The Promised Neverland - Volumes 19 & 20
Yikes... apparently I started writing this update and then just... never actually did. As with the previous update, that means that it's not very fresh in my mind because I finished these a while ago. That being said, I probably wouldn't want to talk too much about the plot details anyway.
So, to clear it up, these final chapters deal with the battle against the Ratri clan - a fight on two fronts as Mujika and Sonju find themselves painted in a very negative light and made to look like villains for the attack on the demon royalty and the human team launch a guerrilla assault on Grace Field, intent on saving the remaining farm kids and escaping to the human world.
I have little negative to say about these chapters. The pacing was fast, the character drama was solid and the endings the characters got were largely earned, albeit bittersweet in some cases. The cost for Emma's Promise was pretty much exactly what I expected, but it still stung until the epilogue figured its way around it.
So, all in all, I really liked The Promised Neverland and I am glad that I decided to keep going with the manga (especially instead of going with s2 of the anime... how they thought all of this would fit into a single season is beyond me). That isn't to say the story isn't without its faults. While the early volumes are an incredibly strong opening, the story does start to drop off a bit once the kids escape Grace Field and by the time we're in the middle volumes there start to be a lot of pacing problems. Things start playing out way too quickly, characters don't get enough exploration, there is a sudden time skip that just leaps over what would have been an interesting part of the story entirely, things happen in ways that feel contrived because they lack explanation etc etc. It's not like the story becomes a total dumpster fire, but it does mark a notable decrease in the quality of the narrative. That being said though, it does get a lot better in the later volumes and starts picking up the pieces. Does it ever reach the heights of the first three or four volumes again? Not really. But the story does become a lot more gripping and engaging again.
I suspect that some of the problem might just have come down to editorial pressure and time constraints, given how strong the beginning is. There are a lot of very compelling characters but the cast is huge, so it isn't surprising that they didn't all necessarily get the screentime they deserved or needed. So, within reason, I won't fault that. But there are definitely some characters who absolutely needed to be given more time to be a part of things and properly explored and there's not much I can say to salvage the parts where the pacing was at its worst.
It really is a good story and it is definitely worth reading. Just don't go into it expecting the middle chapters to have the same quality as the first few volumes do. It comes back around in the end, but some parts are a bit of a slog. The art never wavers though. Every panel in this series is excellent and the cover art is gorgeous.
BNA - Summary
I binged this over two days, so I'm just going to summarise my thoughts in general. BNA is a story where beastmen - lycanthropic people who can shift between human and animalistic forms essentially - are treated with extreme prejudice and violence in society with Anima city, a segregated city in Japan being a safe haven. The main character, Michiru, flees to Anima City after mysteriously becoming a beast person after recovering from an accident and has to adapt to living there while getting embroiled in a lot of the goings on there and trying to regain her normal human form.
I was worried about this one after the first few episodes because it seemed like it was intended more to be an exploration of the show's world than a story with any real character growth or plot development. I think that these concerns were mostly unfounded though as by episode four we start getting snippets of growth and plot and by episode six, things have really kicked off with stories of corruption, mysteries slowly getting unravelled etc. Was the execution of this story perfect? Definitely not, but it was a lot better than I was expecting from what I'd hear about the show second hand. The last few episodes in particular were extremely engaging... except for a large chunk of the finale.
As always, I'll try to avoid spoilers, but I think the twist with the antagonist was incredibly dumb, added nothing to the show and existed purely as excuse for Trigger to go full Trigger with the action sequence that resulted from it. They did not need to pull that twist to make the villain work, the worldbuilding, his previous actions and the motive that seemed to be the case already did a perfectly good job of making us hate him and giving him a motivation for what he was doing. The twist didn't even really change that in a meaningful way it was just there to make you go "I bet you didn't see that coming!" Which is true, I didn't. Because nothing previously established in the story suggested it would be the case. Nothing in the worldbuilding suggested it would or could be the case. Subverting expectations with a twist doesn't work when the twist neither adds anything to the story nor feels like it belongs there or makes sense when you view the rest of the plot with the benefit of hindsight.
There was some other little things where character growth and themes could get a little muddied, but I think they mostly got a grip on that by the time the series was doing its epilogue stuff. Sort of. At the very least, it was satisfactory enough that I don't think it was a big deal. The character were fairly interesting, albeit a bit one note and shallow at times. The themes were pretty clear cut, beast people being used to explore prejudice and discrimination isn't anything new. It was an interesting idea to show that even a character who isn't outright racist still had some inbuilt, systemic shit to work through though. Definitely there was nothing as glaringly awful in the writing as the twist with the villain, that's for sure.
The art and animation were gorgeous. It's a Trigger anime. The animation is always top quality and every different style they try always looks good. Crazy, lively and kinetic animation is their trademark. But I've never been one to let them off for their mistakes just because their work is fantastic to look at.
It's a good show, but definitely not a great one. I liked it and would recommend it. But the flaws are there.
