Review: THE PROMISED NEVERLAND

Despite choosing to focus on Weekly Shonen Jump manga this month, I actually don't read a lot of the long-running series that run in it.  It's not something I actively avoid, it's just that many of them don't appeal to me.  Thus, you can imagine my surprise when one of the magazine's biggest hits currently managed not only to capture my interest with its original look and premise, but retain it.

THE PROMISED NEVERLAND (Yakusoku no Neverland), written by Kaiu Shirai & art by Posuka Demizu.  First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2017.

PLOT:

Emma loves her home, Grace Field House.  She loves all the other orphans who live there with her.  She loves her "Mom" Isabella, who cares for all the children with tender sweetness.  Aside from the daily academic tests, things couldn't be more lovely for her.  Then Emma and her friend Norman discover the bloody truth behind their idyllic world, and their world view is shattered.  At that point, they resolve to save all the children of Grace Field House while avoiding the ever-watchful eyes of Isabella, a feat far harder than they could possibly have realized.

STORY:

So what makes The Promised Neverland so special?  It's not so much one particular thing as it a perfect storm of qualities.

It's fairly uncommon for a Weekly Shonen Jump manga (or a lot of shonen manga for that matter) to feature a heroine instead of a hero.  Rarer still is a female shonen protagonist who isn't used as a vehicle for fanservice, something that pre-teen Emma is mercifully exempt from.  In some ways she's not all that different from the shonen protagonists before her.  She is athletic, brave, and caring, the moral anchor of the series.  Yet she's not a doofus oblivious to everything but fighting.  While she may not possess Norman's talent for analytics nor the cunning of their first ally, Ray, she is intelligent enough to add her own observations and contributions.  Emma is a strong and endearing heroine in her own right, but the story makes a point of how strong she and the boys are together.

The story structure itself is also quite unusual.  Instead of the usual hero's quest or endless tournaments, Emma and company are basically taking part in a fantastical prison break.  The emphasis here is on suspense, and Shirai does a great job at balancing the progression of the children's plot with the introduction of new obstacles, all while slowly feeding the reader more information about the world of Grace Field House.  The story is thrilling and intense but not in a way that's too extreme for the magazine's ostensibly young audience.   It's a marvelous balance of manga-making that all comes together into something that feels fresh and compulsively readable.

ART:

Something else that makes The Promised Neverland so special is Posuka Demizu's art.  Previous to this series, Demizu had spent the better part of a decade refining their own particular brand of illustration, one that tended to focus on contrasting cute children and ominous, well-detailed settings.  Not shockingly, that's also an accurate description of the look of The Promised Neverland.

What makes it work is how well Demizu can change the mood of a scene just through artful use of perspective and layout.  There are moments that work like hard edits and focus racks in film that are done just with pen and it's masterful to behold at times. He also uses perspective to heighten some of the manga's biggest emotional moments, turning Isabella's serene beauty into an unnerving stare or visually heightening the terror Emma and Norman feel at their moment of dreadful discovery. 

There's a charming variety of character designs at play here, with an incredible range of emotion.  Considering that there are so many kids with very similar uniforms, Demizu does a good job creating different looks and distinct silhouettes for them all.  If there's any failing, it's that Demizu's choice to make one of the secondary villains black and to draw her in a broader, more stereotypical fashion has remained a point of contention and controversy.

RATING:

The Promised Neverland has it all: an original thrilling premise, a great heroine surrounded by a cast more than equal to her as characters, a unique, cinematic look, and a creative team that brings it all together to ensure that the series hits the ground running and never stops.  It's a spectacular series that I would heartily recommend to anyone.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 18 volumes available.  14 volumes have been published, and are currently in print.