear that the author put most of their thought into that first arc and slightly after that arc but, not much into the moments leading up to the conclusion of the story.

This manga also relies a lot on things happening off screen. Which is good to keep you on your toes and making characters feel prepared and that they're using their brain to solve things but, since it keeps happening it starts to feel like a convenient way to make sure the characters cannot lose.

I'm not sure if it was because I was able to marathon through 2 major arcs for instant gratification and now I have to wait weekly for new chapters is affecting my enjoyment but, I find that the core elements of that first arc aren't present in these later chapters. The characters feel like they're doing cliche things and that the plot is doing cliche things.

Demizu's art is consistently beautiful and well drawn. I never felt that there was a dip in quality. Her style is extremely unique, soft when it needs to be and jarring or terrifying when it needs to be.

I still enjoy it but, while I felt that I couldn't put the story down or wait for the next chapter...now I find reading it to be a slog and just a general desire to see how it all ends.

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.

Well, if you like a story that have a lot of twist in it, you would probably love it. You would be overwhelmed by the twists in this manga. It has a beautiful character development. Every character has their own characteristics and uniqueness. There might be naive and too kind character, but that doesn't mean that they are dumb or something (this kids are geniuses). This would be a great manga to read since the end of a few so I call it "giant" in the manga industry. Try it out and you'll most probably like it (unless you like a lot of blood, intestines and some other body parts gushing out, then I would suggest Happiness and Tokyo Ghoul :re)