Manga/ The Promised Neverland

So I just got to the part where they get to Goldie Pond, specifically when Emma wakes up.

In a scale of one-to-ten, how hard is shit hitting the fan?

Edit: Oh hey, first time I post here and I am already on top!

BTW, is the current arc really the last one?

Edited by HailMuffins on Jan 10th 2020 at 11:15:11 AM

The latest chapters, you mean ? Yeah, we're clearly approaching the climax.

The Goldy Pond arc is… pretty action-packed, that's for sure.

You sound conflicted.

Well, I don't hate that arc, but it's probably the one I like the least, for various reasons.

Aaaaaand I'm done.

So perhaps a bit of context might be in order: I've found out about The Promised Neverland way back when Eye-Patch Wolf talked about it, and decided to check it after Mother's Basement put it on the same level as Fullmetal Alchemist and called it a masterpiece.

And know I think Geoff uses that word far too casually, but then again he did try to defend Highschool of the Dead as something other than a dumb action show full of fanservice, but that's neither here nor there.

Three major problems, in my view, keep TPN down:

• Way too much stuff is solved on the background: So you speng over thirty chapters building up tension and intrigue around wheter or not these kids will escape this orphanage/human farm, how do you solve that? "No worries! They concocted a plan for over a month offscreen and it will go down without a hitch! Shame you missed that whole training arc!" Bummer, but hey, surely that these kids are now in the middle of hostile territory, they'll have to fight tooth and nail to set up some sort of safe haven from which to plan out their rebell-"What's that? Sorry, we just gifted them all a bunker with everything they need to live out in these demon-infested wasteland!" O-kay, but look, Emma is now locked inside a hunting ground for demons from which few have ever managed to escape! Now this is her time to rise up and galvanize all these terrified into a fighting force capable of defe- someone else already did all that for her, didn't they? "Yup, isn't it such a great message about the ability of humanity to triumph over even the most overwhelming of odds?" If you say so.

• Not enough characters killed: I might've forgiven the whole thing with Lucas if the Goldy Pond ended up as the sheer massacre I was expecting from when it started. I mean, a clearly capable adult is completely terrified of that place, they have little in the way of weapons, and the demons they're fighting against are clearly a notch above the rest of the others, surely we are about to see desperate struggle full of sacrifices as the bodies pile up, the sense of despair just rasing and making the Eclipse of Berserk and the Naruhyon fight in Gantz look like relaxing walks in the park, right? Oh, only two characters so minor you didn't even bother naming them on the text and left it to one of those bits right at the end? [[Sarcasm Mode Wow, TPN, slow down a bit, my heart can only take so much.

• Pacing: This issue is related to the first one, but the story moves at too fast a pace, while ironically it never seems like its going anywhere. There's never enough time to establish some sort of status quo before we're plunged right along into a new phase. We could spend a chapter or two inside the bunker seeing how everyone interacts, a few chapters inside the Goldy Pond seeing Emma make a Les Yay filled friendship with that short-haired girl she first talked with, seeing how Phil interacts and reacts to being put into a different farm and knowing what lies beneath the happy facade, but no, who cares about investing you into the fates of these characters, we have plot and shocking revelations to show you, man!

All of which comes to a head during the that search for the temple thing. We could've gone with the kids searching for the temple on, easily tearing through the dumber demons to show how much they've grown, have a very tense arc where they must infiltrate inside a demon city to find what they're lloking for. Hell, that's a perfect place to bring back those vegetarian demons as allies, show how their society work, maybe even have a character pull off a Heroic Sacrifice so the others can escape, so much potential!

Squandered in a goddamn Time Skip. Time Skip mad this manga is.

Look, I tried. I tried so hard, I've read about 30 chapters past the point where the story completely lost my interest, but I can't anymore. I don't care about what happens to these characters, I don't care how this all ends, I don't care what other reveals the plot has awaiting for me, I just plain don't care.

Maybe it's just Hype Backlash, maybe I'm just dumb and didn't notice all the subtle intricacies of such a masterfully woven plot, maybe the Manga Zone app ate a few pages off and I have a incomplete story in my hands. Maybe, but agains, I don't care, I'm just bored. If a manga can't grab me after 100 chapters, why the hell am I still reading it?

Most sincerily hope that y'all keep enjoying this all the way to the end, but I drop-off here.

No this is understandable. I have peoblems with few of the characters dying myself. And when they do die its ones with personality while all the personalityless kids get to live. The two grown men die and they try to create dake emotional reactions with us by trying to make them a trio with a girl no one cares about because it only gets revealed when they're about to be killed and that's dumb.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 13th 2020 at 5:58:51 AM

Why are you being so overdramatic?

Either you like it or you don’t, it’s very simple.

Yeah, the manga's focus on plot in detriment of the characters is my main gripe.

I can forgive the rest though − if kids started to drop like flies, I wouldn't really care for it. And let's be real, this is a Shonen Jump series, they aren't gonna kill too many children (on screen).

Showing the whole training before the escape wouldn't have really worked either. Unspoken Plan Guarantee aside, it just would have killed the tension before the climax even started; instead we got what I still think are the best chapters in the series.

And let's be real, without the shelter the kids would have been dead, period. It was already established that someone was helping them from the outside, so that made sense.

But yeaaah… didn't really care for any of the Goldy Pond characters save Lucas. There were just… there. That's where the story should have slowed down a bit. At least Norman's flunkies in the third arc have some personality.

Edited by Lyendith on Jan 13th 2020 at 3:25:08 PM

Honestly kids dropping like flies can work just fine. They're already faceless masses by countless dozens killing them by the dozen wouldn't change much.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 13th 2020 at 6:13:42 AM

I can understand wanting to focus on the plot, but when the plot is specifically something of this nature, I don't think excluding character building as much as the author has actually makes sense.

That being said, a lot of the "I wish more kids could die" complaint seem to come from a lot of the people who are just generally blood-thirsty and equate death with "maturity" and "intelligence" to begin with so I have to be careful about who is making the argument.

I never associated it with either, but generally they do get off too easy with how things play out for them. Rather than making it darker, people want proper consequences of a bunch of kids dealing with demons who clearly have the upper hand and should have killed them when it happens. Then it kills a lot of characters who do have personalities it ends up unsatisfying, Don't even want to touch how people point out Ray is mostly just there after they changed their mind about killing him way back.

New chap…

"I got a good and a bad news for you, lads. The bad news is that there are no longer any Queen or nobles to sacrifice you to. The good news is that it means I no longer need to keep you in one piece."

New chap out!

It makes Isabella's arc a bit… baffling to me. At the end of the escape arc it seemed like she was genuinely wishing good luck to the kids and had regained a bit of humanity. This chapter seems to completely undo that development by making her a selfish bitch again… sure, she's obsessed with the idea of breaking free from the shitty farm system that has ruled her life, but I thought she'd show a tad more reluctance.

I'll have to reread the chap to fully grasp it I think.

Eh, I get Isabella here.

Yeah I get it.

Its an extremely hopeless situation.

And to Isabella, Hope Is Scary. That's the very reason she tried to convince Emma to become a Mom and forget about escaping.

Fair enough… Makes you wonder what she'll do if she learns about the new Promise. And whether Emma will try to save her… well, it's Emma so she probably will.

Thats kinda what makes it extra twisted though, Ratri IS providing her hope of genuinely escaping from the system alive

But... shock chip... none of the faculty can leave.

New chap. Action and thrills!

Eeeeverything is going according to plan.

…They're gonna fail horribly, aren't they.

Shit… I hope Vincent's not actually dead. If he is though, he went out with a nice middle finger.

Wow Peter has a huge ego. Not only does he consider himself superior to the children because they were conceived as livestock, but he even expects them to be grateful to him and consider him their father, even as he feeds them to demons.

It's pretty fitting, I think. The main villain of the first arc is Mom, the main villain of the last arc is Dad.

The villains of the between arcs being the Rich.