STORY: Kaiu Shirai
ART: Posuka Demizu
TRANSLATION: Satsuki Yamashita
LETTERS: Mark McMurray
EDITOR: Alexis Kirsch
ISBN: 978-1-9747-1701-9; paperback (August 2020); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
208pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £7.99 U.K.
The Promised Neverland is a Japanese manga series written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from August 2016 to June 2020. VIZ Media published an English-language edition of the manga as a paperback graphic novel series under its “Shonen Jump” imprint from December 2017 to August 2021.
The Promised Neverland opens at Grace Field House, an orphanage where the children have a wonderful life... or so it seems. The orphanage's three brightest children are Emma, Norman, and Ray, all 11-years-old as the story begins. Like the other orphans, they enjoy the daily studying and exams, and also the delicious food and plentiful playtime. However, the children's loving, but stern caretaker, “Mom,” hides the fact that everything is not what it seems, a fact these three bright children will discover upon turning 12.
As The Promised Neverland, Vol. 16 (Chapters 134 to 143; entitled “Lost Boy”) opens, Emma and Ray attempt to find the “Seven Walls,” and find themselves trapped in a mysterious, twisty world. Can they escape this labyrinth and make their way to the human world? And are they willing to pay the price required? Elsewhere, Don, Gilda, and Hayato continue their quest to find their old demon friends, Mujika and Sonju, but betrayal is afoot.
Meanwhile, Norman has his own plans to end the human-demon conflict...
THE LOWDOWN: In Japan, The Promised Neverland manga ended its serialization in the Japanese edition of Weekly Shonen Jump last summer. In North America, the final volume (Vol. 20) of VIZ Media's English-language collection of the manga as a graphic novel series for young adult readers will arrive in about two weeks as of this writing.
The Promised Neverland Graphic Novel Volume 16 is the first volume of the series that I have read in almost a year. I still find this manga to be a riveting read, but I realized, early in reading this volume, that I wasn't as into reading the series as I had been a year or so ago. That changed and I got back into the series, full-on, when I realized that Vol. 16 was a symphony of backstabbing and betrayal. Much of it deals with the history of Julius Ratri, essentially the human who helped to create the current status quo between humans and demons.
Satsuki Yamashita creates the translation that makes Vol. 16 deliver power via its shocks and surprises, while Mark McMurray's lettering hits all the dark and edgy notes. They help to make Vol. 16 both an exceptional and a pivotal volume.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Readers of dark fantasy graphic novels will find a terrifying story in Shonen Jump's The Promised Neverland.
A
9 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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