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Anime Review: The Promised Neverland (Seasons 1 & 2)
This was a fantastic watch, but the story itself is incredibly dark. It follows a family of orphans living happily together in a home surrounded by nature. They are watched over by a caretaker they call "Mama”, who takes excellent care of them. They are well fed, they spend their days playing games, and life seems perfect. Occasionally, children are adopted and leave the house, but strangely, no one ever hears from them again.
The house has two strict rules:
Never cross the wall surrounding the property.
Never approach the gate where children go when they are adopted.
One day, the main characters, Emma and Norman, end up at the forbidden gate and discover the horrific reality of "adoption." The truth paralyzes them with fear: they find one of their fellow orphans dead, her body destined to be food for demons. In that moment, they realize they aren't in an orphanage, they are farm animals trapped on a plantation.
The story follows their desperate attempt to escape this trap and find a place where they can live freely without the constant fear of being eaten.
The series digs deep into several complex topics:
Security vs. Freedom: What would you choose? To live in a beautiful, comfortable environment for 12 years followed by a "humane" death, or to risk your life escaping into a dangerous world just for the chance to be free?
The Ethics of Consumption: The story raises poignant questions about the morality of eating other living beings by turning the tables and putting humans at the bottom of the food chain.
Social Class and Inequality: Season 2 introduces a literal class struggle among the demons. Wealthy elites claim the highest quality meat, while the poor suffer from malnutrition and physical decay.
Greed: We see how powerful entities block solutions that would benefit society just to protect their human farming business. This is highlighted in Season 2 when it's discovered that drinking a specific demon's blood can eliminate the need to consume humans entirely.
Overall, this is a must-watch. It is an amazing show with high stakes and incredible tension. While Season 1 is generally considered better than Season 2 in terms of pacing, the second season provides the necessary closure by answering the burning questions left behind by the first.
