The Promised Neverland 2nd Season Episode 1

Into the Wild

My Twitter followers voted for The Promised Neverland 2nd Season to be reviewed weekly over Dr. Stone: Stone Wars, so here we are. And honestly, I think this is going to be a much better anime than Dr. Stone anyway. However, I’m not sure that this season is going to end up being better than the first.

Just from this first episode alone, the series seems very different from the first season. There’s been advanced technology in the series from the start — such as the tracking chips implanted in the ears of the farm animals children. But I don’t remember there being anything like the hologram map featured in this episode.

It’s a fully-interactive, touch screen, hologram map hidden within a pen. And it even has password protection. The fact that there are items like this apparently just lying around tells us a few things. First, this series will likely contain even more advanced technology going forward. And second, that someone was able to leave that pen at the farm.

I’m a bit concerned with how advanced technology is going to be used in the future of this series. I think it could very quickly spiral into some crazy sci-fi story that has nothing to do with the original premise. But at the same time, the manga is over and I haven’t heard of anything like that happening.

Though to be fair, I have heard that it gets weird, so who knows.

As for how the pen got into the farm, I don’t believe that was answered in the previous season. We know that Norman left it behind for his friends, but how did it originally get to the farm? Someone connected to Mr. Minerva must have infiltrated the farm to place it there. Or, perhaps he was once a caretaker there himself.

Demons on the Hunt

Hopefully, we get an explanation of the different kinds of demons at some point. For now, we’ve seen what appear to be four different types of demons. Though, it could actually be three or even five, as I’ll get to in a bit.

The primary demon that’s hunting the children is bipedal and has a mask-like face with two eyes positioned vertically. It’s very large compared to the children and carries a massive sword. This demon is the leader of a group of quadrupedal, wolf-like demons.

These wolf-like demons have the same faces as the bipedal one that leads them. They’re even capable of speech, though it’s clear that they aren’t the same rank as the bipedal demon. They’re more like if you had (very large) hunting dogs that possessed human-level intelligence.

There’s also the monster that was originally chasing the children and was eventually decapitated by the bipedal demon. I’m not sure if this one specifically counts as a demon, though. It was more like a wild beast that didn’t possess intelligence. So for now, I’ll just call it a monster.

The final two demons could be the same type, or they could be different. These are the female demon who saved Emma and the group of children, and the male demon, Sonju, who saved Ray.

Despite them also being bipedal, I’m going to classify these two as separate from the “bipedal demon” mostly due to their size. They’re human-sized, with the female demon being the same height as Emma and Ray, and Sonju being about the size of an adult, male human. The female demon definitely looks different from the bipedal demon in other ways, though.

For now, it’s unclear if the female demon and Sonju are the same type of demon.

Good Demons?

One of the big questions we’re left with at the end of the episode is whether the female demon and Sonju are “good.” I assumed that the female demon would be an antagonist before watching the episode simply based on the cover art for this season.

The cover art is split down the center with the demons on one side and children on the other. And it even features the female demon as the demon equivalent of Emma. But after watching the episode, maybe that split down the center wasn’t what I should have been focusing on.

Instead, perhaps we’re supposed to focus on the fact that the female demon and Emma are sitting at the same table together. There are other similarities as well. Such as how Emma and the other kids are flanked by the farm they fled from, while the female demon and Sonju are flanked by the silhouettes of other demons — who they may have similarly fled from.

The idea that there could be good demons out there is an interesting one. It makes sense because that would make it easier for people like Mr. Minerva to have found refuge outside the farms. But on the other side of things, it doesn’t really make sense because, you know, they’re demons.

But hey, a storyline about how someone who looks evil actually isn’t evil is pretty standard in anime. Just look at the recently completed DanMachi III if you need an example. I’m just not sure how I’ll feel if these demons really do turn out to be good. That would be pretty cliché.

I’d be much more interested if these demons are simply members of a different faction, but not necessarily allies of humans. It’s clear that they’re fighting against the demons who were chasing the children. But perhaps rescuing the children isn’t their goal. They may be just as evil but in a different way.

This is a Weekly Shonen Jump series, though. So I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high.

Conclusion

What do you think of The Promised Neverland 2nd Season episode 1? Do you mind the CGI that was used for the monster in the forest? Do you think having vertical eyes is practical in any way? Probably not. And do you think the female demon and Sonju are going to be good or bad? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.