3 out of 5

Buoyed by the intensity of the final leg of the escape mission, as well as some fun additions to the concept of their “outside” helper, William Minerva, volume five of Promised Neverland starts to become really shaky in its back half, somewhat unsurprisingly fulfilling the fears that this adventure tale might have trouble sustaining itself after moving beyond the confines of its initial threat.

Writer Kaiu Shirai and artist Posuka Demizu have thrived off of double-take intrigue and pure momentum up to this point.  I’ve praied Shirai’s braveness in continually moving his story forward – instead of stalling for time – and while the same thing applies here, now that we’ve broken free of the orphanage, and of the plot-defined walls for our characters to ping off of, establishing the new setting of the forest and its threats feels pretty wobbly.  The first roadblock the kids encounter thereabouts is very generic feeling (in terms of evaluating this as, essentially, a sci-fi / fantasy tale), and really only serves as a hacky way of introducing some further plot devices which will hopefully give us more direction in the volumes to come.  Shirai further attempts to keep the ticking-clock vibe going by reminding us that demons are still out there, chasing the crew, but clunky, repetitive dialogue – not new, just more obvious here – hampers the immediacy of that.

The first half of this book is blazingly paced and exciting as all get-out; the latter half is something of a letdown.  Accepting that we might need a downbeat to regather ourselves for however Shirai wants to proceed from here, I’m still eager to dig in to volume 6.