Oh wow, this episode…
Welcome back to this week’s breakdown for The Promised Neverland! Season 2, episode 3 covers chapters 50 to 52, and the last part of Chapters 53-55. Let’s just say…certain scenes and characters have been adapted very differently, so I’m gonna do my best to go through everything while maintaining separation of spoilers for anime-only fans, which are marked clearly. Now with that said, let’s move on to the episode!
The Episode
We start off with Mujika catching Emma looking over the photos Ray gave her. While Emma talks to her about who’s in the photos, Ray beats Sonju at a game of chess as the other kids watch. Now this scene is interesting because the part with Ray is anime-original but the simultaneous mention of Norman while shifting focus back to Emma was enough to not separate it into the next section altogether. Although, I must say, it seems the anime is making more of an effort to keep mentioning Norman within the story. Another thing worth noting is that in the manga, Mujika says the part about the demons’ appearance being warped in demon language, but since Emma still looks as confused as in the original, I’m unsure if it’s because she’s still talking in demon language in the anime, or if Emma technically understands her but doesn’t really get the context of what she’s talking about.
The next day, the group arrives at the end of the forest. As the children say their tearful goodbyes to their demon friends, Sonju gives them some last minute survival tips for surviving the trek through the wastelands, while Mujika discreetly hands Emma a special amulet as a gift. As soon as the kids make their way out, the demons’ conversation with each other reveals both Mujika’s initial feelings for them and Sonju’s true intentions for helping them out. Now for this one, they combined this part with a flashback scene, which is where the part where Mujika first thought of turning them back to Grace Field. there are also three very important things not mentioned in the anime scene, two of which I will in a bit more detail in the spoilers section. With Mujika, it was quite a shock when I first read that she would have turned the kids in at first, but much like what Emma starts to learn with demons last episode, it seems that she also gained more empathy and compassion for humans thanks to the past few days they shared together.
While Sonju gets rid of all the Grace Field pursuers in the forest, the kids finally reach B06-32 by nighttime in the middle of nowhere. With the help of the Minerva pen, they unlock the entrance to the underground shelter. They walk through the dark hall and find a room with many TV monitors, moldy cookies, a sealed letter, and no one around. As they all settle in comfortably for the rest of the evening, the older kids test the radio found in the room earlier, in hopes of gaining more information from Grace Field at their location in the future.
Later on, Emma is told of a mysterious room by the garden area, which can only be opened by the pen. Meanwhile, Anna notices Yvette in looking on in shock in a completely different somewhere else in the shelter, and then sees the reason why. Going back to Emma, the payphone in the other room starts to ring, and as she picks up the call…
“This is William Minerva.”
Lost Panels and New Scenes
Well, there’s a lot of scenes that got cut out from the chapters adapted, but the most important of them will be discussed in the spoilers section. Some of the other rooms from the shelter that weren’t revealed until later on in the story and omakes actually made an early debut, such as the secret piano room, reference room, the underground tunnels, and the payphone room. However, it looks as if certain areas of certain rooms are either out of focus or darkened enough to keep a certain air of mystery to what they actually contain. The fact that the payphone rings and with William Minerva’s voice coming is also something that would have been shown in a certain location later on in the story. Sonju also told the kids the surefire way to kill a demon, which was supposed to be something Ray figures out later on by themselves as well.
The first spoiler-safe manga-only scene, to be honest, I’m not even sure to add it in case they might use it for a more dramatic scene later. In any case, I’ll still put it up here. When it happened actually took place right before the scene with Emma showing Mujika the photos, which contributed to why Mujika went to look for Emma in the first place. In the manga, the children were wondering if there were any other escapees from the farms that came before them, and Sonju promptly tells them how unlikely it is to hear of any, due to the fact that most humans are raised in mass production farms.
This is a small scene, honestly, but it would have shown how much Mujika warmed up to the kids by showing her pray for their safety.
Another scene cut out from this episode was this one particular detail of the promise during Sonju and Mujika’s conversation, and how it affects the demons in general. If it ever does get picked up by the anime, it most likely won’t happen in this season.
This one scene isn’t exactly plot relevant, but it would have been nice to see this one imagine spot when Nat played one of his songs.
For anime original stuff, besides the scene with Ray and Sonju playing chess, the most prominent one is the scene with the radio. This piece of equipment wasn’t present at all in the manga, but it looks as though it might come in handy later on besides finding out update from Grace Field and noting what day it is presently. How exactly though, I have no idea at all.
——
To be completely honest here, I was incredibly shocked with how the episode went, adaptation-wise, and I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of manga readers who have much more stronger reactions to it than I do. That being said, after taking some time to calm down a bit and do other stuff offline, I think this is probably just a more obvious reshuffling of events, with the bigger surprises coming in next episode. Hopefully, my hunch is correct to some extent, so I just gotta trust Kaiu Shirai directed the staff well enough to steer this “different but same, same but different” approach in a more successful route.
Others
- Hmm, I really doubt that, Jemima. Possibly at chess, maybe, but definitely not as a warrior.
- Christie is a living human compass now
- I liked how we could see some of the five-year-olds act realistically enough to throw tantrums and sulk when they thought Minerva lied to them
- So the cookies are relevant enough to be mentioned because of spoilers, but not even the manga prepared us for how moldy and disgusting they really are.
- William Minerva’s letter was also placed in a very peculiar location in the surveillance room, almost as if someone had been living in the shelter for a while now.
- Nat played some nice piano tunes in this episode, no complaints for that.
- I’m honestly more surprised and confused that the kids brought in extra clothes and a chessboard here.
- This was in the boys’ heads when Emma told them they could hunt animals outside the shelter
- There is a slight animation change in the ED now, the long sequence with the starry night sky has some shooting stars sprinkled into it, and it looks like wind is blowing from the front of Emma by the end of it.
[Manga Spoiler Zone]
What I’ve noticed now after three episodes is that other than certain parts of the OP and ED’s visuals, the anime is making the effort to keep hints of Mujika’s role as a Messiah figure to the demons as hidden as possible. The panel of Sonju mentioning her not needing to eat humans is one example of that being omitted. Also, hints of Emma being able to forge a new promise later on are also just omitted, such as Mujika mentioning the Seven Walls.
Now let’s talk about the elephant (not) in the room.
Yugo didn’t show up at all at the surveillance room, which accounts for why a lot of scenes starting from Chapter 52 haven’t been adapted (yet) either. I’m hearing a lot of speculation on whether this, along with the fact that we have more anime-original scenes mean this would completely change future plots altogether. I’ve also heard that one possible reason that this approach was done was because if the anime followed the manga to the letter, it would showcase the kids, especially the younger ones, acting somewhat unrealistically by bouncing back to normal after Yugo tried to threaten them with Emma held at gunpoint. The anime usually values suspense and shock value in its approach, so my guess is that we’ll probably see our Bunkerman in the next episode as a surprise, but that’s my positive take on it. Also, it’s kinda interesting that one word changed from the room Yvette found is also the same one that would have hinted towards Goldy Pond later on. The letter Minerva left at the shelter also didn’t mention the coordinates for the location (A06-83), but that may be what the payphone must be for in the anime.
[End Manga Spoiler Zone]
Now folks, with all that said, I’ll probably end on this very relevant meme that would probably be used even more in the near future:
Let us know what you thought of the episode in the comments section.
The Promised Neverland is streaming on Funimation & Hulu in the US, and AnimeLab in Australia.
- First Impression: EDENS ZERO S2 - 04.10.2023
- First Impression: SHADOWS HOUSE - 04.11.2021
- The Promised Neverland Season 2, Episode 11: The Finale - 03.28.2021
I now have a reason to never read mangas and I am glad I haven’t at all. Cause I would be disappointed AF especially with Yuugo not being shown in the anime… Talk about ” suspense” in the pshhh way.,