Walking in Imai-cho yesterday afternoon, I ran into two of my favourite students from the nearby school. One of them had a little bag marked "chocolat" but when I asked her what kind of chocolates she had she opened the bag to reveal only four volumes of manga. She was reading 約束のネバーランド, known in English as The Promised Neverland. Later that night, I met some elementary school students at a curry shop who also love the series. Yesterday wasn't the first time I'd heard about it, either. Last year, some students in the art club asked me to draw one of the main characters for them. I ended up watching a few episodes of the anime adaptation on Netflix. It's not bad, and pleasingly twisted.
It's about a group of kids who live in what appears to be a very tidy orphanage, only two of them soon discover that kids who get adopted are actually killed and packaged to be devoured by monsters who dwell in the outside world. I really like the second episode where one of the kids points out how little they know based on the limited information they have. They saw one of their friends, who was supposedly adopted, murdered and her body packed into a car operated by monsters with the assistance of an employee at the orphanage. Is this normal or is it just something that happens at this particular orphanage? Are the kids and adults in this orphanage the only humans in a world full of monsters? Is there any point in trying to escape?
It's nice and sinister and I like how it mirrors the anxieties of the kids watching it. Kids who are used to the very monitored and controlled environment of the elementary schools and junior high schools may feel anxieties about the true nature of the outside world their schoolwork barely leaves them time even to think about. What kind of monsters really wait for them and how normal are they?
There's also a live action movie adaptation I'd like to see. But for now I'm watching the anime on Netflix.
Twitter Sonnet #1458
The silver house was really made of tin.
We voyaged up the wooden hill to work.
Adventures wrote themselves to pay the inn.
The knight remains at home and writes his perk.
In growing plants the walls were triple size.
Along the pier the birds could sell a fish.
Giraffes are havens built for extra ties.
Buffets can bury even Banner's dish.
Ceramic foxes bend around the cake.
The lemon frosting crushed the fire weight.
We swam the seas for sickly pilot's sake.
We know a list of what the orca ate.
The bank of motion pictures broke in beams.
A snowy state was kept in movie dreams.
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