Spiritually, a distant relative of Duke Devlin/Ryuji Otogi.
Demon characters are a bit harder with how many cool designs Demizu came up with.
The Grace Field Boss Demon only shows up at the beginning and end of the series (barring S2 teasing me by having him show up during the Cuvitidala Arc), but he's such an imposing figure in that initial appearance when the kids are the most vulnerable that he stands out to me, particularly with the tubing that looks like it's from a gas mask. Gives him a clinical feel.
(Concept art from The Promised Neverland Art Book World | Chapter 176 | S1 Episode 1)
Yverk has such a grand, regal bearing to him and one of the sickest mask designs.
(Concept art from The Promised Neverland Art Book World | Chapter 147 | Chapter 7 | WSJ Issue #41 2018 Popularity Poll for Chapter 102 | Chapter 131)
I wish he got to be at the forefront more, but I can appreciate him as a constant background presence maintaining the status quo for over a millennia.
Bayon Sr. continues the trend of having one of the coolest mask designs, and I like how spindly he looks.
Hi🥰. I have this tpn theory for months now, so I would like to know what you think about it 🥰.
Could be 'Him' (Demon God) be a member of the Evil blood clan?
I was flicking through the pages of the Artbook because of the BTAD Zine and found these two pages next to each other.
This could be just a lucky placing of course, but I began to think. Mujika's and the One's design looks similar (or maybe I just overthink it lol)
But what if the royal demons made up the tradition of Tifari to get themselves more food?
They do look pretty similar with their horn placements! Though the demon god's always remain larger in proportion to his mask whereas hers are more dainty.
(Chapter 181 | 158 | 49 | 176 | 140)
They also have similar body shapes when he's in his preferred smaller child form.
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 5)
And while not directly related as parent and child, there's the aesthetics of having a singular god (even dubbed "The One" when they had to decide on a name when adapting the anime) and Mujika acting as a fairly solid parallel to Jesus. (Kei Toda gets into this more in her book, Reading The Promised Neverland with a British/American Literature Scholar, which can be found here.)
Shirai doesn't have any interest in divulging the demon god's origins prior to the original promise, so all we have to go on is this:
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 6 Q&A)
With another parallel of both being shunned due to being considered a threat to the greater social order of the demon world.
I'm of a similar mind to Shirai in that I don't think it's necessary to have a concrete origin for the demon god beyond his role as a profoundly powerful entity in the narrative that the demon aristocracy use as a means to justify their rule over the general populace. This extends to the arbitrary creation of Tifari, though why it falls on/around November 10th of the Gregorian calendar (introduced in 1582, roughly 500 years after the original promise, though the Julian calendar it modified was around since 45 BC) could have been due to other demon world customs or historical events besides it being the time of year the original promise was made. But if you wanted to expand upon these origins in a fanfic, all the more power to you.
But what if the royal demons made up the tradition of Tifari to get themselves more food?
They sort of did, depending on what you mean by get more.
(Chapter 142)
Again, Tifari is arbitrary in that the demon god doesn't actually need the highest grade meat for sustenance. He evolved beyond that centuries before the demon nobility found out about the evil blood. He just wants it because he knows it's what the demon king and later Legravalima covet the most, and under the monarchy they've established they'd normally be the ones receiving the best meat (by their metrics).
It's possible more offerings than what we see at the 2047 Tifari were demanded in the past and that surplus was siphoned off by the upper echelons.
(Chapter 146)
But for simplicity's sake, it's probably been the three highest grade since the beginning for how it mirrors the significance paid to the full score trio being the first time in Grace Field's recorded history there's ever been three children of that caliber at a house at the same time.
(Chapter 1 | 76 | 80 | 152 | 156 | 159)
There's also the three marks on the demon god's mask to keep the trinity/trio visuals going.
(Chapter 142)
So it didn't get them more food in the sense of increasing the amount of meat they hoarded for themselves. Like we see 700 years prior when the demon world was experiencing a famine, they would have finagled some reasoning for why they should have more to maintain their level of comfort and security.
(Chapter 147)
It did, however, continue to justify why they received the larger share of high quality meat. By ensconcing Tifari as a tradition and holding festivities for it every year to ostensibly appease The One that all the citizenry participates in, it legitimatizes their claim to rule and the system by which they maintain their authority, so it did get them more food in the sense of maintaining uncontested access as opposed to the citizens staging a mass uprising across the kingdom.
Rambled about this before on this post, but I really wish they would explained how the search party is able to see out of their masks, even if it was a single panel of Emma pointing out something like nearly imperceptible eye slits.
(Chapter 147 | Chapter 149 | Chapter 150)
Older, classical masks like those of the elder Bayons (compared to those of Bayon II's wife and children), Yverk, and Geelan's clan incorporate a pair of symmetrical, horizontal, and frequently vacant eye holes among their designs.
In the chapter 90 bonus sketch, this is mentioned as respecting tradition, which I interpret as a holdover from the days of demons hunting humans, and the intention of that incorporation was to play on pareidolia-enhanced fear among humans who, out of habit, would look toward the horizontal pair of eye holes first when gazing upon demons in combat and would frequently be treated to an unflinching, menacing abyss. It's a good subtle tactic to unnerve them before they take in the rest of the mask.
Once the farm system was instituted and demons weren't regularly warring with humans anymore, it became unnecessary and seemed to fall out of style among the general population who weren't banished like the Geelan clan.
I assume this is the main reason the kids don't opt for horizontal eye holes. There's also the issue of demons potentially catching sight of their human eyes, but there has to be some black cloth to work with in the bunker that could have lined the masks if they couldn't get whatever magic Bayon and Yverk use for no other eyes or skin to show through their horizontal mask sockets.
Either way, it's one less thing to make them stand out from the crowd when they're already contending with their comparatively short statures, human hands and feet, and having to wear perfume.
