Let’s be real. It’s been years since it aired, but bringing up The Promised Neverland Season 2 in a room full of anime fans is still the fastest way to start an argument. Or a crying session. Honestly, it's a bit of both. You’ve got this incredible first season that felt like a masterclass in tension—a literal chess match where the stakes were children's lives—and then... well, then the second season happened. It wasn't just a "bad" adaptation. It felt like watching a speedrun of a marathon where the runner tripped, broke their leg, and decided to just crawl to the finish line while skipping all the best parts.
I remember sitting there, watching the premiere, thinking it started off okay. The kids are out of Grace Field House. They’re in the woods. The world is big, scary, and unknown. But then the pacing didn't just pick up; it strapped itself to a rocket. If you’ve read the manga by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We're talking about one of the most drastic departures from source material in modern anime history.
What actually went wrong with The Promised Neverland Season 2?
The core issue wasn't just that it was different. It was the "Goldy Pond" sized hole in the middle of the story. For those who didn't read the manga, Goldy Pond is arguably the best arc in the entire series. It’s where Emma truly grows as a leader. It introduces Lewis, a villain who actually feels threatening in a visceral, physical way. It’s a survival horror masterpiece.
Instead of adapting this, the production team at CloverWorks decided to skip it. Entirely.
Why? There are theories. Some say the production schedule was a nightmare. Others point to the fact that Shirai was involved in the "original scenario" for the anime, suggesting they wanted a more streamlined ending. But "streamlined" is a polite word for what happened. It felt like someone took a 20-chapter book and decided to summarize it using only the chapter titles. By the time we got to the bunker, characters like Yuugo—the fan-favorite "Old Man" who provided the necessary grit and cynicism to balance Emma’s optimism—were just gone. Deleted from existence.
It’s weird. Usually, anime original content is meant to pad things out. Here, it was used to delete things. The emotional weight of the series depended on the slow-burn realization of how messed up the world was. When you jump from "we just escaped" to "here is the solution to every problem in the world" in the span of three episodes, you lose the audience. You lose the soul of the show.
The pacing was a literal fever dream
Let’s look at the numbers for a second. The first season covered roughly 37 chapters of the manga across 12 episodes. That’s a healthy, standard pace. It allowed for the internal monologues that made the mind games work.
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The Promised Neverland Season 2 attempted to cram the remaining 140+ chapters into 11 episodes.
Read that again.
It’s mathematically impossible to do that well. You end up with the infamous "PowerPoint presentation" ending. You know the one. That montage in the final episode where they show years of character development and world-building through still images because they ran out of time to actually animate the story. It felt like a slap in the face to anyone who had invested years following Emma, Ray, and Norman.
Why the Norman reveal failed to land
In the manga, Norman’s return is a massive, world-shifting event. It’s built up. You feel his absence. When he shows up as "Minerva," it’s a moment of complicated joy because he’s changed. He’s colder. He’s willing to commit genocide to save his family.
In the anime? He just kind of shows up.
Because the show skipped the struggle of the forest and the hunt, Norman’s descent into "the God of Forest" felt unearned. We didn't see the horrors he went through at Lambda in enough detail to justify his radical shift in personality. He went from the sweet kid who sacrificed himself to a revolutionary leader in what felt like twenty minutes of screentime. The conflict between Emma’s pacifism and Norman’s pragmatism is the heartbeat of the final act, but in Season 2, it felt like a minor disagreement over what to have for dinner.
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The missed opportunity of the Demon World
One of the coolest things about the world Shirai built was the demon ecology and religion. We got a tiny glimpse of it with Mujika and Sonju. They were great! The animation in those early Season 2 episodes was actually quite beautiful. The way the demons were designed, the weird flora and fauna—it worked.
But then the show stopped caring about the world-building.
The "Evil-Blooded" subplot, which is central to the politics of the demon world, was reduced to a few lines of dialogue. The Queen and the high-ranking demon houses? Barely characters. It turned a complex sociopolitical struggle into a simple "bad guys vs. good kids" story.
The fallout and the "CloverWorks" reputation
For a while after this, CloverWorks had a bit of a reputation problem. It was a weird year for them, honestly. They were also producing Horimiya and Wonder Egg Priority at the same time. While Horimiya was a hit, Wonder Egg suffered from similar production meltdowns toward the end.
It makes you wonder about the state of the industry. When a property as massive as The Promised Neverland—a literal Shonen Jump flagship—gets handled this poorly, it signals a deeper issue with how seasons are greenlit and produced. It wasn't just a lack of talent. The staff at CloverWorks are incredible animators. It was a lack of time and, seemingly, a lack of respect for the source material's pacing.
Is it even worth watching now?
Honestly? If you’ve never seen the show, watch Season 1. It is a perfect 10/10 experience. It’s tight, it’s emotional, and the ending of that season functions as a decent "open-ended" finale.
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If you want to know what happens next, don't watch The Promised Neverland Season 2. Pick up the manga. Start from Chapter 38.
The manga has its own flaws—the final arc is a bit rushed even there—but it is a coherent, breathtaking journey compared to the anime. You get the Goldy Pond arc. You get the real battle at the capital. You get to see the actual cost of the "Promise."
Watching the anime's second season is like reading a Wikipedia summary of a beautiful poem. You get the facts, but you lose the feeling. You see the kids reach the human world, but you don't feel like they earned it. They just walked through a door that the plot opened for them because the episode count was running out.
What we can learn from this disaster
This isn't just about one bad show. It's a cautionary tale for the "seasonal anime" era. We're seeing more shows take long breaks to ensure quality (like Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer), and The Promised Neverland is the poster child for why that’s necessary.
Fans would have waited three years for a good Season 2. They would have waited five. Instead, we got a rushed product that effectively killed the franchise's momentum. You don't see Grace Field cosplay at conventions as much anymore. The fan art has slowed down. The "vibe" around the series turned from excitement to disappointment.
Actionable steps for fans and collectors
If you are looking to experience this story the right way, here is the path forward:
- Watch Season 1: It remains one of the best psychological thrillers in anime.
- Transition to the Manga: Start at Volume 5. This is where the anime begins to deviate and eventually skip content.
- Check out the Light Novels: There are side stories (like A Letter from Norman) that add massive depth to the characters that the anime ignored.
- Ignore the "Original Scenario" hype: If you see "written by the original author" on an anime-original project, remember Season 2. Authors are great at writing manga; they aren't always great at condensing 100+ chapters into a few hours of television.
- Support the creators: Buy the manga volumes. Despite the anime's failure, the original work is a masterpiece of the medium and deserves the support.
The tragedy of The Promised Neverland Season 2 isn't that it was a different story; it's that it was a hollow one. In a world of "must-watch" TV, it became a "must-skip," serving as a permanent reminder that some stories are too big to be squeezed into a single cour. Stick to the manga, cherish the first season, and let the rest stay in the "demon world" of forgotten adaptations.