English Dub Review: The Promised Neverland “Episode 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
The two demons reveal themselves as Mujika and Sonju, two outliers in demon society who don’t partake in eating humans. Sonju, the bigger demon, explains the state of the world to Emma and Ray, specifically that the earth has been split in two, with one side belonging to the humans living in peace while the other belongs to the demons, who previously hunted humans until humans fought back enough to negotiate this truce. Part of the agreement is that no one can cross onto the other half, though obviously the kids aren’t going to worry about that. Also, Sonju teaches Emma to hunt using a flower called Vida, the same plant that’s been used to drain the blood from children and Grace Field House.

OUR TAKE
Things are still so far so good for the most part, though we are apparently still in the territory of manga adapting for the time being. We’re still getting to the lay of the land in this new version of the series, including these two new characters who are ushering it all in. There isn’t a whole lot to say about Mujika or Sonju as characters at the moment, aside from them being demons who don’t want to eat the kids, which does certainly help them to stand out. What little we have seen of demons so far has pretty much just been shadowy figures who have feasted on whatever child was unlucky enough to be shipped out or whoever Isabella checked in with. So in that sense, I suppose that these are the first demons we’ve seen who are technically actual characters, even though their main personality traits at the moment are “exposition dumper and mentor”. That dump mainly being about the state of the world and how it got this way. I do find it a little weird that the humans became able to fight back after being prey for so long and then just decided to take only half of the world, but maybe there’s more to that.

It’s also worth pointing out Emma’s hesitance to kill the rabbit she captures, especially with the tool that has been used to kill some of her friends. Ever since learning of her place as a potential demon snack, Emma and her friends have only been prey, but now they find that there are some creatures below them on the food chain who THEY need to hunt in order to survive. Obviously it’s a bit of a different situation since it seems that Demons don’t actually need to eat humans to live, but it shows that Emma definitely has compassion for the situation of others when put into a position of power while ALSO understanding that she still has to eat the rabbit and kill more in order to survive and feed her friends. It’s a nice humbling moment that helps to show how different things are for the kids now and how they’ll approach things going forward. And it looks like we have at least one or two more episodes that are from the manga, so I’ll likely have more good things to talk about for just a bit longer.