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If you’ve spend the past two month and half months watching The Promised Neverland, you can agree that it is one of the best anime series to debut this season. Based on the popular manga Yakusoku No Neverland. The Promised Neverland anime adapts the Introduction Arc and the beginning of the Jailbreak Arc.
But let’s get to the final episode of season one, because it was an episode with a rollercoaster of emotions. Whether you cheered for Emma and Ray to escape, or you choked up when Norman showed up and assisted his friends. Or the revelation of Isabella aka Mama attempting to escape the Grace Field House herself as a kid and becoming the mother of Ray. The whole season led up to a heart wrenching finale that really paid off the plot points set up throughout the season.
The episode itself flowed nicely, especially recapping the two months that have passed since Norman’s shipping. Ray and Emma haven’t really communicated due to Mama’s suspicions, and everything seemed to be calm and going according to Mama’s plan since she put a stop to the kid’s plans to escape.
But that didn’t stop there. Emma, Don and Gilda all trained the kids that were to escape with them and executed Norman’s plans to perfection. While there came a point in where Emma had to make a life or death decision for the babies of Grace Field House, things still worked out as planned.
What really captivated me this episode was Isabella’s revelations. The flashbacks to her as a kid trying to escape Grace Field House and failing, really hit home with what Emma, Ray and Norman were trying to do throughout this season. Not only that, in the previous episode she mentioned to Emma that one day her too can become a mom of Grace Field House after she carries a child and is tested on her abilities to be a mother and that’s because Isabella went under the same regime to have her abilities tested in order to become mother of Grace Field House.
While the kids escaping is cool and all, these flashbacks is what really cemented the story and Isabella’s motives. Bringing it all full circle to where she too had a Norman figure of her own who she was really close to, putting her in the same shoes as Emma when Norman was shipped away. It was self reflecting moment if you want to look at it that way.
She does play off the reasons behind her motives to just survival but there’s more behind that. She still comes around to care for the babies that were left behind and bids farewell and best wishes to her older children who have no escaped. You can kind of look at this as her coming to terms with what needed to be done. That that life wasn’t meant for those children, and while the real world is dangerous, cold and rugged. Being isolated and confined and bred a certain way to be devoured by flesh eating demons later on in life, isn’t the best life for a child either.
The is a beautiful moment between her and Ray back in his younger days, where he is humming the tune her friend played on his instrument back when she was a child. It was a real tearjerker moment for me and I can only appreciate it that much more. It adds so much weight to Ray telling Norman and Emma about Infantile Amnesia and how he doesn’t have it and remembers, while in very graphic fragments, everything prior, during and after his birth.
This season has been nothing but great and I highly recommend it to everyone! Go watch it! Read the manga if you haven’t, unless you don’t want spoilers for season two, then don’t read it, but it’s a beautiful anime series and thoroughly enjoyable.
(Yakusoku No Neverland) The Promised Neverland is streaming now on Crunchyroll, Hulu and HIDIVE.