Yakusoku no Neverland Chapter 105 Review by Emperor Spriggan Alright, let's break down this chapter shall we?
Following up from last week, we see Emma and the other kids meandering through the tunnels underneath the shelter after safely managing to escape from there under the pursuit of Andrew's crew. Unknown to them, their pursuers are aware of the underground pathways. That means any shred of hope Emma carries with her followers is a false sense of security. The kids themselves are armed which is a good thing. Though, even if they have experience fighting demons, sadly that doesn't translate to fighting humans.
This is when we see Yuugo turn to Ray and talk to him about something that had been on his mind. In my opinion, Yuugo should be the one at the forefront leading the kids and not Emma. Simply because he's the adult there and it's much safer with him in the lead. I digress however. Yuugo asks Ray regarding only sending 8 people to subdue a whole shelter of 60 people. In hindsight, it makes no sense doing that. Ray says that they might have sent a squad of elite people, with full knowledge of how many kids there were there. Ray then adds on that sending a few number of people probably means this is an event the Ratri clan wants to keep under wraps. The fewer people who know, the better. To himself, he thinks back to how the enemies in the shelter knew exactly about the shelter's location, the positions of each cameras and their subsequent blindspots. He's worried that there was something they were overlooking here massively, but does not voice out these concerns to anyone, not even Yuugo next to him. All he can hope for is that his worries were baseless and everything would end up working itself out well.
Ahead of the group, we switch back to Emma and the other kids. Two of them offer to go ahead and secure the gate to allow the others to pass safely through. A few paces ahead though, things suddenly take a grim turn. Two corpses fall from above the ground, and the kids all panic. Suddenly, Chris is shot at and Emma immediately moves to rescue him (Not sure how realistic this is, bullets are hard to dodge and this is isn't a superhuman series. But I think I vaguely remember something about Emma having the best physicals out of the whole group, maybe that came into play here). Gilian shouts at Emma immediately to run away, and all hell breaks loose. A brief exhange of gunfire occurs, but the enemies are unhurt. It turns out that Chris wasn't completely saved. There's blood trickling down his face, while Gilian and Yugo immediately realize that the enemies have bulletproof vests. Fighting against them is meaningless since they can't kill them.
Suddenly, all the kids are addressed in a loud voice. The person on the other end is Andrew, and he bluntly states the enemy's objectives. To kill all the kids. This immediately kills any notions that Andrew was an ally in disguise (Something which I also had faith in before now, welp, there goes that). He then proceeds to admit that over the past one year and 9 months, the Ratri Clan had managed to locate and dispose off all the kids's sympathizers. Which meant that currently, no one would appear to help them out of this predicament. Everyone there is in shock, but Andrew adds on that they got information about the shelter, its architectural structure and its defences as well. Whether or not this implies there's a traitor among the kids I honestly don't know. I just hope that this doesn't connect back to Phil, but after seeing Andrew's personality I wouldn't be surprised if he did end up torturing the little kid for information. To add insult to injury, he caps off by telling the kids that all the exits were secured, and if they came forward they wouldn't have to suffer before dying.
There's a period of silence shortly after, as the kids digest everything they have been told. Immediately, some of them realize the reason they have not gotten a call in months is probably because of what Andrew told them. Yuugo reassures them to calm down, and tells them to warn those in the back. Ray is in distress and wonders what they can even do to escape this situation. Andrew's warning earlier makes him realize they weren't about to be captured and taken back alive. This was a full on extermination. As if realizing what Ray was thinking, Yuugo then thinks to himself that extermination made sense since the kids existence was living proof of the Ratri clan's failure. Ray starts brainstorming for a way to escape, but ahead of everyone else, Emma is distraught.
She seems to have fallen into shock, much like she had when Lewis had killed Jake and Monica. Helplessly, she tries pleading with Andrew, spilling all the kids plans about remaking the promise and finding the Seven Walls. I am honestly not fond of this by her. I get that it's Emma's thing to be idealistic and always optimistic, but why would you tell your enemies about what you're planning on doing? It only gives them an incentive to kill you more. Ironically, this is also a strategy she had tried with Lewis but to no avail, so I'm not sure what she thinks she's trying to pull here. This is the reason as to why its frustrating reading about some of her scenes sometimes. Too much black and white, she's incapable of viewing the world through any other glasses.
As expected, Andrew obviously doesn't care. He goes on to insist that Emma's confession made the matter of exterminating the kids more prudent. Even if humans would be forgiving of what Emma and her group were planning to do, that change would not be welcomed by the Ratri Clan. He then takes of his glasses, in their place equipping a gas mask before telling the kids that rights and such other priviledges didn't belong to them as they were livestock. That was all they'd ever be. This completely demoralizes the kids, and they lose any traces of fighting spirit they had. Suddenly, the passage ways fill up with gas. Andrew's intention seems to be to blow the entire place to kingdom come, and Yuugo, realizing this, shouts to the kids to close the fire door. The chapter ends with all the kids huddled up in one place, completely surrounded and with no means of escape.
This was a brilliant follow up from last week's chapter.I especially like how ruthless Andrew is, and it does give the manga a much needed sense of tension especially after what happened at Goldy Pond. It also probably furthers the narrative about humans being worse enemies than the demons, which is a plus one in my opinion. How they will escape from this is probably tied to the hooded person who Emma and the others ran into in their last trip to discover the secret to the Seven Walls. Other than that,I see no other chances for them to escape. Musica/Sung Ju are an obvious option, but it would be redundant with the time they were saved from the plantation demons. Lucas is also unaccounted for, so you don't know what will happen with him.
All in all, exceptional chapter. There was a bit of a slow burn for a while with this manga, but the past three chapters have been all reminiscent of the initial chapters of the series.
