Shipments

''This article is about the Manga version of Shipments. For alternate pages referred to by this name, please click any of the icons above.''

A Shipment, also called an Adoption, Delivery or Harvest refers to the process of "shipping out" an orphan from an "orphanage" to be either slaughtered and sold as food for the Demons, shipped off to a different plantation or location, or, for some twelve year-old girls, train to become a Sister or Mama. The children are led to believe that they are orphans living at a happy orphanage and that when they are "shipped out" they are being sent to live with foster families.

History
1,000 years ago, the world was plagued by a war between humans and demons. In an attempt to end the war, a proposal —otherwise known as The Promise— was formed by the first head of the Ratri family and. It declared that "Human beings shan't hunt 'demons' anymore. In return, 'demons' shan't hunt humans." Afterwards, the world was broken into two — one side belonging to the demons while the other belonging to the humans. As per the agreement, as small number of humans were left behind in the Demon World to satisfy the demons need to eat humans. These humans, who came to be referred to as "orphans" or "cattle children", were later kept in plantations under the guise of "orphanages" known as Premium Farms or Factory Farms to be raised as livestock for the demons to consume.

Everyday, the orphans are required to take tests under the guise of "schooling". When in fact, these tests are designed to determine their quality as livestock. Age determines the rank of their quality. Age five or younger is considered "low-quality", age six to seven is considered "average-quality", age eight to nine is considered "good-quality", age ten to eleven is considered "high-quality", and age twelve or older is considered "premium-quality". While six is always the youngest minimum age to be shipped out, each Premium Farm has a different maximum shipment age. For Grace Field, the maximum shipment age is twelve, for Glory Bell it is fifteen, and for Grand Valley it is seventeen. This is because each Premium Farm focuses on different developments in their livestock. Grace Field focuses solely on mental development and thus six years old is the minimum age to be shipped out of Grace Field because the human brain is said to be 90% developed by age six, and according to the manga, by age twelve it is completely developed. Whereas Glory Bell and Grand Valley focus on mental and physical development thus qualifying for a higher maximum shipment age to make their bodies more physically developed.

After the children reach the age of six, whichever child has the lowest score will be shipped out of each plant roughly once every two months. This allows the most intelligent children who show the most potential to continue to developed to increase their quality, while weeding out the weaker, less intelligent children who are not showing much potential. Those who have full scores will be shipped out no matter what once they reach the maximum shipment age of their respective farm. At Grace Field, the highest score a child can receive on a test is 300. If a child scores lower than 120, their shipment date will be hastened.

System
At Grace Field, a child is usually shipped out of each plant roughly once every two months. A child is typically informed that they will be shipped out about a week before their assigned shipment date, but occasionally will be informed as late as the day before. To keep up the facade that the children are orphans being sent to live with foster families, the child who is being shipped out will be given a luggage to put their belongings in and is dressed in special clothes consisting of a plain white long sleeved button-up shirt and yellow waistcoat underneath a blue blazer, a red necktie, a brown skirt or pants, brown shoes, and a white fedora. Children are shipped out in the evening after dinner, during which time all of the orphans gather around the front door to say their goodbyes to the child who is leaving. Afterwards, the Mama will walk the child to the gate where the child will be handed over to the Demons.

The majority of the time, the child will be killed at the gate. Once the "Gupna" is complete and the Vida has drained the child's body of all it's blood, the child's body will be stripped of their clothes and placed in a shipment bottle to preserve it.

If the child is a twelve year-old girl who has successfully passed a set of requirements, and has received a recommendation from their own Mama, they will be given the option to either die or train to become a Sister or Mama at Headquarters. However, as seen in the bonus chapter Seeking the Sky of Freedom, most Sister trainees are "rejected" (killed) during their training. Very few girls training to become Sisters actually get the position, and even fewer get to become Mamas.

Occasionally, a child will be shipped out to be sent to a different plantation or location such as Lambda 7214, a special research facility for experimenting on children, or Goldy Pond, a secret hunting ground where the Poachers hunt children for sport.

Anime and Manga Differences

 * Shipments are largely the same in the anime as they were in the manga.
 * One difference is the colors of the shipment clothes. In the manga, the clothes consist of a plain white long sleeved button-up shirt and yellow waistcoat underneath a blue blazer, a red necktie, a brown skirt or pants, brown shoes, and a white fedora. In the anime, the clothes consist of a plain white long sleeved button-up shirt and grey waistcoat underneath a black blazer, a red necktie, a grey skirt or pants, brown shoes, and a black fedora.

Shipped out

 * Rosie (Deceased)
 * Gotao? (Deceased)
 * Adela (Deceased)
 * Sophie (Deceased)
 * Oliver's brother (Deceased)
 * Sonya's brother (Deceased)
 * Sonya's friend (Deceased)
 * Sandy's friend (Deceased)
 * 28 unnamed Goldy Pond members
 * Numerous unnamed children (Some deceased and some still alive)

Trivia

 * It is currently unknown what the maximum shipment age for Goodwill Ridge is.
 * While some twelve-year-old girls get the option to train to become a Mama or Sister, boys get no such option. Regardless of their age or quality, boys are always killed during shipments, except in the rare instance where they are shipped to a different plantation or location, such as when Norman was shipped to Lambda 7214.
 * According to Shirai, the special clothes that the children wear during shipments costs a lot, but it is worth it to make a "perfect setup for the perfect human meats."
 * The first person to propose that the children wear special clothes during shipments was once a Mama.
 * According to Shirai, there are demons who do not care at all that young children are being killed at the farms, but there are some who do, somewhere in their heart.
 * The shipment uniforms were designed to look like "a grade-schooler's entrance ceremony outfit".
 * If a twelve year old girl chooses to train to become a Sister when she is shipped out, she gets to keep the belongings she brought with her. However, if a child is shipped out to a different location such as Lambda, they do not get to take their belongings with them. This is shown when Krone got to take her doll with her to Headquarters, but Norman did not get to take his luggage and Cup Phone with him to Lambda.
 * The past tense of a shipment is shipped, shipped out, sent, delivered or harvested.