English Dub Review: The Promised Neverland “Episode 1”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Emma, Ray, and the other kids continue their rush through the forest to escape the demons who they were being harvested to feed. Using William Minerva’s clues, they begin to chart a course to take everyone, but they’re also being pursued by hideous creatures and other smarter demons. To make matters worse, Emma collapses from her ear wound where her tracker was removed. Surprisingly, the group is saved by two demons, a tall one and a small girl.

OUR TAKE

This season’s reputation most definitely precedes it, being highly touted as probably the worst adaptation of the year, much of that apparently coming from cutting a LOT of the source material and, confusingly, at the author’s own request. I have heard quite a bit about the supposed amazing arcs that have been totally omitted, that I honestly was looking forward to seeing animated, but surely those were taken out of this season for…SOME reason, right? I haven’t the foggiest idea what that reason could be, but despite the many, many, MANY deriding comments about how this season has so tanked the goodwill brought on by the first, I still feel like I should go into this with an open mind and judge it on its own merits. After all, I persist that the best way to judge an adaptation is by how it stands on its own without needing to know the source material, so even though I’m sure what is being left out is great, I’m going to look at this as its own piece with its own goals that just happen to not include that.

WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID…things definitely felt a bit off about this episode. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it also wasn’t quite the brand of intrigue or mystery that the first season started with. I mean, I know that the type of show this is would have to fundamentally change on some level after they left the house, since the game has changed from being about sneaking around their caretaker to escape being eaten by demons, and is now just about…running from demons in a forest. This episode felt more about just catching people up as to where everyone is and kicking off the plot for the rest of the season. Adding a couple demon allies is certainly an interesting way to start, though it actually feels a bit too soon for that. Perhaps this is something that came later in the manga, but the fact that I get that sense is not a good sign for things to come. I know I said I would be going into this with an open mind, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pull my punches. Still, let’s just see where things go, and if it really starts to go downhill fast, we only have ten more episodes of this left to deal with anyway.