Emma is the heroine of The Promised Neverland, an anime show adapted from the manga series written and illustrated by Kaui Shirai and Posuka Demizu consecutively. Season 1 premiered in 2019 and was followed by season 2 in 2021.
Emma is considered to be the main character of the show. She is one of the three older children living in the Grace Field Orphanage. She is often described as athletic, bright, positive, and caring.
How is Emma like?
Let’s start with what she looks like. Emma has big green bright eyes and a short, futuristic style of orange-colored hair. Generally, she always has a smile on her face. Emma has a lot of friends because she is always eager to help out with the chores at the orphanage home.
Despite the wrong turn that took place in the story, Emma has proven to remain strong and courageous about executing their seemingly impossible “jailbreak” from the dangerous orphanage. She is more than willing to take the rest of the children with her, as opposed to Ray, who prefers strongly that they escape alone, along with Norman, and leave the rest of the younger children.
When was Emma born?
Emma is born in the year 2034, which means that her existence is still in the far-off, distant future. We don’t know what the world will be like at that time! Based on her personal anime Wikipedia, her exact birthday is on August 22, which makes her a Leo sun sign in the zodiac horoscope. In the first season, she is of age eleven.
To understand more about Emma’s personality, a quote made by the creator himself, Kaui Shirai, is provided to give us more insight:
“She’s reckless and unreasonable. She’s naive and immature. But. . . She is amazingly true to herself.” – Kaiu Shirai, the writer of The Promised Neverland.
What is her relationship with Ray and Norman?
At the start of season 1, Emma is one of the three older children in Grace Field. She is accompanied by, of course, Ray and Norman. The three of them are all eleven-year-olds at the start of the story.
All three of them possess high intelligence compared to the younger children and come off as the top of their class. Emma, Ray, and Norman are considered to be “reserved for a specific date” as they are considered the most “premium quality” of goods.
What differentiates Emma from Norman and Ray?
Both Norman and Ray are considered to be deuteragonists in contrast to Emma, who is the charming heroine and true protagonist of the show.
Norman and Ray may as well act like the supporting characters to the purpose-driven heroine.
Norman
Norman is most probably Emma’s closest friend at the orphanage. He comes off as quiet and highly intelligent, but compared to Ray who radiates a darker aura and shows not much concern for others because of his unresolved thoughts and emotions, Norman shows a more compassionate and considerate side in his nature.
Norman possesses platinum blonde colored hair that looked like it belonged to a cupid. He has beautiful bright blue eyes to match his calm, role-model appearance. Like Ray, he is considered to be a strategist, and also a “genius planner”.
Norman is a math prodigy, and is considered to be “the smartest child” in Grace Field’s house, surpassing the intelligence and even wisdom of normal adults!
Along with Emma, they both were the first ones to discover the horrible mystery of the world that they live in and planned the magnificent action to escape.
Ray
Despite being a quiet and cynical older child, Ray happens to be able to converse with both Emma and Norman because of their age. Ray is a black-haired character, with dark green-colored eyes, whose hairstyle is similar to that of an Edge Lord.
He usually has a bored and arrogant expression on his face. He is often described by fans as “extremely intelligent” due to his perception of the outside world, and a brilliant “strategist” because of his nature to create double routed schemes, but compared to Emma, he may come off as a bit pessimistic due to his intelligence and may be judged by others as selfish.
Is Emma the first girl in a Shounen anime?
A shounen anime is referred to as anime that is made for boys. Emma is known to be the first girl hero in a shounen anime in Shonen Jump, a Japanese manga magazine.
There is a lot of shounen anime with strong female protagonists, Emma is not the first one. One example is Clare from Claymore, another one is Ryuko Matoi in Kill La Kill, and there are many more inspiring female heroines out there.
That would make Emma another example of a badass female protagonist in another shounen anime, which is The Promised Neverland.
Conclusion
So that is Emma, the girl in The Promised Neverland. Turns out, she’s the heroine of her story. No matter what struggles she faced, she is determined to accomplish what she wants to accomplish, with the help of her smart friends, of course.
She remains incredibly optimistic throughout the horrible revelation that she, alongside Norman and Ray has discovered in the story. She’s a good role model for all girls out there because of her cheerfulness, and love for others.
