Ray (The Promised Neverland)

Did You Know?

• Noitamina Shop & Cafe Theater held a cafe event and sold multiple merchandise of Ray to commemorate his birthday in 2019.
• A collaboration with Megane Flower glasses in March 2021 included limited edition glasses frames designed after Ray, Norman, and Emma.
• Ray was featured on a MasterCard credit card in 2022.

Creation

Kaiu Shirai described Ray as having an opposite and darker personality compared to his siblings, being more extreme than the rest of his family. Shirai likened Ray to darkness, while Emma is the sun and Norman the moon. Ray is Shirai's favorite character, and the author noted they share traits, particularly a tendency to become desperate and give up. In the original script, Ray was going to die, nearly burning himself with Grace Field House in retaliation against Isabella and the demons, but Shirai avoided this outcome. Posuka Demizu found Ray easier and faster to draw than Norman or Emma, despite him being the deepest and darkest main character. The proposal to hide Ray's eye came from a casual sketch, which Demizu thought gave him a shadowy air and made him look cool.

Appearances

Ray was born on January 15, 2034. At the story's start on October 12, 2045, he is an 11-year-old boy at Grace Field House orphanage, with dark green eyes and messy short black hair with long bangs parted to the right covering much of his left face. He wears the standard orphanage uniform of a white shirt and trousers with plain shoes, and has authentication number 81194 tattooed on his neck. Growing up, Ray noticed inconsistencies between his memories and reality, leading him to discover Grace Field House's true purpose.

As the only biological son of caretaker Isabella, he did not experience childhood amnesia, confirming his suspicions about demons and the house's nature at age 6 when he first hummed Lesile's song. He became Isabella's spy in exchange for goods and a promise that he, Norman, and Emma would not be fed to demons until their 12th birthdays, using his remaining years to orchestrate an escape plan. After a confrontation with Norman, he became the children's trump card as Isabella betrayed him.

Initially unwilling to accept Emma's goal of escaping with every child, he vowed never to give up after their escape succeeded. In 2047, he stopped wearing the standard uniform at the shelter, adopting long black pants, a black shirt, a long white coat, and his old brown shoes. Ray appears in three of four light novel books and in the comedic spin-off manga Oyakusoku no Neverland.

Reception

Ray won the Joint Character Wildcard and was nominated for Man of the Year at the 6th Anime Trending Awards in 2020. He placed third behind Norman and Emma in the 2018 Color Illustration Character Poll, and also ranked third in the 2018 Weekly Shōnen Jump popularity poll, taking third again in the second popularity poll with 4,651 votes. Allen Moody of THEM Anime Reviews described Ray as having taken psychological damage from the place, and while questioning his trustworthiness, felt sympathy for him, noting his soul was damaged but perhaps not beyond redemption.

Brittany Vincent from Syfy called Ray an isolated child who typically shuns friends but possesses sharp intellect and a keen eye for his surroundings. Pauline Croquet from Le Monde stated that the design of the three main characters, including Ray, is very original and departs from typical shōnen manga designs, describing the children as intelligent and resourceful.