English Dub Review: The Promised Neverland “Episode 3”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Emma and the others part ways with Mujika and Sonju, though Sonju reveals to Mujika that he’s mainly helping them so that they’ll make more humans, ideally smart ones that he can feast on. After much walking the kids eventually find William Minerva’s bunker, giving them a proper place to stay with food, water, and electricity, including a radio to monitor the other houses like Isabella used to do. They also find a bunch of hidden rooms, though including one that opens to a disturbing room with “HELP” scribbled on the walls. But even stranger is the call they get on a payphone, the caller being William Minerva himself.

OUR TAKE

We still seem to be in manga adapted territory for the moment and it’s still feeling relatively alright, with things starting to go back into the sinister mystery that was so much of Season 1. Learning about Sonju’s not so altruistic methods is a little weird, but provides these two seemingly good demons with more nuance than just being the good guys of their species. Humans are still valuable commodities here, but why eat up whichever humans come your way when you can help them breed and then eat the ones that they make? Sonju’s playing the long game and while it’s not exactly an admirable goal or one that is necessarily good for Emma and her group, it is certainly better than eating them right now when they’re barely hanging in there. And hey, what’s the harm in letting him feast on SOME humans later as long as they get to survive?

Though obviously the bigger development would be the kids finding William Minerva’s bunker and setting up shop there. Given how happy they all are to find it and having the necessary means to survive there, it does feel like, for a moment, they could just settle down and end the story. Or at least, given that apparently next episode is where things start to go downhill in terms of this being a proper adaptation, I’m sure that a lot of manga readers would have rather things stopped here. Meanwhile, I have no idea how accurate any of this is to the manga at this moment and am just taking things as they come, and so far, things feel alright for the most part. Nothing amazing quite yet, but nothing that is a giant red flag either. I’m sure that those who have reportedly been disappointed by this season have legitimate grievances and I am somewhat looking forward to seeing what those are, but I also want to look at this season for what it is, not what it’s missing from the manga. That said, I’m not expecting to go full contrarian either and say that this season works fine on its own, but maybe I’ll be surprised. After all the negativity about how this season was handled, my expectations are pretty low, and I find myself pleasantly surprised sometimes when that happens for other things. In the meantime, we’re about a third or fourth through here and I can’t wait to see how it all goes downhill!