The Promised Neverland's New Chapter Acts as a Prequel for Ray

The Promised Neverland has surprisingly returned for a brand new chapter, and it serves as a prequel for Ray setting up the events of the original series. Shueisha surprised fans when it announced that Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu would be returning for a new chapter in The Promised Neverland manga after bringing it to an end earlier this year, but there were no real details as to what fans could expect from this new entry. With Viz Media officially releasing this new chapter alongside the rest of the Weekly Shonen Jump entries, we now know it's a Ray focused prequel.

Running for 17 pages in total, this new chapter is set before the events of the original series. During The Promised Neverland it's revealed early on that Ray actually has a photographic memory, and had been planning to escape Grace Field House for several years before involving Emma and Norman. This special chapter actually explores this for a bit longer than it did in the original series.

The special chapter sees a young Ray initially making the discovery that the kids in Grace Field House are being bred as food. He begins to figure things out as the months and years go on, but with each new day he starts to despair more and more knowing that his friends are slowly being sacrificed as food without knowing it.

The prequel then sees the young Ray to make his initial decision to make himself a traitor to not only keep himself alive, but also buy him time to come up with a plan. With the final moments of the prequel, he sets the events of the main series in motion with the hopes of wrapping Emma and Norman into it.

Although the original run of the series came to an end, this fleshes out a little more of Ray's early decisions that we got a window into during the main run. While it expands the universe, this is something we already saw in action during the main series. It's good to get another perspective on Ray's internal despair, but perhaps we will see more of the unique perspectives we didn't get enough of someday like Phil? What do you think?

What did you think of The Promised Neverland's special chapter? Excited to see more of Ray before the events of the main series? Hoping to see more special chapters from the series someday? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!