The Promised Neverland has reached shelves and digital market places everywhere in North America. Set in an post-apocalyptic future during the year 2045, a seemingly innocent series quickly brings about dark intensities with demons and a dark twisted story. Lead character Emma and her siblings Norman & Ray work together to unveil the truth about their home the Grace Field House.

The Promised Neverland is a 2016 shounen manga series by Posuka Demizu, it is published by Shueisha and licensed by Viz Media. It is currently available in print & digital formats in English.

Editor’s Note: A review of The Promised Neverland’s first two volumes was provided by Viz Media in support of this review. This review will contain slight to near complete spoilers.

The Grace Field House holds dark and terrible secrets.

If you’re a fan of psychologically misleading series like Made in Abyss, then chances are you’re going to love The Promised Neverland. Both are quite similar in plot and design whereas the main characters are kids living in a seemingly normal world, but as time goes on the readers learn the true nature of our heroes’ living situation, and it’s anything but what was originally presented. The tense pacing and twists & turns are exactly what makes The Promised Neverland special, and these are big reasons for it’s quick rise in popularity.

The curtains covering Grace Field House begins to slowly peel back and unravel.

THE GOOD: At a little over fifty pages for the first chapter, world & character building is greatly expanded upon. You immediately get an idea of who our lead characters: Emma, Ray, and Norman are as people. Their hopes, dreams, talents, and desires are heavily detailed. The truth of their home the Grace Field House, while not as detailed as much does provide enough information to get the idea across and we even get some panels featuring the demons.

Nearly all of the children’s daily activities are done as a quality assurance test, including academics.

The twist of the orphanage being a cover for a secret meat farm for demons gets showcased rather early and it feels like all the information being spread across the opening chapters is just one big helping of foreshadowing for even darker and crazier things to come for the poor kids. The once happy Emma slowly breaking down to the reality of her situation was pretty hard to see. After all these kids are literally aged between the range of 5-11 years old.

Horrible things lurk outside of the gates of this “orphanage”.

THE BAD: If you’re not into kid leads living a horrible world, then this probably won’t be for you. Outside of that nothing in particular.

A wonderfully misleading world, well worth a read.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: The Promised Neverland is continue the rising popularity in psychological horror manga that shows more than meets the eye. Great character building, immediate development, and world building puts this still rather fresh series above a lot of long-running classics. Otaku Dome gives The Promised Neverland Volumes 1 & 2 a combined score of 90 out of 100.