Title: The Promised Neverland Vol. 14
Author: Kaiu Shirai (Story), Posuka Demizu (Art)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
Genre: Horror, Drama
Publication Date: March 3, 2020
The Story
Volume fourteen of The Promised Neverland picks up with Chris needing medicine otherwise his chance of survival is low. They plan to break into a nearby farm with Anna, Ray, and Hayato to get the medicine. Hayato leads the way since he broke into that farm before. Due to the escapees, demon patrols in that farm were increased and they are found out as a result. Hayato and Ray lure the demons away while Emma and Anna find and retrieve the medicine. Right when they are about the leave, they are ambushed by demons but saved by an associate of Mr. Minerva named Zazie.
Once Chris is healed, they regroup and start heading to the secret base inside of a forest of giant trees. The base is discovered to be inside one of those trees and it’s a massive city! It used to be a demon base but, apparently, it was a secret location that not even the Ratri clan or other demons know about. What’s more importantly… the boss… aka William Minerva is in this base.
To avoid spoilers, I will simply refer to the character as Minerva from here on out.
Minerva meets up with everyone and explains their plan. They talk about an experimental farm named Lambda which gives us some backstory on a couple of characters we are already familiar with. Minerva said that the Lambda base was already destroyed by them. Minerva led Emma and the others here for his plan… to destroy all of the demons in this world and erase the Neverland where children can’t become adults. Something seems off about this plan and Minerva himself and Emma picked up on it… especially since she wants to save the demons, too. She thought of Mujika and Sonju and how those demons saved them. Because of that, Emma wants to find another way.
They go to talk to Minerva about that but he’s gone. In fact, he’s in the process of making a different kind of deal elsewhere… one that could possibly reveal his true motives.
Wow… the reveal of Mr. Minerva was an amazing moment but you could tell there was something more to it than what was being shown. There is definitely some huge intrigue here surrounding Minerva and his true goals. On the other hand, we learned a LOT about the demons… what they truly are… how they came about and why they eat people as food. It was a pretty interesting concept and makes logical sense when you think about it.
Characters
Because of the reveal of the Lambda farm, we got some background on a few characters like Hayato and Adam. In addition, we learned what was going on there which explains why some characters (as well as others introduced who also serve Minerva) can do what they do. It also tied into the backstory of the demons and why they exist, too which I thought was pretty cool.
Minerva himself… man, you just get so many feelings from this one character. You get a sense of relief when the kids meet him because it proves that he isn’t a symbol… he’s an actual person working for their freedom but then you get a sense of dread when you discover what he’s doing behind the scenes. It makes you question what his true motives are. Such a diverse character when you reflect on everything that you read in this volume. There are more layers to peel back, though, and I can’t wait until the next volume to talk about them!
Outside of that, we did get some new characters who are simply just higher-ups working for Minerva but we do know that they came from various houses to Lambda and were saved by Minerva so their love and admiration for him are on the borderline of obsession! It gives off a cult-like feeling, to be honest, and everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid!
Final Thoughts
Phenomenal volume! Plain and simple!
So many questions were answered here but so many more were raised. For an info dump volume, it had a bit of action but the story just shifted focus in a big way. It seemed like the whole idea of finding the Seven Walls is either on hold or gone completely now. Minerva’s plan to eradicate all demons sounds grand to a lot of people but, of course, Emma has to be the “let’s save everyone!” type of person and just throw a monkey wrench into everything. Still, you kind of get what Emma says because it would suck to really kill off Mujika and Sonju after everything they did to help them out.
Still, that ending gave me chills and I hope it’s not leading to what I think it’s leading to! Either way, this volume was incredibly gripping and very hard to talk about it without spoiling a lot! Still, part of me wants to scream “MINERVA IS [REDACTED]!”
Oh, I guess I kind of just did that, didn’t I?
Trust me. Read this volume as soon as possible. This was, seriously, one of the best in the series thus far!
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media.
