Cringe or Binge: The Promised Nev­er­land

A ‘2020 Crunchy­roll Anime Award win­ner for Best Fan­tasy and Best An­tag­o­nist’, The Promised Nev­er­land‘s first sea­son is only 12 episodes and is guar­an­teed to keep you on the edge of your seat. 

The Promised Nev­er­land is an adap­ta­tion of the Japan­ese manga by Kaiu Shi­rai. The manga first be­gan pub­lish­ing on Weekly Shōnen Jump in 2016 be­fore end­ing in 2020. Jump­ing right in, the year is 2045. It starts with an or­phan­age full of kids, well taken care of and happy. One of the lit­tle girls, Con­nie, is go­ing to be adopted. She leaves a stuffed an­i­mal be­hind af­ter go­ing off with their house mom, and when two other chil­dren run af­ter her, their en­tire lives are changed for­ever. 

Here at Maryville, we are sup­posed to dream big. What bet­ter way to ex­pand your imag­i­na­tion than watch­ing a short 12 episode se­ries? Check out this trailer for Promised Nev­er­land!

*SPOIL­ERS AHEAD*

Af­ter the shat­ter­ing of these chil­dren’s lives, an­other fight be­gins. They find Con­nie dead, hear­ing de­mon-like crea­tures dis­cussing eat­ing her. They get away, but their jour­ney be­gins to save all the chil­dren at the or­phan­age. The chil­dren plan us­ing lim­ited means and lots of brain­power. SukYi Scott, an alum­nus of Maryville, says, “Not what I ex­pected out of a show about kids. More ex­cit­ing and com­plex than I thought it would be.” 

They are now fight­ing to break out the walls sur­round­ing them, but they don’t know what is out­side the bor­ders. Could they be fac­ing more chal­lenges, are there any hu­mans that will help them? How many or­phan­ages are there, just like this one? Re­gard­less, the train­ing and prepa­ra­tion be­gin. The mom of the house, Is­abella, be­gins to catch on to them re­al­iz­ing some­thing is wrong. They find it hard to act the same around her. She seems to be hu­man, just like them, so why is she giv­ing the kids away as food?

There is an­other unique fac­tor of this show. The show’s per­spec­tives shift be­tween the three lead­ing chil­dren, Ray, Emma, and Nor­man. As the plot con­tin­ues, the story changes and evolves. It is much more cap­ti­vat­ing than just one main view.

The Promised Nev­er­land is a well-rounded show that can in­ter­est peo­ple that have sev­eral dif­fer­ent kinds of in­ter­ests. The se­ries car­ries you through so many emo­tions through­out the sto­ry­line, from hor­ror to heart­break to hope. It is fast-paced, and you will quickly end up at the last episode. Will the kids get away? Will they leave just to be eaten? You get stranded on a cliffhanger, but no wor­ries, sea­son 2 is pre­mier­ing now on Fu­ni­ma­tion and Hulu!

I ab­solutely rec­om­mend this show to any­one in­ter­ested in fan­tasy, thriller, and sci­ence fic­tion gen­res. A quote from a fel­low Saint, Da­mon Gon­za­lez, tells us, “I be­lieve The Promised Nev­er­land is a thrilling anime to watch. As some­one who does­n’t watch anime fre­quently, my con­cern for the kids hooked me into the show right away.” This show is worth a binge!