Promised Neverland 2nd Season Changes Explained | Anime vs Manga

It's obvious that a huge amount of fans have expected the greatness from the second season of the Promised Neverland, and I don't know if you have been watching this season, but clearly, things have gone a bit off the rails. So far this season has cut a lot of content, and they're completely changing things from how they happen in the Manga. It's getting to the point where I'm wondering whether or not people should read the manga first before watching the season of the Anime, but we'll get to that in due time.

 First, we're going to discuss what's going on with The Promised Neverland, we'll explain what they change on an episode-by-episode basis? how those changes affect the story being told? and whether or not you should drop the Anime and just start reading the manga right now. So if you are a longtime fan of The Promised Neverland and you're confused as to what's going on, or you're a newer anime that has no idea anything is wrong, sit back and I'll do my best to get you up to speed.

 So what's going on with The Promised Neverland season II? Well, on January 3rd, News broke on Anime News Network that the author of The Promised Neverland's manga kaiu Shirai would be supervising the second season of the Anime, with that news, also came the information that somehow this would result in an anime original scenario in the story. Weekly Shonen jump that week, teased that we'd be able to see another Promised Neverland during the second season, pretty much, telling us that things were going to go in a radically different direction. Now expectations for this season were that we'd cover the story of the graceful kids making it to the underground base with Emma ultimately reaching goldie pond and going through a massive ordeal there as she goes to war with Demons who see her as nothing more than just part of their games.

 I tried to be optimistic about the idea of changes coming this season because The Promised Neverland's manga isn't perfect, there could be changes that make things better, but unfortunately, I feel like the effort to make this Anime original scenario has made the pacing and plot take a massive hit, but what exactly has been changed?

 Like I said earlier if you're an anime-only you can only imagine how different things are in the manga, but let's actually go into discussing some of where the series sticks to the plot and where it goes off of the rails.

 In episode 1 we start actually following pretty close to the source material albeit, at a bit of a faster pace, our characters make it into the woods and start to take notice of the huge trees and new bugs and creatures that they see around them, it's beautiful but they can't ever forget that it's dangerous as well. Emma has the group come together to start eating breakfast, and just like in the manga she and Ray have some water off to the side, Ray tells Emma that he'll live and protect the others from grace field no matter what, that that's what he's decided for his life, he also apologizes to Emma and says that if you would have cooperated earlier maybe she wouldn't have had to lose her ear or things might have gone even easier, but Emma really isn't worried about any of that at all and she just wants Ray to be alive and happy, so she got exactly what she wanted. 

Here just like in the manga the pair start using the mysterious pen left behind by Norman, but different from how it happens in the manga. In the Anime right the bat Emma, Ray, and the others figure out some of the inner mysteries of how the pen works, and how it shows them their current location, in the manga, this does happen but it happens a few chapters away from here, because right as Ray opens the pen and sees the strange owl design in numbers, Tama discovers that Lonnie is missing, and upon searching, Emma and Ray realized that all of the other children have mysteriously vanished somehow. Eventually, Emma and the group fall through a false vine floor in the middle of the forest, and that's where they find the rest of the group who also fell into the area below the trees as they wandered around.

 Our survivors managed to find an entire above-ground cave system made from tree roots, here the creatures and bugs were changed, something about them was new and different compared to the ones in the books that Ray had learned from. It seems like just the existence of demons has changed the world somehow. While making their way through this cave, they realize that this area is actually the tree's feeding ground when they spot corpses of animals hanging from high up in the vines. Emma remembers a story from William Minerva's adventure book that was left to her, and the story shows them exactly how to get away from the hungry tree which eventually leads them to a moment of rest where they discovered how just the pen works.

 Instead in the Anime, we skip that entire section, and after a little downtime, we skip right to the end of chapter 41's content with a giant bestial demon appearing out of nowhere and chasing them through the woods in the dead of night. The episode more or less sticks to the events of the next chapter or so for a while with Ray trying to lead away from the smarter demons that are pursuing the group of a bluff, and a new character Mujica pointing towards the safety, at the same time Ray gets saved by a mysterious figure on horseback! demon back! I can't really tell which it is?! And so, the episode ends with the revelation that the group two saviors are demons themselves.

 Now in episode 2, Emma panics about whether or not the others are safe and runs off after trying to question the two who saved her. Everyone regroups, and the pair of demons Sanju and Mujica explain that they're demons who don't eat humans, and with that everyone begins having dinner together as the mood lightens up a bit. Sanju goes on to explain the history of demons world to Emma and Ray, how the world of demons and humans and their separation began with a promise long ago when the world was far faster than it is today, the demons and humans split the world, and without realizing it, our survivors had been on the demon side of the world this entire time, and part of the promise is that humans can't travel between the world.

 At first, this comes as a bit of a shock to our duo, but they quickly see the good side of this news, which is that somewhere out there, there is a human world for them to go to. This means that demons don't rule the entire world which could have been definitely been possible, and that provides our escapees with something to look forward to, as they venture forward, in their mind wherever William Minerva is leading them, it has to lead to the human world, so they just have to follow his clues and survive somehow to make it there.

 Further in the manga, Emma realizes that if it's true that humans are the ones selling humans to demons, then Mr. Minerva has to be the one going in between the demon and human worlds to get involved in those transactions, so without a doubt, he's the key to leaving this side of things and going to the other.

 The episode continues following the manga pretty closely, with Sanju and Mujica teaching the group survival skills, and eventually, the episode ends on Sanju explaining the purpose of the strange plants that we see placed in the chest of every demons meal, which is more or less part of a ritual that the demons use that serves as a way of draining the blood from a body, now Emma cries while Sanju tells her that her friends probably didn't suffer when they died because the ritual takes a lot of care and respect.

 And from here we move on to episode 3 with episode 2 ending on chapter 49, meaning in two episodes the season has already covered 11 chapters of content, which is fast, considering the usual pace for an anime like this would be one and a half to two and a half chapters per episode.

 The next episode starts with a conversation between Mujica and Emma, but in the mana before that, we actually have a conversation between all kids and Sanju, where they asked if there's ever been escaped kids from other farms that the two demons have come across, Sanju says he hasn't heard of any, but if they did exist it wouldn't be a group like Emma's, they would probably be one or two. The reason is most farms are what's called mass production farms, where humans are born without being taught anything, only made to fatten up and be eaten. There are hundreds of these farms, and only about three or four high-quality ones, so it's very likely that the ones from the mass production are unsavable, even if the escapes worked, they wouldn't have the ability to escape the wilderness or survive in the world of the demons, so it almost makes the idea of trying to save any other farms feel impossible.

 Now one major difference that occurs in this episode that started the people who've read the manga a bit worried is the omission of a line of dialogue between Mujica and Emma when the group is heading off into the rocky hillside area and leaving the two demons behind, and both the anime and manga, Mujica gives Emma a necklace of a pendant on it and tells her to keep it with her because maybe it'll keep her safe. 

In the Anime Ray calls for Emma and she catches up with the group as they make their way forward but in the manga, Mujica also tells Emma to search for the Seven Walls, she tells Emma that the future is that they all seek lies beyond that. Before Emma can even respond to react, Ray calls for her attention and Emma walks away, but the seven walls line is actually really important, I won't be explaining specifically what the seven walls are because it goes into some of the ends game for The Promised Neverland, but having that line removed here might suggest that the Anime won't even cover the idea of the seven walls and walleyes beyond and will instead come up with some other way of ending the series. I mean we could already assume that the ending would be different, but this gives us a picture of how vast and reaching some of these changes can go on to be as a story continues.

 The episode gets back on track of the manga, having Sanju reveal that he does want to eat humans but he wants them to break the promise, something that only humans are capable of doing, and he's also waiting for them to be able to survive and breed on their own so that the next generation of humans will be wild game, instead of farmed livestock, that second half is really odd reasoning I suppose, but at the very least suppose it means that the graceful kids are safe from his hunt. Sanju says buy to Mujica, but in the manga, he says it because he's going to get rid of a nuisance, from there, the episode continues on as normal with Sanju taking out the demons who were hunting our crew, and with Emma and the others reaching the location given to them by Mr. Minerva's pen, they find their way into the base and search around a bit, but again, this is where we see a major change from the manga that let us know things are going to be radically different from here on out.

 In the manga, Emma and the others find a way into a room that they can hear noise from, and Emma knocks on the door discovering a man with his feet up on the table drinking tea in front of a group of monitors. This men's name is Hugo, and he's actually an escapee of a different farm called Glory Bell, but farms don't sell adults, do they? No, meaning Hugo escaped and made his way to the shelter nearly 13 years ago, and according to him, the rest of his group died, he made it there but Mr. Minerva never showed up, so at the very least, he helped himself to the shelter and he's lived there ever since safe from the demons. The man takes Emma hostage for a moment and tells them to hand their pen over and leave, so they can't come back.

 This sets off a whole Arc that the Anime skip, which really begins after Hugo passes out due to hearing the voices of his dead friends, and continues as Emma and the others try to get as much information out of him as they can while also trying to ultimately make him their ally. They find all sorts of books and information on the outside world, demons and the promise, but all the books are too ancient to offer any relevant information, the newest books in the library were published 30 years ago but, that seems to suggest that Mr. Minerva hasn't returned in 30 years. Eventually, they find the note that was left to them earlier in the Anime episode with Mr. Minerva telling them that the shelter's theirs to keep if they wish to survive there, however, in the manga and I'm already pissed about this but there's an additional section to the letter that tells them that if they want to do more than just survive there's a place for them, bring your pen and come here, it says, and it features new coordinates for a group to follow, a version of this happens in the Anime during episode 4, as Emma and the others find a room of a payphone in it, and during a pre-recorded phone call with Mr. Minerva, he gives them details how to use the pen and get to a new location D100, but the difference again, is that D100 is different from the manga coordinates that they were given which were the 808-63.

 As a result of getting these new coordinates for somewhere to go, and the manga with a smile on her face, Emma convinces Hugo to go with them to this mystery location by threatening to blow up the entire shelter, and even though that doesn't happen in the Anime, that section of time is right around what we pick up in episode four, meaning episode three covered seven chapters ish of content keeping, of course, the various changes in mind, and this is where folks things finally fly off the rails in the most notable way that we've seen thus far. In the manga Emma, Ray, and Hugo venture off to a mysterious location called Goldie Pond, you've probably heard this name a ton and that's for good reason because Goldie Pond is arguably one of the best arcs in The Promised Neverland, and it features Emma stuck in a game of cat and mouse with various demons, as she leads a revolution against the demons by leading an army of escaped children to victory in a cruel life or death game, there's tons of action and shooting and just straight-up badassery in this Arc.

 Now, and instead of explaining the whole Arc, we'll get an episode where our crews spend some time in the house relaxing, and also spend some time training with bows and other survival techniques, but then suddenly near the end of this episode, we go from chapter 57ish to a mix of what happens in chapter 98 of the manga and chapter 112, showing you just how rapidly we're speeding through the source material. Chapter 98, 112, and episode 4 feature the underground base being raided by armed men of assault gear, and in the Anime our crew get into a battle with a solider outside of the base, that ends up being interrupted by a demon which eventually gives our crew time to run off and escape, but again a reminder that that scene is pretty much ripped from 112 in the manga, so before we go on to episode 5 it's important to know that by this point in the manga, Emma and the others receive another mysterious phone call from a supporter of William Minerva. The phone call is in morse code and tells them that the caller is sorry that they can't meet with the grace field survivors for now, but they'll contact the group soon, the code also tells them to be careful and warns them that the biggest enemy isn't a demon but a man named Peter Rotri, the head of the Rotri family who is also William Minerva's brother.

 Instead of this in the Anime, we get a pair of scenes showing off isabella as the demons recruit her to retrieve the grace field kids, meaning she'll finally be able to leave, and there are more rewards for her than that if she manages to succeed in her mission.

 Now, episode 4 ends off with our survivors running off into the dark of the night, but episode 5 begins with a time skip and it's a really confusing placed one at that, in the manga after Goldie Pond and coming back and then having their base rated in chapter 112, our characters make it to a location called Cuvitidala, that gives them a lot of insight into the past and the world and how to move forward from there. After this, we get a time skip as the world moves on one year and seven months, and we see Emma and the others dressed up as demons living inside of a demon village, the Anime just kind of picks up here of this demon village scene after they were running off into the forest, so there's nothing that happens in between there, it's just one episode ends, the next episode starts, a year and some changes has gone by, almost a year and a half has gone by.

c For most of the episode, we see Emma and the others sneak around, and we get a good view of what life has been like for them in these strange circumstances while also getting a peek at demon culture. We see that the demons are pretty civilized and have a stable society, but all of their relies on the farms, this concept is explained way more in the manga, but basically, demons need to eat humans because they gain the brainpower of the thing that they eat, they can eat other things, but nothing really seems to sustain them like intelligent human meat does.

 Demons naturally exist in an extremely dangerous and bestial form, where they're even prone to attack and cannibalize each other. By eating humans especially like the escapees from Grace Field who've been crafted into geniuses their entire lives, demons can keep their sanity and intelligence and refrain from falling back into their more bestial state, something which is literally as horrifying as dying and going to hell for some of these demons.

 Seriously, it's a horrifying concept that just from the lack of one resource in their diet, at any moment, a member of their population can go wild and eat their entire family and who knows who else, suddenly, the situation they're in is sort of understandable albeit still cruel. In the Anime, the parents of a pair of children that have started to generate talk about how they hope the Grace Field kids are going to be found soon, so they can save their family, and eventually, these two catches a whiff of our survivors and start to chase them through the town, where eventually our characters are saved by another group wearing demon clothes, led by Norman.

 In the manga, this is around the time that we start to build up to Norman's return, but in a much grander way, and again that only begins in chapter 112, it's not like Emma, Ray, and he, is reunited at that point, so clearly as you can tell from me trying to keep this all together right now, things have gotten messy, they started jumping ahead and mixing in aspects in the manga story while cutting the entire arcs, and it feels like they're kind of just mixing it all together at this point to try and rush the story to its ending in this season.

 I do think the production of this season has been really good so far with great animation, OST, voice work, and backgrounds all around, it has a great sense of atmosphere, but what is the point of atmosphere if someone keeps farting in the room and ruin it?! You know like I enjoy the sense of danger and tension that there is at times, but it's difficult to enjoy this season knowing that almost everything I enjoyed about the manga beyond the first Arc, has seemingly been cut out or mangled into some weird something, that we had to wait years in anticipation for. I really appreciate the studio for making such a beautiful Anime and doing their best despite the trying times that we're currently in right now, for both the animation industry and the world t large, and I definitely don't want anyone bashing or attacking the team behind the Anime for how the seasons turned out.

 So I ultimately I can only suggest one real course of action for anyone to take if they want to enjoy The Promised Neverland at its best: "Read The Manga", I honestly and truly believe that you shouldn't even wait until The Promised Neverland season 2 ends, to start the manga. Matter of fact you probably shouldn't even wait until the next episode, pick it up now, because the Anime is seemingly said to continue down this path of narrative destruction, and honestly you're better off reading the manga and getting every important detail and reveal, when you're meant to get it and how you're meant to get it, instead of having it all rushed and thrown in front of you in a way that doesn't accurately represent the original story that I at least enjoyed during my read through.

 Yes, the Anime is being supervised by the series author, but I honestly don't think it's worth being spoiled on actually great content in the manga, when you can catch up on the manga now, enjoy all of the great content that you have missed, and then catch back up to the Anime to compare and contrast it yourself or just see how the Anime went with their take on things. Maybe you'll have an easier time than I do and I hope so, also just a little side note, but my favorite part of the manga is that it has tons of internal dialogue and shows us the thoughts behind a lot of the characters actions.

 And in my opinion, this small addition really adds to the decision and weight behind every play decision made to escape Grace Field and ultimately find freedom in this cold and desperate world.

 Those internal thoughts were taken out of the Anime, so that's just another reason to read the manga, and keep in mind the manga is finished now, so you'd be reading all the way up until the ending. So decide for yourself what you'd like to do.