English Dub Review: The Promised Neverland “Episode 9”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Emma and Ray talk Norman down from his plan along with his other supporters and the turned demons are saved by Mujika and Sonju arriving to give all of them her blood. Now a united front, the kids and Mujika’s group plan to break into Grace Field to stop the kids there from being shipped out.

OUR TAKE

Wow, we really zipped past this whole business with Norman, huh? I think we learned about all of this with his plan to turn all the demons savage like maybe a few weeks ago, but now it’s all over and done with, I suppose. I don’t wanna say it feels rushed but…actually, why don’t I want to say that? It absolutely is rushed, considering how well it’s going with the rest of the story it was supposed to be adapting, which is to say not very well at all. It’s a neat and potentially interesting concept, and might even be a good way of closing out the season and then setting up a potential third one that brings all the kids together in an elaborate and interesting way to bring down Grace Field House while learning about all of the detailed history that this season left out from the manga. But we’re not getting that, as this has turned out to be the last season of the series (barring any reboots we get some decades down the line if the demand and monetary worth is high enough, which is unlikely).

So, after suddenly left turning from the original story into Norman’s plot for a handful of episodes, now we have another sharp left turn into a whole different plot about this guy that experimented on Norman, Peter Ratri. He is also in the manga, from what I am told, but has his own backstory and motivations incredibly cut off at the knees, so I don’t really expect him to be super fleshed out like he could have been if given the right amount of time. We’ve also got Isabella back in a higher position, as hinted as several episodes ago, but it seems like she hasn’t really done a whole lot with that other than just start shipping the kids out. And by the way, the way that whole matter is handled with the delicacy of landing balls first on floor full of legos. Point being that even if this Norman business was handled at least somewhat adequately with the time it had, I would not expect these remaining episodes to be even remotely close to that. Shit’s fucked, is what I’m saying, and given that these last two episodes don’t even have a credited writer to them, I have a feeling the studio felt the same by this point.