The first arc of The Promised Neverland was one of the best shounen arcs. After producing such an epic start, it is quite challenging to continue with the good work.
After the Goldy Pond episode, the manga was just going downhill. Now, as the manga is coming to an end, fans have huge complaints with the way it is ending.
Especially when they moved away from a psychological thriller to a more bland setup of having to survive against the demons.
Being a huge fan of The Promised Neverland, I too was disappointed with the manga’s rushed ending. So let us take a look at various stages where we expected the manga to live up to its expectations, but it didn’t.
1) Nothing happened with The Seven Walls
All the potential worldbuilding by having Emma and Norman go to various cities, and search for the Seven Walls was just skipped.
This made Emma look like an ‘all talk no show‘ when she said “not all demons are bad, and some are worth saving” because there was no plot to back her up.
The author kept using a couple of pages of flashback whenever he needed to establish a new plot that was not developed before. This became apparent when Norman was suddenly reintroduced as the new antagonist, even though we didn’t get to see what exactly happened in Lambda.
Moreover, Norman, as an antagonist, was a huge step down from Isabella and Leuvis.
2) Pacing Problem
Anyone who read the final chapters felt that they were rushed. It’s not like it was a complete disaster, but ever since The Promised Neverland started, it progressed one step at a time. The initial 100 chapters were great with pacing, and most things were on screen.
However, in the recent chapters, Emma and the group’s work was mostly behind the scenes, and things bolted to an end without any proper plot building.
3) Phil’s plot
When Emma and others escaped from The Grace Field farm, Emma shared the plan with Phil and gave him the responsibility to play with it. Therefore, we expected some work from Phil’s character, but he became nothing but useless in the end, giving away crucial information to Peter Ratri.
It is still a mystery why Peter Ratri let him live even after knowing the full plan – again, the whole plot just skipped. Phil, who could have been our hero, now gets deep-rooted hatred from us.
4) There was no secret in the promise
The whole promise thing was a big deal in the whole plot of The Promised Neverland. Emma finally managed to meet the demon god and rewrote the promise.
What the demon god asked in return for the promise was kept a secret, and everyone expected it to return like a hard challenge later.
Instead, the manga was so hurriedly ended that the demon god who was shown to be cunning and human-meat hungry turned into kids’ loving uncle and decided to let them escape with no hard conditions. The 1000-year promise was rewritten so easily.
5) Conclusion
Some really interesting plot points were skipped with time skips. Assuming Jump was not going to simply cancel one of its top series and no health issues were present with the writer as well, the whole spiral downhill was disappointing.
A perfect example of what I call Magi’s syndrome. It’s where an author is caught off guard by the popularity of their work and doesn’t know how to proceed.
Some series like Attack on Titan figure it out but most just fail and lose popularity like Magi.
What aspects do you think the manga lacked? Let’s discuss in the comments section.
6) About The Promised Neverland
Created by Kaiu Shirai, this series debuted in a Weekly Shonen Jump manga in 2016. Licensed by VIZ Media for an English Language release, this series has gained immense popularity, selling 4.2 million copies in a concise period.
The story revolves around the horrific truths of an orphanage discovered by three bright kids: Emma, Norman, and Ray.
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