January 15, 2045. The day the children successfully make their escape. Children five and up joined the escape, while those four and under stayed behind. While this was the end of the anime, the children’s journey is only starting. Now that they’ve left the House, they still have an entire world unknown to them ahead of them. Where will they go, and how will they survive?
Emma made the decision that taking the babies would be tough to do. Thinking of what Ray said and mulling it over with Don and Gilda, the decision was left to one of the little ones. The little one that I’ve memed about sometimes, the little one that could possibly have been a mastermind. But no, he was just an innocent one although a very perceptive one. Phil, this precious boy. Emma told him the truth, the only child she believed would understand. She and the others were surprised to see that Phil somehow had an inkling that there was something wrong, from seeing Emma be scared of Isabella and Krone going through the boys’ drawers, and her mentioning a harvest. Because he knew something was wrong he was able to accept the truth, although painful, especially when he came to terms that Conny and Norman are gone. Then Emma asks him a huge question, whether she should take all the kids or leave the little ones behind and Phil answered immediately. Leave them behind. He’ll watch over them until Emma and the others come back for him. So now with Emma and the older ones gone, Phil is the new leader with all of this responsibility on his tiny baby shoulders.
This scene absolutely broke my heart. The show made Phil out to be this huge mystery and sometimes it would be terrifying or funny wondering what his deal was, but now I’m just sad. I want to give him a giant hug. He’s a very intelligent child, the show has mentioned this before saying that he has one of the highest scores in the house behind Emma, Ray, and Norman. He’s showing a lot of strength but you have to remember that he’s still four years old. He’s still scared and nervous but dammit he’s amazing! Emma and co. have about two years as the youngest a child can be shipped is six years old, and if the demons still want quality over quantity, they won’t go crazy with the shipments. Please wait patiently, Phil, the bestest boy! T_T
The way the children planned this escape is amazing. They reached a certain part on the wall and with Don’s strength, threw a rock tied with a rope across to tie around a tree. Once he made it across, they created additional ziplines with makeshift rockets and made it across with clothes hangers. I was amazed at how smart they were but terrified that someone would fall down the cliff. The little Jemima girl was right to be terrified. I’ve seen videos of people ziplining without harnesses and they always fall. But I sighed with relief when Emma would tie cloth around the little one’s hands and the clothes hanger, while the older ones just used their strength. Which is amazing but again made me scared. And thankfully they all made it away safe, away from the demons, and from Isabella.
There have been many twists and revelations in this show that have left my jaw dropped like an idiot but this last one probably was the biggest one. As Isabella admits defeat and watches as Emma is the last to zipline to their freedom, Isabella is reminded of her past. We see a younger Isabella talking to a boy named Leslie playing a melody. It’s an important melody because it’s the same that Ray hummed before. She loves the melody so much, and it only became important to her more when Leslie was sent away. Isabella was next to be shipped but she was offered the chance to be a Mama and she took this chance of survival. She trained just like Krone did, but we also see her pregnant, rubbing her belly as she hums the same melody. She gets sent to Plant Three and starts her new life as a Mama. One day as she’s walking along the wall, humming the melody, she hears another voice humming it. The second I saw baby Ray humming the song, the revelation hit me immediately. Ever since Isabella mentioned giving birth, I always wondered what happened to her baby. Well, he’s right here. Since she hummed the song all the time while pregnant, he just knew it and Ray even knows that Isabella is his actual mother. And why did she give birth to him? To survive. It was probably at that moment that Isabella told him the truth of the orphanage.
I don’t even know how to feel anymore. Isabella’s actions have been terrible, but I can’t say I’m not sympathetic. She was just like them, wanted to escape once learning the truth, but she took the chance to survive. Through the training and accepting this terrible truth, she became just as broken as Krone but she handled herself differently than Krone did. While Isabella is in charge of these children’s fates, she’s still as much as a victim as the rest of them. And it seems that she does care about them, because she wished for nothing but safety for Emma’s group. I wonder what’s going to happen to Isabella as the higher-ups might put all the responsibility on her for what happened. I can’t forget all the moments Isabella made me angry, but I do admit that learning her backstory made me feel terrible for her. It was probably the most powerful scene we got in this entire season. This system is terrible and no one is a winner except for those shitty demons.
Now that they’ve safely made it across, Emma and the children’s journey begins at the dawn of the new morning.
FINAL IMPRESSION
This show was a ride from beginning to end. It had a powerful start and ended on the same note. Cloverworks did an amazing job with the show with their direction, adding lots of tension to many scenes. The mystery of the orphanage was put in light at the end of the first episode, but there’s still so many questions we don’t know the answers to. But it was very fun to watch these kids plan and outsmart Isabella as they planned their escape. Honestly it was just so nice to have such a riveting mystery/horror show because they’re so few and far in between. I love me my mysteries but they’re usually so bad and disappointing but I didn’t feel that way about The Promised Neverland. I was engaged from the very start and loved this show until the end.
Emma, Norman, and Ray were great characters and their chemistry was great. Thankfully Norman’s loss wasn’t in vain as they all made it out successfully. Now I’m just excited to see where the story will go from here.
If there’s anything against this show is that I sometimes wasn’t a fan of the coloring during the night scenes. I can’t really explain it but I just didn’t like the dullness of it. Sometimes scenes would be a little dragged out more than they needed to, which would sometimes kill the mood but it didn’t happen often. Another thing I can criticize is some of the middle episodes, while still good, were maybe a little on the slower side. That’s probably my biggest complaint but it’s not a big deal. I loved this show so much and it’s up there being my favorite of the season with Dororo and Mob Psycho, and along with those two I would recommend The Promised Neverland to everyone, especially to those that love horror/mystery shows.
A second season has already been announced for sometime in 2020 and I couldn’t be happier. There’s still lots of questions that need answers, more to see with Emma and the outside world, the system, the demons, so many things. Just a fantastic show from beginning to end, I love it. Hmm, I should probably read the manga now.
9/10
I remembered reading a little bonus chapter of the manga where Isabella (and probably the author?) was talking about where each child got their names from. Ray’s name is from Ray Charles…the music theme is prevalent.
Going to be a long wait for S2, but I will enjoy what anime has to offer in the meantime. I won’t read the Manga, I don’t want S2 spoiled.
I want to recommend reading a book instead, ”Never let me go” by Murakami, I think the author of this show drew a lot of inspiration from that book, theme wise and story telling wise.
Hmm, I think I’ll hold off on the manga too. It’s so fun to watch an anime where I won’t know what’ll happen, especially with this kind of story. I’ll just look forward to the sequel next year.
Ooh, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll keep that in mind. 🙂