Warning this review contains minor spoilers, you have been warned
Promised Neverland second season is the anime original continuation of the ever so popular manga faithful first season, both made by Cloverworks. Now here's the question how does the second season fair up in terms of quality compared to its magnificent predecessor? Well that's what I'm here for lads, ladies and Gentleman my name is Cyranical and welcome to my Promised Neverland season 2 anime review, let's get it!!!
Let's start with the positives, okay so first things first in terms of aesthetic and how this looks, well it looks about the same; the characters; the artsytle the show really looks the same; well that's to be expected since this is the same show with just a different setting and different plot; now this is a positive since we have shows that look way different by that I mean look way worse compared to their first season.
Next up they have the same quality of the songs, by that I mean the ED and the OP; they are both still mediocre but the ED for the first season was a banger; unfortunately for this second season neither of the songs are noteworthy they are just mid at best.
Finally the final positive, the new plot and the changes that they made, now the new plot and the changes aren't bad they are not what ruined the show I'll get to what did later on the review; these changes actually made the show feel like a breath of fresh air; plus personally the new plot actually had potential to be better or equally as good as the original source material that being the manga or atleast as exciting; well on paper it did.
Now let's move on to the negatives of this season, "Ohhh boi now there are lot so brace yourselves for this one" The first negative is the characters, all the characters with the exception of Emma feel like a husk of their former selves; especially Ray and he was my favorite character from season 1 man was absolutely goated back then; R. I.P to season 1 Ray you will be missed; now this version of Ray I don't know this guy he's not him he's a shapeshifter since this new quote on quote version of him has no personality he's just moral support for Emma like what; what did they do to you man? Screw this imma hold a funeral for you man, that's how much I used to like you. Now another example of this is Norman, he was a fairly interesting character in season 1, now he's literary just Sasuke from Naruto, or atleast the shounen archetype of "I went through pain and despair now I will become edgy and hate society; oh but you know what my friends are still there and I still have people to protect and a place to come back to" except with Norman it's way worse, it's literary the power of pussy that brought him back; like come on bruh Emma walks up to him does her usual heartwarming inspirational speech of "Oh no matter what you have done or what you have become we are all still here for you and we are family" then Norman just magically returns to normal and all the pain in his heart disappears; I know it's shounen bro but come on this is just way too overplayed at this point, can you guys make a new character type instead of just recycling the same thing over and over again, I'm starting to question you guys creativity at this point.
Next case for concern is that this season is just straight up boring. Compared to the first season where there was something to look forward to since almost every episode ended up with a cliffhanger or a plottwist, this season is just not that entertaining or executed well at all. A good example of this is in season 1 where the end of the episode is Isabella cornering the children near the wall, that got me hyped I sacrificed sleep to know what happened next for that, see that's what's the crave factor is all about; it makes you want to watch or read more in a media since if you don't then it will keep you up at night that's the type of stuff that makes or breaks a great anime; unfortunately season 2 just doesn't have that. Let's compare my reaction to Isabella cornering the children "Holy crap man what is she gotta do, proceeds to rapidly click the next episode" to Norman is actually the one that has appeared to save Emma and the others from the demons "Oh it's Norman took him long enough, okay go next episode I guess proceeds to yawn" the sad part about this is that season 2 could have been good man. In fact when I was watching the first 4 episodes I was like okay this isn't that bad, I don't understand where the hate is coming from; but boy did I find out after the next episodes where it comes from.
Speaking of crave factor this season looks the same as the promised neverland, but unlike it's predecessor whenever this season tries to act all gritty, edgy and mature it just fails miserably; the original season had this way of building tension while being able to act mature and gritty when it needed to; it was able to do it pretty well; but season 2 is not able to and when it tries it just looks silly.
Moving on to the plot and premise, as I said earlier it looked good on paper; when you sit down and honestly think about all the potential things that could have happened and been shown on screen then you sorta get excited and dissapointed for what it could have been well if you're like me; a majority of people just left because it wasn't faithful to the manga; honestly I coudn't care less if the story was different as long as it was executed well;
unfortunately this was not.
Which brings me to my next point the studio Cloverworks didn't give enough of a crap for this anime season unlike it's predecessor since if it did then they wouldn't make make something this bad; the execution completely went out of the window and they literary half-assed it; that's why there are so many skipped events; characters; and plot lines.
Finally the final negative the ending, now I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to this ending, I don't like it obviously; but it's not even an ending it's literary a 3 minute montage like what; Cloverworks really didn't care enough about this season lol. The anime is 12 episodes actually since one episode was labeled 5.5 which was a freaking recap episode; now if they are gonna pull the excuse of not enough number of episodes and budget, then that's not valid literary one of your episodes is a recap; you could have used that episode in order to fully showcase the finale" Why didn't you do it Cloverworks?" Well it is what it is perharps if they didn't spend too much time on Norman's pointless shounen archetype arc then maybe they could have used that animation budget for the ending, jeez man they just didn't care enough at all.
Pros:
-Kept the same quality of music
-Decided to make changes and provided a new plot different from the manga
-Wasn't afraid to make changes
-Is the same in terms of animation and artstyle
Cons:
-Didn't execute the plot well enough
-Had a montage for an ending
-Characters did not get enough character development
-Skipped a lot of things and plot points
-Failed to execute it's changes and new elements miserably
-Is very boring
-Studio doesn't care enough about it
-The whole thing was rushed from start to finish
Overall the promised neverland season 2 is a dissapointment, it had potential to be good but it had too much problems such as the studio handling it coudn't give enough of a crap about it, execution of the new story falling flat on it's face, a horrendous ending, it being boring to watch furthermore it's characters being hollow copies of themselves. I will not recommend that you watch this season since it's a waste of time and it's very bad; after watching it I felt like I have wasted 1 month of my life. If you are a fan of the series then after watching season 1 go read the manga, or just read the manga from start to finish since the first season is good but it's follow-up is garbage; stay away from promised neverland season 2 as much as possible; but if you didn't heed my warning and still watched it then that's your fault. Overall I give the promised neverland season 2 a 4/10 for my overall anime rating.
Final Thoughts: What the hell did I just watch? Jeez man I need to drown my eyes in bleach after that.
