The Promised Neverland Season 2: ...what

**(no manga spoilers! but I talk about the season 2 finale)

So, I already made a post about TPN2 around the midway point of this season, but honestly I’m not even going to link to it because it makes me sad how hopeful I was then lol. This time I’m going to talk about the season as a whole.

I’ve said a number of times on this blog that I prefer to post about the things I like rather than things I dislike; I rarely review anime I’ve seen that I think are really terrible (mostly because if an anime is terrible, I wont even finish it). However, I do think I need to share my specific disappointment with this season because of how far it fell from the brilliant Season 1.

What made The Promised Neverland Season 2 feel like such a betrayal is that the first season was incredibly done and highly regarded. It was an accurate faithful adaptation of the manga, it was very well animated, the music and direction was great, and it was a suspenseful, scary story. This is why most people were shocked and appalled by Season 2. If TPN2 was a standalone anime with no preexisting manga or season 1, I do not think it would’ve gotten as much hate as it did.

I’m a manga reader, so I’m not sure what anime-only watchers thought of it (if you are one, pls let me know your thoughts below). But it does kind of upset me to think that anime-onlys were basically spoiled of the much more cohesive manga ending.

Originally, we thought that the “changes” being made to Season 2 meant that the content in the manga would be expanded upon. Once it was confirmed that Goldy Pond was axed, a lot of us thought, oh okay, I guess they’re going a completely different route and changing the plot entirely from the manga (which they kind of started to do? I personally didn’t love it too much, but it was at least different). However, then they made the ending almost identical to the actual ending in the manga, which is what really bothered me.

If they just made it an entirely different plot (think the original 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime, for example) I would at least be able to appreciate it as a different story, or an alternate time line if you will. But what the anime did was they just... kept the original manga ending and removed all of the context, time, and struggle that it took for the characters to get there. Which really watered down the emotional impact of the ending, in my opinion.

And what was even WORSE was the weird little slideshow they did in the last 3 minutes of the season, which showed incredibly important and influential moments from the manga in single frames with absolutely no context. I am VERY curious as to what anime-onlys thought of that nonsense. Plus, there were a number of plot points addressed or hinted at that got absolutely no closure or anything.

(hey, manga readers, remember the Tifari? Which they mentioned BY NAME in season 1, but never addressed ever again in Season 2? Ha ha, ha.)

I just feel very hurt because this was my most highly anticipated anime of this season and it truly couldn’t have been more disappointing. I don’t know much about what happened behind the scenes (and the animators themselves do not deserve hate, that’s for sure) but I really hope that the producers or whoever was actually in charge learns from this mistake. Prior to this, I truly believed that The Promised Neverland could’ve been the next big long running mainstream anime (4 seasons long, at least) but now it’s basically crashed and burned.

I highly, highly recommend reading the manga if you haven’t already. It’s not perfect but it does a really good job of establishing more fleshed out and fulfilling lore, and developing the characters way better than Season 2 did. Any weird plot holes you didn’t understand in Season 2 are almost definitely answered in the manga. Thanks for reading!

-threecheersforinking

The Promised Neverland Anime: what happened??

So, if you’ve been keeping up with the anime airing this season, you might be aware of the controversy surrounding The Promised Neverland season 2 and how it’s started to diverge from the manga. As a manga reader, I wanted to add my two cents, and keep you caught up on the situation if you’re unaware.

In this post I’m going to be discussing the first 5 episodes of The Promised Neverland season 2, but there won’t be manga spoilers, don’t worry. (I will mention arcs and characters by name though, but that’s it)

So, I finished the manga back in June, (you can read my spoilery review of it here) and while I enjoyed it I do remember others being disappointed in the ending. There were rumors that the publishing schedule changed and the author and artist had to put out chapters at a quicker rate than they were ready for. As a result, the end seemed fairly rushed.

When manga readers found out that the author (Kaiu Shirai) was going to help work on Season 2 and make some changes, originally, most of us were excited. Having the original creator involved in the anime is always a good sign, and it seemed like they were aware of some of the displeasure manga fans had with the ending.

However... I can speak for all of us when I say we were not expecting changes this early on. You may have heard talk of the ‘Goldy Pond’ arc, which is the next big arc after Grace Field house in the manga. None of us expected it to be involved in the cuts and changes made by the author. However, from the way the second season is going, it seems like Goldy Pond is going to be completely axed from the show. A beloved character who was meant to be introduced at the start of this season, Yuugo, might not appear at all either.

Despite all this, I trust that Shirai knows what they’re doing. I’m really hoping that even if the story ends up being different, it’ll still be enjoyable and interesting to watch. Everyone has their theories as to what the plot changes are leading to or how Goldy Pond might still happen, but honestly, literally no one can know for sure until we watch the upcoming episodes.

However, I also want to mention my personal criticisms with the show even disregarding the plot changes. My biggest issue (besides being sad about Yuugo) is the pacing. Episodes 4 and 5 had way too much going on. The audience barely had time to absorb the bunker before the raid happened, and then all of a sudden there was a huge timeskip. Yes those things happen way later on in the manga, but even if they wanted to make those drastic changes they definitely could have made them more cohesive or flow better. I’m hoping this aspect improves as they continue on with the season.

Generally though, if you’re an anime-only fan curious about Goldy Pond or Yuugo or just want to know what all the fuss is about, definitely read the manga, it’s totally worth it! Also, if you’re anime-only or a manga reader and want more info/theories about the fate of Season 2, I’d highly recommend this video by Best Girl’s Basement. Thanks for reading!

-threecheersforinking