is a character in the

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

series ''

The Promised Neverland is a Japanese manga series written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. It was serialized in Shueisha's ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from August 2016 to June 2020, with its chapters collected in twenty ''tankōbon'' volumes. In N ...

'', created by

Kaiu Shirai is the pen name of a Japanese manga artist and writer whose real name and date of birth are unknown. He is best known for his manga series ''The Promised Neverland''. Early life Kaiu Shirai was doing Kabuki at a young age and then after graduat ...

and

Posuka Demizu is a Japanese manga artist, illustrator and designer. She is particularly known for having drawn ''The Promised Neverland''. She debuted as a manga artist with the 2013 CoroCoro Comic series ''Oreca Monster Bouken Retsuden''. A collection of ...

. Norman is an 11-year-old boy living at Grace Field House. Like

Ray Ray may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin Science and mathematics * Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point * Ray (g ...

and

Emma Emma may refer to: * Emma (given name) Film * Emma (1932 film), ''Emma'' (1932 film), a comedy-drama film by Clarence Brown * Emma (1996 theatrical film), ''Emma'' (1996 theatrical film), a film starring Gwyneth Paltrow * Emma (1996 TV film), '' ...

, Norman consistently gets perfect scores on his daily exams. He is known for being a genius strategist and planner, as well as unbeatable at the game of tag. He discovers the truth of the orphanage with Emma and teams up with Ray to devise a plan to escape. While he knows leaving with every child in the house is near to impossible, his love for his sister Emma pushes him to continue trying. In the

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

adaptation, he is voiced by

Maaya Uchida is a Japanese voice actress and singer who works for I'm Enterprise. She won the Best Rookie Actress Award at the 8th Seiyu Awards. She is best known for her roles such as Rikka Takanashi in ''Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions'', Ranko Kanzaki i ...

in Japanese and by Jeannie Tirado in the English version. In the live-action

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

, Norman is portrayed by Rihito Itagaki.

Creation

According to

, Norman is the mainstay of the group and had a "lighter" mood compare to Ray and Emma. For his character design, Shirai asked for something like angelic, and a bit ethereal, with a simple design philosophy. Making him look like a moon or a knight of the story.

had difficulties creating the character design of Norman, including his body type, face and hair. According to Demizu, Norman was supposed to be slender in his original design, but it was difficult to show the difference between him and the other children. All of them wear the same clothes. So she decided to maintain the current design.

Casting

In the anime adaptation, the character is voiced by

in Japanese; and Jeannie Tirado voices the character in English. In the live-action

, Norman was portrayed by Rihito Itagaki.

Appearances

In ''The Promised Neverland''

Norman was born on March 21, 2034. At the beginning of the story on October 12, 2045, Norman is 11-year-old boy living at Grace Field House orphanage. He has blue eyes and short white hair that is parted to his left, with a longer piece curving upwards on the left side of his head. An authentication number, 22194 is tattooed on his neck. As the most intelligent out of the three, he is the first to find out Ray's true identity as

Isabella Isabella may refer to: People and fictional characters * Isabella (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Isabella (surname), including a list of people Places United States * Isabella, Alabama, an unincorpora ...

's spy and prepare various back-up plans and escape routes. After Ray is betrayed by Isabella, Norman is forced to be shipped before his 12th birthday, accepting his fate of inevitable death to deceive her and let the rest of the children escape. However, instead of being put down, Norman is sent to a special research facility called Lambda Λ7214, it was created in order to try to create higher quality human livestock in a faster and more efficient way than the Premium Farms for the tifarti ceremony. He escapes from Lambda and destroys the place after leading the other children held there in an uprising. Afterwards, he establishes a place called The Paradise Hideout for children they rescued from Lambda to live at and prepares a plan to wipe out all demons.

Appearances in other media

Norman appeared in two drama CDs released along with the anime series' first season

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

disc, titled ''GF House Ghost Disturbance'' and ''Gift from the 39th Girl''. The stories were originated from the novel ''A Letter from Norman''. Norman also appeared in two other drama CDs titled ''The day Emma cried'' and ''Voice Time Capsule'', released along with the anime series' second season Blu-ray disc. Good Smile Company launched a Nendoroid figure based on the character from the series in June 2021. Norman is a

playable character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

in the

mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

''The Promised Neverland: Escape the Hunting Grounds'' released on

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

. Norman is also a playable character in the crossover collaborations between ''The Promised Neverland'' and the smartphone video games ''

Identity V ''Identity V'' is a free-to-play asymmetrical multiplayer survival horror game developed and published by Chinese company NetEase. It was released in July 2018 for mobile devices. It is available on the iOS App Store, Android Google Play Stor ...

'', ''Jumputi Heroes'', ''Dragon Egg'', ''Vivid Army'' and ''LINE POP 2''.

Reception

Popularity

Norman was nominated to the Best Male Character category at the 41st Anime Grand Prix in 2019. He was also nominated for the Man of the Year category in the 6th Anime Trending Awards in 2020. Norman ranked at the 1st place in the Color Illustration Character Poll of the series in 2018. In the popularity poll of the series in 2018, Norman is in the 2nd place. He also took the second place in the 2nd popularity poll of the series, with a total of 4763 votes.

Critical response

Brittany Vincent from ''

Syfy Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...

'' praised the character and describes him as "Norman looks fragile but has a calm demeanor and quiet strength about him". Pauline Croquet from the french newspaper ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' said that the design of the three main characters, including Norman, is very original and comes out of the '' shōnen'' manga typical designs.

References

External links

* * {{The Promised Neverland Comics characters introduced in 2016 Male characters in anime and manga Fictional orphans Orphan characters in anime and manga Child characters in anime and manga Fantasy anime and manga characters