The Promised Neverland anime adaptation was animated by the studio CloverWorks. The series was written by Kaiu Shirai, and illustrated by Posuka Demizu for Shonen Jump in May 2018. The first episode aired in Japan on January 11th, 2019. After the success of Season 1, Season 2 became the series’ downfall.
The Promised Neverland
Set in a fictional world in the year 2045 that’s unlike ours, The Promised Neverland revolves around an orphanage, where the children are all happy, healthy, fed, and can do whatever they please, so long as they cooperate with taking the daily exams, and to never venture out the gate or the compounds. Their loving caretaker is like a mom to them, and they are always sad but cheering each time one of their siblings gets adopted.
One night, when the main characters, Emma, Ray, and Norman, the smartest kids in the orphanage, who have always passed their exams, follow “Mom” who is taking the next newly adopted child to the gate, they learn a horrifying secret about the outside world and the inner world of their orphanage. Less an orphanage and more a farm, where the children are cattle to be grown into high-quality food for monsters.
The Broken Promise
Throughout season 1 of The Promised Neverland, the trio went through the trial of staying under the radar to avoid arousing the suspicion of their caretaker, while learning more truths about the house they used to think of as home. They had their mother play “hide and seek” with all of them and learned that she had a device to track them all, later finding out where their tracking devices were. It was one of those rich stories of horror, thriller, and mystery.
Eventually, there is a reference to the title when the trio is searching for clues to escape and find codes that spell out, “promise”, referencing the promised Neverland, where humans are free from the monsters. This was also sometimes thought of as an irony to how the kids, when ignorant, were always promised they would all get adopted and leave the house to promised homes. The Promised Neverland season 1 eventually ends with the kids becoming free, revealing some twists about how they did it, and it ends on a bright and hopeful cliffhanger, both literally and figuratively.
The first season was filled with every amazing aspect of children surviving a horrifying situation and had fans at the edge of their seats during the twelve episodes. Season two however, broke the promise of continuing the amazing storyline, and went downhill badly, according to a lot of fans and their reviews, a good amount of anyone who watches season two, even the ones who never read The Promised Neverland manga, will agree.
Season 1 Versus Season 2
When season two of The Promised Neverland finally aired in April 2021, all the fans were excited to jump back and see how the runaway children faired, trying to now survive in the woods with monsters, and the first couple of episodes were great. The Promised Neverland anime adaptation still retained the themes of horror, action, thrillers, and a bit of mystery after meeting mysterious characters, finding more clues of a secret hideout, and continuing on their journey, even rescuing other children from other farms.
Some manga readers began to realize quickly that season 2 wasn’t exactly following the manga, but at first it was fine since season one didn’t follow the manga to a T either, but season two did more than not follow the manga. Even non-manga readers noticed that the storyline was not going the way it should’ve as it became clearer when events were becoming more rushed, and the timelines were moving fast.
This was evidenced when the children found the bunker they had been looking for, only to then lose it and have to escape to an old temple near a demon town. In that demon town, trouble arises, and the two leaders of the group eventually learn their third friend was alive all along, having escaped from the place he was taken to with other team members. The storyline then becomes more rushed. They argue about opposing views about demons, his group sets fire to the town, and the mysterious characters the children met on their way reveal blood that causes demons to no longer require human meat!
Anime Adaptation Versus Manga
In the anime adaptation, after the whole scene with the demon town being set on fire, all the other action-packed events of the kids being lured into a trap, the mysterious characters having their missions, and scenes of the moms of other orphanages. It all gets squished into the three remaining episodes that the animation studio for The Promised Neverland was willing to animate, making it clear they purposefully cut the scenes short to get the project over with.
While season 1 had twelve episodes, season 2 had eleven, making for a very rushed and unsatisfying ending. The fans’ outrage grew more when some looked to the manga for comparison to see just how much the animators took out. The Promised Forest arc and the Searching for Minerva arc were given an abridged animation, many details are unmentioned or make no appearance, even a majorly important character for the shelter arc, and a poor excuse was animated for it.
The rest of the atrocities that the animators and the animation studio did that butchered season two will be poorly summarized since they pretty much poorly summarized the events of the manga instead of giving a good and promised animation sequel. The animators put in more scenes that didn’t happen in the manga, skipped over five majorly important arcs, made an abridged version of the central event, and gave a slideshow for the ending, no dialogue either, just a slideshow with some happy music.
The Promised Neverland’s Fanbase
Both groups of fans, manga readers and non-manga readers of The Promised Neverland were all equally and rightfully outraged with how season two turned out. A promise broken so terribly, a bit of new advice was quickly made to any new fans to just stick to watching season 1, as the previous fans would’ve preferred to only have a cliffhanger if it meant never seeing such an awful continuation.
When a series is given a season 2 to act as the finale for the show, it is expected to be a good follow-up and continuation of season one, not just a summarized version to rush to the ending! Let’s hope Arcane does better their promise of season two being equally as good as season one.
The Promised Neverland’s Hope
After everything, some fans have been asking whether there will be a new anime adaptation for a second season in the future that will be more faithful to The Promised Neverland’s manga. Other fans have sworn to never watch season 2 again and have recommended that others only watch season 1. Now that the manga has ended, it wouldn’t be an issue to create a new adaptation. If the manga were to be picked up again for a new, more faithful, and longer season or multiple seasons, all fans would hope for a better adaptation in the future. But for now, it’s just the manga and season 1.
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