Have you ever imagined living in a world where another dimension different from our own existed? A world where the monsters you hear from scary stories told as a child and the bogyman hiding in various parts of your room are real?

Have you ever imagined a world where you may never grow up?

If you’re thinking about a certain J.M. Berrie children’s book with pirates, fairies and a boy who flies when looking at the title, you’re far from wrong. This is no fairy tale. The Promised Neverland you are thinking of is far from the truth.

Which is what makes this manga interesting.

Story:

At first glance, the story seems very uplifting and bright. There is laughter, smiles, cheerful children. There are children everywhere which is what makes the reader realize this is not a normal manga.

The story is broken in arcs, which follows three certain characters around. The start of the story has a very original plot to start and really hooks the reader well. The pacing and the excitement are there since we know the genre “mystery and thriller” is part of it all. The reader is at once wondering first chapter what is going to happen. Once it picks up and things start to happen, we are left following a group of children running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Things really do start heading downhill from there. A familiar trope is used in the plot to some disappointment at which most of the story is now based around. Not only are the characters trying to find this “new world”, but they are also trying to find what happened to their friend, and in the meantime trying to dodge and fight every single demon that attack them.

That’s pretty much it.

The world building is okay. The author did place some good political stands and religious values on what the culture seems to be like in the demon world. There are some good descriptions on what the place looks like and the setting that brings their adventure together.

The pace at first is good but it soon does become a mess. The author puts events in which can reflect the modern world and affect what happens to the characters, and it just becomes…a bit too predictable. I felt, myself, it lost that excitement and thrill it had beginning to mid plot and became a repeating action.
It leaves us wondering if anything would ever change.

Art:

This art style takes a bit getting used to. It’s a bit wild for my taste. The character design has some strange ways to create large heads and hair on the kids. Emma’s hair is just a massive cow lick that just doesn’t want to stay down. Ray’s design looks rather familiar too if you see what I mean. The faces of the characters also seem like someone stepped on their faces and their facial features got all scrunched up. It makes them look kind of funny and too silly to take seriously in some fighting scenes.

The demon designs are spectacular and what makes this story really eye popping. They’re so original! It seems like they used more inspiration from children’s picture books about monsters and original design then the demons/youkai you’d find in Japanese folklore.

The background art too is very detailed and shows how much the author has placed in the world building. Honestly, they put more effort into the background than the actual characters in my opinion.

Characters:

Children! Children everywhere!

The main characters are children. So if you’re thinking “well, they’re going to grow up maybe?” Well, no. And that’s where that “Neverland” and the Berrie inspiration of never-growing-up comes from. But however much you may think, “oh man, were going to suffer the immature acts of children this entire 181 chapters, then?” well, perhaps not. These kids aren’t too bad as characters at the start. They all do seem determined children! They have their own personality (although seem familiar in ways), but there are some things…

Yeah, there wasn’t a lot of growth in the characters. They do grow – but…how can I say…they just stay the same it seems. There just wasn’t any change from when the first major event happens to the last. Emma still has that determined (and annoying) personality to keep everyone safe no matter what, Ray is still the same “emo-ish” main character who slowly moves into the background, and Norm…well, I think he’s the only one who has a bit of character development I think.

There are also the monsters but they just do what they’re supposed to: eat and kill without care. The same with the adults, but there is one who does a switch near the end thankfully. Yay, character development and things happening!
But I do have to point out there are a lot of characters. And I mean a lot of character you will forget and then they’ll come back after a few dozen chapters for readers to be like “who are you?” and they’ll start doing something important. I had a few of those moments.

Enjoyment:

At first, I really enjoyed going through the chapters and seeing all this mystery and suspense. I kept turning to pages and realizing that I had more questions I wanted answered. Plus, considering I was going through a phase where I was reading every single horror like manga out there, this one really fit my mood. But over time as I finally caught up around chapter 110, I felt like my excitement levels just went down. Maybe it’s because I was waiting for the next chapter weekly that I didn’t get the thrill rush I usually got or maybe it was because, for me, the manga just went down hill after the first few arcs, but reading through the last few dozen chapters weren’t enough to satisfy my horror hunger.

Overall:

It wasn’t too bad overall. It has its ups and down of course. There were times where I was like “OMG WHHHHAAAAAAT!” and other times I was like “Hmmm…okaaayyy? But why?”. I know my decision to read the manga before watching the anime was more due to the fact I wanted to know what was happening as it happened than watch the anime and wait almost a year to know. Therefore, if you really want to know what is happening, I do recommend reading this now, as it has ended, then from waiting for each chapter to be released weekly or waiting for the anime to continue. Then you can go at your own pace than the pace the manga is set at.

I give this manga a 47.5% on the children's scale.