English Dub Review: The Promised Neverland “Episode 4”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Emma listens to William Minerva on the phone, but this turns out to be a recording. William, or rather James Ratri, explains that he purposefully left clues for children smart enough to escape the system, and then provides them with more details on how to find more humans. The kids settle in at the bunker, but are forced to flee when human troops break in, only held off by a giant demon from the forest. But unknown to them, their former mother, Isabella, is recruited to track them down.

OUR TAKE

We’re still not quite in the terrible area that this season is now known for, but I am beginning to feel like we have started to dip out of manga adapted territory. I don’t exactly know where things started, seeing as I haven’t read the manga (even though I’m apparently missing out), but if I had to guess, the kids probably spent at least a bit more time in the bunker than a night or two. It just seems odd that they would leave that location right after getting there, especially since there seemed to be a bit more to uncover than just a single automated message. But we’re only a third of the way through this season (even more since one of the episodes this season is actually just a recap, making this only an eleven episode season), so if there are more egregious examples to talk about, we will definitely be getting to them soon, I imagine. But honestly, the main problem this week is that there just doesn’t seem to be a ton to talk about in terms of character development, which hopefully won’t be a trend going forward.

Isabella coming back is certainly a whole topic on its own, though. She was the main antagonistic force for all of the first season, toying with the kids at every turn and squeezing hope out of them when they felt the most powerful, even going so far as to break Emma’s leg and then claim it was for love while telling them without hesitation that their best lot in life was to simply wait to be eaten by demons. And then, as we learned late into that season, she was someone who grew up within that same system and also rebelled, but found herself without the same support or friendship that Emma, Ray, and Norman had, and so accepted her fate as a mother. Bringing her back to get revenge on the kids who escaped is certainly an interesting wrinkle, especially since she actually seemed somewhat happy that they were able to escape at the end of the first season, so her bouncing off some demon who will only be interested in obtaining food would be a neat potential dynamic. But that’s assuming they handle it that way, which I have my reasons for guessing that they probably might not. If they do, I’ll eat all the crow I need to.