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The Promised Neverland Recap – Chapter 92

Adam joins the battle against Leuvis.

June 25, 2018

Welcome to AiPT’s weekly The Promised Neverland recap column. As new chapters are released, I’ll be sharing my reactions to the series’s latest twists and turns. From bloodthirsty demons to elaborate battle strategies, writer Kaiu Shirai and artist Posuka Demizu always have something compelling up their sleeves. Be warned, though, that in order to elaborate on my thoughts I will be including SPOILERS.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m ready for this arc to end. We’ve been watching the final battle with Leuvis unfold for several chapters now, and it shows few signs of actually ending soon. Every time a chapter seems to hint at an upcoming climax, the next installment just drags the battle out further. Such is the case here–last week’s cliffhanger signaled that Adam was about to join the fight, and he does. Unfortunately, his presence does little to speed up the pacing or bring Leuvis closer to death.

He does enable Ray to get this awesome shot in, though.

Speaking of Adam, I’m not particularly intrigued by his character thus far. We’ve learned that he’s from an experimental new farm (the same one where Norman is currently trapped), but that’s about it. He mostly fit the gentle giant trope before this chapter, though he’s far from gentle here. It’s nice to see a character who can actually face Leuvis head-on in physical combat, especially one who can literally chuck large portions of buildings. Nonetheless, some page-time regarding Adam’s backstory is long overdue. As of now, he’s only interesting in relation to the other characters; he lacks any depth of his own.

As far as Leuvis goes, there’s not much to be said that I haven’t already established in my previous recaps. His design is flawless, and his swift, inhuman movements are intimidating. My favorite panels in this chapter are all of him leaping through the air or sliding out of the way of gunfire. While I wish he would get some more actual character development, we do at least get a quick flashback panel revealing what he looked like centuries ago:

This guy has never not been scary.

The hints about his reckless past are intriguing, even if they’re still too brief and vague. Fortunately, the flow of battle shifts significantly toward this chapter’s end. Leuvis seems to have regained full control over his senses, so he won’t go down via an uneven match-up. I’m grateful for this because the heroes’ inevitable victory will feel all the sweeter if they win while Leuvis is at the top of his game. With that said, their victory had better come soon, or that sweetness will be rendered moot by this arc’s extreme decompression.

Visually, this chapter is solid but not among the arc’s best. Demizu’s renderings of Leuvis and gunfire are stellar as always, but the flow of action across panels is inconsistent. Some segments, such as when Leuvis ducks out of the way of incoming attacks, look fantastic. Others, however, feel a bit clumsy. It’s not always entirely clear how the events in one panel relate to the next. This is particularly true when Adam is fighting Leuvis; the characters’ brawl suffers from some muddy details. Nonetheless, other portions of the chapter have great flow, and the backgrounds throughout are lovely. There’s also a great cliffhanger that, fingers crossed, signals an actual turning point in the battle.

That’s all for this chapter! Stay tuned for more recaps as The Promised Neverland updates every week. If you’re interested in reading more of our thoughts about the series, check out our column from last week, as well as our review of the latest collected volume. Also, feel free to share your own thoughts about this chapter in the comment space below!