List of The Promised Neverland characters

This is a list of characters for the manga series The Promised Neverland.
The author, Kaiu Shirai wanted to create "upbeat and hopeful" characters to echo those heroes from Weekly Shōnen Jump's series. He stated that Emma is the epitome of the positive attitude, Norman is the mainstay of the group and Ray has an opposite and darker personality. Originally, Emma was a less decisive and active character, Norman had a "lighter" mood, and Ray was "more extreme", but Shirai and the series' editor, Suguru Sugita, decided to tweak the characters' traits and personalities, something that, according to Sugita, continued as the series progressed. Sugita thought that a female main character would not be popular enough to be serialized in a shōnen magazine and suggested Shirai to change the character setting, making a version where Emma was a boy, but it did not work out. Sugita later considered that since Studio Ghibli films, which features female protagonists and a male character that supports her, are widely popular across the world, they thought that having a female main character would not be a problem. According to Shirai, the choice of having Emma as the main character in the manga series, was mainly due that he was more interested in exploring a mother-daughter opposition rather than a mother-son opposition. He added that, as a girl, Emma has the choice to become a "Mom" or to try to run away, and to Shirai that was more interesting in terms of the storyline.
Shirai created a base of drawings with images and expressions of each character and the artist of the manga, Posuka Demizu, fine-tuned their features and attitudes. Demizu alternated two styles of drawing for children and demons. She enjoyed drawing both, as children reminded her of the period when she was doing illustrations and the demons came out of personal taste for "all that is fantastic and scary". Demizu has also designed monsters for video games. According to Shirai, they were about it very early to imagine the design of the demons and the new characters, to have time to think about it well and to not be rushed by the rhythm of weekly publication. Demizu, nevertheless, had the characters ready in one or two days, as Shirai mentioned as example that the design of Sonju's horse was conceived, produced and validated in one day. Shirai emphasized that he rarely had seen someone as fast and confident as Demizu.
Emma is an 11-year-old girl. She is one of the oldest orphans living in Grace Field House. She has a much more optimistic and positive personality than Norman and Ray. Furthermore, she is frequently getting full scores of 300 points in her daily tests and her athleticism is high, but she wants to keep up with her performances. Her hair is a short orange hair, with two strands of hair flying from the top of her head. She tends to be idealistic, and she strives to make the practically impossible possible. She also loves her family more than anything. Emma is especially well-liked in the house, where she plays and cares for the younger children. After learning the truth, she teamed up with her brothers and sisters to escape from the house with fourteen other children.
Ray is an 11-year-old boy living in Grace Field House. He is a pragmatic person, he often gets full scores on the daily tests of the orphanage, and is a knowledgeable reader. He was later told by Emma and Norman about the escape plan from the house, but in fact, he knew about the truth and the identity of the house from a young age. Likewise, he was secretly working as a spy for his mother, Isabella. Not only that, but he had a deal with her as a collaborator, bringing to her the latest informations about the whole family. But he demanded a reward for each task he did, to prepare a strategy in the shadow. In fact, he does not like studying or reading that much, but he persevered in studying and reading in order to maximize his own worth, to be the special merchandise of the house. At first, he gives up on infants and insists that only the elders escape, but since Emma does not want to leave anyone behind, he was convinced and he cooperated. However, when they succeed in escaping from the house, he vows to protect his family in the future. He is Isabella's biological son, she learned that Ray is her own son when he always sang Leslie's song that he heard while he was in her womb, since at the age of six, he is shown to have a beautiful voice when he first hummed Leslie's song.
Norman is one of the oldest orphans living in Grace Field House. He is an 11-year-old boy. His tests are always full scores. He aimed to escape from the house in cooperation with Emma and Ray. He had a kind personality, agreeing with Emma's plan to escape with everyone, even though he thought it was close to impossible. Furthermore, he is the most rational among children and is also excellent at psychological bargaining. Suddenly, it was decided that he would be shipped from the orphanage before his 12th birthday. Emma and the others thought he had died, but when Norman was shipped, Peter Ratri appeared as his foster parent, and was sent to a new plantation called Lambda Λ7214 to be eaten by the queen. He also lived with other edible children in a huge tree that was once said to have been inhabited by demons, and used the name of Minerva to guide Emma and the others to him.
The main antagonists of the series, the monsters called demons, consist of a variety of forms; wild, multi-eyed monsters that take on the qualities of the animals and plants they devour. Human-eating demons assume a large human-like humanoid form with polydactyly and wear armored masks to protect their central eyes, their only truly vital organ. The ruling demons sponsor the agricultural system to provide them with a source of ready-to-use human flesh, which they need to remain sentient, and sometimes for the nature of monsters to hunt humans.
Also known as Area A08-63, Goldy Pond was originally William Minerva's base for human escapees and located underground to evade detection. It was discovered by demons and became a secret reserve for hunting humans, owned by the demon Lord Bayon. His victims were the children he bought from premium farms (mainly the Grand Valley House Orphanage), but sometimes also poached humans from the outside world. Listed below are some of the human inhabitants of Goldy Pond:
Lambda Λ7214, also known as Lambda, is a research center where various experiments were conducted on children and humans from various plantation farms. After being shipped from Grace Field House, Norman was sent to Lambda Λ7214, where he was experimented on. Norman eventually led a group who escaped from Lambda and destroyed the place in the process.
The Ratri Clan or also called the Ratri Family is a human clan who signed the ancient treaty called "The Promise" over 1000 years ago, to separate humans and demons from each other in two worlds, to end a war between the two races on earth. The Ratri clan oversees the farming system and upholds "The Promise".