Common Name: The Promised Neverland
Alternative Names: Yakusoku no Neverland
Score: 10/10, 5/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Psychological
Summary: Loved and nurtured by their surrogate mother, Isabella, the children of the Grace Field House orphanage are given every opportunity to live happy and carefree lives. The only real rules of the house are to stay away from the entry gatehouse, never cross the fence that lies deep in the woods that surround the estate, and try to improve your scores on the tests Mama Isabella requires everyone to take. Following those rules will guarantee that each orphan will find a home and place in society once they leave the orphanage or, at least, that's what everyone has been led to believe. Saddened by the departure of one of the orphanage's young girls, Emma and Norman, two of the brightest students there, decide to break the rules and see her off. When they reach the gatehouse, though, they do not see their sister but, instead, the dark and cruel truth of what awaits every orphan of the Grace Field House. Now that they've found out, though, the only options before them are to escape or stay and accept the fate that has claimed countless children before them.
Review: Oh boy, here we go again. This is going to be another one of those reviews where brevity is going to be a key factor for two distinct reasons. The first is that I'm relatively sure that most people reading this will have already watched or read The Promised Neverland. The second is that, for those who haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil this wonderfully tense and complex series. So, like a couple shows before it, I'm going to attempt to talk my way around The Promised Neverland in as bland but direct terms as possible. That being said, I will also state one simple thing at the beginning of this review: Go watch The Promised Neverland. If you are one of the few who have not seen it, do so because this is one of those shows I will actively encourage everyone to watch. Also, if you are one of those people who have only read the manga, you should also watch this adaptation because it does a beautiful job turning what is already a tense story on the page and ramping it up with cinematic skills the likes of which I rarely see, let alone notice.
This show is exactly what the OP's visual hints and first English word promise, "Fire."
So, without further ado, let's get into this. The Promised Neverland is a series that exists and succeeds on a few different levels and for a variety of reasons. The core of it all, though, can be found plainly in the way it handles its cast of characters, juvenile and adult alike. Regardless of whether they are major or minor players in the overall story, every character within the walls of the Grace Field House feels both believable and reasonably complex in how they interact with each other and the situations they find themselves in. Of course, the best examples of this can be seen in how the show's primary trio, Emma, Norman, and Ray, live their lives both before and after they realize that their happy and loving home is just a cheap facade for something far darker. Both before and after the big reveal in the first episode, there is little doubt that this show's cast is composed primarily of children. Even as characters that are praised and treated like geniuses for their age, they all still act and function in the manner you'd expect of a child. For starters, Emma, the primary perspective character for the series at large, is the quintessence of what a loud, rambunctious, and emotionally driven young girl would be in her situation. Like an actual child, she expresses different facets of her greater personality around different people. Around Mama Isabella, the caretaker of the orphanage, she strives to be more adult-like and help the mother she idolizes care for her siblings. With Norman, Ray, and the other kids her age, she is the driving force that keeps life at the orphanage fun and interesting, even if it gets them in trouble. With the younger kids, she's the fun big sister who will just as frequently join in their games as she will scold them for causing trouble. When the truth comes out, though, all of that personality morphs into a kind of naive but stubborn determination that can and will lead the kids to safety, assuming everything goes to plan.
She's just, all around, a pretty great kid, one that's a lot to handle
and hard put up with but an ultimately good person.
Though not nearly as multi-faceted as Emma, both Norman and Ray are also fairly believable child characters. To make up for that comparative lack of complexity, though, each serve as brilliantly developed foils for Emma and each other. Norman, for instance, exists as something of a middle-point between the emotional and physically-oriented Emma and the stoic but calculating Ray. While Emma might be the de facto leader for the entire orphanage, Norman is the leader of their trio thanks to his intelligence that keeps Ray on his toes and can outmaneuver Emma's physical prowess. Both before and after the things take a turn for the worse, Norman serves as the schemer who can bring Emma's dreams to fruition while also towing Ray along for the ride thanks to the rivalry they share. As for Ray, he serves as something of a direct counterbalance to Emma's gung ho mentality towards their situation. Trained to think critically and strategically like Norman, he injects caution and rationality into their plans, accounting for things Emma wouldn't consider and Norman would outright ignore if it conflicted with Emma's goals. In other words, Ray is very much a literal devil's advocate for their group prone to offering suggestions that would improve their own chances of survival but also put the lives of the other kids at risk.
Yet, with the way he tends to operate, it's hard to tell when he's simply offering a counterpoint
or outright scheming to reach a certain outcome in the larger game.
It should be stated, though, that this show is hardly focused on just these three characters. In fact, it would actually be more accurate to say that the story of The Promised Neverland is presented through the disparate perspectives of its ensemble cast. While Emma, Norman, and Ray are certainly the primary characters of the show, the story also accounts for the stories and troubles of several other characters, leaving no stone unturned and no thought without representation. That's why we are also given moments to peak into the lives of some of the other children's lives, as well as those of the adults who become the group's primary antagonists. Most notably, among the children, there are the perspectives of Don and Gilda, two characters who lack the intelligence and courage of the main trio but still manage to pull their weight over the course of the series. Gilda, for instance, comes into all this as she struggles to reignite her friendship with Emma that fell by the wayside when Emma learned the truth and dedicated all her time to help set up their escape. Don, on the other hand, injects some much-needed recklessness into the group as he wrestles with his reasonable inferiority complex, jeopardizing the whole operation just to contribute something to the effort. Yet, in spite of their flaws and inadequacies, both add something to the team that the trio lacked on their own--humility. Despite being plagued by their relative inferiority, they force the trio to realize that their schemes can hardly be accomplished without the honest and earnest help of others.
What's most stunning, though, is the way the show manages to really humanize these two,
elevating them from convenient problems to legitimately troubled and scared kids.
Yet the most important perspectives of all, outside of the main trio, is easily those of their primary antagonists, Mama Isabella and Sister Krone. As the only adults of the series, these two offer a lot of nuance to the story when it comes to how the children of Grace Field House operate. On an almost instinctual level, all of the kids love, adore, and idolize their surrogate mother, making the revelation of her betrayal that much harder to deal with. Like the kids she raises, she is something of a genius in her own right and proves herself more than capable of handling things even once the truth of her villainy becomes impossible to ignore. Yet, despite all the wrong she has done and does do throughout the series, she continues to serve as something of a sore spot for the kids to work around if their escape plans have any hope of succeeding. After all, she is still very much their mother, someone they were all raised to love unconditionally and look up to as an ideal they should all strive to become as they grow older. As I said before, Emma functionally served as Isabella's assistant at the start. So, when the truth came out, it was impossible for Emma to not distrust or even hate Isabella. Since it's hard to cast off her happier memories and love for Isabella, though, both it and her newfound hatred for the woman meld into a selfish, niggling desire to succeed in her plans without hurting her mother in the process. This same kind of conflicting nuance can be seen in almost all the kids as they wrestle with their feelings for Mama Isabella in their own way. What's all the more impressive, though, is the way Isabella eventually reveals herself to be more than just a villain or even the sum of her children's hopes and fears. By series end, she functionally becomes a character with a life just as tragic and harsh as the one she is forced to inflict on her charges. Evil and terrifying as she might be, there is that humanity to her character that speaks volumes about general human nature and how some people cope with just being the cog in a much larger machine.
This woman is a beautifully dark reminder of how easy it can be to fall into a cycle of abuse.
Then there is, of course, the character of Sister Krone who is similarly complex and interesting but is probably this show's one really problematic figure. Much like Ray is to Norman, Krone serves as something of a rival to the sly and menacing figure that is Mama Isabella. Having goals of her own, she exists in a middle ground between Mama Isabella's authority and the childish chaos that the kids often embody. But, unlike Norman who plays both sides for everyone's advantage, Sister Krone uses and betrays both as a means of hedging her bets, hoping she might possibly stand on top when all is said and done. Interesting and engaging as her double agent agenda might be, though, her general design serves as a stark reminder of how socially deaf Japan is when it comes to the depiction of black characters. Massive lips, brutish strength, and a mind not nearly as sharp as her graceful, genteel, and very white counterpart, Isabella, Krone functionally exists as a caricature that is done no favors by her childish outbursts and desire to backstab everyone around her. Be that as it may, her position as an adult in this story does still speak to a kind of institutional tragedy. Namely, her being perceived as a lesser person in her own institution could be seen as a cry of cruelty, unfairness, and racial injustice her design draws attention to.
In other words, problematic though she might be, it's hard
to discount the idea that her design was intentional.
Up until now, I've made sure to avoid talking about any kind of specifics of this world since the nature of this world is ultimately what drives the intrigue of the story at large. But there are certain things I can at least allude to to expound on how wonderfully it uses its setting. So, to be perfectly clear, when I say that this world these characters call home is dark, I mean black as pitch. Almost instantly, we are meant to take notice of the numbered tattoos on each child's neck that serves as a clear and obvious allegory to the practices of the Nazi death camps. With that, we are instantly keyed into the general tone of this series and get a good idea of what we might expect as the story develops. Yet, more than that, that little bit of character design also speaks to the very real problems with human nature that the characters encounter over the course of the show. Problems such as eugenics, racial treason, and the cruelty mankind is capable of when dealing with someone/something they brand as "lesser" or "other" immediately spring to mind when that kind of imagery is introduced. Yet, while The Promised Neverland certainly touches on these topics, it never really strays from the fact that this show is ultimately centered on a group of children. As such, it attempts to address these problems and many others in a manner children would be capable of, often meaning not really being able to deal with it at all. Unfortunate as that might sound, though, it is the reality that these kids and real people have had to deal with. Though the series as a whole seems to point toward an ultimate goal of destroying the system that forces these kinds of self-destructive behaviors on them, they simply aren't equipped to even really consider that option. For now, their own real option is to escape, survive, and hope that they'll eventually get the chance to do more. That's not necessarily the happiest of solutions to the problems this show faces, but it is the only reasonable conclusion this series could have reached within the span of a single season.
But, again, that's running on the assumption that things won't go wrong in the end.
All in all, I have to say that I absolutely adore this show. It has a way of dealing with its subject matter and characters in a way that never crossed the line of what I found believable. Every little touch from the characters' expressions and designs to the way the framing and music managed to build on the tension and suspense that made it one of the most engaging titles I've watched in all my years of anime. Add on to that some beautiful work in the general crafting of the show that makes it an easy rival to Made in Abyss and it becomes easy to see why so many people have fallen head-over-heels in love with this story and its characters. So, as I said at the start of this, I firmly believe that this is one of those titles everyone should watch. This is one of those shows that I think will stick around in my and other people's minds for some time. Part of that is likely due to simply how much this show has to talk about and how much can be gleaned from it--noting that I've only touched the surface of it all in this review. Alternatively, people will simply remember it because they're hype to see what comes next for these characters. I, for one, will admit that I'm hype for season two.