Yikes this show is really going to keep me on edge. Mama Isabella is terrifying and her confrontation with Emma in the hallway was intense. Knowing about the tracking devices, Mama coming over to check on Emma made me want to scream and I knew that Isabella had to know something.
I kind of saw it coming but it still creeped me out anyway. What I especially loved was Mama putting her hand on Emma’s face but not on her cheek but around her ear/neck. It was a really weird part to place her hand but then I realized that the way she placed her hand, she was checking Emma’s pulse from her neck. That’s so smart! But thankfully Emma kept calm and acted her usual energetic way to reassure Mama that she’s fine. Though I think Emma mentioning Conny just made her more suspicious of Emma. But I loved this scene so much.
This episode served as a set up for Emma and Norman’s plans for escape and they went over everything they knew and what they could possibly do. Why does their age matter, and what are the tests for? Thinking things over, they come to the conclusion that their age determines the quality of their meat and the tests are for also increasing the quality of their brains taste-wise. I did find it weird that they specifically said kids would leave the orphanage at the age of 12 or before, and now it totally makes sense. It’s hard for Emma to act normally after what she witnessed but she has to try her best as Norman tells her or else they’ll be suspected. But they’re determined to make their escape and so they explore and try to come up with a plan. Emma and Norman jump the short fence and come up to a wall that surrounds the entire orphanage. It’s a tall wall, completely sleek where climbing it is completely impossible. Emma climbs a tree to see that the wall is thick and she can’t even see over the wall except for more trees. So they decide they need rope to climb over it. But things get even more complicated when one of the children gets lost in the forest and Mama takes out her “pocket watch” and sets out to look for the little girl, coming back with her quickly. That’s when Emma and Norman realize that Mama’s pocket watch isn’t a pocket watch, but a radar/GPS. Just like dogs, they all have tracking devices implanted into them somehow and that just makes things even more dangerous and impossible.
Once Mama saw that Emma, Norman, and Ray weren’t under their usual spot under the tree, I knew she had to be suspicious of them. She must have been checking her radar or else the surprise in the end wouldn’t have happened. This discovery made things a lot more intense.
I was really worried that there might be cameras and recording devices around the place, but apparently Norman scouted the place and found nothing? I still think they should be careful, though. Eventually they tell Ray everything after he followed them in the forest and I have to side with Ray in all this. There’s 37 (now 38 again) of them and most of the children are under the age of six. ALL of them escaping at once is pretty much impossible. They want to escape by climbing the wall with a rope but how do they expect tiny children to climb? Another thing, they don’t even know what’s outside the wall. What kind of world is out there? Like Ray said, it’s most likely that it’s just a complete demon world and if they go out there it’s pretty much a suicide. Maybe they could get by with just the three of them, but with 30+ children? It really does seem impossbible, but just like a shounen protagonist, Emma wants to save everyone. She doesn’t want to leave a single child behind, wants them all to escape, and create a world for them among the demons. How? I have no clue but Norman supports her fully, while Ray is against it. And now things have gotten even more impossible and complicated now that Krone has appeared along with a baby named Carol.
With another adult to watch out for, and now a baby in tow? A baby is going to make things way more complicated and it’s just looking worse and worse for the kids. Isabella knows something is very wrong as well, so with Krone she should have more control.
I’m so excited to see what they’re going to do next. Krone and the addition of Carol was an unpleasant surprise. With their deadline of two months until the next shipment, they have to find and get rid of their tracking devices while also having to come up with an actual solid plan while also avoiding Krone’s watchful eyes. I think Emma and Norman are a little crazy, but I definitely understand them. I don’t want any of the kids to die but I agree with Ray’s realism, so I have no idea what to expect. Let’s continue these mind games.
Neverland’s author said the heavy suspense/psychological angle was used to stand out from other Weekly Shounen Jump manga hopefuls which relied on the usual shounen cliches of hot-blooded yelling and head-on battling.
(WSJ’s strict policy is that new manga that fail to reach a certain reader popularity level after several weeks of serialization will be cancelled, no matter how good the story or art is.)
I love that, and I understand why it’s so damn weird that this manga is in WSJ because it really is unlike any other shounen manga. This is more like a seinen so it’s surprising something like this is in WSJ but hey, at least it shows that shounen doesn’t always have to follow the same battle-action formula (with the tropes you mentioned). I love the maturity of this.
Yeah I’ve seen a couple videos talking about Jump and the manga that have been cancelled. Very competitive but I suppose it makes sense.
Apparently WSJ nearly rejected Neverland from being published because it was more like a seinen, but the artist who does the manga art loved the author’s script and convinced the editors otherwise.
I like this so much. It’s sad for me that it has just 12 episodes, we won’t get a full image this season like with Made in the Abyss. I would really like to see more of this world like what’s outside the wall and why is the wall so thick to keep just kids inside. Also how are these kids made, do they have parents (that maybe are kept in a similar facility)? Or are they genetically engineered, tube babies? I guess not since the ”aliens” would be able to select certain genes to make them smarter, etc, like we do with plants to make them resilient to drought, pests.
Depending how the anime is received, who knows. We might get a second season!
That’s such a good question, I was wondering the same thing when they introduced the baby. I don’t think they’re test tube babies either. I think (and this is a horrible thought) that the parents are kept in some sort of breeding farm? Like, they’re forced to make as much children as they can by the demons? But that sounds too cruel and disgusting for a shounen manga that would probably shoot up the age rating, so I really have no idea.
IIRC the manga never really makes it clear just how they’re getting the babies. At least for now.
Well, poop. >:T