What is it?
The 2019 fantasy horror thriller anime (animated) television show The Promised Neverland (Season 1).
What is it about?
This is how Crunchyroll describes this anime (animated) television show:
The one adored as the mother is not the real parent.
The people living here together are not actual siblings.
The Gracefield House is where orphaned children live.
An irreplaceable home where 38 siblings and Mom live happy lives, even with no blood relations.
However, their everyday life suddenly came to an abrupt end one day.
My Thoughts
The trailer for this anime (animated) television show caught my attention and made me curious, especially a fan-made trailer that used music from the Us movie trailer that probably gives me chills (this trailer is the second video in this post so watch that one if you want to know what I am talking about), that song should have been the theme song for this anime because it goes well with the mood et cetera of this show.
I was not sure what to expect but the first episode surprised me by how much was conveyed so naturally and so quickly and it was possibly the best paced and best episode on Toonami that day, and what happened to a certain character impacted me and this impact carries on throughout the show helping you connect with and be concerned for the children.
This show managed to combine horror, drama, tension, psychological elements, and more using mostly children who were way smarter and resourceful than you would think.
This show presented a battle of minds and wills, and it did a good job making you feel for these children and want to help them and to want to see them succeed; at times you wish that you could enter the show to help these children.
Another amazing thing that this show did was to make me also have some empathy for some of the villains as it humanized some of them (in as little as one episode in one case) while still managing to make you want to stop the true villains of the show.
This show was a nice little addition to the Toonami lineup that was better than most of the other shows in the current lineup, it is one of those little anime shows that will surprise you, and that more people should probably see because it shows that anime is more capable and varied than some people think and they were able to use a show mostly based around children to do things that you would not expect compared to most American cartoons.
This show manages to evoke and convey emotions that you would not expect like determination, grit, camaraderie, hope, fear, loss, horror, shock, sadness, the desire for freedom, resistance, and more that will connect you with the children and will inspire you and will make you cheer for them and fear for them.
I can not imagine having to endure what these children have to deal with, most adults would not be able to handle it,
This show somewhat reminds me of the anime television show From The New World, which is another anime that surprised me, and they both are worth watching and they both left an impact on me that made me think and feel about the world of both shows.
Like From The New World, the true impact of this show hits you in a delayed reaction as you think about and realize certain things, and so some of the stronger emotions and thoughts may hit you later like as I type this post; which is impressive for any show to pull-off, especially an animated show about children, and so bravo.
In a way The Promised Neverland somewhat represents / reminds me of how as children our views of the the adult world / the real world are usually not very accurate, and as we get older we slowly start to realize this and the world / society has a way of crushing many of our hopes and dreams and assumptions and expectations et cetera; and so we have to adapt / adjust or be destroyed, we often lose some important and child-like parts of ourselves though in the process, but this show has some children fighting to hold on to this while also adapting to the world to survive.
The end,
-John Jr
John Jr's Blog 