The Promised Neverland
The Promised Neverland is a Japanese manga series written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from August 2016 to June 2020, with its chapters collected in 20 volumes. In North America, Viz Media licensed the manga for English release and serialized it on their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The series follows a group of orphaned children in their plan to escape from their orphanage, after learning the dark truth behind their existence and the purpose of the orphanage.
The Promised Neverland was adapted into an anime television series produced by CloverWorks and broadcast on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block. The series' first season ran for 12 episodes from January to March 2019. A second season ran for 11 episodes from January to March 2021. A live-action film adaptation was released in December 2020. Amazon Studios is also developing an American live-action series.
In 2018, the manga won the 63rd Shogakukan Manga Award in the category. By August 2023, The Promised Neverland had over 42 million copies in circulation, including digital versions, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. The manga has been overall well received by critics, particularly for its storytelling, characters and world-building. The anime series' first season was well received, being considered one of the best anime series of the 2010s. Reception for the second season, however, was overwhelmingly negative, mainly due to its rushed pacing and simplification of the original manga's plot.
Synopsis
Setting
In a strange world filled with sentient creatures of different species, an agreement called "The Promise" was made to end a long war between humans and the so-called demons. "The Promise" was an agreement where each would live in their own separate "worlds": the human world, free from the threat of demons; and the demon world, where human breeding farms were set up to provide food for the demons. By eating humans, demons take on their attributes which prevent them from degenerating into mindless monsters. In the demon world, a special breeding program was set up under the guise of orphanages; there, a human "Mother" would oversee the children to make sure they grew up as intelligent as possible. These children had identifying numbers tattooed on them and had no knowledge of the outside world. They believed that they were orphans and once they reached a certain age or intelligence, they would be taken out for adoption, but were fed to high-ranking demons instead.Plot
In 2045, 1,000 years after the formation of "The Promise", the bright and cheerful Emma is an 11-year-old orphan living in Grace Field House, a self-contained orphanage housing her and 37 other orphans. They lead an idyllic life, with plentiful food, plush beds, clean clothes, games and the love of their "Mom", Isabella. Their education is seen as an important part of their development, and Emma, with her two best friends Norman and Ray, always excels in the regular exams. The orphans are allowed complete freedom, except to venture beyond the perimeter wall or gate which separate the house from the outside world. One night, a girl named Conny is sent away to be "adopted", but Emma and Norman follow with her favorite stuffed animal toy. At the gate, they find Conny dead and discover the truth about their existence in this idyllic orphanage—to be raised as meat for demons. Emma and Norman plan with Ray to escape from Grace Field House with the children, but Norman is taken off to be "adopted". Emma and Ray then decide to escape with some of their other siblings, leaving half of the younger children behind.The escapees find life outside Grace Field House is filled with dangers, but under the leadership of Emma and Ray, they become determined to return to free their remaining siblings, along with children from the other Farms. They encounter demons of all descriptions, including Mujika and Sonju, who aid them in their quest. Emma and Ray later meet up again with Norman and together with their allies, they fight a battle for freedom against the demon queen Legravalima and the human Peter Ratri, who manages the Farms. Eventually, through her own determination, Emma secures the freedom of all the children and re-forges "The Promise", bringing all of them to the human world, but at the cost of her own memory.
Production
Development
The series was first conceived in late 2013 from a draft titled Neverland; the title was later changed to The Promised Neverland due to copyright concerns. Kaiu Shirai submitted the 300-page draft to the Weekly Shōnen Jump editorial department. Editor Suguru Sugita described the series as an ambitious work atypical for Jump, blending bright and dark scenes within a suspenseful fantasy world. Shirai noted that Sugita suggested limiting the series to around twelve volumes, comparable in length to Death Note.Finding an artist whose style suited the story proved challenging. Shirai and Sugita considered Posuka Demizu a leading candidate due to her artistic fit for the series’ imagery. Several other artists declined, citing the story's deviation from typical Jump manga or its perceived lack of commercial potential. Demizu's agreement was met with enthusiasm. Sugita compared the creative synergy between Shirai and Demizu to that of Death Note creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Prior to serialization, Shirai and Demizu published the one-shot Poppy's Wish on Shōnen Jump+ in February 2016. Its positive reception confirmed to Sugita that they were the right team for The Promised Neverland.
Inspirations
Shirai drew inspiration from international children's folklore and video games such as Final Fantasy for the setting, while the horror elements stemmed from his own imagination, as he does not enjoy horror films. He also cited childhood nightmares influenced by Hansel and Gretel, stories about children being eaten, and a manga about spirits, which led him to question whether monsters could resolve issues by raising humans like livestock.Demizu cited Japanese folklore and its monsters, European fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, Naoki Urasawa's Monster, works from Studio Ghibli, and prison escape media such as Escape from Alcatraz, Papillon, The Great Escape, and the television series Prison Break.
The setting was inspired by Victorian England. Shirai aimed to disorient readers with a false lead suggesting a 19th-century English orphanage, while avoiding a specific time period. The English name "Grace Field House" appealed to him, and he noted the popularity of European urban design among Japanese audiences. Demizu used references from a two-month language study trip to England, particularly drawing on its forests and atmosphere.
Concepts and themes
Regarding the title's relation to Neverland from J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Shirai described it as a place with both playful and dark aspects, a duality he sought to convey in The Promised Neverland. The word "Promised" was added later during development of the post-escape story and was deemed significant enough to incorporate into the plot.Despite its dark tone, Shirai chose to publish in Weekly Shōnen Jump rather than a magazine, arguing that the story's themes were not age-specific and that it contained core elements like mutual aid and self-improvement. Using child protagonists aligned with the magazine's readership and facilitated reader identification; the theme of children rebelling against adults was selected as a classic narrative device. While acknowledging the series was darker than most Jump titles, the creators avoided extreme trends such as "Ero guro|", excessive violence, or nonsense, using such elements only when necessary for the story.
Shirai stated that the concept of the lowest-performing students being the first harvested, while not necessarily a direct metaphor, was intended to encourage reflection on contemporary society. Although he admitted similarities to the Japanese education system, he clarified that the series was not meant as a critique but rather an exploration of family, school, and children's perspectives on adults. In response to interpretations by groups like PETA that the series advocated against industrial farming and promoted vegetarianism, Shirai stated he did not intend to impart moral values or moral judgments. He emphasized that the narrative does not explicitly condemn the demons and that the primary goal was entertainment, not social critique.
Writing
According to the 2020 fan book The Promised Neverland 0: Mystic Code, the writing of the final chapters was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Shirai felt the length of chapters 179 and the finale restricted the content he wished to include.Media
Manga
The Promised Neverland is written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. The manga was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from August 1, 2016, to June 15, 2020. Shueisha collected its chapters in twenty volumes, released from December 2, 2016, to October 2, 2020.In July 2016, Viz Media announced that they would digitally publish the first three chapters of the series on Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Thereafter, they published the manga's new chapters simultaneously with the Japanese release. The first printed volume in North America was released on December 5, 2017. Shueisha began to simulpublish the series in English on the website and app Manga Plus in January 2019.
A 16-page one-shot chapter about Ray titled, The First Shot was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump on October 5, 2020. A 36-page one-shot chapter about Sister Krone titled, Seeking the Sky of Freedom was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump on December 7, 2020. A 19-page one-shot chapter about the children accomplishing their dreams in the human world titled, Dreams Come True was released at "The Promised Neverland Special Exhibition", event that was held in Tokyo from December 11, 2020, to January 11, 2021. A 32-page one-shot chapter about Isabella titled, A Mother's Determination was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump on December 14, 2020. A 32-page one-shot, titled We Were Born, which tells the story of "another The Promised Neverland", was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump on January 4, 2021. Both Dreams Come True and We Were Born were collected in the Kaiu Shirai x Posuka Demizu: Beyond The Promised Neverland volume published on September 3, 2021, by Shueisha. It was published on November 8, 2022, in North America by Viz Media.
A comedic spin-off titled Oyakusoku no Neverland, illustrated by Shuhei Miyazaki, was published in Jump Giga on July 26, 2018, and it was later serialized in the Shōnen Jump+ application from January 11 to March 28, 2019. Its chapters were collected in a single volume, released on June 4, 2019.