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juushikaTitle: The Promised Neverland
Author: Kaiu Shirai
Illustrator: Posuka Demizu
Translator: Satsuki Yamashita
Published: Viz Media, 2017-2021 (2016-2020)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 4000 (189+189+200+192+200+200+192+192+207+200+200+200+192+200+192+208+192+200+216+240)
Total Page Count: 549,255
Text Number: 2027-46
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebooks borrowed from the Multnomah County Library and Timberland Regional Library
Review: The three oldest and most gifted children in an orphanage endeavor to escape when they discover the real purpose of the institution. This is frequently an overdrawn thriller: the number of twists and but-actuallys and evil reaction faces could be toned down significantly without sacrificing the plot. It also reads ridiculously fast, and the twists are easy to track even to the point of over-explanation. The premise is the hook; the staying factor is the central characters, whose intense friendship and OT3 vibes are built around the various absences of or hidden natures of its members, an intimate psychological focus to ground the antics of the plot.
I read this immediately after Made In Abyss, which isn't a frame of reference useful to anyone else but which is, for me, inseparable. Two stories about children in peril, discovering the world is larger and stranger than they knew; utterly unalike in tone. Imperilment here is straightforward and nearly unembodied; there's gore, but it doesn't touch the protagonists (Emma's hidden ear comes to mind) or, by consequence, the reader; in no small coincidence, the world lacks any real sense of wonder, even as it increases in scope. It's all fun and games until you get invested in the characters, whose strained, tropey dynamics and arcs suddenly blossom under the preexisting propensity to explain every plot twist to death, allowing sincere and moving nuanced internal perspectives. Such similar building blocks so differently used, with weirdly similar results despite the wildly different reader experiences; fascinating!
Anyway. This isn't high art, and isn't meant to be; but I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
Author: Kaiu Shirai
Illustrator: Posuka Demizu
Translator: Satsuki Yamashita
Published: Viz Media, 2017-2021 (2016-2020)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 4000 (189+189+200+192+200+200+192+192+207+200+200+200+192+200+192+208+192+200+216+240)
Total Page Count: 549,255
Text Number: 2027-46
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebooks borrowed from the Multnomah County Library and Timberland Regional Library
Review: The three oldest and most gifted children in an orphanage endeavor to escape when they discover the real purpose of the institution. This is frequently an overdrawn thriller: the number of twists and but-actuallys and evil reaction faces could be toned down significantly without sacrificing the plot. It also reads ridiculously fast, and the twists are easy to track even to the point of over-explanation. The premise is the hook; the staying factor is the central characters, whose intense friendship and OT3 vibes are built around the various absences of or hidden natures of its members, an intimate psychological focus to ground the antics of the plot.
I read this immediately after Made In Abyss, which isn't a frame of reference useful to anyone else but which is, for me, inseparable. Two stories about children in peril, discovering the world is larger and stranger than they knew; utterly unalike in tone. Imperilment here is straightforward and nearly unembodied; there's gore, but it doesn't touch the protagonists (Emma's hidden ear comes to mind) or, by consequence, the reader; in no small coincidence, the world lacks any real sense of wonder, even as it increases in scope. It's all fun and games until you get invested in the characters, whose strained, tropey dynamics and arcs suddenly blossom under the preexisting propensity to explain every plot twist to death, allowing sincere and moving nuanced internal perspectives. Such similar building blocks so differently used, with weirdly similar results despite the wildly different reader experiences; fascinating!
Anyway. This isn't high art, and isn't meant to be; but I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
