Ok. To start, this is my first reddit post. I'm actually deciding to contribute for my first time because of how many emotions I'm feeling rn.
Second, I started reading the manga following being an anime-only. After season 2, episode 5, I realized something was off, namely Norman appearing way too early, and decided to check out the source material. I blew through it in like 2 days, it's the first manga I've ever finished and holy shit was it a ride
Ok onto my discussion... FULL SPOILER WARNING FOR THE ENTIRE MANGA AND ANIME UP TO SEASON 2 EPISODE 5
First, I wanna compare my anime experience to my manga reading experience. The first season is probably in my top 5 experiences in anime, it gave me the same feelings i felt as a teenager reading things like Percy Jackson and the hunger games; the feeling of being a child against the world. I'd never had an anime encompass that feeling so entirely before. Sure, I've watched plenty of anime with child/younger protagonists, but never one that gave me such an investment in a child vs adult dynamic. As an adult now, I can say that nothing has made me feel like a child again more than this show. I eagerly anticipated what was to come.
Season 2 started off alright. I had no perspective of the broader world when starting it, so the exposition dump that sonju and mujika give is a lot, but it's satisfying after having no clue outside of the demons eat kids element. Also clears up the timeline that the kids gather from the minerva books. I'd also like the say that I really enjoyed these demon characters, I really enjoyed watching the children interact with adult characters I WISH THERE WERE MORE but more on that later.
Once they reach the bunker though, the plot started to feel...idk empty? They were making progress, but they didn't have any direction to go in outside of what this pen was telling them. Which is fine and all, but I wasn't overly invested. Then the bunker invasion happens, in which the children incur literally no casualties, and manage to escape due to a monster I think? Regardless, then we get a TIMESKIP with absolutely no warning and no reason. We were moving at a snails pace before, but the second things get interesting lets skip it all got it got it
So now we're in a demon town, where I guess they're getting supplies? Idk and the bit with the temple is odd but I assume we'll get more context on that later. Skipping over how the kids are now literal ninjas running over the rooftops to escape the demons, we get the reintroduction of Norman, which made me feel absolutely nothing. Not because I didn't like his character, no he was a very entertaining part of season 1. And not because I already knew he was reappearing because I saw a later manga volume cover with him on it. Just because it felts absolutely way too early. This is exactly the moment I realized something was wrong, did some minor research and saw the outrage of manga readers, and decided to pick up the manga.
In a comparison to season 1 and the first arc of the books, I was surprised how completely they match up. Outside of the internal monologue, and I guess the inclusion of krones doll? things were basically 1:1. (And I know that the inclusion of Krones doll in the anime was to substitute for the lack of internal monologue in the show, not exactly sure how I feel about it's inclusion but whatever.) Reexperiencing this arc still made me cry with norman's departure, and I felt completely satisfied. Onto post escape
So the beginning of season 2 seemed pretty accurate to me. Outside the exclusion of the vampire trees (which i quite liked), and Mujika not mentioning the seven walls to Emma, them reaching the bunker seemed pretty similar to the anime portrayal. So imagine my surprise, when reading the manga and they enter the monitor room of the bunker, AND THERES A MAN THERE. I literally dropped my ipad, this was so unexpected and such a welcome surprise. And he's INTERESTING. Now them exploring the bunker is interesting because theres a man there that doesn't want them there. This adds something. Not to mention, instead of HELP being written on the walls, now its POACHERS, which brings to mind the kind of fate the previous kids in this bunker had. Mister and his character arc was one of my favorite parts of the manga, and I hope that he's included in the anime somehow. The HELP on the wall, and the inclusion of his cookies implies that he exists, I'm really hoping they didn't scrap his character completely. This is where the anime and the manga completely depart one another.
I really enjoyed Goldy Pond. The new additional characters, the antagonist demons, and the setting all pulled me in, i swear i read this arc in a day. Rivals the jailbreak arc for me, I'm not sure which is my favorite. But i do have a few complaints.
One, plot armor. Oh my god plot armor. When the final hunt battle whatever takes place, these children are getting annihilated. It honestly felt like I was watching attack on titan, with characters getting wiped out left and right. When Emma is expecting ten of her friends to show up, and only three do, it feels like consequences. Feels is the key word here. I'm not positive, but I don't think a single character dies. There are plenty, and I mean plenty, of serious injuries, but they all make it out, get medical attention, and survive. I appreciate knowing more named characters, and I could understand if some of them made it out, but literally all the them do. Emma makes the most sense, she's the main character, this early in the story it makes sense for her to have plot armor. But it's cowardly to say they all make it, I think it's literally all 50 kids join their party.
Two, and this one is small, but I think they spend to little time in goldy pond. The fact that after Emma's arrival, she literally only has a first hunt and a final hunt feels rushed to me. Idk if one in the middle would have just been padding, but the fact that her first hunt is over so quickly (she saves a bunch of kids off screen) and the last one is the most effective, idk it just seems a little too perfect. Although I think the pacing in this arc is great, and idk if adding another hunt would have slowed it down too much. But it would have given us more time to meet and learn about the glory bell kids, I swear I couldn't remember who was where fighting what demon the whole time cuz I'd basically just met them.
Ok, the time skip here to me feels appropriate. Maybe not as massive as it is, but I appreciate aging up the characters and giving them more skills during this time. I feel like we missed a lot of relationship building, especially between the glory bell kids, the grace field kids, and the two adults, but I can accept it for what it is and move on.
Onto the bunker raid, I'm going to use this time to talk about how much I love Yugo and Lucas. Because I love them so much. Yugo is completely a mirror of Ray, and I appreciate that so much. Outside of his looks, I feel like his key characteristic is being too willing to give up. His character arc is so satisfying to watch, from hating and rejecting the children, to trying to kill Emma, to having a change of heart at just the wrong moment, to risking it all to get her back. Then, his reward for doing so is finding out that Lucas still lives. It works so well, and its why his death hits so hard. The final step of his arc is giving his life for the children, so they can have the family he lost, it just breaks me. It kills me because in the anime, the children get out on their own, it doesn't feel like real stakes or that they could realistically escape this threat. With Lucas and Yugo fighting, it feels earned, we know the abilities these characters have and know that they can handle this fight, even if it means at the cost of their lives. I'm so mad the anime screwed this up, and I'll never see this played out correctly. (Not to mention, I love Andrews death. At this point in the story, it feels realistic for the kids to be uncomfortable with taking lives, and I appreciate the burden being lifted from them here. More on that later)
Skipping ahead a bit, because the plot after this doesn't really stick with me, up until at least the reintroduction of Norman. I wish Lambda would have been more established, maybe even given us a whole arc about Norman's time there, and his escape. It bothers me so much that we don't see how he escapes. Outside of some illusions to Smee, it seems like Norman just smarted his way out, got all the other occupants to see him as a God, then proceeded to do what no human had done before. I wish we got more elaboration on the Lambda experiments, because to me it just feels like they gave these kids superpowers. Which sure, fine, whatever. I think I would be more ok with this if it was ever properly explored, but it isn't. Cislo, Barbra, and Zazzie all seem to have super strength, Vincent is smart boy, and Hayato is fast? I don't even know what Jin does, all we do is see him lose to Sonju. I feel this way about all of them except good boy Adam. I will not slander best boy Adam.
Back to Norman though, I think his reunion with Emma is wonderful. It actually made me feel something unlike the anime, which I knew was butchered before I even read the manga. I wish that Ray was there too, and was given a moment with him similar to emma, instead of being lumped in with the whole family. But who am I to complain? Ray stops being a character after Goldy Pond, maybe even before that, but he'll get his own section. Back to Norman, the time he spends with his family makes me so happy, watching him laugh and play with his siblings as a tall boy really hits home. But this is the last time I enjoy Norman's characterization, because after this I feel like I don't know him at all.
Now there's hints of this before the reunion. The fake Minerva call, the blowing up of the mass production farm, and how all the characters say he's completely different during the reunion. I understand that he spends a lot of time away from Emma and Ray, the horrific things he experienced at Lambda, and the other Lambda characters pushing him in a certain direction. But the fact that we never see this character change, the fact that he's apart of the main trio and we don't get to see the moment his character 180's, it doesn't feel earned to me. Granted, its not as bad as in Game of thrones when Daenerys 180's, Norman does spend time apart from us to make these character changes. But the fact that we don't see this character change I believe is what makes it fall flat. And it hurts because I think this is a good character arc, the antagonist is a part of the main trio for just a bit. I just wish I had a why. Now, as far as the genocide, I can rationalize how he reached that conclusion. I can fill in the gaps. What I can't wrap my head around is the lying to his family; lying to emma and ray telling them he'll wait and lying to Don and Gilda that he won't kill Sonju and Mujika. This bothers me to my core. The moments we see of him at Lambda, he's constantly thinking of Ray and Emma and how he wants to see them. His goals, his entire plan, should be going for them. The betrayal here doesn't line up for me, and at the same time I can't see how he's putting the Lambda inhabitants needs above that of his family. Norman went in a direction that I think would be interesting for the story, but the execution felt off. Maybe the justifications we are given are enough for some people, but it didn't feel right to me. Maybe I'm wrong.
Now, before I discuss the ending and Emma, I want to talk about Ray. Poor, poor ray, who was my favorite from the time I watched the anime for the first time. During the Jailbreak arc, he is my absolute favorite, his nihilistic sensibilities, the fact that he's mom's spy, the fact that he's known the secret all along, and especially the moment he tries to kill himself out of spite, I love all of it. He, to me, is the most interesting character during all of that. It's too bad that he basically kills himself, because we never see any of these interesting character traits ever again. Ray gets shafted so hard, it makes me so sad (It especially makes me sad bc he has the same voice actor as Killua, and now psuedo-Killua will have nothing to do for the rest of the show) but I digress. During Goldy pond, it's obviously Emma's Arc, so I understand him being sidelined a bit. Him and Yugo coming back to save the day works really well for me, no complaints there, outside it being the beginning of the end. It's honestly really funny, but if you go on Ray's wiki page, and scroll down to plot, after the Culvitalda arc, he gets 2 sentences a piece for each arc. If that doesn't show what happened to his character, idk what does. But even prior to that arc, its 'Ray and the group' do this and 'Ray and the group' do that. I'm so glad Ray got to live through his suicide attempt only to do jack shit. He's basically just there so he can support Emma, which is fine, but I wish he had something going on in his head too.
Now, quickly about the ending, because I read it so fast because I just wanted it to be over. I can describe the ending in one word: Convenient. It honestly doesn't feel like the characters do much at all. I'm specifically referring to after the queen is dead, because while I thought her character was a little flat, I enjoyed the conflict with her and the clan Norman tricked, that backstory was actually interesting to me. It also established how powerful and ruthless the queen was, honestly I didn't have too many complaints about this, outside of again, no character deaths. Or I guess no human deaths. Whatever. The main complaint i have is with Peter Ratari and the conflict he has with the kids. I feel like ever complication that he imposes on the kids is fixed very conveniently. Excuse me if I miss some examples, I'm doing this from memory and refuse to reread the chapter. So he captures all the kids at Norman's hideout, oh no. He brings them to Grace Field (I like that everything ends where everything began, if only they did anything with this) and puts them all in a storage area. Vincent does some hacker shit, and Emma and Gang go to rescue them. But then Vincent gets taken out oh no, but then he doesn't and is saved and rehacks things. And then oh no Sunju and Mujika are gonna get executed, but then yay Leuvis shows up and saves them! I'm honestly so down with Leuvis showing up again, but the fact that he helps change the government and saves the evil bloods and blah blah blah it just feels forced. Maybe if during Goldy pond there was more a discussion of ideology I would feel different, but this just came so out of left field. So now, oh no, the imperial army is surrounding Grace Field, oh no, but now the leadership has miraculously changed and now they're on our side! Yay! But oh no, now the sisters and mothers are all pointing guns at them! What will they do now? Oh well its all a fake out so it doesn't matter. I like Isabella changing sides, but I feel like this should have come earlier, because after we learn her backstory and see her 'wish the kids well' ig when they escape, its not a redemption, but we fs know she's not completely evil now. So when the reveal of bum bum bum she's now grandma and super evil! I'm gonna serve you kids up again! comes it doesn't really work. Because unless she was completely brainwashed or something, we know that this doesn't fit the kinda redemption we saw earlier. It's either a horrible twist mwahaha she's evil, or a really obvious fake out, which we now know it is. (I'm not sure how I feel about Isabella's eventual full redemption, I'm not sure she deserves to fully be redeemed and forgiven before her death, but regardless her death still gave me feelings because it draws from the first amazing arc. )
Ok, before discussing my final gripe with the ending, I need to talk about Emma. Emma emma bo bemma, the character who wants to save everyone, but really really shouldn't. Now, I think that this is an interesting character trait, someone who wants to save everyone but ultimately can't. But you see, the problem with this is, Emma sets out to do literally everything she wants the entire series. I swear to god it's her superpower. It's so reliable that characters literally forget their motivations because if it's something that Emma wants, then it's bound to happen! The one that sticks in my memory the most is Gillian, someone who has never met a friendly demon and was literally hunted for sport for years by them, just instantly switches her feelings about the genocide because Emma says she should. Now i'm not defending the genocide, I understand Emma's point of view on this. Genocide is wrong, shocker I know. But for characters that have literally had their entire lives tormented at the hands of these demons, characters that should hold as strong feels of hate shown by the Lambda experiments, I don't think they should just turn on a dime. It feels to fast, too rushed. I think something closer to her convincing Norman that his plan is wrong should have occurred, but then again you can't do that for every character, idk. Regardless, when Emma was initially against the genocide, I understand that. She has Mujika and Sonju on her mind, and all 5 seconds we see of her in a demon village, so I get that she recognizes that there are guiltless demons out there that aren't responsible for the fate of her people. You can't blame them in the sense that you can't blame everyone who's ever eaten a hamburger. Sure. But when she's against killing the Royal family, the aristocrats, etc, that makes literally no sense to me. Yes, it's in line with her character. By the end of the series, if you can say one thing about Emma, it's that she literally doesn't want to kill anyone. But this particularly doesn't make sense. Why? Goldy Pond, where she participates in killing all five of the poachers. Granted, she does try and talk to Leuvis before the fight, yk, her main character trait. But in the end, she helps kill these 5. Then why would she not have the motivation to kill the royals? She's literally from Grace Field, the farm that produces the highest quality meat, that means the majority of her family being shipped out would go directly to these demons. It means Connie, Hao, and every other shipped out kid was most likely eaten by these specific demons. I'm honestly surprised she didn't try and have a discussion with the queen about her ideology. Nope, thats Mujika's job. Anyway, her justification for this, if I remember correctly, is that without the ruling class, the people would fall into chaos. Yes Emma, the system that made you food is literally held up and made by these demons, of any of them, these are the ones that deserve to die the most, in the same vein as the Goldy Pond poachers. This might just be the bit inside me that craves revolution myself, but in a system where you are literally food, killing the ruling class might just be acceptable. Ok, ok. But now we get to the real part where Emma's main trait bothered me, with Peter Ratari. Oh Ratari, how you deserved worse than you got. When Emma tried to make friends with this man, I swear my head nearly exploded. NO EMMA. NOW IS NOT THE TIME. Hell, idc if you're against killing him at this rate, if Emma killed him here I'd honestly probably be pretty satisfied, but it would still be against her character and I understand that. BUT NO EMMA. DO NOT TRY AND BE HIS FRIEND. Idc put him in jail for all I care, make him the last human living in a demon world. Honestly, I think the most fitting end would be for him to be eaten. But nope, he gets to go out on his own terms, never facing any consequences for literally selling out his entire species. Knowing full well his ancestor betrayed the children's ancestors horribly. I think this a horrible injustice for the story, a character who's been built up this whole time, to only be so underwhelming. Even Andrew got his proper comeuppance, satisfying and without the kids getting their hands dirty. Instead the story just did me dirty. Sad.
Now, finally, after this novel I've written, I can talk about the epilogue. When it comes to Emma's promise, I honestly like the consequence. I can think of a few better ones, but the reward in this case works. I just wish we had more time to deal with the consequences. Emma not remembering her family is a good price to pay for them all getting to live free. She's not punished really, because she can't remember what she's lost outside of her dreams. This is a fitting ending I feel that leaves an empty, but hopeful feeling. And I don't even mind their reunion. I don't think it should have been everyone, mind you, maybe just Ray and Norman. But the moment she says 'who are you guys' really hits. My main problem with this is how fast us readers see them both lose emma, then get her back. We have literally a chapter of emma with santa man, (who deserves more time js) then they find her. I think it's about 2 years in their time, but it feels really flimsy for us because it's just a chapter. idk. This ending didn't make me angry, happy or sad, it just made me feel empty. The one consequence in the story is taken away, and thats how we end it. I basically would have felt the same way if they had killed emma, then immediately brought her back to life. idk.
To wrap this all up, I'd say my main issues with this series can be summed up in three points; character plot armor, rushed ending, and missed opportunities. First, the only real deaths (real deaths are named characters in my eyes) that the main story (I may miss some I apologize) Are Connie, Yugo, Lucas, and Isabella. Minerva if you really wanna stretch it. These are characters that we interacted with, felt their deaths, and actually worked within the story. There are others, like Dinah from Yugo's family and Monica, theo's sister, but I'm not counting these because they're not characters we actively see in the modern story. I'm sorry, but for a story with this high of stakes, where the literal premise is demons eating children, maybe more children should have died. Maybe attack on titan spoiled me by killing characters I liked, but even if all of the main trio survived, some named characters should have died. Some plot armor is to be expected, because you need characters in order for the story to go forward. idk. Never thought i'd be asking for more characters to die, but here we are. Second, rushed ending. Maybe I feel this way because I rushed through the ending, but by the end, or even before that, the strong pacing of the beginning of the story was lost. Literally went full speed at the end. Not much to say here. Finally, missed opportunities. If this story had taken more time to flesh out the interesting elements that the author created, maybe I'd have been more satisfied by the end. With such a strong start, with characters i loved so much, I wish i felt different. I really do. Supposedly the changes in the anime are to remedy these elements of the story. I guess we'll see! I don't have that high of hopes but theres always a chance.
If you made it all the way through my essay, congrats! My first ever post on reddit is a bit of a duzy, if I do say so myself. I spent a couple hours writing this. It's not perfect, and I don't think I encompassed all my thoughts perfectly here, but honestly I've put enough time into this. Please let me know what you think, obviously this is all my opinion and feel free to disagree. Overall, The Promised Neverland means a lot to me. My first experience with it is still one of my favorites, and it's the first manga I read through and through. If anyone has any suggestions for others I should read, please let me know!
[Edit] Originally, this was my first reddit post, but I had to rack up enough Karma to post! Boy what a hassle

INFJ, I will do with all the functions until it is clear.
Introverted Intuition vs Extroverted Intuition The big question that it is (Ne), so let's remember what its properties are: the users of Extroverted intuition, create new ideas from pre-existing ideas and it is divergent, the (Ni) they analyze the pre-existing ideas and it is convergent. We will understand this with the examples of Arisu. There are a lot of scenes where it shows, but I'll get one that makes great sense to me. When Arisu, comes across the card (this in the first game, when they finish), he does not create speculation of what it would mean, lack of Extroverted intuition, he keeps connecting very much, because he is focused on what is more important (which in this case is to leave that world), the presence of Introverted intuition. We see that afterwards, in a meeting with Chota, they think what that world would be like, Shibuki, says that maybe it could be a virtual reality, but right afterwards Arisu, makes the following statement: in virtual reality we do not feel pain. And afterwards he did not give any idea of ​​what would be that world. In such cases we see that he needs information before drawing a conclusion, this is Introverted intuition.
Extroverted feeling vs Introverted feeling I think one of the most obvious functions is the Extroverted feeling, because clearly he empathizes with others, for you to understand we will make a following analogy, if we saw the users of (Fi) and (Fe) crying in the cinema, they would probably be crying for different reasons, (Fi) would be crying because they identify with that situation, now (Fe) he would be feeling empathy in that situation, without necessarily going through that. This is very prevalent in Arisu, because he knows what others suffer, in the last episodes this is extremely evident (in the situation of 10 hearts), and in the episode that they have to run a certain distance, Arisu comes back a lot away to save the man with the broken leg on the bus.
Introverted Thinking vs Extroverted Thinking Introverted thinking is linked to the deduction and logic of things, in contrast Extroverted thinking is linked to the induction and efficiency of things. We see in the series, that Arisu believes much more in internal analysis than the efficiency of things, example: in the race episode (mentioned in the last example of Fe), if he had an extroverted thought he would never come back, not out of malice, and yes because it is inefficient, but he comes back anyway, because he realized that there was a chance it works, because of the gasoline, and that analysis made sense in his head, even though he was not sure of the game, this is Fe-Ti acting, you just compare him to Norman from The Promised Neverland, they try to find a situation where he helps people, but that makes logical sense to them.
Extroverted Sensation vs Introverted Sensation Extroverted Sensation = sensations and attentive to tangible external things, while Introverted Sensation = familiar details and conclusions. Arisu he always noticed several tangible things in a magnificent way, we see in the episode where players must hide from, Arisu realized that the man who was trying to kill them, shot from a long distance, but he had never done that , so soon he and Chishiya, discover that it could only be that door, he used Ti-Se, in the first game where he remembers the length of the car, this has nothing to do with (* Si *), because it only shows that he he has a good memory, and in the following scenes he still uses Chota's cell phone, to remember the detail of the first door, and also in subsequent episodes, after his friends die, he stays on the floor without paying attention to hunger, body temperature and physical pain, he only remembers these things thanks to Usagi, it shows fragility in an introverted sensation, he is always attentive to the environment, when his father and brother are talking at the table, he listens to everything, but remains silent, soon after he quickly realized that Chota and Karube are out there, this is a great indication that he is aware of the environment. Made in Google Translate

Finally got around to doing the INFJ anime characters post, my own type as a INFJ myself so I'm really excited about this one. I hope you guys enjoy and feel free to share your opinions down below and mention any INFJ anime characters you think I missed, I love hearing opinions and can't way to hear the reception for this one. I have the other MBTI anime characters types down below and I'm almost done with all of them now that I got this done with INFJ, I only got ENTP left to do and then we're done! With all the anime MBTI character types lists. Can't wait even though its sad its ending, its been been fun doing this and I thank you guys and glad for the support while I've been doing this series. I guess the INFJs here are seeing this for the first time though, haha but from my perspective I've been getting lots of good support from this series I've been doing of anime MBTI characters and their personality types being posted on each individual MBTI reddits. Now without further ado, let's get started with this INFJ anime characters post, it's been long overdue and its finally time. Again feel free to check out the other types I've down below too if your interested.
Here's the list of the MBTI anime character types post I have so far:
https://www.reddit.com/entj/comments/hctvvy/entj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/ENFP/comments/hdakhy/enfp_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/ESFP/comments/hin2mv/esfp_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/intj/comments/hi9anf/intj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/ESTJ2/comments/hplnj1/estj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/ESFJ/comments/hpufbs/esfj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/isfj/comments/hxvmv6/isfj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/enfj/comments/hua10m/enfj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/estp/comments/hw5huo/estp_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/ISTJ/comments/hwqenc/istj_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/infp/comments/hyfrll/infp_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/isfp/comments/hzrmyp/isfp_anime_characters/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
https://www.reddit.com/INTP/comments/hz4tak/intp_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/istp/comments/i0brp7/istp_anime_characters/
https://www.reddit.com/entp/comments/i4jces/entp_anime_characters/
Shanks - Where do I start from here, Shanks, the GOAT INFJ, and the perfect extroverted introvert himself. INFJs and ISFJs are the most extroverted introverts because of Fe and this point is no different with Shanks here. Most people know Shanks is INFJ and a Ni dom but of course people mixup IXFJs and IXTJs with EXFJs and EXTJs nowadays as usual. People forget how extroverted Fe and Te are as functions and cause this confusion with Fe and Te aux and think there Fe and Te is dominant and that they're extroverts when they're not and actually still introverts and just have strong aux Fe or Te. Shanks in my opinion is one of those types along with many other people agreeing with me, Shanks is INFJ definitely and a extroverted introvert for sure with his Fe aux being strong in him. But no doubt Ni dom behavior is the strongest in Shanks definitively. Shanks is very, very intuitive with his Ni and is very decisive and thinks his Ni predictions and hunches will come true at all costs and worries about them all the time with his Ni hunches and predictions constantly in the series. He struggles to live in the moment and respond to details around him today with his Se inferior and has a good handle on his Ti inferior and thinks about logical inconsistencies and cares about and sees logical Ti accuracy with things all the time with his Ti tertiary function. He reads people's emotional state often with his Fe aux and has a social side and likes parties and having a good time and is very laid back which is more common in INFJs compared to ENFJs even if they both can be laid back too at times. INFJs again are extroverted introverts like ISFJs because of Fe aux and we see this in Shanks for sure with his social side and behavior, but this doesn't mean Shanks is a extrovert, Shanks is definitely an introvert for sure.
We see how calm and level headed Shanks is in Luffy's flashback when he doesn't care what the bandits do to him at all and stays perfectly calm and keeps a level head the whole time after the bandits breaks the bottle and spills the liquor on him and his head and hat. He stayed calm the whole time and then later laughed it off with his crew and friends, we see him later get mad with his NF ideals and Fe when he says when people messing with him he doesn't mind but if he hurts someone he cares for then prepare to die. Shanks uses his Ni to predict Blackbeard is trouble, especially after the bad experience he had with him and the scar he gave to him on his eye, his Ni hunch bothers him so much on this that he sent a letter to Whitebeard about it and when Whitebeard as a ENFJ rejected it and thought it was disrespectful with his Fe, Shanks then comes to see Whitebeard and tries again because of his Ni prediction on something bad is gonna happen to Ace in the future if he keeps chasing Blackbeard and goes to tell Whitebeard to stop Ace. Shanks we see again use his Ni dominant function when he says to Rayleigh he met Luffy in East Blue and that he bet on a new era in the future with him since he saw Roger in him and because he said he would be Pirate King and reminded him of Roger too. Shanks Ni and Fe, prediction trouble and caring about the community and society and what's happening with people and the world went to fight and stop Kaidou himself and then we see his Ni and Fe being concerned of the future and society of people in the world by stopping the War in Marineford as well.
We see him in a mysterious cloak again trying to be to himself and looking mysterious and coming to talk to the Gorosei to talk about a certain pirate with his Ni dom behavior thinking about the future and things behind the scenes and Fe aux thinking of society and people again when he spoke to the Gorosei during the Reverie arc. Shanks uses his Ni so much in the story it hurts and its awesome, haha. Shanks is one of the best INFJs of all time, in anime and fiction for sure. His wisdom, bravery, and maturity inspired Luffy and made him go out to see. Luffy as an ENFP and Shanks as an INFJ both have great relationship and bond as a role model for Luffy and younger generation he gives advice and guidance too for Luffy. I can't wait until they meet again and most fans can't wait either for their meeting, hopefully Shanks won't die by Blackbeard even if it will be an amazing plot point and motivation for Luffy. Please Oda, please don't haha.
Aerith Gainsborough - I just wrote a in depth post on Aerith and why she's INFJ from Final Fantasy VII that I'll link down below since it got a good reception and you can see people's opinions on that. Buy yeah to summarize, Aerith is INFJ definitely in my opinion and other people are starting to see it too. She's a Ni dom and very intuitive and uses her intuition and Ni all the time, she's decisive with her Ni and gets confident predictions she can't explain with her Ni hunches often, she's an extroverted introvert as an INFJ which is common INFJs and ISFJs are the most extroverted introverts because of Fe aux in them. She's always making predictions and what's happening or what someone said or meant with her Ni hunch predictions, she always reads people's emotional state with her Fe and cares for society values and respect, manners, and society values. She's not a Fe dom though and isn't using Fe all the time with society values like constantly saying "Say please and thank you. Do you feel good? Is that better? Do you want some more food? Take this you'll feel better. Don't do this, that's inappropriate." Those are all Fe dom lines ENFJs and ESFJs say and do and tell to people constantly with her Fe and Aerith doesn't do this primarily, she does it but only secondary to her Ni dom behavior since she's always using her Ni intuition having hunches all the time.
Aerith's intuition takes precedence over her Fe and expressing her emotions and feeling others emotions as well and caring about society values and respect, she does this with Fe a lot but only secondary to her Ni dom intuition and behavior. This is also the reason Aerith is so laid back as a Fe aux user and INFJ herself. ENFJs and ESFJs can be laid back too but usually there uptight with things a lot as Fe doms which Aerith is never like most of the type with her playful fun and laidback attitude as a INFJ since INFJs are some of the most laidback and unstructured judgers out there and the most extroverted introverts as well as I said about IXFJs before too. In my opinion Aerith is definitely INFJ, her intuition and hunches takes precedence over everything and she's always being decisive and doesn't brainstorm a lot of possibilities like Ne dom or aux Ne users do and are indecisive like they are because they think of all the possibilities, Aerith gets quick conclusions with her Ni and has Ni tunnel vision and wants Cloud to listen to her because in her mind her perspective and conclusion with her Ni is right and the best path forward, classic know it all Ni dom tunnel vision in Aerith here, she showed this when telling Cloud what to do and wanting him to go in the Honey Bee Inn because of the plan she came up with to see Don Corneo, she did this when she snuck back when Cloud tried to leave her and she predicted him leaving perfectly with her Ni and said she's coming no matter what, she also was decisive with her Ni when Aerith and Cloud weren't sure if Don Corneo was lying or not about Shinra's rumor of bringing the pillar down on Sector 7 to get back at Avalanche.
Aerith was the one who saw what he said as most likely being true and made them decide to go and try and stop it with her decisive Ni, she felt with her Ni hunch that it was it was going to fall for sure and that most likely it was true and even said even if we're wrong so what anyway? At least we tried so let's go and stop it and warn people now, all Ni hunch prediction in Aerith here for sure. Aerith also has a decent grip and uses her Ti tertiary pretty well, she sees logical inconsistencies and cares about accuracy on what people said and what's the truth with things and what's accurate information to help them move forward with their goals, she doesn't seem to struggle with Ti at all like a Ti inferior user for ENFJ at all, her Ti is definitely tertiary for INFJ. Aerith struggles with Se inferior and struggles to respond to details in the moment and physical environment with details around her, since she's always in her head thinking about the future and what's going on behind the scenes with her decisive Ni and constant hunches she gets, as a result she struggles to react to details around her in the moment and struggles to pay attention to and responds to details in the sensory world around her, we see this and her weakness with Se and responding to details in the sensory world when she struggles on the rooftops and needs Cloud's help and is very fragile even if she tries to reject his help and tries her best anyway with her inferior Se.
Despite how tough she acts, Se isn't her strong suit and she struggles with it and being in the moment constantly and her rooftop struggle further proves this trait and flaw in her. Aerith also despite her energetic and social side as an extroverted introvert, is very calm and level headed as an introvert. Extroverts can be calm and level headed too but being calm and level headed is more of a Introvert personality trait as we all know. She stayed perfectly calm when she went to save Marlene, wasn't rushing, didn't yell at her or say we need to get out of her now and quickly, her low Se made her not be concerned with spontaneity or reacting to details while in the moment with her Se, which is more commonly used with Se tertiary users like ENFJs or ENTJs, Aerith ignored the moment and what's happening completely and just focused on calming Marlene down first, making her feel better, and was perfectly calm herself the whole time and scene until she finally came around after awhile and then held hands to finally walk out of the Seventh Heaven bar.
She also was very calm again when she calmed down Red XIII, she was quiet in the tube when Professor Hojo came to her, she was calm and nervous and quiet during the end of the game in the Remake and was getting spiritual, mystical, and mysterious with her Ni hunches again and the Sephiroth predictions and everything that happened at the end of the game as you all know before the bike sequence and after in the Remake, she also was calm and quiet and to herself when we meet her being all alone in the church with her flowers and was very introverted in that scene before we meet her, and she goes off to herself and does the same thing when she waters and picks the plants and flowers. Aerith is an amazing character and we all know this, one of the best INFJs of all time and I won't spoil what else happens with her character for anyone that hasn't played the original and are still waiting the later parts of the Remake. I have an in depth INFJ Aerith post I'll link down below, be sure to check it out when you can and are free and able to do so. Here's my Aerith INFJ post down below, some points might be reiteration here from there but there's some stuff I didn't mention here so its still worth checking out down below, it got a good reception from people and I think cleared up some misconceptions on the common ENFJ, ENFP, INFP, and INFJ debate and opinions and confusion on her character and what type Aerith truly is:
Here's my Aerith INFJ posts and opinions, you can check the comments for each one if you wish as they both got a great reception from people which I really like and am happy about:
https://www.reddit.com/FFVIIRemake/comments/i1x0zj/remake_spoilers_aerith_gainsborough_infj_how_she/
https://www.reddit.com/infj/comments/i1wkcl/aerith_gainsborough_infj_how_she_uses_ni_dom_and/
Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho - Another one of the best and greatest INFJs of all time with Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho. He's very intuitive, decisive, structured and organized, and thinks of what's going on behind the scenes all the time and is very future oriented. Kurama always thinks of people's emotional all the time and cares a lot about society values with Fe and social harmony of the group. He looks at logical inconsistencies with tertiary Ti and cares about the truth and accuracy of things and people say with his Ti tertiary. Kurama hates living in the moment and reacting to meaningless details around him with his Se inferior. He's very supportive emotionally and has great insight into things with his Ni dom behavior as well. Kurara is one of the best INFJs of all time ever for sure.
Future Trunks - One of the most stereotypical and greatest INFJs of all time with Future Trunks. Everyone knows Future Trunks is INFJ, I've hardly seen anyone mistype him ever. Future Trunks is intuitive, future oriented, has hunches with his Ni all the time, very decisive and structured and organized and likes to play things safe in a Ni way not a Si way, and is always seeing patterns and thinking of what's going on behind the scenes all the time with his Ni and Ni dom behavior and hates living in the moment and responding and reacting to details today and struggles with details in the sensory world all the time. We see this as we see Future Trunks thinking about the androids on the ship they were flying in together and Krillin calls his name and snaps Future Trunks out of his thoughts and brings him in the moment, showing clear Se inferior here in Future Trunks. He like in this scene as well using his Ni dominant uses also Ti tertiary to wonder and worry about accuracy with things and the truth and cares about logical inconsistencies all the time with his Ti tertiary, we see this in this scene and other scenes with Trunks wondering why these current Androids aren't the same and why they don't add up and match the androids he knows in his time and timeline. He feels the emotional state of others all the time and thinks of people's emotions often and society as a whole and cares a lot about society values and social harmony among groups of people with his Fe aux. Future Trunks thinks about the needs and feelings of thers with his Fe aux to a huge degree but not so much that he's a Fe dom or anything, Future Trunks always is thinking about the future of humanity with his Ni and about society and general public of people and saving them and the future of all earthlings and the timelines as much as possible with his Fe sympathy and emotional supportiveness as an INFJ and his Ni dom future orientness and Fe focus on society, humanity, and the people is the perfect fit for his character as a save the future of humanity time traveling INFJ and his tragedy of his timeline being doomed and loved ones beind all dead with all the Z fighters and heroes besides Bulma who made and came up with the idea to invent the time machine as a ENTP female herself. Future Trunks is one of the greatest INFJs of all time, everybody knows this. Future Trunks, he's great and amazing character, will always love him and his character in Dragon Ball. Future Trunks is INFJ, Kid Trunks is ESTP, and GT Trunks is INTP from Dragon Ball GT.
Future Trunks was listed as INFJ here on the Dragon Ball Z MBTI chart. Feel free to check it out here, I agree with everything and most of the characters MBTI types here on this chart except I strongly disagree with as usual with Videl and Android 16. I and most people type Videl ENTJ and a Te dom focused on efficiency and Ni aux that's very intuitive, future oriented, and reads between the lines and cares about things behind the scenes with her Ni aux. And Android 16 in my opinion is ISFJ and Si dom driven by duty to kill and defeat Goku and his Fe aux cares about the emotional state and society and emotions of others and the animals as well. But besides that and their types, I agree with everyone else on this list and chart here. Check out the DBZ MBTI chart down below:
https://www.personalityclub.com/blog/which-dragonball-z-character-is-your-personality/
Grandpa Gohan - Here's one of the wisest and best INFJs in anime and manga history ever of all time with Grandpa Gohan, the grandfather of Son Goku from Earth. Grandpa Gohan is intuitive and insightful with his dominant Ni and is always thinking about what's going on behind the scenes, the future, and always keeps a level head and likes to lead his opponent on and teach them a life lesson when he's fights like he did with Goku during their fight and didn't care for living in the moment at all or responding to details around him with Se inferior even though he was a great fighter still which is not the definiton of Se anyway, any type can be good at fighting and not be a Se user at all or high Se user, like ENFPs like Goku. Grandpa Gohan always is thinking about and feeling the emotional state of others and cares about society values and social harmony with the group as well. He's very sympathectic with his Fe and kind and loves helping and teaching others life lessons and told Goku to be nice to girls and polite to them always with his Fe aux which Goku listened to and remembered as a Si user as an ENFP for Goku himself. Grandpa Gohan sees logical inconsistencies with Ti tertiary and notices details that are inaccurate with it as well with his Ti ter. Grandpa Gohan is the best and one of the most mature and wisest INFJs of all time next to Rayleigh from One Piece as well. There such great characters and I love and respect their character as people and strive to be like them as a INFJ growing and developing still in this long arduous walk of what we call life.
Deku, Izuku Midoriya - Deku Izuku Midoriya is one of the best and most popular INFJs today. He's definitely a Ni dom and Fe user, he doesn't use Fi or Ne for INFP and definitely doesn't have Te even for inferior confident, efficiency, and being headstrong, even if Te is inferior for INFPs it still comes out when necessary and Deku never shows this and is usually always unconfident and reticent most the time, when Deku is confident he's still being emotional and nice and idealistic and think of the other person's emotions a lot with his Fe aux. Anyways Deku is future oriented as hell with his Ni and definitely a Ni dom and thinks on what's going on behind the scenes a an extreme degree. He thinks about society as a whole and cares for society values and reads people's emotional state to a large degree but still only secondary as a Fe aux with his Ni dom intuition. He sees logical inconsistencies with his Ti caring and thinking about accuracy of things and what people say with his Ti and wonders it things add up and make sense and are true with his Ti tertiary all the time in the series.
Deku takes a lot of notes also with his Ti tertiary function and Ni too looking and thinking on what's going on behind the scenes, his Ti and Ni work perfectly together here when he takes notes down for everything and wants to plan and save them for later with Ni and Ti and being a structured judger as well and his Fe makes him focus on other people and the group or any group of people he sees and heroes he wants to take notes on and he feels there emotional state with his Fe aux as well. Deku is a very organized and structured person and loves planning with his Ni as a INFJ and structured judger as well. He's not a scatter-brained Ne user that brainstorms all possibilities, people mix up his Ti logical analysis and Ni reading between the lines with Ne when that's not the case and Deku has Ni tunnel vision and is decisive and thinks his conclusion he gets early is right and he selfishly sometimes think he has to help and be there over other pro heroes doing it better sometimes and thinks what he thinks in his mind is always correct and the right conclusion with characters criticize his Ni dom tunnel vision faults and Fe aux desire to help the community, people, and society often even if Deku usually is altruistic which he definitely is no doubt and very good hearted as a person for sure, he's just not perfect like anyone besides this positive trait in him to help others and thinking his perspective is right all the time.
Deku struggles with Se inferior and is terrible at responding and reacting to details in the moment, and overall hates living in the moment in general like Se doms like Bakugo as an ESTP. Deku as an INFJ and Bakugo as an ESTP is a perfect dynamic between them in the story since they're complete opposites personality types wise. Deku thinks about what's going on behind the scenes and plans for the future with his Ni and Bakugo lives in the moment and jumps in impulsively with his Se and reacts to details spontaneously in the moment around which fits Bakugo's exploding quirk as well, they complement each other well because Bakugo as a Se dom and ESTP hates and never thinks about the future much and just impulsively jumps into situations with his Se and doesn't think too much until its time to deal with something in the moment and hates planning things at all cost most the time which is the opposite of Deku as a Ni dom himself and INFJ. We see this Ne vs Se conflict especially when Deku and Bakugo team up to fight All Might and argue over Deku wanting to make and do his plan and Bakugo just rushing in and ignoring planning and just raging and wanting to fight All Might head on now. Deku is the GOAT INFJ and one of the best of all time, love Deku and his character and always will like most other people do too. Here's a Deku INFJ post I did recently down below for you to read.
My Deku Izuku Midoriya INFJ post:
https://www.reddit.com/mbti/comments/hdxp8q/deku_mbti_infj_my_hero_academia_mbti_izuku/
Another Deku INFJ opinion here:
https://empathine.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/izuku-deku-midoriya-infj/
Another INFJ Izuku Midoriya opinion from someone and post down below:
https://animembti.tumblr.com/post/112524029246/midoriya-izuku-boku-no-hero-academia-infj
Itachi Uchiha - So with Itachi I find it funny how everyone universally on the planet Earth types this man INFJ and its so right it hurts. I actually am rewatching Shippuuden now so I can't really say too much except from memory only. But despite this I know for a fact Itachi is INFJ still. He's very calm and intuitive, he's very decisive and trust his intuition and hunches all the time. He tells Kisamu what to do and the best way to do things and what the next plan forward there going to do all the time. He reads the emotional state of others all the time and cares for society values all the time and respect and manners too. He focuses on the group and what others feel and think and prefers social harmony and would rather avoid a useful battle that he sees theres no point in doing with his Ni and Fe and avoids meaningless fights and tries to keep peace with people whenever he can. He uses his Ti tertiary to care about accuracy and inconsistencies all the time and hates living in the moment responding to details with his Se inferior. It's Itachi, I don't need to explain this. Everybody knows Itachi is INFJ, that much is obvious, he's like Zoro with everyone knowing he's ISTP so there's no need for me to go on further. Itachi, one of the greatest INFJ anime characters of all time, I'll probably add more points to this post when I get further on Shippuuden on rewatch and have more to say on him. But for now check out this INFJ Itachi post down below:
Here's a Itachi INFJ post here:
https://infjpersonality.tumblr.com/post/130326842362/naruto-itachi-uchiha-infj
Dr. Tenma from Monster - This has been one of the most relatable INFJs ever in my opinion and I relate and always related to Dr. Tenma as an INFJ myself through years always all the time. He's mysterious and to himself a lot, very intuitive and gets hunches about things all the time and is very decisive and structured person. Hates living in the moment responding to details around him with Se inferior and always focuses on the future, the big picture, and goal and what's bothering him intuitively and what's going on behind the scenes with his Ni dom behavior. I've seen Dr. Tenma mistyped INFP before but no Tenma is definitely INFJ. He reads people's emotional state with Fe all the time and cares about society values and social harmony and the group with his Fe aux and sees only a few possibilities with his Ni and is focused and decisive and can sometimes be a bit stubborn with his Ni tunnel vision as well with his Ni dominant as an INFJ for Dr. Tenma. He makes for an amazing dynamic with Johan another INFJ in this story and INFJ villain with him at that. Dr. Tenma is one of the best INFJ anime characters of all time and Monster is one of the best mangas and anime of all time too. Definitely check it out if you haven't already, its an amazing seinen manga and one of the best seinen manga of all time too for sure.
Kanna from 20th Century Boys - Definitely INFJ for Kanna from 20th Century Boys. She's intuitive, decisive, sometimes can predict the future confidently without explanation why. Uses her hunches all the time and reads the emotional state of others all the time as well with her Fe aux and cares for society values and harmony and what groups of people feel on things. Uses her Ti ter to logical analyze the truth and cares about being accurate and questions what everybody says and wonders if there telling the truth with things with her Ti. She's not really interested in being in the moment with her Se and prefers to think about the future a lot with her Ni instead and is always in her head thinking about something on her mind and focuses on things going on behind the scenes a lot with her Ni dom behaviors. Kanna is INFJ definitely and one of the best ones out there for sure ever of all time too.
Princess Zelda from The Legend of Zelda - Another GOAT INFJ again, haha. We have so many greatest of all time INFJs in anime and video games that its crazy. It's Zelda, she's future oriented and relies on hunches and her intuition all the time and is very decisive and likes to guide people the right way and how to do things. Focuses on other peoples emotions a lot and cares for society values and social harmony of groups of people all the time and society as a whole with her aux Fe. Sees logical details and cares for accuracy with things and is very suspicious on the truth with things and people like her suspecting Ganondorf was evil with her Ti tertiary and Ni dom looking behind the scenes here. Doesn't care for the sensory world much or responding to details in the moment with Se at all as a clear Se inferior user for Zelda. If anyone's one of the greatest INFJs of all time its Princess Zelda for sure, she's one of the best ones for sure ever of all time, no doubt. Also I noticed people think her character and type changes like INTJ in Breath of the Wild, but I disagree and can see why people think so. I think she stays INFJ the whole way in majority if not all the games but that's just my opinion. Check out this Princess Zelda INFJ post too below.
Here's the Princess Zelda INFJ post:
https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/149999157192/the-legend-of-zelda-princess-zelda-infj
Chrollo Lucifer from Hunter x Hunter - Definitely INFJ with Chrollo Lucifer from Hunter x Hunter. He's intuitive, decisive, visionary and future oriented and structured and organized. Reads the emotional state of others a lot and cares about social harmony and groups of peoples emotions and feelings with his Fe aux and cares a lot about society values as well too. He's very intuitive and uses his Ni all the time, he reads people and is always thinking about what's going on behind the scenes with situations and people and their motivations and likes to bring it out and find out the truth of people's motivations as he reads between the lines with his Ni dom behavior and Fe focusing on other people's feelings a lot in situations he's in and even sometimes sympathizing with his Fe aux. He sees logical details and inconsistencies and cares about accuracy and the truth with things and people's motivations with his Ti tertiary and struggles to live in the moment responding to details, sometimes is good with his Se inferior though like with his sneak attack and spontaneous acting with the girl even though he still got caught on camera still and wasn't fast enough still, and still prefers to be in his head thinking about the future and reading between the lines with his Ni. Chrollo is a perfect INFJ and most people agree on this with him as well too.
Monkey D. Dragon from One Piece - One of the best and greatest INFJs of all time, speaks very symbolically and about the future and doesn't care for accomplishes in the moment with his Se inferior as he says once they help a country or solved a country to not wallow on small victories and focus on maintaining success and focus on winning in the future and any troubles and tribulations to come in in the future as well. He focuses on people's emotional state and cares a lot about people and others and is emotionally supportive with his Fe aux as we see when he looks at Sabo and then pities him and takes him on. He uses his Fe aux to rile a crowd and says a Fe aux and INFJ Ni dom speech to them and gives them the option to work with him to fix this corruption the goverment did to them in this world. Society values, society as a whole and the general public and what the World Goverment is doing to all people in the One Piece world is everything to Dragon but despite this his Fe is still aux and second to his Ni dom symbolism and depth he says with his Ni dominant behavior and he looks to the future for society. And he's also very patient with his Ni and says the time for us to meet in the future Luffy will come so be patient. Monkey D. Dragon, one of the best INFJ anime characters ever of all time for sure.
Silvers Rayleigh from One Piece - Ni dom, insightful and wise with his Ni dom behavior, emotionally supportive, nice, kind, and inviting and caring person with his Fe aux caring about and reading people's emotional state with his Fe aux all the time. Sees and thinks about logical inconsistencies a lot and deduces things and wonders about accuracy with things and is good at problem solving situations and seeing logical details with his Ti ter. Doesn't care about living in the moment responding to details with his Se inferior and prefers to think about the future with his Ni dominant and reads between the lines more often with his Ni as well. Rayleigh thinks about deep and spiritual things like destiny and wonders if things happen for a reason and he's very decisive and is a very great teacher to Luffy when he teaches him Haki as a excellent INFJ trainer, teacher, and counselor. Rayleigh is overall very smart, kind and caring, thinks of others emotions and is very helpful and supportive person, and is very insightful person as well. Rayleigh is one of the best INFJs out there of all time for sure too, definitely.
Vinsmoke Reiju from One Piece
Serena from Dragon Quest XI
Johan Liebert from Monster
Van Hohenheim from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, He's an Ni dom and Fe aux, uses Ti ter and Se inferior. He's not INTP, I strongly disagree with that one. Common mysterious INFJ that goes there own way and feels misunderstood by the world and is very idealistic and emotion inside.
Haku from Spirited Away
Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin
Sensui from Yu Yu Hakusho
Avatar Roku from Avatar The Last Airbender
Adult Simon from Gurren Lagann
Rosalina from Super Mario
Armin from Attack on Titan
Kiritsugu Emiya from Fate/Zero
Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke
Suzaka from Code Geass
Norman from Promised Neverland
Morty from Pokemon, all iterations
Erika from Pokemon, all iterations
Blake from RWBY
Here's my Nico Robin INTJ post and how she uses Ni dom, Te aux and Fi ter and Se inferior as an INTJ female anime character here:
https://www.reddit.com/intj/comments/h7nhx8/nico_robin_is_intj_one_piece_mbti_typing_how_she/
Also fictionalcharactermbti agrees with me here that Nico Robin is INTJ from One Piece:
https://fictionalcharactermbti.tumblr.com/post/160757235829/favourite-female-intj-characters-some-of-the
I type Nico Robin INTJ. I type Tsuyu Asui INTP from My Hero Academia. People type Emiya from Fate Zero ISFP, I used to think ENFJ but people are convincing me otherwise. I type Alphonse Elric INFP. I type Hinata Hyuga INFP. I type Uncle Iroh INFP from Avatar. I type Aang ENFP from Avatar. I type Chihiro INFP from Spirited Away. I type Son Gohan INFP from Dragon Ball. I type Killua INTP from Hunter x Hunter. People type Meruem INTJ from Hunter x Hunter. I type Kurisu INTJ from Steins Gate. I type Sabrina INTJ from Pokemon. And yes I type Elsa INFJ, fight me ISTJ fans, haha. Just kidding, or am I? Lol, haha. And Anna I type ENFP as a Ne dom and Si inferior user for her just talking and finishing up on Frozen for this discussion. I type Aizen INTJ from Bleach. I type Brock ISFJ from Pokemon. I type Shinji Ikari INFP from Evangelion. I type Hiei INTJ from Yu Yu Hakusho. I type Sasuke Uchiha INTJ from Naruto. I type Kyon ISTJ from Haruhi Suzumiya.

Yesterday, I (F14) posted on my Instagram story "Mama said I'm getting adopted. Can't wait to see Norman." If you didn't know, this is a Promised Neverland reference, an anime in which human orphans are eaten by aliens when they get "adopted". Two of my friends, "D"(F14) and "S"(F14), agreed to post "rip op, fly high angel" and a lot more silly emojis. My best friend, "A"(F14) did not want to do this. Well, one person, let's call him "G"(M14), thought I actually died and lost his shit when "A" posted that I wasn't actually dead. G posted that I'm an attention seeker because I'm "fake dying" for attention. Now, "G" told "D" that he didn't actually think I was dead in the first place. I have no other idea why he's making a big deal out of this other than the fact that his friend group hates me or that he's just doing it to make drama.
I was in a call the same night with "D" and "A" as well as another friend as this all was happening. I told them how ridiculous it was for "G" to be calling me an attention seeker over an anime reference. "A" responded with, "Well yeah, you did it for attention." Honestly, that broke my heart. I tried to explain myself, but she said, "What does that have to do with anything?" I'm sure she isn't thinking about it, and has probably moved on. However, I'm breaking down in tears. Does she really see me as an attention seeker? I don't know if she fully understands that I did it only as a Promised Neverland reference. It hurts to see her messaging me as if nothing happened, but I don't know what I should do. I'm scared that if I confront her to clear things up, she'll say that I just wanted attention from my peers, which was definitely not my intention. I know that she hates liars, so I'm scared that she thinks I'm making excuses. Tell me Reddit, what do I do?

I finished the promised neverland manga today, and here are my overall thoughts on the anime, and then the manga
I ABSOLUTELY loved the anime. The suspense and thriller factor were so awesome, and I was kept on my toes the whole time, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger, especially the last one haha. I liked how in the anime, everyone in the trio kinda got their time to shine; ray with the Mama backstory, norman with the plan, Emma with her executing the plan. Isabella's lullaby, the audio is *chefs kiss. So haunting yet so beautiful. The last episode added such depth to Mamas backstory and the whole demon world system it left me wanting more.
Now for the manga. I have some opinions haha. Firstly, one of the biggest things that drew me to the show was the creepy, thriller factor, I really enjoyed playing the cat and mouse game with Mama and the kids. However, in the manga, the story very quickly turns actiony, especially when the guns were introduced to the story. I really liked the Goldie Pond arc, but I felt like they kept adding more and more characters without really giving them development, so I didn't care much for them, and it was hard to care about their deaths. There weren't really many points where I was genuinely afraid for Emma or Ray dying after goldie pond, and it went from "outwitting" (which was what I loved so much about the anime) to a typical action storyline.
They kinda did my man Ray kinda dirty, he barely got any paper time and with someone who got the same scores as norman, his "genius" wasn't really shown much and it kinda became a one-man show with Emma in the center of it. Also, I felt like norman being Minerva was kinda a cop-out. Sure I was happy that Norman was alive, but it wasn't the same norman that I loved from the anime, which one could argue was the whole point, but eh I digress.
My biggest critique about the manga was that they didn't show enough humanization of the demons to make me care about saving them in the way that Emma did. Because of the time skips, as a reader, I wasn't given enough substance to actually care about the demons, I would've liked to see the goldie pond kids living amongst the demons in disguise a lot more, and seen those familial demon interactions to not support demon eradication like Emma. It would've explained the divide between norman's demon bloodthirsty squad and the goldie pond kids much more too. Also, I felt that the ending, especially with Mujika becoming the queen of the new demon world was a little rushed. Mamas death really hurt me but as a plot and character development device, I understand. I would've wished to see more of her before that point though because I felt unfulfilled after the epic Mama backstory at the and of the anime.
I felt the ending was alright, and I felt that it would have been much more impactful if the punishment was everyone else forgetting Emma, instead of Emma forgetting them. Since she was the one who redid the promise with tafiti, I felt like that that would've punished her in a more impactful way (which yes I know tafiti didn't want humans to suffer as much but still). Emma forgetting everyone punished everyone else more than Emma. I felt it would've been better for the story because we been knew since the beginning that emmas love for her family transcends all, but if her family still loved her just as much without memories, I feel like would've made for a better ending.
overall, I still really loved the story, it was quite a unique one imo, and I'm excited for future seasons still because I still really loved the characters and the animation.

So I just finished reading the promised neverland and I gotta say I really enjoyed it, through and through. I did think there were lower parts and I agree that goldy pond is the best arc. But with all the people telling me “oh it really falls flat” I honestly didn’t think so, the art stayed the same quality, the characters were enjoyable throughout, even tho some didn’t get developed as much I do have my favourites. I can see why some people didn’t like the leuvis plot twist but honestly I didn’t think it was an ass pull, it clearly showed that leuvis’s body wasn’t there at like the end of the goldy pond arc, and later during the fight with the queen it gives an explanation. Although I wasn’t a fan of how it handled as much, I’d rather just all royals had a second core, but the point I’m making is that it didn’t come outta nowhere and even tho the explanation was a bit off I do think it was intended from the start and it didn’t affect how much I love Leuvis as a character. Also I like Peter and Isabella’s send off aswell, even tho I feel like if could’ve used an extra like 2 chapters but I can see what the author was trying to do and I respect it.
Speaking of characters I really like the main cast of Emma Ray and Norman, not having a clear favourite between the three. I really liked Norman’s arc of becoming the only one he can rely on to get this done and only him suffering because of it, because I can relate to that sorta struggle. Now if I had to pick my top 5 I’d say 5. Yugo 4. Mujika 3. Norman 2. Sonju 1. Leuvis
I thought the send off between sonju mujika and the children was really touching and same with the ending. I feel like if Emma has regained everything she lost the story wouldn’t have had meaning but killing her off would do the same, so I feel like her ending was great.
Now I have ranked each arc (according to the wiki’s arc definitions) while I read the arc now I’ll do my best to explain why I gave each arc the score I did.
-Introduction: 7/10 I ranked this 7 because it greatly subverted my expectations while reading and made me super interested in what was to follow.
-Jailbreak: 8/10 probably my 3rd favourite arc because of the really smart game of chess like moments between mom, krone and the kids. Really enjoyed it
-Promised Forest: 8/10 my second favourite arc because it introduces 2 of my top 5 and perfectly expands the world and really changing up the pace of the manga
-Search for Minerva: 8/10 introduces another one of my top 5 and does a great job in expanding more of the world, showing that maybe Minerva isn’t safe and ending with the plot twist that he died was a brilliant subversion
-Goldy Pond Battle: 8.5/10 probably the strongest arc Imo, it has the most action we’ve seen in this Shonen up to this point and it’s pretty good action, reveals some great info about demons, including introducing 5 new demons who are all great in their own right, Leuvis definitely being my fav introduced, second is Luce because of how he perfectly encapsulates all twitter users lmao
-Cuvitidala: 7/10 in my opinion the weakest arc of the series but still not bad, I did think the pacing was a bit all over the place but the hook of the arc, the hideout raid was really good and definitely hit me in the feels with yugo and Lucas, but definitely not the best.
-King of Paradise: 7.5/10 I did like this arc specifically the new characters introduced, the explanation of lambda and the reveal of what happened to Norman, and how he’s become this dictator on the side of justice even tho his methods are questionable, but realistic for him to make because of his cold logical personality shown in the jailbreak arc, specifically outing ray as the traitor for example. Still I felt like there was something missing from goldy pond which made this little section the hardest for me to read without being burnt out
-Seven Walls: 8/10 I really liked this arc because it had explained in a pretty cool way what the seven walls and what “he” was, and the imagery and logic used were really good, like how they were subconsciously thinking of a desert because of 2 unrelated things in the riddle, brilliant. I feel like this was where the manga started to get exiting again and I started to read more frequently.
-Imperial Capital Battle 8/10 more actual action like in goldy pond, and I really liked sonju and mujika’s return, and the fight with the queen. I also loved Geelans absolute massacre of the 5 regent houses, which were all really cool. I love how we saw rverk back in like chapter 17 or something, amazing foreshadowing. I did feel they were butchered a bit quickly but I don’t think they were meant to be important considering Geelan only had quarrels with Dozza, the queen and Rvrek for fucking his clan over, and I enjoyed seeing how all the house clans related to a poacher, really cool.
-Return to Grace Field 7.5/10 now this is kind of the same with the paradise arc but I enjoyed it more because of the action, and moms redemption. I also really liked how Peter ended up even if some think it was rushed, I think he did his job, and he was definitely unsettling, like you can tell his brothers death fucking his brain in a way, some of his faces in the panels matched Krone and I loved it. All and all enjoyed it.
-Human World 7/10 now the epilogue I think was good, I do feel like it could’ve done with a couple more chapters or even just a few more panels but other than that I really liked what they did with Emma and the human world, and the parallels it makes to our own and our possible future. I really liked the commentary on how the demon world and our world are too different and we could end up like them if we don’t get our shit together, and the ending was really sweet.
So yea that’s most of my opinions in the promised neverland, I really enjoyed it start to end, I’d say don’t listen to the people who make really negative opinions about it and go experience it, then either join in the criticism or praise the produce instead based on your experience.
If I had to rate the manga outta 10 it’s be an 8 maybe an 8.5. What do you lot think of my opinions? Am I absolutely wrong? Feel free to yell at me in the comments lmao

I adore this manga and I honestly believe it doesn’t get enough love.
The Promised Neverland: Response to Critiques
The story does not deteriorate in quality. - I think the main issue here is that people expected the whole story to be similar in style, tone and structure to the jailbreak arc. Part of what makes this story so beautiful is how it mixes many different genres seamlessly into this story. - The intelligence of the plot, foresight of the author, moral complexity, excellent character development and generally high stakes never fade from this story.
Battle sequences are incredible. - The fights are intelligent, beautifully drawn and, for the most part, high stakes. - Strategy, creativity, astuteness and cunning are all necessary in battle. - The villains are formidable foes with very distinctive personalities and motives. They seem to really pose a threat to the main characters. - The battles are very unique to other shounen battles.
Emma is an amazing shounen protagonist, if not THE best. - She’s bullish, has unwavering morals and is a really optimistic idealist but it’s all essentially because she is a kind, empathetic and caring girl. She’s not just a determined dreamer for the sale of the plot, she’s an organic character. - She develops massively as a character. She learns how to make tough choices to keep her family safe. She is learns that the world isn’t black and white, that even their enemies have dreams and values and families. She accepts that everything is down to determinism; under different circumstances, she could have been friends with her enemies or she could have because a monster herself or her enemies could have become heroes. That’s fucking mature; most adults in the real world cannot grasp this. - She isn’t a Mary Sue. She works ridiculously hard to achieve her goals and sometimes she fails miserably. She faces setbacks constantly. She loses allies. She isn’t the most capable character and she needs the help of her family to achieve her goals. Yes, she uses talk no jutsu a lot, but that’s just who she is and it doesn’t always work.
The story does not lack high stakes. - Up until the Cultividala Arc, the stakes are very high and even this arc rectifies this issue by killing Yuugo and Lucas. - Towards the end of the story the stakes aren’t as high due to many many death fake outs, but I felt constantly worried that Emma would sacrifice herself for the promise and she did.
The mangaka did not come up with things as he went. Here are some examples of incredible foresight; - Sonju and Mujika say that they don’t eat humans and that Mujika doesn’t need to, setting up the ‘evil blood’. - Adam is used to set up Norman’s return. - Leuvis’s body is not present on the streets of the hunting ground after he dies, foreshadowing the ‘two cores’. - Phil “doesn’t know what happened to Mama” which corresponds with her rise to grandma.
The Promised Neverland: Critiques of My Own
Less death fake outs and key characters have to die. - Sonia, Paula, Sandy and Zack should have definitely died as none because crucial to the plot. - The children that Andrew killed should have been established and named characters from Grace Field. - Zazie, Cislo, Barbara and Vincent should have all died. There was no real reason to give them fake outs. - Don or Gilda should have died towards the end to give these characters a notable arc.
Little development of supporting characters in the second half of the story. - The Cultividala arc should have allowed at least Violet to stand out. - Oliver and Gillian really made an impression, but they should have been fleshed out even more. - Ayshe was a really interesting character who needed more time to shine. - Don, Gilda, Anna and Nat should have played more major roles. - Sonju should have been allowed more internal monologuing at the end. - Norman’s goons are mostly obnoxious and irritating. Perhaps they needed the opportunity to be realised fully.
The battle against the demon royalty - The battle was overly convoluted, and lacks the intelligence and creativity of all the other battles. - Nonetheless, Mujika’s monologue is excellent and the Queen’s defeat to her own greed is very fitting.
Norman lacks redemption and Peter Ratri does not face consequences - Norman recognised that he has become a monster himself but he needed to take responsibility somehow or moments to really prove his loyalty (like Yuugo). - Emma’s monologue to Ratri is one of the best moments in the story, but he shouldn’t have taken his own life, it’s way too easy for this Nazi. - Ratri should have run away from her like a coward and the demon that killed Isabella should have eaten him. Poetic justice; he needs to be held accountable for his actions (just like Isabella).
The Ending.... - Chapter 178 is the last chapter in my head. - All in or all out. Emma should have been either completely separated from her family or wholly kept together with. - Amnesia is always a bad idea. If she died, at least she would have died as Emma, and not live on as a shell of the person she use to be. - The last 3 chapters are so rushed. New, irrelevant characters are introduced and there is too much exposition about unimportant offscreen developments. - I can’t accept that the amnesia-struck Emma would blindly follow these strangers. - What happened to don’t place the weight of the world on your shoulders, Emma?

If you could change something about TPN (whether that is the literary genre, characterization, plot events, locations, timeline, relationships, interactions, etc.), what would they be?
I am hearing many people complaining how TPN went downhill, that it should receive its axe soon, that it is predictable, and that it is not "hype" anymore.
If I have the ability to change something about TPN, I would definitely want more of the following:
1) more gore - more haunting, or jump-scare scenes (I miss those); 2) more tragedy - more tragic scenes or tragic story arcs, tragic romance is also okay whether that's between Norman and Emma OR Ray and Emma (related to #6 below); 3) macabre themes - less battle scenes, more mind-boggling, mind-games 4) more angst - less fighting, more psychological warfare; 5) perhaps, more bloody death scenes unlike to what we have now (which definitely leans more to the typical adventure, supernatural, fantasy Shonen genre). 6) more Shojo / romantic undertones - TPN editor (Mr. Sugita) discouraged Shirai to put romantic undertones on character relationships, related to #2 above
I just wanna bring up a discussion here using this special edition Q & A (of volume 13) from Kaiu Shirai. Below are the moments that could have happened had the editor not stepped in to get TPN Escape Arc to its manga cannon quality.
Also, I love the Escape Arc because of the psychological warfare, dark, suspense, and thriller themes. I don't get those strong vibes anymore once the kids left the house. I have always thought that Grace Field orphanage is a haunted house, and I think this concept is presented accurately in the anime 😁👌🏼📺.
Please let me know what you think, and whether you would like to see the 300-paged original TPN draft (if there is an art book, or an exhibition book where that 300-paged draft is presented, I would definitely want to read it). 😁📖👌🏼
Interview starts below:
Interviewer: Were there any places during the series where you deviated from your initial plan?
Kai Shirai: Tons of them:
1) Mom’s secret room and William Minerva didn’t exist at first. 2) According to the initial plan, Krone didn’t die, and 3) when Emma came back to the House after escaping, I had an idea that Gilda would have become the Sister and 4) Krone would be the current Mom. 5) And also Ray was supposed to die… 6) [Norman did not say he 'liked' Emma (see below)]
There really are a whole lot of things. I do have something like an initial plan that I settled on at the beginning, but it changes all over the place in order to make the flow of the story as interesting as possible when it’s read in book form, and because we got color pages, and when I want to emphasize a turning point… (laughs)
The main points have barely changed at all, but the way the story gets to them, and the characters’ feelings, are different. I’m pretty sure that, long ago, the part where Norman said he liked Emma wasn’t there. It feels as though it’s simultaneously pretty much the same and pretty different. I think weekly serials should have a live-performance feel to them.
Source: The promised neverland wiki-list of interviews (Volume 13 Special Edition Q&A - Full Article Translation)
Website: https://yakusokunoneverland.fandom.com/wiki/Interviews

I finished watching season 4 not too long ago and began rewatching it later on. Since nobody I know cares about my opinions, I'll share them here. There are going to be spoilers, in case you haven't watched it yet and accidentally clicked. Or in case you happen to want spoilers. I don't know nor do I care, you do you.
Let's start with the opening songs/animations. Polaris by BLUE ENCOUNT was a pretty good song, at first it caught be off guard because I was expecting one of those J-pop songs like The Day. This song was more of a rock-type song, if we're going by Pokemon types. Or music genres. I feel like the animation could be a teensy bit better, but I could say that for all of them. There was too much "epic character introduction" parts than the actual arc introduction. When I watch an anime opening, I expect to see parts that will most likely be better explained in the actual show, like in The Promised Neverland season 1 opening, once the beat drops Emma, Norman, and Ray can be seen running in the forest at high speeds. Or like how in Ray's little "introduction" part, he covers the camera with his hand. There's also a puddle that Emma's foot splashes into towards the end of it, indicating that the current arc is over and the new one will begin next season. I like openings like that, where it foreshadows what'll happen next. I'm not saying that they didn't do that with Polaris, as part of the Nighteye-All Might argument can be seen, Overhaul was there, etc but they could've executed it better. Since the Overhaul arc took up almost half of the whole season, he deserved a little more screentime. Eri only gets a few actual lines in the Polaris area of the season, so the Deku-Eri-falling-over-the-ocean-as-the-sun-sets scene could've been replaced by, say, a little more of Chisaki or Fat Gum. The very end of the Polaris animation was pretty good, I liked how Ochako got a few well-deserved seconds of screentime, as she seems to be depressed, or at least sad, at the end of the Overhaul arc. The song in itself was alright, but I feel like I don't get a say because I prioritize listening to heavy metal.
Now for the second opening, Star Marker. Talk about overrated. It was, indeed, wholesome seeing Jiro get all of that screentime since she is ignored so often, but come on. This opening is too bright and cheerful for a season that started out so dark. They were literally talking about how Chisaki cut up his "daughter" and stuffed it into bullets a few episodes ago. Really? I think that this whole arc could've been scrapped. Filler, filler, filler. "Oh hey! Remember what happened five minutes ago? Well here's a flashback for in case you don't! Your favorite character is Jiro? Let's make an whole season mainly about her! Gentle Criminal? La Brava? Nah! That battle should only last like two episodes despite all the buildup!" Honestly. I can't say I didn't expect such a sunny opening after Overhaul gets his hands cut off, because that's just what this show does. They create this awesome character with an unique backstory, make him battle the protagonist, maybe kill off a few fan favorites or erase their quirks, and then immediately switch to a happy arc. I don't understand why everyone thinks this opening is so great. Maybe for a seemingly "bright" and "happy" anime like The Promised Neverland, possibly even Demon Slayer if it's in the right context. But no, not an anime as complex as mha. Seriously, they went out of their way to give almost every character a backstory and blood type. I understand that this opening was only appropriate for the way that the anime is going. Still, they did Gentle dirty.
Knock, knock, it's the Overhaul arc. I actually kind of liked Chisaki. I wouldn't call him a favorite of mine, but I enjoyed watching his debut. He made a wonderful villain and looked fly as heck. With a quirk like his, they could've stretched the arc out to last the whole season if there was enough filler. Rewatching this now, I realize that there is way too much filler. Flashbacks, broken bones, repetitive speech, Eri, character development. That's literally the Overhaul arc in a nutshell. Maybe a little more Eri. Why does everyone like Eri so much? If I actually got to see her quirk start to get somewhat controllable I might like her more, but really. I fully acknowledge that Chisaki abused her quirk and in a way kidnapped her. But can't the heroes just send her off to an orphanage and deal with it? Before you go off on me let's look at this realistically. For the sake of the argument, how about we assume Chisaki is dead because his quirk sure is. Alright, the League of Villains killed off Chisaki ('s quirk). Now there's this random kid that formed a bond with a few students. The kid can't control her quirk and the only one who can stop it is sleep deprived and depressed. Do you keep the kid near all of these people who are actually important to the story or do you send her off to an orphanage where she has a good chance of finding happiness? The first choice? Well let's look at it this way, then. You know the pro hero, Endeavor? Now the number one hero? Yeah that guy abused his family and shunned all of his kids except for the one with the cool quirk. Almost everyone hates him. Are you going to keep him in the story or push him away for being a jerk? Most would choose the latter. But no. They keep him in. They try to redeem him. Really? I think it's obvious what I'm trying to say so let's move to the Deku-Chisaki fight. Now that was cool. I liked how they suddenly decided to make Chisaki huge. They could've done it a lot earlier, or let him do something other than break the ground a million times but hey, the shounen protagonist needed yet another turning point. I feel like the battle could've been even better if Eri jumped off of Deku's back and roundhouse kicked Chisaki (JOKE). Are the pro heroes going to keep ignoring how OP Deku is? Going by One Punch Man standards, Chisaki was probably almost a God Level threat. If they had let him reign, he would most likely cause a lot of destruction, but not enough to pose as a threat to human race. Deku pimp slaps him and throws him on the ground. Dragon lady says thanks. The end? No extra credit for Deku? Jesus christ.
Knock knock, it's the second half of season 4. I smell some bullcrap, Mr Krabs. I already voiced a few of my opinions when I talked about the Star Marker opening. Was the school festival really necessary? I get that they needed to introduce Class B a little better but really? Hasn't this show had enough comic relief? Nighteye friggin dies and they have a party. Wow. If I were to sum up this arc in one sentence, I'd say "Emo punk girl sings while green kid shatters pink girl's hopes and dreams." The Endeavor-High End fight was pretty random. Why was Hawks even there if his backstory was barely talked about? Honestly, if you're going to make a fan favorite at least give him something better than wings and looks. Do I need to say more?
I think this was a pretty great season at first, but then it fades away into a mere joke. If you want to watch an anime that's sort of on the same track as this show in general, I recommend Death Note. It's less cheerful and more "imma kill you next episode oh wait what's your name haha I know your name imma kill you now lmfao". Go ahead and take my views on this/these show/shows with a grain of salt.

There's an interview with Shirai and Demizu in the mini-artbook for volume 13, so I wrote up some of the interesting things and translated a few other parts directly. (All of this stuff was translated and written off the top of my head, so if anyone sees mistakes, please feel free to correct me!)
​
Highlights from the main interview:
​
When they did Poppy's Wish, Demizu had her choice of several different one-shots to illustrate, but that one was her favorite.
Shirai describes Emma as energetic, "like light," kind of motherly, and idealistic. She keeps the balance between Norman, who supports her, and Ray, who argues but helps anyway.
Because the main three all have exactly the same background, Shirai had to focus on differentiating them by their values and priorities.
Shirai requested that Demizu take special care to make Emma and Norman's designs very different. She came up with a bunch of potential designs for Ray, but both Shirai and their editor passed those over in favor of a random doodle (that she had almost junked) with the note "Ray looks like he'd be popular if one of his eyes were covered." Apparently Ray was more "wholesome-looking" in the original designs.
The staff rejected the earliest demon designs for looking too human, so Shirai left it to Demizu to make them look creepier and more alien. She tried a bunch of different approaches, including one where the demons had transparent bodies with visible internal organs, and ones themed on Captain Hook and the crocodile. She had fun with it, since she likes drawing monsters.
Demizu says "There are still secrets to the demons," and Shirai responds that they have designs to match... whatever it is they're hinting at.
When asked about the escape arc, Shirai and Demizu talk about having a rough time, desperately trying to keep up with the pace of weekly serialization. When asked for details, Shirai says that he would sometimes end up sending incomplete breakdowns so that Demizu could start on the artwork while he finished the chapter. Chapter 23 was especially bad - he couldn't get the breakdowns done for two weeks. He wanted to do something with an impact since they'd be getting a color page, so he decided to kill off Krone, but he couldn't make any progress because he couldn't figure out what Grandma thought of Krone. (He adds that people often tell him that he gets writer's block from the weirdest things.)
Demizu had trouble because she decided it would be fun to try to do all the backgrounds herself, since she likes the House. She quickly fell behind and had to get assistants to help her. She had mostly done design work before TPN started, and she came up with the designs for the House itself, plus ages, personalities, and room assignments (!) for all the kids. Shirai says that made the breakdowns easier for him to draw.
Shirai's favorite parts of the escape arc are chapters 14 and 25. Demizu likes the scenes showing mealtime at the House.
The string telephone in Norman's suitcase was Demizu's idea. Shirai originally had it being empty, and the addition inspired the bonus comic in volume 4. Demizu mentions that she doesn't think it's the same one as in the volume 2 bonus comics. Norman was probably sick many times after that, so she figures that they probably made a new one each time, and he packed the most recent one.
Shirai says that the above is just one example of how Demizu contributes to the story, and that TPN wouldn't be the same series without her input. Asked for more examples, he mentions Norman's creepy half-smile in the last panel of ch. 9. He had originally intended to make Norman seem like an innocent kid, but after seeing how Demizu drew him, Shirai decided that would be more interesting and changed his approach. Asked why she drew him that way, Demizu replies that, after considering how Norman might have felt in that scene, she thought it wouldn't work to give him the same kind of facial expressions he'd had up to then.
Shirai says he often makes unreasonable requests like "draw him with an expression that will make people want to read the next chapter." (He did this regarding Ray in ch. 13, for instance.)
Shirai says that a lot of things have changed from his initial plans. William Minerva (!) and Isabella's secret room didn't exist at first. Krone wasn't supposed to die, and Emma was supposed to return to the House to find that Gilda had become a Sister (!!) with Krone as the Mama. Ray was supposed to die. Norman never said that he liked Emma.
The most important parts of the story don't change, but Shirai alters other things all the time.
Asked what characters they would compare themselves to, Shirai picks Ray for his tendency to lose hope and give up. (He specifically says, the bad parts of Ray's personality, not the cool ones.) Also Don, because he sees himself as a nobody.
Demizu says she's the most like Tohma, because he looks like the self-portraits she'd draw of herself as a little kid. Her favorite is Lannion, who she put a lot of her favorite (visual?) elements into.
Shirai responds that he thinks Demizu is like Norman (for being reliable) or Phil (for being innocent), so she compares him to Isabella and Leuvis (?!). She laughs and says that there's a lot of Shirai himself in Leuvis' lines, then adds that she's expecting to add Peter to the list. Shirai counters that they both put a lot of themselves into all of the characters.
The interviewer asks who they would want to be friends with if they were in the House, and Shirai picks Phil, for being so friendly and cheerful. Demizu agrees with his choice but says she'd choose Emma and Lannion first.
​
Character Design Concepts (direct translation):
​
Emma
Shirai: "Five years old on the inside" and "a girl who is like an innocent boy." I remember requesting "not masculine, but not an object of romantic interest for readers, either."
Demizu: I wanted to make her lively and a bit androgynous. I had various ideas for her hairstyle, but it was decided from the start that it would be short. I like girls with long hair, too, so I also had a concept for her with a ponytail.
​
Norman
Demizu: Norman was supposed to be slender, but it was difficult to show that difference between him and the other children. All of them wear the same clothes, plus Ray is also pretty skinny, and Emma is a girl.
Shirai: I had a lot of out-there demands. "He's not the prince, he's the horse." And on top of that, I asked for something like "angelic, and a bit ethereal." At first, I got a Norman who looked fairly healthy, so I responded with the request to make him "a little more thin and fragile." At that point, Demizu-sensei drew the image of "Norman, who can't get the lid off a jar" that's in the bonus material in volume 1.
(Note: The Japanese equivalent of "knight in shining armor" is "prince on a white horse")
Demizu: I had Norman with more striking hair, too.
Shirai: At first, I meant to go with a simple design philosophy, so I think I caused her a lot of trouble.
​
Ray
Demizu: There was something vague about wanting him to match Isabella.
Shirai: It was about the black hair and dark eyes.
Demizu: Oh, that's right. Other than that, what he has in common with Isabella are his eyelids and eyebrows, I guess... So I could emphasize a sharpness that would make you wonder if he would become more like her as he grew up. But I couldn't spoil that, so I made the balance between Emma, Norman, and Ray first priority.
​
Isabella
Shirai: I requested "a woman who is poised and dignified, like a soldier and like a ballerina" and "make her a mom, not a teacher or a maid." Demizu-sensei adds idiosyncratic features to the designs depending on their characteristics, so that you can distinguish them by their silhouettes, but it turned out that if she did that for Isabella, it would look wrong. So it ended up that "Isabella's lack of distinguishing characteristics is her distinguishing characteristic." Because of that, she has basically the same kind of design as in my makeshift drawings from the original breakdowns. That turned out to look dignified and refined because it's Demizu-sensei's version of Isabella. Since her design didn't change much, it's easy for me to draw when I'm signing autographs.
​
Krone
Shirai: At the time, I considered the option of making Krone white.
Demizu: Not all of Krone's designs were originally black. I submitted a variety of designs, and she ended up being black.
Shirai: A white Krone would have been pretty good, too! A strong-looking, muscular young woman who comes off like some kind of foreign mercenary and looks like she'd start speaking questionable broken Japanese. But I think the current powerful Krone is the best, after all.
Demizu: I think it was best to make her a black person to make her easy to tell apart, since she wears exactly the same clothes as Isabella. Readers can distinguish between the characters at a glance.
​
Demons
Shirai: We have designs for demons from Demon A to O.
Demizu: I would draw tons of them, and they would pick a few of them. I was also directed to make them so that you can recognize at a glance that they're the demons from The Promised Neverland, and to make them simple, so that kids could draw them fairly easily. I think it was a good idea to make them so that people can draw imitations.
Shirai: We discovered that the closer to human they are, the creepier they get. Those demons look creepy if you put ears and things like that on them.
Demizu: They really are creepy, especially if you give them hair.
Shirai: I keep saying "They're so creepy" yet I gave instructions to "Please make them creepier and more threatening!"
​
Miscellaneous (direct translation):
​
What was in the breakdowns that you originally submitted?
Shirai: The kids finding out about the secret of the House and deciding to escape was the same. Emma wants to save everyone, but she never says anything about trying to escape with everyone like the current version. Ray's betrayal, Norman's shipment, and Emma's leg being broken are all in there. Krone appears, too, and the cliff around the farm is in it. Under conditions where it would be difficult for even one person to escape, Emma makes it out of the House alone, for the time being. She meets Sonju and Mujika and hears about the two worlds, the demons, and the promise from a thousand years ago, then sets out for her next destination. That's as far as it went, 15 chapters in all. It was a prototype I brought in as a presentation, depicting everything up to the escape as briefly as possible. Thinking back on it, it was poorly done.
​
And one last thing:
​
The interview has a list of the steps they go through in the creative process, with the note that they may have to make corrections at any step along the way.

1. Discussion (Editor and Shirai)
   
2. Drawing the breakdowns (Shirai)
   
3. Reviewing the breakdowns (Editor)
   
4. Drawing the rough artwork (Demizu)
   
5. Reviewing the rough artwork (Editor and Shirai)
   
6. Final art (Demizu)
   
7. Reviewing the final product (Editor and Shirai)
   
8. Sent to the printer
   

Shirai always includes a lot of notes with his breakdowns. Demizu mentions notes about things like characters' facial expressions or instructions regarding kids in the background, and Shirai says that he'll include notes about scenes he wants done a certain way for continuity reasons, or pass on notes from the editor. Demizu adds that he'll write things like "Make this panel look cool."

SPOILER WARNING for the latest chapters of the Manga
In chapter 120 of TPN we are finally given some insight into the origins of the demons and their need to eat humans to survive. There were a couple of different ways that the manga could have gone with this and I was intrigued that they used a more scientific approach discussing evolution via vertical and horizontal gene transfer.

Vertical Gene Transfer

Evolution, as I have covered before, is how an organism slowly changes over time as it acquires traits that help it better survive in its environment. The new traits arise from random mutations and any new trait that helps the organism survive and reproduce is going to become more frequent in the population as organisms with that trait have more offspring that also have the trait. For example, when a new mutation grants an insect resistance to a pesticide, the insects that have resistance increase in number while the ones that don’t die off. This continues until almost all of the insects are resistant to that particular pesticide, as was the case with flies and DDT. Now what I just described is actually vertical gene transfer or the passing of genetic traits from parent to offspring. FYI- vertical gene transfer is not usually used to refer to this process as it is normally referred to as evolution or natural selection.

Horizontal Gene Transfer

Horizontal gene transfer, on the other hand, works a bit differently and instead of passing genetic material from parent to offspring, the genetic material is passed to another individual in the same generation. Additionally, the information is being passed between organisms that are different species. It most common in bacteria and happens via the transfer of plasmids, which I discussed in my post on the quirks of My Hero Academia. To recap, plasmids are extra chromosomal segments of DNA that can be transferred between bacteria and some single celled organisms like yeast.
The plasmids are not necessary for the bacteria to survive, but they often grant additional traits like antibiotic resistance. The plasmids can be transferred from one organism to another via a process called conjugation. In conjugation the plasmid reproduces and is then transferred to another bacteria via an extension of the cell called a pilus.
Now by this point you are probably thinking this is all nice and good but the demons of The Promised Neverland evolved by eating other animals and absorbing their genes and not by reproducing or sharing plasmids with them. As it turns out, bacteria can absorb plasmids and genetic material from the environment around them, as was discovered by the transformation experiments of Fredrick Griffith that showed that you could turn a harmless bacterium into a pathogenic one via the remains of dead pathogenic bacteria.
Oswald Avery expanded on Griffith’s research on transformation proving that it was DNA passing between the dead and live bacteria that was causing the transformation. This of course fits with the demon’s evolving through absorbing the DNA of other organisms. However, by this point I think we can also assume that demons are eukaryotic organisms, given that they for all intents and purposes appear to be large complex multicellular organisms. So how does gene transfer work in eukaryotic organisms?

Endosymbiotic Theory

If we go by what Norman says in the manga that the demons might have started as bacteria, the first step in their evolution via horizontal gene transfer would be by absorbing plasmids of other bacteria. But bacteria are small single celled organisms that do not form large complex organisms like the current demons we see in the manga. So how did they become the demons we see in the manga?
As it turns out, horizontal gene transfer played a role in the evolution of eukaryotic cells in the real world. If you know anything about eukaryotic cells, you know that the DNA is contained inside the nucleus and the cell contains structures called organelles. Organelles can be thought of as miniature organs that perform a particular function for a cell like our own organs do for our bodies. There are a number of organelles, but there are only 2 that concern us today and they are the mitochondria and the chloroplast. This is because they both contain their own DNA and replicate separately from the rest of the cell. These two organelles are proof of something called endosymbiotic theory.
In a simplified form endosymbiotic theory is the theory that eukaryotic cells arose when a large bacterium ate another smaller bacterium, and instead of digesting it let it live inside of itself. The smaller cell now lived on inside of the larger one granting it new traits like the ability to perform photosynthesis (chloroplast) or more efficiently breakdown sugar (mitochondria).
It also fits nicely with Norman’s explanation of demon evolution via eating other organisms. However, their evolution didn’t stop there, as horizontal gene transfer allowed them to continue to evolve.

Horizontal Gene Transfer in Multicellular Organisms

Now this is were we get to some very new and interesting aspects of biology. Studies have shown that horizontal gene transfer has happened between various organisms such as:
Bacteria to fungi, plants, and animals
Insects to fungus and round worms
Human to protozoan
Scientists know that these transfers have occurred but the how and why has yet to be determined; it is suspected that DNA transposons are involved. Transposons are segments of DNA that do not like to stay where they are in an organism’s genome and have a tendency to jump around. Think of it like a page in a book that keeps jumping around the book. Lastly, all of this transferring is thought to play a role in the evolution of numerous species, but it is only just now being investigated. In fact, up to 3% of the human genome could be made of transposons. So modern science does still match up with Norman’s explanation of horizontal gene transfer playing a role in the evolution of demons.

Development of Language and Culture

Now this is where Norman’s explanation starts to go off the rails a bit, as I read that last part stating the demons developed language and culture as a direct result of eating humans and not as a result of their improved mental capacities via gene transfer. It is as if they gained the knowledge as a direct result of eating humans. FYI- while we are on the subject, what about the other intelligent animal species like gorillas or dolphins, as they too would have influenced the demon’s intelligence and development?
By this point you are all probably saying well, duh, you can’t absorb another organism’s knowledge by eating it……
Well, this is where it gets interesting. In the 1950’s and 60’s a scientist by the name of Dr. James V. McConnell was investigating memory using flatworms.
His experiment was rather simple, in that he would train a flatworm to go through a maze and then cut up the worm into tiny pieces feeding it to other non-trained flatworms. The non-trained flatworms would then be able to go through the maze like a trained worm. Does this mean the demons of The Promised Neverland are really just mutated flatworms?
No, because scientists could never reproduce the study, and the original study was shown to have a number of flaws. FYI- Some more recent studies have shown that flatworms do have some interesting quirks when it comes to memory. First off, let me inform you that flatworms have an amazing ability to regenerate and that includes having their head cut off. In this case trained flatworms had their heads removed and yet still remembered the training even after the brain was completely regrown. Whether this means that their body has some other way of retaining memory outside the brain or that the study was flawed in some way is still open to debate.

That’s not how it works

Honestly, I don’t know what else to say to this part other than that’s not how biology and genetics works. You can’t lose a genetic trait once you have it, even if it is a plasmid. According to Norman the demons will lose their human intelligence, becoming wild, after not eating humans for 6 months.
Oh, and an organism whose genetic code can change that much would have a lot of problems with cancer and other cell growth disorders. FYI- yes, I know that some viruses can mutate very quickly, but viruses are not considered to be living things, as they lack cells, among other things.

Plot Point

Now if you were like me when you read chapter 120 you were thinking, wait a minute, something doesn’t add up. Well it looks like Emma and Ray thought the same thing too as of chapter 123.
They also come up with several explanations as to why Sung-joo and Musica are able to retain human form and intelligence without eating humans. We will have to wait until their talk with Norman to find out the answer to that question.

Conclusion

The Promised Neverland has been one of my favorites for a while now, with its mix of action, adventure, and mystery. The latest chapters have been no different and it’s refreshing to see a manga use new discoveries in science as part of the plot. I do realize that it does get some things wrong, but I’d like to think I wasn’t the only one who went to go look up more about the topic. As much as I liked the use of biology in chapter 120 of The Promised Neverland, I am going to have to call it busted.
For now, anyway, because it looks like there is still more to be revealed about the biology of demons. This is because of the way they seemed to gain knowledge and intelligence. The manga also downplays standard evolution a bit too much for my liking. Then there is the matter of the fact that the demons will revert to wild animals after not eating humans for 6 months, which I do realize is questionable right now, so I will revisit the topic in the future as the manga reveals more information.

This is a continuation from my first post based on watching the anime here. This part will be commenting up to the latest chapter. Some things to keep in mind before reading:

• I am not saying the characters all have to be vegan.
• The children are in a survival situation, meaning eating animals is OK in this situation.
• I am not trying to convince you to be vegan, I am highlighting similar moral problems that humans in the manga face that vegans face in the real world.
• This could be subject to change as the manga changes but that does not change the moral dilemmas that were once faced that I am commenting on.

The manga portrays various themes that parallel vegan morals. I will state my cases here:

1. Early on Emma is shown the irony of her actions while hunting and eating animals in relation to how demons eat humans. Emma eats animals for the same reason demons eat humans- "Everyone needs to eat"
2. What we learn far after is that demons DO NOT need to eat humans to survive. This causes Emma to want to find another way live WITHOUT killing demons. If Emma knew she DID NOT need to animals, would Emma still eat them?
3. We learn demons only eat humans based on taste preference. Emma knows it is immoral for demons to eat humans IF THERE IS NO NEED TO (as humans would not need to eat animals if there is no need to).
4. Emma and all humanity will struggle to explain to demons that TASTE PREFERENCE is not more important that the right to life of select humans ( Norman talks about the futility of trying to make demons empathize with humans enough to not want to eat them even though may not need to). If there is a possibility to completely get rid of factory farming/animal genocide is it not the best choice?
5. Musica's blood can be looked at as a reason for demons to value human life over their taste preferences. The very same thing that we need to use to convince IRL humans to stop the factory farming of animals.
6. The Demons believe other demons are "robbing" their live stock. But it's just humans trying to save other humans. This reflects how we treat people who break into animal farms to try and save animals. Both have a belief that the livestock have a right to life. Do the Demons have a right to property because they own the humans as IRL farmers own animals?
7. We see with Ayshe, demons who have a pet animal can relate to humans best. Owning pet Ayshe is a 1:1 comparison to owning a pet dog (as demonstrated by the dogs the demon owned prior), and Ayshe has learned to see past differences in species of demon, dog, and human. It is not much more of a stretch to extend the right to life to a pig as we do our pet dog and goldfish).

Closing thoughts:
To put it simply, big companies keep producing animals for meat but we have a solution that doesn’t require us to kill animals for food- that is eat a plant based diet/ adopting vegan ethics. People will deny and try to combat a vegan mentality but I’m letting you know there is a way to live without killing animals just like there is for demons to live without a need to eat humans. If you think animals don't deserve the right to life, I want you to pretend to convince a demon that humans have a right to life. Focus on what we have in common, such as we all suffer and experience pain.
Thank you for listening. This is a cause for concern for the millions of animals that are dying for no good purpose other than taste pleasure. It has been proven that humans thrive and even reverse a number diseases including the number one human killing disease (heart disease) on a plant based diet. If you won't see the parallels I stated here 1:1 with reality, then at least try to see it as I stated it here in the manga.

Im surprised that no one in the reddit has really talked about this(other than on the discussion). I feel like it's harder for us since it might be lost in translation. But here are some of my ideas and how they can be wrong or right.
​
Emma becomes a Peter Pan type figure:
I threw this out there since the theme of Neverland ("never growing up"/Dying to be eaten) is a common thread in the story (the promise NEVERLAND) In this role, Emma would take children to the demon world to be eaten. This would be something that would hurt Emma emotionally (part of the deal, something dear to them).I doubt this would happen since the "movent between worlds closes completely" breaks this idea.
​
Only Children in farms go to the new world:
I also doubt this would happen because Emma told the kids at the tree fortress that they would be going to the human world. I think if anything adults wouldn't be allowed to go as well because they are no longer children. but since they once were, they can also leave.
​
Plantation Workers become the new cattle (not mamas):
THIS would make sense to me. We have little to no knowledge of the humans who work along the demons. it is said that the RATARi family are in charge of it, so it is safe to assume that children of ratari blood are workers. This does follow the deal, but I doubt they will have this because it will just make history repeat itself. (but Norman did say that even a cell can create a human but that's for another post) It wouldn't follow the hopeful tone of the series. But does this include Norman? there are many theories that Norman is actually a control type of clone that was raised in grace field. and Norman is definitely something dear to Emma.
​
Emma loses her memories:
This makes sense, I don't really see how it will work with the theme though.
​
She stays behind:
she's a cattle child unless something else causes her not to be able to. it would make sense since she is not telling anyone what the reward was, so that they don't get upset.
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Emma becomes a demon:
I understand this one, becoming something that would cause her to no longer be with her family and would exclude her from seeing the human world. What would she do as a demon? many say that she would Musica, and then go back in time? I doubt this because Musica had no memories of the cattle children and originally want to cash them in. Emma as a demon would likely take the role as the queen of the demon world, due to her leadership skills. she would no longer be included with the "all cattle children if she happened"
​
Emma can't become a mother:
Emma has never shown sighs for wanting to be a mother. sure she loves her family but to her blood relation does not matter. so I also doubt this would happen.
​
Other ideas:
both worlds would have demons and humans. (ratari family being the humans in the demon world)
Emmas imagination/determination/intelligence go away
Emma can no longer save her self/or work with others
The entrance to the new world is created in some gruesome way that doesn't follow Emmas ideas.
The humans in the human world will reject them or discriminate them.
Demons become weapons in the human world.
Human skeletons or spirits are eaten by demons.
Emma will be the last meal
​

Why I believe that the original promise that Emma made will be broken.

even though it is said that the promise cannot be broken, the whole series has been about disobeying authority for freedom. Also in chapter 51, Musica states "that's right...there is more than one promise" this can be in regards to the first one. (was it really the first though? since the demons already knew about it?) I also doubt that they will have a gruesome/depresing ending. Since the author stated that it carries a lot of Shōnen aspects like hope. but this was the same magazine that made death note so who knows.
​
How they can get out:
Norman, Ray or anyone else goes to make another promise
they find a loop hole
they just don't go along with it, and then they face consequences for it.
they break it but without another promise. for example of they had to create clones, they would have the clones break out.
Emma makes another promise with the amulet
plot armor..
A combo of Emma and Norman’s plan
​

SIDE NOTE: what is the amulet!?!? it wasn't shown during the first promise!!! what's its importance???

How will Emma and Ray solve the difficult situation they found themselves in at the end of Volume 7?
Will their unnamed guide offer some help?
Or will they have to find the solution themselves?
Emma and Ray in action
It turned out being the latter.
They had to find the solution themselves and it turned out successful - they realized that the demons die when they are hit in their eye.
Their unnamed guide, however, is still convinced Emma and Ray are going to die soon. He will make that happen himself even if the demons won't be able to.
He even decided which of the kids he will let die. It turned out to be Emma, who a bit later on tried to make him open up to her and Ray, which he refused to do.
The unnamed guide has been suffering. It must have been hard. But it doesn't seem that the children can do anything to change his attitude, so its better to just give up on that for now.
I'm sure some things we found out later on will change his attitude anyway.
Emma got... Isekai'd?
Nah she didn't. But she had one of those "Where am I?" moments once she woke up in a completely different surrounding than where she just was.
The last thing she remembered before that was Ray's voice while being taken away by... something.
This was real hype and excitement. Emma on her own not knowing where she is or why.
It turns out she was taken to A08-63. How convenient. It's the next Minerva checkpoint. Surely there is gonna be something good right?
But first she needs to find out what actually is this place. Could it possibly even be the human side of the world? Or a new human farm? These were my guesses while reading.
Note how it said "Use your pen" on her left hand. I kind of doubt Emma was the one writing that. But who did it then?
Anyway what A08-63, or Goldy Pond turned out to be is a secret human garden. A secret playground for the demons where they hunt the children every three days.
Hunter x Hunter vibes
I'm starting to get some Hunter x Hunter vibes here. Which can only be a good thing.
The way they are trying to reach William Minerva - it's kind of like Gon and Killua trying to reach Ging, isn't it?
But also, Emma, Ray, Killua and Gon are roughly the same age. And at their age they are already using weapons. During the hunter exam, Gon was aiming to steal the number plate of a much stronger opponent, Hisoka, and he succeeded.
Similarly, Emma was targeting the eye of a much stronger opponent, a demon, and she was successful too.
And speaking of Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter, another thing reminding me of HxH was the demon that saw Emma as a chance for some fun. He decided to delay killing her, cause giving her more time would make her even sweeter.
Doesn't that remind you of a certain character that was waiting for Gon and Killua to grow before getting more serious with them?
The final thing that adds to all the Hunter x Hunter vibes is more related to the anime, but Killua and Ray have the same voice actor ofcourse. Which feels fitting.
Goldy Pond
Back to the manga stuff. Emma survived the demon hunt, but some of the new kids she met didn't.
The first person she talked to since coming to Goldy Pond, Violet, really reminded me of Norman at first.
I did not expect to see something like this in The Promised Neverland, but Violet is actually a "trap".
Her group of friends are from the high quality farm Grand Valley. They know the truth and they want to do everything they can to close the demon playground Goldy Pond.
But how did they find out the truth?
Remember how I said certain things will change the unnamed guide's attitude? Well this is what I meant by that.
They found out the truth via Lucas. Yeah, that Lucas from the unnamed man's traumas. He is dead for everyone else except Violet's group of friends.
And this is where Emma found out the clue related to William Minerva. Lucas found a door with his symbol, and it can only be opened with the pen.
What are they going to find behind those doors that Lucas has wanted to open for years?
Conclusion
I think that was my favorite The Promised Neverland Volume since the Grace Field escape. Loads of intriguing and exciting stuff. And it can only get better.
Who or what brought Emma to Goldy Pond? Similarly, who or what wrote on her hand that she should use the pen? What is behind those doors?
So many things I'm dying to know.

Greetings all!
A question about Norman. No, this question isn't about Musica, this isn't about Sonju, this isn't about the devolving of demons (even though I admit science really isn't my thing). This question isn't about Norman being a possible traitor papa. Just that what he said before doesn't match with what he is saying now.
Norman said about ending the neverland where cattle aren't able to grow up. And his plan was to eradicate every single demon present on Earth. He said that here in 120. He wants to create a paradise.
A few chapters back, he stated the same in 113. He also stated to destroy every farm and free the cattle.
However, 3 chapters back in 110 Oliver discussed about Lucas' call with "Minerva" to Emma. We all now can confirm that was Norman, right? His promise to Lucas was something entirely else.
He said he wanted to give the human world back to them, and seal a new promise to end this same neverland that everyone wanted to end one way or another.
Wait! What? How? Why?
It's a bit strange that Lucas didn't recognize the change in Minerva's voice since he had already heard his voice back in Goldy Pond. Lucas also probably didn't inform Oliver that there was a change in voice. Which is why Emma pondered about Minerva in the next page. She felt it all too different.
She also wanted to forge a new promise. This is strange because what she heard from Norman in person was something entirely different. This may be one of the doubts she has and which is why she was so skeptical to accept Norman's plan in 121.
Why do you think Norman had this change of behavior? Is it because he wanted them to trick them into thinking that it was actually Minerva speaking himself so that they would arrive at the hideout as quickly as possible? And that he lied to Lucas around that one time just to break their bubble later? If so, then this is all too cruel for Emma (which may sort of explain why Ray agreed with Norman because he didn't hear about the call). Giving false hope is too cruel. But then Norman always had the tendencies to give false hopes.
"Stop giving them a hope that doesn't even exist."
Looks like Norman still hasn't learnt his lesson. And what's worse, he did it with Emma this time, the person he doesn't mind dying for. And her face when she probably thinks about this in the last panel. She's shocked. She may have felt a bit betrayed.
Do you think Emma will bring this up later? Why did Norman exactly change his plans? What do you think above all would be the outcome?

Hooked

Captain Hook wasn’t in the early drafts of Peter Pan. He wasn’t needed, because Peter was already a perfectly good villain. He's basically a spoiled boy-king. Pan switches sides in the middle of battle for his own amusement, and when he’s away all the violent conflict in Neverland grinds to a halt. As the Lost Boys grow up, Peter “thins them out” and replaces them by snatching babies: The Lost Boys have all “fallen out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way.”
Regis Loisel created a new origin story for Peter Pan, making all the dark subtext much more explicit. He starts out as a young boy in London living with his abusive mother. He becomes a father figure to a group of orphans, telling them fairy tales. When he talks about his mother he pretends she’s warm, caring and beautiful: The perfect parent, like William. Most of the adults in his life are nasty abusers, so he vows never to grow up.
Peter’s father is Captain Hook, who abandoned him before he was born. He finds a substitute father in Pan, the faun who leads Neverland's magical creatures. When Hook shoots Pan, Peter tries to save his life. He cuts out the bullet but his dirty hands contaminate Pan's body. After the surgery Peter cuts his own hands and their blood mingles together, like a blood oath. Then he burns the body and eats the ashes. Peter absorbs Pan’s personality and gains the power to fly without Tinker Bell's fairy dust.
Peter Pan is at war with the adult world. Stealing children and preventing them from growing up is how he strikes back. Only one girl is allowed into Neverland at a time, to act as a mom. Tink is extremely jealous of these girls and arranges “accidents” for them- like when she tricked the Lost Boys into hunting Wendy like a bird. She gets away with it by hiding in the woods until Neverland wipes their memories. The Lost Boys also have a photo that Peter gave to them, which they take turns passing around and pretending is their mother.
There's a place in Neverland where your worst fears come to life. Peter Pan meets his demon mother there. He cuts open his ghost mom and threatens to eat her insides. This is the big twist: Neverland exists inside Jack the Ripper's head. Peter Pan is Jack’s fantasy self, and he slices open prostitutes’ stomachs that remind him of his mother. Almost like he’s looking for his own child self. In the hospital, Chloe smashes a vending machine until a candy bar pops out. She draws a woman giving birth through the dispenser and says, “Nurse, I’ll need my forceps to extract this Baby Ruth.” Ruth is Sera's name in the internal game files. It’s impossible to graffiti the machine until after the scene where the picnickers talk about becoming new parents. Nearby, there’s a big toy pirate ship for children to play on. Down the hall is Mikey, the Peter Pan figure who starts flying around in the second tabletop game. Farther along are James and Rose. James is Captain Hook’s first name, and Rose is the first girl that Peter brings to Neverland to act as a stepmother.
The Mill is filled with recycled graffiti, repurposed as references to Loisel's Peter Pan. After failing to save Pan, Peter smashes his own right hand into a pulp. Later, he chops off Captain Hook's right hand. Their injuries mirror each other because they are each other: Hook's hook is Jack's ripper. And so it is with Barbe Bleu the barbecuing barbarian: "I call this the ripper, because it's really good for reaching down dragonkin throats and ripping out dragonkin stomachs." Rachel is the dragon made of diamonds, the girl with the dragon tattoo. Or, as Captain Bluebeard says in the Junkyard, “If you want to rip a family apart from the inside, it’s important to bring the proper tools.”

Toss the boss

Loisel’s Peter insists on being the boss. He joins Pan’s group over the pirates because Hook will never let him be the boss. “I’m the boss!” is practically his catchphrase. Nathan tells himself he’s the boss in the girl's room. Logan tells Daniel he’s not the boss while bullying him. Max tells Chloe what a boss she is when she pulls out David's keys. After making Peter pancakes and taking their photo, William tells Chloe she’s the boss.
Esteban, aka Mexican William, asks Sean to be the judge of who gets the Chock-O-Crisp. Daniel can appoint himself the judge later on. Chloe asks Rodney (the bouncer) if his mom is his boss. She calls James the boss man. Chris’ treasure chest has a cartoon of Emily asking him “Who’s the boss?” Sean’s phone lists his boss only as Boss. There’s even a Save the Earth poster telling Max she’s the boss.
To Frank, being the boss means owning people. Samantha tells Drew that Chloe owned him. The Prescotts own Arcadia Bay. Max claims she owned it as a kid. Chloe tells 13-year-old Max they’re going to take over the Bay together. Chris thinks he could take over Beaver Creek (or the world) with his toy soldiers. Brett asks if Sean thinks he owns the block. For some reason, the logo on his very Franky baseball shirt says “biss”.
Outside the girl’s bathroom is a pumpkin-headed skeleton. It’s a reference to the Zodiac's pumpkin humping skeleton and the Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington’s alter ego from The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the bathroom Chloe accuses Nathan of “pumpin’ drugs n’ shit to kids around here...” The g is dropped to make pumping sound like pumpkin. Max sees herself as a king in the mirror: A crown, some serial killer glasses, and a curly pair of moustache horns. Hook is famous for his exaggerated moustache. In Spielberg’s version it curls up into a pair of horns, mirroring his hook hand. William lets Chloe be her own boss, while David is the fascist who wants to control every facet of her life. Chloe uses the curly ‘stache to identify David’s skull as it’s being pumped full of poison, Dahmer-style. To be the boss you’ve gotta beat the boss.
When Max looks at the eyeball-shaped fire alarm, she remembers the time she got out of class early when someone pumped the alarm. To get out of Jefferson's class faster she reflects his words back at him, becoming a mini Mark, then runs back to pump the eyeball. This alarm appears one other time: next to the Baby Ruth vending machine.

Hellified maze

Max calls Blackwell a labyrinth, runs through a nightmare maze and explores the warren (no, not that Warren) in Chloe’s attic. Chloe draws the Bay as a kid’s maze. Chris crawls through a maze of junk to find his treasure. Steph runs a campaign with a minotaur as the boss. Chloe draws Damon Merrick with minotaur horns. He isn’t just a brother to Frank, he’s a father figure and his boss. When Sean lets Daniel keep Mushroom, it’s a reminder of Damon gifting Pompidou to Frank.
Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) is the tale of young Ofelia (a name from Sannazaro's Arcadia). She’s an avid fairy tale reader who likes to cosplay as Alice in Neverland. It’s set in Francoist Spain, five years after the fascists won the Spanish Civil War. Her stepfather is Captain Vidal, a man tasked with rooting out the remaining resistance. He likes to unwind by jabbing sharp instruments into his father’s fractured watch. He’s literally a fascist stepdad with a bunch of tiny tools.
Vidal's room looks like the watch’s guts writ large, with giant gears in the background. Del Toro says the room and watch represent his troubled mind. Chloe’s room is “an exploded version of Chloe’s cool and chaotic new adult self.” Max uses David’s tools to try and Humpty Dumpty her camera back together again- her shattered mind. When that fails, Chloe gives her William’s camera. It’s almost like Max is inheriting it. Instead of repairing the broken viewfinder at the Overlook, Chloe cracks it open and takes its treasure.
The chain of command is everything to Captain Vidal. He ruthlessly stomps out opposition and feels no compunction about executing people on the flimsiest of evidence. He slaps Ofelia and threatens to have her killed when her maid Mercedes turns out to be a double agent. He also keeps a set of not-so-tiny tools for dealing with prisoners, including a sharp pick that he uses to blind a man in the right eye. It’s Vidal’s crude attempt to turn him into a clockwork orange.
Max is guided by a fawn named Rachel and Ofelia is guided by a faun named Pan. He’s searching for a lost fairy princess and asks Ofelia to prove herself. Her second task is to enter a portal and steal the Pale Man’s dagger. He’s a blind monster who sits at a banquet table laden with blood red dishes and eyeball-shaped fruits. His lair is tastefully decorated with checkered floor tiles and murals of himself kidnapping, murdering and eating children. On his plate sit two freshly plucked eyeballs. Ofelia has strict orders not to eat anything, so of course she pops a couple of grapes in her mouth before leaving. This wakes the Pale Man, who shows her his excellent hand-eye coordination.
The Pale Man and Pan parallel Captain Vidal and the “man in the woods” of the resistance. Vidal is the hands and eyes for a brutal regime. He hoards food to feast with the elite, rationing the rest to control the commoners. Pan instructs Ofelia to kidnap Vidal’s son (her baby brother). He intends to use the Pale Man’s dagger to draw the child’s blood. When Ofelia refuses to hand him over, Mercedes takes the baby and swears to keep his father a secret. These are Peter Pan plans: defeat the bad dad by taking his child. The same actor plays both Pan and the Pale Man, suggesting a duality between the two. Even their names look similar, like Max and Mark.
Ofelia and Vidal both die at the end. Vidal shoots her in the gut and a rebel shoots him in the cheek, causing his right eye to roll back in its socket. Ofelia reincarnates in the Fairy Kingdom with a fancy pair of new red shoes, like Dorothy Gale’s ruby slippers.

Barrel one

Frank wonders if Max and Chloe are Bonnie and Clyde or Thelma and Louise. Thelma and Louise are a housewife and a waitress that stumble into the outlaw life on a weekend getaway. Along the way, Louise saves Thelma from a man who tries to drug and rape her. As they’re leaving the man taunts them and Louise shoots him. Bonnie and Clyde were outlaws in love that robbed and murdered their way across the US. When their photos and poetry were published in the papers, they rocketed into national notoriety. They served America an irresistible cocktail of sex and violence.
Badlands is a movie about Kit and Holly, a 25-year-old man and his 15-year-old girlfriend. Holly follows Kit around like a zombie as he murders her father, burns down her home and blasts away interlopers. Afterwards they build a tree fort in the woods and dance to Love is Strange. Terence Malik said he was trying to create a dreamy atmosphere. They think of themselves as living in a fairytale, and Kit’s revolver is his magic wand. It was based on the real life couple Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, the youngest girl in US history to be tried for first-degree murder. The Boss wrote a song from Charles' perspective.
The photo outside Chloe’s room is a reference to Thelma and Louise. It may also be an oblique reference to Route 666 from Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, a movie written by Quentin T. and inspired by Badlands. It stars Mickey and Mallory Knox, mass murderers in love who become serial killing superstars as they cut a bloody swathe across America. The day after Fire Walk, Chloe becomes an overnight Blackwell celebrity. She tells Victoria that she murdered a man with Rachel and brags in her journal about the black eye she got for a souvenir (spoiler: it’s not her eye).
NBK begins with Mickey giving a piece of diner pie its day in court, likely the inspiration for the Chock-O-Crisp judge. Mal is dancing to the jukebox when a couple of deer hunters come in and start harassing her. The lovers explode, slaughtering everyone inside save for one (because one must live to tell the tale). The diner is a slice of Americana, and Mickey and Mal are delivering judgment.
Mallory’s father is a tyrant named Ed. TV is her only escape, and flashbacks of her abuse are mashed up with memories of the shows she was raised on. The day she meets Mickey is introduced as I Love Mallory, complete with a laugh track as Ed gropes her ass and threatens to kick the shit out of her. The family is eating dinner when Mickey swaggers in with a delivery cradled in his arms. It's 50 lbs of raw beef: sex and violence swaddled in a bloody white package.
He's dressed all in white and covered in bloodstains, the white knight Mallory was waiting for. He’s both delivering Mallory from her father and delivering her into the world, like a baby. When Chloe joins the Ambers for dinner, she writes: “They seemed like a bad 90s sitcom family, and I did my best to play the part of the wacky-yet-loveable best friend.” Mickey whisks Mal away in Ed’s stolen car and promptly ends up in jail. Rachel and Chloe joke about stealing David’s car on the train, and the next day they make plans to leave together.

Barrel two

Mickey's time in prison is shown in black-and-white. The color bleeds back in when a tornado busts him out, like Dorothy entering Technicolor. He envisions himself as a blue-haired cartoon action hero returning to save Mallory. Together they drown Ed in a fish tank and Mal yells out, “He’s dead!” (“Ding dong, the witch is dead!”) The whole scene is enhanced with cartoon sound effects and a pro wrestling match in the background. Wherever they wander walls and windows turn into giant video screens to match their mood, including nature clips of mating lions.
Fish tanks are popular symbols of imprisonment. Chloe’s attic contains her fish tank and her old crib: baby’s first prison. When Thelma needs her husband’s permission to go on a roadtrip, Louise looks into a fish tank and asks if he’s her husband or her father. Mickey holds Ed’s head upside down in the glass tank while Mal mirrors all his hateful words back at him. They’re flipping the script, like when Hitchcock’s Birds cage the humans. Instead of a tank the Ambers have a big fish painting. In Chloe’s journal they pose in front of it, like they’re being dunked inside.
Mal ties her mom to the bed while Mickey sets fire to her house. It’s punishment for all the times she stood by and did nothing. When Rachel finds out about James and Sera she burns down The Tree. Rose does nothing. The Amber house looks like it was decorated by elves. It’s wood from floor to ceiling, covered in earth tones and topped off with forest spirit figurines. It’s filled with plants, tree paintings, tree-themed wallpaper and a gigantic stained glass representation of The Tree on the front door.
M&M are married by the side of the road. Mickey slices their hands and they seal it with a blood oath, like Peter and Pan or Frank and Rachel. After the play Rachel marries Chloe by the side of the road. She can let Chloe mark her hand for a future tattoo, give Chloe the bracelet Rachel’s mother gave to her, or kiss her. These represent the declaration of intent, the exchange of rings and the pronouncement (“you may now kiss the bride”). Then the rain of ash starts falling and they run off to Rachel’s house: The newlyweds are showered with rice as they make their exit.
Mickey flips out when Mal takes off her wedding ring to wash her hair. He’d rather it tear out his eyeballs than see it removed. Chloe tells Eliot she’d rather have her eyes gouged out with rusted forks than go see the Tempest with him. There's a photo of Chloe threatening David with a butter knife that burns up when Max undoes William's death. It looks like the background image used for a news story about a "wedding day murder" in NBK.
Wayne Gale broadcasts Mickey and Mal’s escapades to the world. They’re a smash hit in the cutthroat competition for viewer’s eyeballs. Wayne sees the audience as brain dead zombies who hunger for repetition and reinforcement. Cameras are equated with guns and the production crew uses violent language to describe their work. Instead of reusing and recycling, they rape, pillage and cannibalize old episodes to create new ones. Young overthrows old and life springs from death. Mickey refers to Wayne as Dr. Frankenstein, with himself and Mal as Frankenstein’s monster. In the original ending M&M escape from prison in an orgy of violence, kill Wayne and live happily ever after: Bae before Bay. In the alternate ending, they make a run for Mexico but are murdered by a mysterious stalker.

Star pupil

Pupa, pupil and puppet come from the Latin root for child or doll. The pupa is the intermediate stage of an insect, like a butterfly chrysalis. No longer a baby but not quite an adult. A pupil is both a student and the hole in the eye that absorbs light- so named because your reflection in a pupil looks like a little doll. A tremendous amount of detail went into the eyes of LiS: They shift focus, dart around and reflect their surroundings. Max’s pupils even dilate “like a shutter” in Mark’s Dark Room.
Quentin P., the serial killing janitor from JCO’s Zombie, hates a lot of things. He hates psychiatrists poking around in his brain. He hates living in the shadow of his father. Most of all, he hates judging eyes. He hates being watched so much that he tries to make himself invisible. QP got the idea for making zombies after watching his father (a professor) lecturing his pupils. He would stand at the head of a darkened room with a bright screen and drone on and on, filling their heads with lessons. Quentin learned a different lesson: the eye is a window to the brain.
He only targets people unlikely to trigger a police response- drifters, addicts and young black men from the projects. As Nathan says to Chloe, “Nobody would ever even miss your punk ass would they?” He makes an exception for Squirrel, the boy with greenish-cool eyes. Squirrel is white, lives nearby and comes from a wealthy family- he’s off limits. But he looks so much like Barry, the beautiful boy who died just as QP was discovering his sexuality. Quentin is stuck in his adolescence, a twisted little Peter Pan who can’t resist a chance to rewind the past.
Samuel the squirrel feeding janitor is an obvious stand-in for Quentin. He has a thing for Rachel, the popular white girl from a wealthy family. Like a prism, he could only stare at her in awe, he could never color over her sunlight, and so on. But Frank is a man with a million masks- he shuffles through faces the same way Chloe and Juliet trade places in the Tempest. Max and Chloe can go where Quentin and Frank can’t. Sammy teams up with Max to unblock the doors to the dorm, even giving her a helpful hint: “After I sweep, I paint.” The door to his room magically springs open when Max talks to Victoria, and it can’t be rewound shut.
The older men are always leaving their keys around. Samuel leaves his out so Chloe can raid Drew’s room. Max has to hide William’s car keys to save him from a fiery car crash. Chloe brings David his car keys while praying he dies in a fiery car crash. David is blamed for leaving the roof access unlocked for Kate, and later that night Chloe conjures up his keys. Chris must find no less than 3 keys to unlock all his father’s secrets. In the tale of Bluebeard, his new bride is forbidden to use the bloody key. It unlocks the room where he stores all his murdered wives. The key represents violent male sexuality and forbidden knowledge- it’s a phallic symbol stained with the blood of his victims.

Hide your kids

As Samuel mops the floor, he mumbles about being a ghost to the students: “They barely see me.” Chloe draws Max as a ghost and complains about being ghosted by her. When Max retrieves Warren’s flash drive, she does her best impression of Gollum seizing his precious, a magic ring of invisibility. Gollum is the serial killing, baby eating hobbit hermit from Lord of the Rings. He has two names and often refers to himself in the plural. Gollum has a taste for orc children and plots to cannibalize Bilbo. Years of hiding in dark caves have given him night vision. After he leaves his lair, rumors spring up of a ghost that drinks blood: It climbs up trees and creeps into holes looking for young, and slips through windows to find the cradles. At the End of the World party, Warren tells Max he knows how to be invisible.
Quentin’s violent impulses are a result of his repressed sexuality. As a boy, his father found his stash of Body Builder magazines (and a naked Ken doll) and made him burn them. Turning young men into zombies is his way of punishing the boys that light his fire. His pick is his fire extinguisher- an icy penis that lets him take back control. He quenches his own fiery lust by snuffing out the spark of life in his victims’ eyes. When Rachel is stabbed, the Bay fire magically extinguishes itself. There are 3 fire extinguishers for only 8 rooms in Blackwell’s boys’ dorms, a ridiculous amount. Max uses one of them to smash into Nathan’s room (his mind). It’s missing in BtS: there’s just an arrow pointing to an empty mount.
QP prefers young men that look good with their shirts off. He’s making his own brand of Ken dolls, turning real boys into puppets. His initials were probably chosen to connote Kewpie dolls, those horrifying naked babies based on Cupid. Cupid makes people fall in love by penetrating them with his erotic arrows. The Farewell episode begins with Chloe blowing up a pile of Barbie dolls. She also has a collection of melted GI Joes in her backyard.
Ask Samuel about the beached whales and he’ll mention that his father used to take him to listen to whales singing. In case you forgot, Pinocchio saves his father from the belly of a whale and Nathan has a tape of whale songs in his room. He also has a photograph of Chloe with her eye pierced. When Samuel isn’t dropping buckets of sticky white paint all over students, he likes to carve wooden squirrel dolls. William kept a couple of them on top of the fireplace before he died and Joyce packed them away.
Quentin’s red magic marker is a more innocent way for him to express his sexuality. As a boy, he used it to make “improvements” on the Body Builder mags. In the Farewell Episode, we learn Chloe used her markers to add breasts and lipstick to all her boy band trading cards. As an adult he graffitis secret messages like “Q_P_ crazy for Squirrel!” in the men’s room at the Humpty Dumpty diner. Before visiting he draws a magic star on his cheek to help him stay invisible. As Rachel and Chloe walk home from the Tempest, Rachel can let Chloe draw a star on her wrist.
As a schoolboy, Quentin was rejected by a kid named Bruce. In retaliation he wrapped the boy’s neck in a swing set chain and choked him until he bled. Bruce survived, but Quentin stole his glasses as a trophy and hid them in his attic. All the powerful men in Quentin’s life wear glasses. They're a mask, a way to hide the eyes. The trophy allows him to trigger a treasured memory. Sometimes he imagines himself as young Bruce or one of his zombies.
Chloe’s attic is a dusty reminder of her childhood. She sends her first crush up to retrieve a precious artifact: the eyeball-shaped glass lens that reveals the location of their buried memory capsule. Max says it’s a good thing she’s big and burly enough to shift all the furniture around. In the Junkyard she lifts up a giant plank of wood from one end without breaking a sweat. Frank is doing the heavy lifting for her.

BFF

Rachel and Chloe’s relationship is erotic serial killer fanfiction starring Quentin P. and Ted B. Unlike Quentin, Ted Bundy was quite happy to hunt down students. He stalked female students in Seattle before moving on to Oregon and other states. He was handsome, charming and college-educated, just like Mark “I had enough of those faux-punk sluts in my Seattle days” Jefferson. The other good-looking charmer is Rachel Amber. Rachel gives Chloe a therapy session in the Junkyard because Ted’s degree was in psychology. Chloe has a hard time believing that Blackwell royalty like Rachel would pay any attention to her. To someone obsessed with serial killers, Ted Bundy would be an A-list celebrity.
He was a silver-tongued devil who relied on the gift of gab to get him out of hot water. Backtalking Chloe is the bad cop to Rachel’s good cop. Bundy used his acting abilities to convince complete strangers to jump in his car. Sometimes he would be a policeman or a security guard (like Skip or David) and other times he would be a sweet boy with his arm or leg in a cast (like Mikey or Drew). During his trial he escaped by jumping out a second story window (Chloe’s favorite exit). He hid out in the mountains for two days before an armed searcher found him. Against all odds, Ted managed to convince the man that he was not the serial killer they were looking for. On the railcar, Rachel pretends that she used a Jedi mind trick to convince Chloe to join her.
Bundy was so bold that he strolled into a high school drama club the day it was putting on a play and tried to convince the teacher and a student to follow him out to the parking lot. They declined, so he kidnapped a girl during the play’s intermission. He would also break into people’s homes and attack them where they lived. He had plenty of practice from his youth, which he spent shoplifting and stealing TVs out of houses. Chloe gets a thrill out of breaking into private places- Drew’s room, James’ office, Wells’ office and Frank’s RV all get hit. Her thievery skills complement Rachel’s talent for bullshittery when they team up to steal the picnicker’s wine. After murdering several sorority sisters in their beds, Ted was witnessed fleeing from the house wearing a blue beanie. When he was finally caught, the only weapons found in his car were a crowbar and an ice pick.
Teddy also liked to collect trophies- photos, women’s clothing, and heads. He returned several times to his “body dump site” at Taylor Mountain to reapply their makeup and have sex with them. Mountains is the song that plays when Chloe digs up Rachel’s corpse. Rachel offers to do Chloe’s makeup for her before they leave, in front of several mannequin heads sitting by the mirrors. Chloe says makeup is one of the reasons she “wouldn’t be caught dead on stage.” In a fit of rage, she decapitates a mannequin in the Junkyard- the dump site for Rachel’s body, William’s car, and a whole heap of rusted out memories. The mannequin wears makeup, as do Rachel’s collection of creepy eyeless masks.

I have found you can find

Quentin wears a disguise to ambush people: his Todd Cuttler persona. It’s a hat, sunglasses and a moustache. Before Nathan shoots Chloe, Max looks in the mirror and sees herself with a crown, some big glasses and a moustache. Samuel’s tools are waiting for her by the fire alarm. Chloe’s butterfly lands on his bucket and Max uses his mallet to smash the eyeball. In her nightmare, Rachel’s ghost doe is waiting at the end of the hallway next to Samuel “like a ghost” Taylor. As Max gets closer it runs into the girl’s room, guiding her in. When Chloe and Rachel are alone in the drama club, Samuel’s tools are lurking just outside.
He traps Squirrel by releasing 36 baby chicks into an alley along his regular route. Max’s jammies, Chris’ favorite book, Monarrez’s Mission Murals and the Stamper’s Halloween decoration all feature the same yellow chick. When Squirrel stops to gather them up, Quentin chokes him out from behind and throws him in his van. Then he uses his trusty tape to gag him and secure the bag over his head.
Belts are scary. Addicts use them as tourniquets. Bad dads use them to beat children into submission. Serial killers use them to choke people out from behind. When Chloe grabs Rachel’s blue belt, she holds it in a tight spiral. It looks like the blue masking tape that she uses to dress up as Bluebeard. She can bring it to Rachel while her back is turned or toss it over the privacy screen. If she throws it, Rachel says she didn’t ask to be attacked with it. The funny thing is, Rachel doesn’t even need the belt. She’s already wearing one with an entirely different buckle. The inventory sketch looks more like Samuel’s than the one she has on. As Chloe hands her the belt, the picture is split in half by the edge of the privacy screen and their arms connect to form the symbol for a video screen. She’s going behind the scenes to meet her idol, piercing the barrier between star and fan.
As she’s waiting for Rachel to change Chloe strolls under a poster of a giant horned mask. When Rachel gets stabbed Chloe draws herself with horns. There’s a can of beans spilling out like someone’s insides just got opened up. Across the page is a horned inkblot shadow and Chloe’s black knife dripping ink. Earlier, when she hints that she was present for William’s death, there’s a photo of her holding a bloody kitchen knife. She also draws William Shakespeare with horns.
The skull and crossbones is Chloe’s Bluebeard symbol. Sometimes she switches it up, using a pair of roads or syringes for the crossbones. She also replaces the skull with a blue question mark: Hook's hook. The whole time Chloe’s talking to Rachel there’s a giant question mark floating over her shoulder, like one of Mario’s question blocks. It serves the same symbolism as the moustached graffiti in the girl’s room: Becoming the director, the king, the big boss. Peter Pan is putting on her father’s mask and becoming Captain Hook.
With Squirrel taped and bagged, Quentin drives up to the overlook at Summit Park. He eats Froot Loops for his inner child and drinks some wine for his outer adult. Chloe and Rachel hop a train to the Overlook at Culmination State Park. Culmination means summit. Chloe imagines there’s a dead body in the cargo box. Rachel keeps her in the dark about where they’re going, like poor Squirrel with his head in a bag. They steal some wine before they leave.
After a short nap, Quentin wakes to feel the sun glaring down at him “like a blind eye” (the best kind of eye). He remembers the boy in the back and congratulates himself on being Squirrel’s new husband and master: “In sickness & in health & till Death depart.” Dahmer dosed his victims’ drinks before zombifying them. It’s how Nathan ambushes Kate and Chloe, and how Victoria and Rachel try to disarm each other. Ariel and Caliban are Prospera’s slaves and Nathan wears zombie makeup. In the original Prospero releases Ariel, but Rachel decides to go off script. It’s a wedding proposal- she even kneels- but it’s more than that. She refuses to grant Chloe liberty or equality. Instead, Rachel promises to make her so happy she’ll forget liberty’s name: Happiness in slavery.

Happy families

Quentin starts the van and drives on through a picnic area, where he sees a bunch of families grilling. The Overlook is overflowing with references to squirrels and grills. Chloe chases some squirrels away from a trash can and suggests barbecuing some squirrels on one of the grills. They try to guess the password for a squirrel families’ wi-fi: welovenuts69, or dingoesateourbabies13 (there’s that baby-eating again). They pretend the hamburger man has a giant squirrel suit in his car, like sheep’s clothing. The next time Chloe and Mikey team up in the tabletop game, she’s roasting squirrels over an open fire.
Chloe and Rachel imagine that the Grill Dad is either about to barbecue his son or teach him to skin his prey. James Amber has a “Grill Dad” book in his office: “41 recipes to connect with your children.” It’s a reference to the Simpsons’ spoof of a Twilight Zone episode, where they’re abducted by aliens during a backyard barbecue. The aliens have a cookbook titled “How to Cook Humans” or “How to Cook for Forty Humans”, depending on how dusty the cover is. The author of Grill Dad is Rick Dickon. Dickon is the son of Lord Tarly in Game of Thrones. Father and son are roasted alive by dragons.
As Quentin drives by the picnickers, he briefly considers letting Squirrel go. Then he hears his father’s voice echoing inside his head: “There is where you fuck up, Quentin, for all your plans.” Max’s nightmare journal says “Maxine, you keep fucking up.” In the Dark Room Jefferson yells at her for fucking up his shot. The voice drives Quentin into a terrible rage. He takes Squirrel to a secluded area where he rapes and murders him. Then he scatters the bones and burns all his polaroids- just like Mark does with Max’s album.
Barbarians tend to get a bad rap, often compared to children with poor self-control. Two of Barb's skills are “temper tantrum” and “rage roll”. In the Junkyard Chloe throws a tantrum. She decapitates the Rachel mannequin and complains about Max’s hard-on for cameras before knocking its lens off. It’s a twofer: she’s both blinding it and castrating it. She tosses the Davidy tools and pummels William’s car. Then she rolls up into a ball and dreams of Rachel on fire.
After Squirrel’s death, Quentin makes a bracelet out of Squirrel’s little pigtail, braided together with his own hair and some yarn. It’s a reference to Squirrel Nutkin, who loses his tail in a symbolic castration after pissing off an ornery owl named Old Brown. Hence the owl in the Prescott barn and the bracelet that Rachel manages to gift to both Chloe and Frank. Quentin tells people it’s a Chippewa Indian thing. Pumpkins, nutkins and dragonkins all make suitable prey for Old Blue.

Oh hi Mark

Nightcrawler is another film which explores the relationship between media and violence. Louis Bloom is a stringer: he sells footage of violent accidents to news stations. He mentors a young man named Rick, giving him Jeffersonian tips like “Always keep shooting!” before betraying him and selling the video of his death. He explains his reasoning to Rick as he lays dying, and gently takes the man’s camera when his eyes close.
Lou realizes early on that he can make more money by manipulating scenes like a director. For instance, he lets himself into a house that was shot up and rearranges the photos on their fridge for more emotional impact. It inspired Chloe to tag James’ article on the Amber fridge. For his masterpiece he draws the police to a restaurant where a pair of violent criminals are eating, using them as unwitting actors for a shootout and a high speed car chase. The scene is filmed over Lou’s shoulder, so you see the cops as they stumble out of the blurry background and into the sharp focus of his viewfinder.
Arriving at a home invasion ahead of the cops lets Lou snag exclusive footage of the gory aftermath. The money shot is a baby’s bedroom with a rotating purple ladybug casting its stars around as it plays a nursery rhyme. It’s one half of the inspiration for Baby Ruth’s star globe.
Everything in Rachel’s room is dramatic. The walls are furnished with stars and theatrical masks. Her coat rack is hung with hats and boas, like the mannequins in the drama club. The windows are covered with giant drapes like a stage curtain. The open rafters bring to mind stage rigging high above. Even her moping is dramatic: She thinks (incorrectly) that all the stars are dead and their beauty is an illusion. Quentin takes a glass half full approach. He looks at the vastness of the universe (“& that a replica of something billions of years extinct!”) and concludes that individual lives are meaningless, so he’s free to murder them.
There’s a dressmaker mannequin in the drama club, like the one Buffalo Bill knocks over in his rage when his prisoner threatens his Precious. Bill is the serial killer from The Silence of the Lambs and Precious is his poodle. When Chloe learns Pompidou’s name, she tells Frank he’s not a poodle. Bill has a special speech pattern for his victims and wears night vision goggles so he can stalk his prey in the dark like Gollum. There’s a very famous scene where he dances to Goodbye Horses, surrounded by mannequins wearing his outfits. A rotating disco ball projects little stars of light onto the rafters as he ponders his self-fuckability. As he dances he spreads open a colorful patchwork robe, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.
Goodbye Horses is a song about transcendence. After his first kill, Charles Starkweather thought he’d reached a higher plane of existence. Bill dances to it because he’s hyped for his upcoming transformation. He’s making a woman suit from the skins of his victims. Rachel’s flannel-covered lamp is a reference to Ed Gein, the inspiration for Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill. He’s the man who made a lampshade out of someone’s face, and a woman suit so he could transform himself into his mother. One of Ed’s victims was found strung up and gutted- “dressed out like a deer”. Here's what Barb has to say to the elderly dragonkin: "I'm going to carve the skin from your bones. Then I'm going to turn your skin into a little leather handbag that I'll shove your skinless body into so I can carry it around with me wherever I go."
Ovid's Metamorphoses takes up half a shelf in the Amber den. Its stories deal with love and violence, hunter and prey, and of course transformation. Chloe draws Rachel as a Transformer and says she went full Destructicon on the dinner table. (Fun fact: There is a Decepticon named Icepick who hates his elders and wants to relegate them all to the junkyard.) When Rachel flips the bird to Willie’s script, Mr. Keaton describes her performance as “Absolutely transformative!" Buffalo Bill uses the death’s-head moth as a symbol of his transformation. You know, like the shirt Max wears in the Dark Room, when Jefferson talks about the transformation between the old Max and the new Max. Peter Pan into Captain Hook and Max into Mark.