The Promised Neverland is really good. heres why.

The Promised Neverland is one of the best mangas I've read. It's incredibly unique, in its style, organization, story, and more. The manga itself is a psychological horror that centers around three orphans: the 11-year-olds Emma, Norman, and Ray who live with their many siblings at what they believe to be an orphanage. One day, however, they discover that they aren't actually at an orphanage, they're at a farm and are being raised like cattle to feed demons. They hatch a plan to escape, escape after a few technical difficulties, and begin their journey to the human world. However, they soon learn that their world is not a world ruled by humans, but by the demons they were being raised to feed and begin to plan another escape, this time into the separate world of humans. There's an anime adaptation to this as well, but seeing as it's skipped a very action-filled arc, the manga is worth a read.  

So, without further ado, here's what I like about this manga. 

Lack of Tropes (Minor Spoilers)

It's honestly surprising how few tropes there are in this. Sure, the main character is strongly driven by her love for and desire to save her family (similar to the 'power of friendship' a lot of protagonists have), but nothing unrealistic happens because of it. There's no speech that suddenly makes a villain change sides, there's no one taking extreme pity on the orphans/cattle children and saving the day, and there's no cop-out at the end that would give everyone a happy ending. 

Even the fake-out death makes sense once you find out more about the lore. To give some backstory, the reason demons eat humans is because they take on the DNA of creatures they consume. The smarter the human, the tastier they are. The cattle children are created as high-quality food, compared to human flesh that is made in factories. The character whose death is implied is an extremely smart child, even for the cattle children, so it makes sense that they were sent to a lab to be experimented on, instead of being harvested like the story first implied. Then, because the child was so smart, they found a way to escape. All of this fits together, lore-wise and character-wise, and no part of it feels like a last-minute attempt to get a character back in for the fans.

The Ending (Major Spoilers)

The ending is such a wonderfully crafted and chilling end to a fantastic story. When the cast of characters finally makes it to a world that's safe for them after so much bloodshed and loss, they think their sacrifice is over and celebrate. But then, the realization that there was one more person taken from them sinks in. Then, the cut to Emma with her amnesia and her being discovered by an old man (that I thought was Santa Clause) was shocking. When it's revealed to the reader what she did, you can't help but know that this action fits her character to the T, while still being amazed that the author shoved one more plot twist into the story and still made it feel natural.

Then, in the final chapter when the other escaped children find her after searching across the globe and Emma doesn't recognize the people she literally sacrificed her memories for? So bittersweet, and so fitting with the tone of the series as a whole.

Style (Semi-Spoilers)

This is probably more of a personal-taste enjoyment than the other points I've covered, but I really enjoyed the ratio of text to imagery in this manga. I always love those scenes where a character is explaining some big, elaborate plan after they execute it, and in this manga that's basically always happening. There's a lot of text in it so the author is able to fit in the characters' complex thought processes and dialogue. However, there are still some gorgeous fight scenes that creeped me out to the maximum level because of how detailed the demons were. 

Another style-related thing I thought was really cool were the demons themselves, with visuals and in-world variation. They were so diverse, with some being elegant to the point of humanity, and some being visceral and regressed beasts (because of the entire 'adapt DNA of what they eat' thing). The author managed to keep the two sides of the spectrum looking like the same species, while still having a clear distinction. 

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All in all, it's an incredibly well-written and interesting manga, which I strongly recommend giving a read to.

- Shreeya