The second season of The Promised Neverland is almost here, so let’s brush up on our knowledge of the characters by taking a closer look at Ray, one of the most famous ones.
First of all, would you believe that Ray wasn’t even on my list of favorite characters when I first started watching the show?
That’s right!
In fact, I had to reread the first part of the story twice before he became my favorite character.
During the Jailbreak Escape Arc, it took me a while, but I finally got Ray’s mental state and why he did what he did!
This blog will talk about big spoilers from the manga and the first season of the anime.
Artificial insemination helped Isabella have Ray, who is her real son. This is shown in the 12th episode of the anime and in the 37th chapter of the manga.
You might be wondering, “How did this even happen when Isabella, the main bad guy in the series, has no one to go out with?”
Or, you might think,
“This is a fantasy genre, so anything can happen.”
Well, here’s the main point: artificial insemination is quickly shown in Chapter 31 of the manga, but not in Episode 12 of the anime.
It’s a real way that people also use to have children. You could even say that the animals in TPN, the demons, learned about this way to make babies from people.
About The Promised Neverland
This story, which was made by Kaiu Shirai, started in a Weekly Shonen Jump manga in 2016.
This series has been licensed by VIZ Media for an English-language release. It has become very famous, selling 4.2 million copies in a short time.
It takes place in 2045. Emma, an 11-year-old orphan, lives with 37 other kids in Grace Field House, a home for orphans that has everything it needs.
The orphans have total freedom, as long as they don’t leave the property or the gate that leads to the outside world.
Emma learns the truth about the shelter and how it is connected to the demons one night.
Norman and Emma join forces with Ray to find a way for all of their brothers to get out of Grace Field House.
Who is Ray?
Fans of TPN know that the show’s final story twists and turns always catch people off guard.
After watching episode 4, I was so shocked that I dropped the remote while watching the show in the middle of the night.
When the anime showed that Ray is the spy among the orphaned cattle children, it opened my eyes and dropped my jaw.
I’ve written down some of Ray’s interesting qualities so you can learn more about his mind. Fans of TPN can see why he is such a beloved figure.
Ray is great at working with machines. During his fight with Norman, the mangaka and animators let Ray’s body language, especially his hand motions, speak for itself.
Ray’s hands are rougher and bigger than Norman’s and Emma’s, if you look closely.
His sore hands show that he was a kid who played with old toy models all the time to make an electronic device that stops the cattle children’s ear emitters from working.
- Ray is a realist. He is the most down-to-earth and practical of the three kids. Ray is a strategic thinker, so he handles problems in a logical way, even if it takes him 6 years to plan and get ready.
- Ray likes to work alone. Emma and Norman think of him as a loner who has to carry all his own weight because he usually works alone.
- Ray’s tendency to be alone may have been caused by the six years he spent as a secret spy for Isabella. He even tried to kill himself by starting fires and setting himself on fire.
As a side note, Kaiu Shirai, the book’s author, wrote that Ray was meant to die in an early draft of TPN.
- Ray is a “trump card.” Ray offered to be the “strongest trump card” to Norman and Emma’s plans. Norman couldn’t say “no” to Ray’s plans because he was so good at negotiating and knew so much.
- Ray gives up quickly. Sister Krone says that giving up is one of Ray’s flaws. Isabella did the same thing when she was a child when she tried to get away from her parents.
- Ray is very protective. When Don hit Norman out of anger, Ray got mad at Don. It shows that Ray loves Norman and Emma so much that he would give up the lives of other cow kids to save his best friends.
- Ray’s fans who look like him:
- Naruto’s Sasuke Uchiha—Naruto fans call Ray “edge lord Sasuke Uchiha” because of his punk bangs. Both of them give off a dark vibe and try to hide how loving they really are.
- Yu Ishigami from Kaguya-sama: Love is War – Ray reminds me of the quiet, tech-savvy “Yu Ishigami”. When it comes to fixing things, they both like to get their hands dirty.
- Tetsur Kuroo from Haikyuu!! – Like “Tetsur Kuroo,” or “Rooster Head,” Ray is also quiet and shy.
- Giy Tomioka from Demon Slayer – Ray is like the pillar fighter Giy Tomioka because he is smart and can help behind the scenes.
Did you also know how Ray became a sad character? The artist, Posuka Demizu, just finished a number of sketches for Ray’s design.
When she showed the sketches to the author, Kaiu Shirai, and the editor, Mr. Suguru Sugita, none of them stood out.
When they saw a quick picture on the side, they thought it was a doodle. This is how our beloved Ray came to be. The drawing is of a boy with black hair and emo bangs that cover his left eye. Isn’t that pretty cool?
If you want to know what drafts were made before and after the serialization, you’ll have to wait for the official “TPN fanbook and artbook” that the writers are putting together.
Some of the most famous conversations in the Escape Arc happen in Episodes 4 and 5 and Chapters 13 and 14. This is because the audience knew Ray’s true intentions.
These are the shows where Norman and Ray had a fight first, and then Ray and Isabella met.
Here is where the writers showed how much Ray and his mom look alike, from their jet-black hair to their sharp eyes.
Early on in the series, Mr. Shirai told Ms. Demizu about these traits, and she gave Isabella and Ray both thick black hair and eyes that draw people in.
Even though these things about their bodies get a lot of attention, it’s their eyes that really stand out.
The artist gave Isabella soft eyes to match her motherly personality. Ray, on the other hand, had slanted, black pupils to match his bad behavior.
Isabella’s eyes may look kind, but she is evil at heart. Ray’s eyes, on the other hand, look sleepy and confused. In later issues of the manga, he was called “Sleepy Cyclops” because he slept so much.
At first, Ray seems like a chill guy, but the audience quickly understood that his character design helps his “mask.” If anything, his emo bangs make him look even more strange than he already is.
When Ray reads a book under a tree in episode 1 (or Chapter 1), he gets lost in his own little world. This made the audience think that Ray is just a shy, quiet person who doesn’t like to talk to other people.
At the end of episode 2 (or Chapter 4 of the manga), the audience learned that these books are not fun for normal 11-year-olds today.
It turns out that Ray’s book, “Mechanical Engineering and the History of Humans” by Alex Mikhaylov, is about history and technology!
He even reads a book called “Farming,” and in the manga, he uses terms like “supply,” “demand,” and “optimal solution,” which are terms that economics students often talk about in class.
These days, kids often say they don’t want to study, but Ray doesn’t (LOL)! He forced himself to study, and now he gets perfect scores on the daily tests at Grace Field House.
I’ve already said that Ray is good with machines and that he also studies hard logical topics.
About this, ‘The ShonenJump.com website added a Q&A part from TPN creators’.
Mr. Shirai said that Ray and Norman’s hobby of tinkering is based on his own youth, when he used to take apart clocks for fun.
So, in Volume 4, he added a past scene of Ray and Norman taking apart and putting together a music box. LOL!)
Does he betray Emma and Norman?
With a name like “Edge Lord Sasuke” as a nickname, Ray’s fans really think he has a dark and dangerous personality, even though he is quiet and shy.
Like I said above, he and Isabella are the same in that they would rather stay alive and live longer in their bleak worlds, even if it means giving up their freedom.
Like Isabella, Ray is sneaky, deceptive, and in charge. Isabella killed the orphaned cattle children, who were also people, so she could stay living in the demon world.
Same thing happened to Ray. He had to make sacrifices in order to reach his goals.
This makes us wonder if Ray turned against Emma and Norman. The fastest answer is, “No, Ray doesn’t betray his best friends.”
In fact, he is willing to help them with their plans to get away. At the very least, he wants Norman and Emma to live until they are 12 years old, which is the age when all cow children, no matter how well they do on tests, are taken away.
Ray is smart, though, and his plan to help them has some conditions.
To put it another way, Ray will only help them leave Grace Field House’s Plantation #3 if Norman agrees to trick Emma into bringing all 38 children in the escape plan.
He also said that you could only bring five people with you. Only Emma, Norman, Don, Gilda, and Ray should go on the Great Escape. The other 33 kids should stay behind at the home.
He also told Norman that he is neither his enemy nor his friend. The crowd thinks that Ray is putting his own goals ahead of the friendship between Norman and Emma.
He is not a real friend because he makes things harder for his best friends.
But in fact, there are people who think and act like Ray. They lean toward the side that helps them the most. Ray is just like that.
He told Norman he could use him as a trump card by telling Isabella fake information if it came to that. But he won’t do that unless things go his way or if the conditions are right for what he wants to do.
Norman acted as if he was okay with the deals Ray made. But when Ray saw that Norman was hesitant, he threatened him.
Even though Ray didn’t finish his threat, the fact that he put his left hand on Norman’s right shoulder scared him so much that he could only give his friend a fake smile.
Like everyone else here, I get mad when the anime ends on a cliffhanger.
Because the cliffhangers bother me so much, I finally gave in at the end of episode 5 and bought the book. It was then that I read TPN for the first time.
I stayed up until 5 a.m. reading the Jailbreak Arc. I really wanted to finish this wonderful arc in one night, and I did. I also cried the next day when I realized how well TPN’s Escape Arc story is told.
In the end, Mr. Shirai is just a genius who likes to run things from behind the scenes while fooling us (his main audience) at the same time. Ms. Demizu is also a great artist.
After reading their new one-shot, Spirit Photographer: Saburo Kono, I can’t help but see similarities between the characters in that story and those in TPN.
Even though the TPN comic is finished, this just shows that I’m still looking forward to their next work!
