The Promised Neverland Review

The first twelve episodes are close to perfect. Grace Field House is a warm orphanage with a kind caretaker and a gate nobody may pass, and the season spends itself on the children finding out what is on the other side and then playing a long game of deception against an adult who is better at it than they are. Mamoru Kanbe directs it as a thriller, with angles that keep Isabella looming over the frame, a score that never oversells, and a cliffhanger structure that earns every week.

Emma, Norman, and Ray are a genuinely balanced trio, each solving the problem in a different currency. Then the second season arrives and compresses well over a hundred chapters into eleven episodes. Whole arcs vanish, characters central to the manga never appear at all, and the finale settles the war in a montage of still images. It stands as one of the most complete adaptation failures the medium has produced, and it reads as a decision rather than a production shortfall.

Graded as a whole the run has to carry both halves. The craft stays decent to the end and the cast never stops being likable, which is why the letter is not lower. Watch the first season, stop when it stops, and read the book for the rest of the story.