Manga/ The Promised Neverland

I'm with Emma, in that I can't help but pity them, and worry about the prospect of losing their culture. But even the non-sentient ones are desperate to eat humans. No point in making a new promise that they'll forget if they follow it. It could be nicer to make the portal one-way and send fresh corpses to them. I also wonder why human stem cells wouldn't be enough, and why they prefer those who were raised in places like Grace Field. But I also understand Norman's goal. Possible compromise: nobles first. Their greed even hurts their own kind. If I was in Emma's position, I wouldn't know where to go from there.

Edit: wow. I just had a dream that there was a time skip and everyone worked it out by next chapter. Humans and evolution beasts had a full partnership, human meat was rationed and many evolution beasts would spend long vacations as birds or dogs for fun before being given their full sentience back later, and the cultural leader was offered human meat by Norman himself as part of a new ceremony. After that was over Norman appreciated being given the term "cultural preservation" to use in his next speech, having become kind of like a priest symbolizing their partnership. It was amazing and beautiful and all the humans got candy.

Edited by Sailor11sedna on Jan 28th 2019 at 9:25:24 AM

I suppose there's no reason why they can't eat humans who died of natural causes. I mean, it's not like they eat them alive.

Now that we know all of this, it's reminding me of Tokyo Ghoul.

But less of a trainwreck.

Scratch that.

Hasn't become an intentional trainwreck and is still going good.

And yes that was Ishidas intent with Tokyo Ghoul original ending before changing it less than five chapters from the end to a happy ending because thats its own form of trainwreck.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 28th 2019 at 2:19:53 AM

That could a freaky new style of funeral. Burying the body? Burning it? Nah, let's feed it to demons!

I see no reason to pity the demons when they have no pity for humans. For them humans are just meat to do with as they please.

Also, I'll start taking Emma's "plan" seriously when she explains how she plans to convince [ ] to change the promise. Right now she acting like it's a given that he'll do that, even though it's very much not so.

Internalizing and rationalizing suffering of others is part of being human. The ghouls did that alot which is why LSBK makes the comparison.

The Demons aren't any different in that regards, since they become more human as they eat more humans, so they end up showing off the worst aspects of humans. And its not a 1:1 deal. Those two kid demons weren't baby kicking monsters, but they've been raised that eating humans is okay so even cattle children is a delicacy for their poor family.

A perfect example is how humans breed and groom livestock in factory farms, many of which live in even worse conditions. Even their experiments to make better mass produced food mirrors how humans have selectively bred animals with specific traits to get the most from them before we butcher them.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 28th 2019 at 3:56:53 AM

Emotional connection plays a big role. We don't care about eating a steak because we don't picture it as a once living being; but if I was told to live for several years with a cow and then told to shoot it dead with my own hands and eat it, I wouldn't be able to. That's also why we don't eat cats or dogs. It's the same for most Demons; they don't pity humans because most of them have never even seen a human alive, let alone spent time with them. Except for the "farmers"…

Edited by Lyendith on Jan 28th 2019 at 1:38:21 PM

And in some parts of the world people do eat cats and dogs.

Ya know, besides the obvious factor of it being kinda hilariously disturbing how much everyone besides Emma is in for genocide, its kinda hilariously dark to realize they have no way to pull that off and even if they destroyed all farms that probably still wouldn't work

Also dagnabbit posted that accidentally first in anime thread until I realized it was wrong thread right after posting :P

Well, that was the most depressing happy chapter I've ever read.

It's unusual to see Emma yield to popular pressure for once. I guess even she must be tempted by the "easy way out" at this point.

Ray did notice that Emma wasn't totally on board though, it seems. I expect this will be brought up pretty quickly.

It's interesting though, I think some people were wondering What Measure Is a Non-Human?, and it seems the story will bring that up.

Edited by LSBK on Feb 1st 2019 at 6:00:32 AM

This was such a pleasant reunion. They've earned it after all the shit they went through.

I'm pleasantly surprised by Enma this chapter. I kinda expected her to be stubborn and insist on going with her nonsense "plan", but she seems to have grown up a bit.

Oh, I expect her stubbornness to come back before long. She's just taking a well-deserved break.

It’s less growing up though & more not wanting to disrupt the happiness at the moment.

They’ll clearly get to arguing soon enough next chapter.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 1st 2019 at 4:36:52 AM

Sometimes maturity is knowing when to shut up and not try to force your view down everyone's throat's.

And sometimes maturity is being stubborn because the others opinion is genocide.

Not that I expect this brilliant plan to go smoothly or work to begin with, but the inevitable culling of many of these children would show the reality of such a plan, even if six months was a deadline that likely doesn't exist, because never ate a human in her life Musica shows,

And sometimes maturity is knowing when to pick your battles.

Let’s not ruin the reunion with an arguement after all.

Norman's plan wouldn't go smoothly either. Most demons can't last as long as Sonju and Mujica, and would develop a craving for brains even after going wild. The nobles and farmers and especially the Ratri clan are dependent on the status quo. Finally, there's eradicating all the demons even after dismantling the farms and waiting for the demons' sentience to decline. A single dragonfly-sized demon can reproduce asexually and work its way up to eating larger and smarter creatures. It'll be a hard road to full eradication, and Norman's forces will suffer heavy losses all throughout.

I expect Ray, having been saved by Sonju and Mujica, and having seen what demon towns are like, will show some sympathy for Emma and maybe give her one chance to sneak away from Norman and try things her way. He certainly wouldn't be optimistic about Emma's chances of reaching a compromise, but he'd agree that the demons deserve one more chance to change before he joins Norman's army for real. Ray is just observing quietly for now, to see how well Norman might be reading Emma. Worst case scenario, Norman has her arrested.

Edit: OK, real worst case scenario, all the kids get eaten and the status quo continues.

Edited by Sailor11sedna on Feb 4th 2019 at 1:45:20 AM

Things are so bad under the current system that a multi-generation war against the demons would be an improvement. As for Emma, I thought it was clear from the Escape Arc that she reciprocates Norman's feelings, even if she doesn't realize he loves her. She wouldn't have taken his supposed death so hard otherwise. Indeed, Isabella seems to have reached the same conclusion, treating Emma as a kindred spirit, and for that reason thinking she could persuade her into becoming a Mama.

Re-reading volume 6 (which just came out here) was pretty interesting… First, I had forgotten that we spent almost an entire volume with Sonju and Musica; I thought it was 3 or 4 chapters…

There were also some bits of foreshadowing that were easy to forget. Like Emma thinking "In the worst case, we thought we might have to exterminate the Demons to survive." Or Sonju mentioning that "Scribbles has been their enemy for a long time, already."

And in retrospect, I think the scene of Emma learning to hunt and practicing the Gupna for the first time might be one of my favorite in the series. It's a scene where she lost some of her innocence, but in a very gentle way.

Chapter's out.

I like this chapter a lot.

Whats funny os that Ray saw through Emmas fake smile while Norman didn't. Which considering how obsessed with Emma he was Norman no longer the same person, or....

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 7th 2019 at 12:05:51 PM

I do like that this manga is still smart enough to point out that(based on information they have) that if lack of farms means demons will degenerate anyway its kinda same as wiping them out. I mean lot of other mangas might be like "Killing is bad!" without taking in account the other option is slow version(as far as they know)

…Funny that I mentioned the Gupna scene in my previous post, because it's extremely relevant to this chapter. Weird though, that she neither she nor Ray realize something's off when remembering Musica…

PS: Note that apparently she considers Musica a friend but not Sonju.

Dunno, I think he knows Emma well enough to know she wouldn't accept that so easily. Unless he assumes she has changed enough to comply.