The Promised Neverland Season 2 Episode 6

After a very brief break, we come back to Norman’s sudden arrival. Now, I wouldn’t say this episode was as bad as the previous one, but it wasn’t necessarily great. Even though barely anything happened other than Norman explaining his plan, the episode felt so lightning fast. There was so much dialogue and I felt like there was hardly any break. And one of my biggest pet peeves showed up in this anime, which hurts me: the lack of “show, don’t tell”. They sure as hell told us a lot of things, but we didn’t see a thing. :/

Interesting things were presented this episode but in the most boring way. Uninteresting camera angles, static shots, and just pure dialogue. Norman dropped some huge bombs such as Lambda, the child experimentation, the poison he created, etc. But what did this Lambda camp look like, and what kinds of experiments were performed on them? How were the kids chosen for this, and how did they escape? We got lots of information, but I didn’t feel any emotion towards it. We also got to meet Norman’s crew this episode, and while I can understand why Barbara is filled with so much hatred, I still can’t feel it. There’s just zero emotion for it because it’s just being told to us without the depth. It’s all surface level, and that drives me mad because surface level is not what I would ever call The Promised Neverland. Suspenseful, tense, horrifying, exciting, but these recent episodes have not been that at all. To be honest, it’s been the complete opposite. It’s just disappoinitng. :/

We’re moving into a bit of a war. Norman has SOMEHOW made a poison to force the demons to degenerate, and he wants to use it to kill all of the demons. I don’t really know how he could do that but he does have a plan set up with his crew. He explains this to the group after a quick reunion and everyone is for it…except for Emma. I’m not exactly sure where this conflict came from. I mean, yeah, they’ve been hanging around this demon town for awhile. But again, because everything is moving so quick and we’ve barely seen their time in this demon town, it doesn’t feel right.

But Emma doesn’t want to kill them, she wants to coexist with the demons. And I understand that maybe she doesn’t want to stoop to their level, and Norman’s idea may be a little much, but they admittedly don’t have much options. Kill before you’re killed. That sounds pretty similar to another show this season, hmm…

But this idea has been done before, and I always think back to Shiki with the humans vs vampires and the idea of one group needing the other for sustenance. Of course, Emma and Ray mention two demons they know of that haven’t degenerated from not eating human meat, which is Sonju and Mujika. Could there be exceptions and what would they do with them? It’s a good point to bring up, but now we have a tease that Mujika is probably evil? The Evil-blooded Girl is what Norman calls her, and there are some interesting shots of her in the OP. I did always find it interesting that they didn’t have degenerative problems, but Ray is right that they could also be lying. But with Sonju’s words of excitement for the future to hunt, they may not have been lying. Well, at least we have some mystery here.

This episode was…okay? But also not at the same time. It still has that weird incomplete feeling and I don’t think it’ll stop there. I’m not sure how I feel about this “poison the demons” thing, but maybe it’ll turn into something to look forward to.