The Promised Neverland is based upon the manga series. The first season is 12 episodes long. It’s set in an orphanage where a bunch of young children are taken care off by “mother”. Emma and Norman are two of the oldest, and smartest, children in the orphanage. Everyone seems happy, being taken cared of and loved by mother, it seemed like the perfect place to grow up. Every so often, a child would leave as they would be adopted.
This is a bit of a spoiler, but the first episode sets up this happy tone before relentlessly and mercilessly crushing it. It’s quite a shock and a significant tonal change when the real premise was revealed. It can be nightmare fuel and it forever changes how you see things. That goes for the characters as well, with Emma, Norman, and their other friend, Ray, no aware of the truth and finding a way to escape.
It starts to become a battle of wits as the trio tries to find a way to escape, with everyone, while also not arousing suspicion. It’s a tense situation, and there’s a lot of bluffing and pretending that everything is okay. Then there are the curveballs, where even when the trio haven’t gotten a good grasp of their current situation yet, their enemy is a step ahead and creates more obstacles. It’s definitely not the type of anime you were expecting from just the key visuals or even the first half of the first episode alone.
Somehow, each episode has more unexpected developments and big revelations. We learn more about the orphanage, the outside world, the mother, what happens afterwards, how things are controlled etc. It’s impressive with its relentless pacing, even more so when you realise that everything is taking place in the same few areas: the house and the surrounding forests.
As the escape gets closer and closer, and bigger and bigger in scope, the characters who are part of the plan increases as well, but that also increases the risk. The anime makes you trust the characters but as Norman had mentioned to Emma, anyone could be a traitor and they need to be careful in order to outwit mother. This also leads to several creepier and scarier scenes, where it just gets under your skin, from the way a character may smile, to their body actions.
One of the key hooks is how the characters learn more about their predicament and how to properly plan to get out of it. They are effectively trapped in an isolated area, with a block on any sort of outside knowledge from coming in. They make do with what they have learnt (being some of what you would expect to be common knowledge and common sense) but it’s a momentous task. The anime manages to handle this aspect fairly well without stretching the viewer’s belief too much.
The first eight episodes, while decent, only serves as an appetiser for the last four episodes of the season. Those four episodes are something special as it rapidly amps up the ante and the pacing goes crazy. Time is compressed and so many things happen that the characters are forced to adapt, change, bring forward and postpone. It toys with your emotions, and it is unbelievable at how much it managed to make you care for the characters.
A common theme towards the end is how one controls their own destiny, even when it feels like they’ve lost all control. The characters have to decide on giving up or continue to fight the despair. The cycle of death that we’ve come to learn affects everyone, and this is made much more apparent in the season finale. Everyone that we know, they have been a part of this cycle, and deeply affected, in one way or another. It brings despair and also hope, and it is a very strong ending that also closes the loop. It reveals enough to be satisfying, but still keeps many things close to its heart for the future.
Overall, the first season of The Promised Neverland is fantastic. It already captures your attention from the very first episode with its unexpected twist and premise. Then it slowly escalates the situation until it blows the lid in the season finale, where we end up with a rollercoaster of a ride. The way it manages to allow you to get to know the characters, and then tearing them away from you, it’s done a great job. The best part is that this season is great as a standalone, while also leaving a great starting point for the next season.
------------------------------------------------------