Winter 2019 First Impressions – The Promised Neverland

Emma, Norman, and Ray are the three most brilliant children the Grace Field House has produced in decades. Unlike in a typical orphanage, they, and their fellow children, eat well and are given an intensive education. However, despite living in a peaceful environment with fun games and a caring mother, there’s something not quite right. When six year old Connie is “adopted” by foster parents, she forgets her favorite stuffed rabbit, and Emma and Norman sneak out to return it to her. When they arrive at the scene, the two realize exactly why they had always been isolated from the outside world. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hulu, and HIDIVE

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Emma, Ray, and Norman are three orphans at Grace Field House. Kind-hearted Emma loves all the other children deeply as members of the only family she’s ever known. They’re cared for by “Mom,” a kindly young woman who ensures their safety. The children spend their days learning and playing together among the fields and forests. However, they’re forbidden from approaching the gate or the fence that surrounds the property, because of untold dangers.

When Conny, one of the younger children, is adopted into a foster family, the other children wish her a tearful goodbye and ask her to write them letters before Mom escorts her to the world outside. Emma realizes that Conny left her favorite stuffed animal, and she and Norman rush to return it to her. As they approach the open gate, however, they discover something so terrible that, as the traumatic images begin to settle in, they realize that their only option is to plan an escape for themselves and the other children.

Impressions: I’m going to do my best not to detail the major spoiler that this episode reveals, but I will give readers a content warning – this episode contains images of harm to children.

My husband and I occasionally disagree on some things when it comes to anime. While neither of us has had much lasting success with the standard Shonen Jump properties, I’m fairly willing to give most things a chance, whereas the impression I get is that he’s been burned too many times (I suspect the Naruto filler broke his soul). Many times we’ve gone to our local bookstore, made a bee-line for the manga shelves, and chatted about what’s been getting buzz recently in the fandom. Lately The Promised Neverland has come up several times in these conversations. I mention that I’ve been hearing about it from several critics I trust, he counters that he’s skeptical about Shonen Jump manga (the pain is real!) and we move on to something else. I think after watching this episode, I might be able to convince him to give it a second chance.

The Promised Neverland is a little bit different from what one might expect of a popular series, because its horrors take center stage early on. While the “big reveal” occurs within the last few minutes, from the beginning there’s an undercurrent of foreboding that starts to eat away at one’s sense of comfort. It isn’t overwhelming at first; the little cracks in the characters’ understanding of their world start off so subtly that the “wrong-ness” feels mostly subconscious. For example, logically Mom’s warning about the dangers outside of the fence can’t be that threatening, because the metal fence is shorter than many of the children, the gaps between the bars are wide, and any of the kids could squeeze through or leap it if they really wanted to. But why is it there in the first place?

That is possibly one of the more upsetting aspects of this story – the power of the psychological “fences” that have clearly been constructed in the minds of the children from the time they were first aware. While the characters we meet in this episode all vaguely question the necessity of the fence or the reality of whatever dangers there might be out there, the fact that the source of the information comes from Mom, someone who the children have no reason to distrust, makes the information as solid as it needs to be even if, upon examination, it’s based on nothing but words. It’s sort of terrifying to consider the amount of power we give away to some people if we feel, through some (possibly non-quantifiable means) that they couldn’t possibly deceive us.

Mom is an interesting character to me, because her exact motives aren’t clear even if her participation in a system with terrifying implications is. There are a couple of moments, including one rather touching scene where she takes down a piece of the children’s artwork from the wall and smiles, that leads one to believe that Mom does care about the children even if her actions ultimately result in harm. There’s also the matter of Conny’s stuffed animal, which becomes the catalyst leading to the big reveal. I believe that Mom would have to have known, if she knew the children at all, that they would do the rash thing and rush to return the beloved toy to its owner. Even if it was ultimately a token no longer useful to Conny, allowing the child to bring it with her wouldn’t have caused a problem. I get the impression that this was a purposeful action on Mom’s part, and the terrifying (but ambiguous) shot of her knowing that the stuffed animal was brought to the gate by someone is something I find profoundly intriguing.

I have to admit, I had a few vague ideas of what this story was keeping in its back pocket just through general fandom osmosis and some character analysis I read several months ago. I’m not particularly spoiler-averse as a viewer, either; I tend to enjoy stories even if I know some of the big things that are going to happen. I have to say, though, that this episode was absolutely masterful at tension-building, leaving me frantic and upset by the time Emma and Norman made their discovery. I think that, personally, being an adult means that I’ve “seen some things;” things about real life that are distasteful or terrible, but become unavoidable if you want to have any awareness of humanity’s various struggles. But we put a lot of stock in the “innocence” of children and many of us feel some form of internal directive to make sure that the children in our lives are kept away from knowledge that would bring about too much trauma at too young an age. I think that’s likely why this premiere upset me and left me teary-eyed by the end; it’s the young characters who are forced to know too much too soon, even if it means they now have a chance to escape their awful fate.

It seems a little bit trite, considering the episode’s other excellent qualities, to talk that much about its visuals and animation, because part of me feels like, with a story this powerful and memorable, the visual quality doesn’t matter all that much. What I’ll say is that it’s lovely to look at; the idyllic little orphanage and the vast, green fields and trees look lush and beautiful, while the grit of the gate provides a meaningful contrast. The scene at the gate does an excellent job of focusing on some visual elements of disrepair – mostly leaking pipes and dripping water. Aspects that don’t necessarily reflect the fortitude of the gate itself, but which speak to the completeness of the illusion of the children’s world as compared to the typical cracks and leaks that typify the world of adults.

This series is available almost anywhere that typically streams anime series; I won’t speculate on the amount of money and the complicated licensing deals that feat required, but it does speak to the show’s nearly universal appeal and major popularity. While I will generally warn folks that there are some brief, disturbing images near the end of this episode, I will encourage pretty much anyone who can stomach that kind of material to go out and watch it before the major spoilers make their way around to you. This first episode is masterful in its setting, mood, and storytelling, and I’m frankly shocked that my fairly high expectations were not only met, but soundly exceeded.

Pros: Available in all the major streaming outlets. Builds tension throughout the episode. Some possible moral ambiguity that I personally find fascinating.

Cons: There are some brief, horrifying images near the end of the episode involving harm to children.

Grade: A