(L) Yakusoku no Neverland S2 (The Promised Neverland Season 2)

[Kanon]

They made at least one change I'm happy with (a certain character surviving instead of dying in a stupid manner), too bad the rest was awful. For a moment I thought they were planning a completely anime original season three given that they clearly didn't have enough time to wrap everything up, but nope, just a montage of the stuff they were supposed to have done before in the manga with no context whatsover for anime viewers.

I think this is the worst second season I've ever seen. Even Tokyo Ghoul root A wasn't this bad.

[Wandering Soul]

Well, it's finally over. The only real change to the ending is one character surviving and everything else is reduced to a clip-show. Overall I can't say this season was worth it considering they cut out the second-best arc and everything else was so rushed it made the bad parts of the manga only worse. TPN season 2 ended up being one of the best comedies of the season.

[Random14]

I skimmed through the season fast, what a bizarre adaptation. Anime original endings aren't anything new, but who came up with this approach, the anime staff? Or the author, given how bad the manga became by the end? Skipping the second best part of the manga and then rushing through parts of the horrible last arc of the series? Yet they still bothered to animate some of the background stuff (like that demon queen) even for just a few seconds, rather than just cut down and really simplify the lore.

I'm slightly glad they did skip over some of the more melodramatic stuff the manga threw in at the end.

Spoiler for just in case manga ending details:

Like Isabella's death by random soldier and Emma's amnesia as the price for passage. Those just felt like extra angst for the sake of it.

I'm not sure but I think Phil actually got more screentime here than in the manga too. Too bad this anime turned out so bad. This is one of those cases where I wish the anime had just stopped at the good part and then skipped the rest, or even tried to come up with its own completely different ending rather than this attempt at adapting the end of the manga (especially as the manga had already gone off the rails by then). What a waste of a second season, probably would have been better if they hadn't made it at all.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for final thoughts:

Ooh... The first season was kinda good, with the mystery, suspense, horror.

But it looks like the author does not have an aptitude for adventure.
It seems the biggest problem is that everything that occurs is so... fluffy.

You have monsters that can't catch kids in their natural habitat.
Some material that makes all demons go berserk.
Some girl's blood that cures all of the demons' problems
Some potion that cures Norman's whatever
Some new characters that are... just there? Crazy girl wasn't even crazy. Don't know what that build-up was about.
And they really were able to pretty much destroy an entire enemy base just like that. Because it seems that no one around can outsmart and outperform these kids. And the random demon villagers.

And the bad guy of this season.........
He even dared to give us a sob story. At least he kills himself instead of sprouting angel wings.


...Also, WTF with the end. Was the manga like this? Did they just go, "Somethings happened. And everyone just lived happily ever after. Don't ask what Ema actually did though."?

5/10
I heard the manga goes downhill after escaping the orphanage, but man, when you experience it yourself.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Spoiler for final thoughts:

...Also, WTF with the end. Was the manga like this? Did they just go, "Somethings happened. And everyone just lived happily ever after. Don't ask what Ema actually did though."?

No, the manga wasn't like that. A lot of time was spent on resolving everything, and Emma started working toward her goal of making a new promise from the end of arc 2 instead of coming up with that at the last minute. It wasn't good, but it was a hundred times better than what the anime gave us. I really think the manga really wasn't so bad now. It's like they made this season to tell us "look how much worse it could have been".

[Tong]

Ending was so corny and rushed omg

[Kamijou Touma IB]

I am so glad I waited for this show to finish before watching it. Now I do not have to.

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by Kanon

No, the manga wasn't like that. A lot of time was spent on resolving everything, and Emma started working toward her goal of making a new promise from the end of arc 2 instead of coming up with that at the last minute. It wasn't good, but it was a hundred times better than what the anime gave us. I really think the manga really wasn't so bad now. It's like they made this season to tell us "look how much worse it could have been".

I see. They knew a third season would not be made, so they just threw everything into the end.

[Guardian Enzo]

Mind you the manga ending sucks too, but it sucks with a proper buildup.

[scififan]

The ending is quite original. The the beginning conversation said that safe passage to another world is not guarantee to be happy. I was expecting they are having adventure in the wild human world. Instead, they live happily ever after. Their destination is Manhattan, but not the Manhattan in the era of Gangs of New York.

Overall, happy ending is better than ending with gut wrenching feeling any day. Heartbreaking conclusion will be remember by viewers for a long time, but they always remember that horrible scenes.

[Alchemist007]

I guess there was no confidence in getting a third season or a movie? It would explain the rush job. The last episode makes sense all that taken into account, even if undesirable. What's particularly disappointing about it is that the human world seems to be a paradise whereas I would've expected a society built upon sacrificing members of your own species down to a food source to be anything but.

First season was a 9...

This was a 6/10.

[TinyRedLeaf]

I marathoned the second season over the past couple of weeks. I've not read the manga. I enjoyed the first season, even if I felt it was a bit too ham-fisted at times, and to be honest, I enjoyed much of the second season as well, at least until the part where the children reunited with Norman.

I understand and accept the criticism of far too convenient solutions, as presented in the anime, but I was actually willing to forgive most of that. The only thing that bugged me was that the nature of Mujika's "evil blood" was not properly explained. If the solution to the genrations-old crisis could be so easily solved by having all demons share in her blood, then what kept them from doing so until now? It didn't make much sense.....

....but even that I was willing to forgive. The last couple of episodes, however, just went even further downhill, and it seemed like the production team couldn't even care any more. Let's not even talk about the slide-show finale. It's beyond atrocious.

You know what? The one thing I'm most upset about is that I never got to find out what happened to the pair of deformed oni children who nearly had their skulls smashed in by one of the humans. I felt so sorry for them. Their caregivers were murdered, and they were clearly too handicapped to work for themselves. And then they nearly died because of Norman's attempted genocide.

So what happens to them now?

What does it say that I'm far more invested in a couple of side characters than for the entire main cast and key supporting characters?

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I understand and accept the criticism of far too convenient solutions, as presented in the anime, but I was actually willing to forgive most of that. The only thing that bugged me was that the nature of Mujika's "evil blood" was not properly explained. If the solution to the genrations-old crisis could be so easily solved by having all demons share in her blood, then what kept them from doing so until now? It didn't make much sense.....

That's one point that was actually explained in the anime. The royalty was controlling the population through the farms. "If you don't obey, we'll stop giving you humans and you'll degenerate", basically. Mujika's blood would have put an end to all that, so the royalty took some for themselves and then decided to have her killed. Sonju

Spoiler for manga spoiler:

who is actually the Queen's little brother

saved her.

The nature of her blood wasn't explained even in the manga, IIRC. It just works.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Kanon

That's one point that was actually explained in the anime. The royalty was controlling the population through the farms. "If you don't obey, we'll stop giving you humans and you'll degenerate", basically. Mujika's blood would have put an end to all that, so the royalty took some for themselves and then decided to have her killed....

What I meant is that if the solution were as simple as to distribute the blood to enough oppressed oni, and organise them into a revolt, what was preventing Mujika from doing that in the first place? Yes, I understand the effect of inertia — that's the case in real life as well — but there wasn't enough in the anime to show how dangerous it would be, or swiftly the royalty would react to such attempted revolts.

It was too big of a stretch and, yes, far too convenient. I felt if this was handled better, the rest of the narrative would have been a little bit more plausible.

Originally Posted by Kanon

The nature of her blood wasn't explained even in the manga, IIRC. It just works.

Ugh, well, bad writing then. Can't hold that against the anime.

I am genuinely upset, though, that I have no closure on what happened to the pair of oni orphans. I can only assume that they somehow made it through to a better life. It would have been good to have some confirmation, even if they are just bit characters. What the heck, even oni-Emma got the benefit of some resolution, why not the pair of oni children?

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

What I meant is that if the solution were as simple as to distribute the blood to enough oppressed oni, and organise them into a revolt, what was preventing Mujika from doing that in the first place? Yes, I understand the effect of inertia — that's the case in real life as well — but there wasn't enough in the anime to show how dangerous it would be, or swiftly the royalty would react to such attempted revolts.

Mujika is the peaceful kind. She was distributing her blood to save her kind wherever she could, probably not realizing it threatened the power in place and therefore never thinking about organizing a revolt. When all the demons who had received her blood were thoughtfully exterminated by the Queen, she just gave up.

But you're right, what makes no sense is how quickly and easily they managed to organize a revolt against the farms in the present. In fact, that never happened in the manga.

[Guido]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Mujika is the peaceful kind. She was distributing her blood to save her kind wherever she could, probably not realizing it threatened the power in place and therefore never thinking about organizing a revolt. When all the demons who had received her blood were thoughtfully exterminated by the Queen, she just gave up.

But you're right, what makes no sense is how quickly and easily they managed to organize a revolt against the farms in the present. In fact, that never happened in the manga.

One out of a thousand reasons why I stopped and dropped off the anime for good after the S2 fifth episode. Bringing Norman back in such anti-climatic fashion was too much for me to handle without rolling my eyes off. However, I do have to give them credit for the effort they put up with the first two episodes at introducing Sonju and Mujika.