Publisher: Viz
Volumes: 16+/20 (Complete in online English magazine serialization), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Family, Strategy, Demons, Fighting, Survival Horror, Shounen Jump
Summary: Emma (11) and her two best friends, Norman and Ray are the smartest three orphans in the Grace Field Orphanage. It’s a happy place filled with smiles and laughter, there’s plenty of good food, clean beds and clean clothes and they spend most of their days playing games with their fellow orphans. But they also have ID numbers tattooed onto their necks and have to take a daily test that ranks their academic ability. All this under the loving watchful eye of the one they call “Mom” who is their caretaker. Life seems great, even if things aren’t quite right and they aren’t allowed to leave the orphanage grounds.
But one day when one of the orphans is being adopted, the little girl forgets her beloved stuffed rabbit. Emma and Norman go after her to bring it to her, only to discover the terrible truth- they aren’t at an Orphanage at all, but at a farm to be raised as food- for Demons! Can they escape before they are eaten? Can they rescue their fellow brothers and sisters? And if they can, then what awaits them in the outside world?
Review: The beginning of the series is a tense strategy between Emma, Norman and Ray and the one they call “Mom” as they try to plot their escape, hoping to rescue as many of their brothers and sisters in the orphanage as they can, under Mom’s nose. Emma, who vows that she never again wants to lose any more of her family, is determined to try and rescue everyone, even though they have babies there and the majority of the children are under 6 years old. Norman vows he wants whatever will help Emma to keep on smiling, but Ray thinks their chances of escape would be best with as few other children as possible. While they try to figure out their strategy, obstacles to their plans keep cropping up. The plot twists and turns and always keeps you on your toes. Overall this is the first and the top favorite story arc that all the readers liked. (Volumes 1 to 5-ish.)
The next Arc takes place outside the farm as they try to survive, search for any allies and discover more information in the outside world. There’s also a brief side story at the beginning of this arc about meeting a pair of Demons who are kind “Vegetarians”, which was neat. This arc reveals the truth about the world they live in and they learn more about Demon society. After finding a hidden shelter created by a mysterious ally, they also meet an incredible 25 year old fellow escapee, who seems like a villain at first, but is revealed to be traumatized from the loss of his group. Journeying to a map point to find a hidden message from an unknown ally, they discover the area has become an illegal human hunting ground. This arc is a bit more controversial, in hindsight, I think the introduction of the 25 year old escapee was too villainous in the beginning. Even though his character is eventually redeemed, some readers didn’t like him. Things are also overall fairly bleak and yet there is still hope. That being said, it was a great arc overall, and the dramatic conclusion was an awesome battle, IMO. (Volumes 5-ish to 11)
After that I’m sorry to say that the story was all downhill from there. (Volumes 12 to end) The story sets out for the children who want to try and prevent the breaking out of a war between the human world and the demon world by remaking a new bargain with an ancient divine being for their freedom. While I did find moments here and there that I liked, for the most part it was almost as if it was being written by someone else. It felt like the author burned out and either lost his willpower to put the children through more and more difficult situations, or simply ran out of ideas. It almost feels like a completely different story. After the end of the arc where a couple of the supporting characters have a dramatic heroic sacrifice, from that point onwards all of the children who should have died miraculously survive, no matter how ridiculous it is. Everything was a struggle in their journey this far, and then suddenly everything becomes incredibly easy and falls into place with only minor problems.
The thing that I felt most disappointed with was Emma’s story. Emma quickly eclipses Norman and Ray and becomes the main character, because of her idealistic and take charge personality. But her coming of age story was supposed to be how she cannot save everyone, all the time, and they cannot make progress without sacrifice. But instead of having her story arc being about how she must temper her ideals and come to face the truth of a harsh reality, the author really just avoided the whole thing completely. After facing some of her darkest fears in the second arc, the whole thing vanishes and becomes a non issue, despite the stakes ramping up higher and higher.
The ending was also very weak. Although it ended happily, quite frankly it felt unearned and way too unrealistically perfect. I was also very disappointed at the fake foreshadowing that turned out to be no big deal at all. All in all, I really wish the creators would just redo volumes 12-20 over again with a real story that matches the quality and intensity of the first half. If you read this last arc, then read it with very low expectations.
Recommended: This hot and popular manga has some well deserved popularity for the first 11 volumes or so, which are a series of tense, dramatic and strategic battles between some smart but naive kids and their opponents. Unfortunately, the story goes off the rails starting in volume 12, so if you read the rest of it, be sure to go in with low expectations.
Age Rating: Older Teen. PG13 for the first 11 volumes or so. A lot of violence, but not graphic, and a lot of imagined scenes strewn with corpses of children. But very few children actually die. The Demons on the other hand, die in very messy ways. Also some very tame nudity of the bathing kind. But past volume 12, the violence and gore greatly increase from time to time.
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