The Promised Neverland

By SJ HWANG ‘23

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” This quote is one of my favorites, and for good reason: the freedom to express our thoughts is considered an inalienable right, yet many people in our society restrict others’ freedom of expression. As a result, I have seen people use fiction to deliver their messages. I first experienced fiction’s potential for can have when I started reading a manga series—a Japanese style of graphic novels—called The Promised Neverland, which is written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu.

The Promised Neverland follows the lives of three children—Emma, Norman, and Ray—who live in an orphanage called the Gracefield House. These three, along with many other children, grow up with everything they could possibly need: good food, an excellent education, and a loving caretaker. Every two months, one of the children leaves the orphanage, presumably having been adopted. Unfortunately, this worldview turns upside down when Emma and Norman discover that all of the “adopted” children were killed, as the orphanage is actually a farm where human children are raised to become food for demons. 

Among thousands of other anime and manga, The Promised Neverland stands out to me, not only because of the beautiful art style, good characters, and enthralling plot, but also because of how it has so skillfully woven fiction with reality. Like any other video or book, anime and manga have underlying themes that help viewers relate to the characters; however, The Promised Neverland takes on heavy topics such as the practice of industrial livestock production. 

In recent years, meat consumption has increased substantially. To accommodate the high demand, humans have implemented the cruel practice of mass-farming livestock. This practice is, in many ways, parallel to the premise of The Promised Neverland.  The children have numbers tattooed onto their necks and tracking devices implanted into their ears. In the alternate universe of The Promised Neverland, multiple factories mass produce humans to feed the demon population, much like farmers who raise cattle and pigs. These humans in the alternate universe are dehumanized as produce, whereas in “premium farms” like Gracefield House, the children raised would be eaten by higher status demons like nobles and royalty. 

As someone who loves my bacon and eggs, I know that I won’t be able to stop consuming animal derived products. This reality is something I have to acknowledge, but at the same time, a comic drove me to spend hours on the internet looking at the conditions livestock endure only to be slaughtered. 

There is so much more to The Promised Neverland than what the adorable children in the title page let on. Some themes reflect human predicaments like the abuse of power, betrayal, sacrifice, genocide, while others are about the happiness that things like family, friendship, and love bring. I can’t recommend The Promised Neverland highly enough.