Tag: Ayako Kurata

The Promised Neverland, Season Two, Episode Ten Review: I Can’t Stop Laughing!

one and a half stars
This is hilarious.
Seriously, Season Two of The Promised Neverland is basically a comedy at this point.
I haven’t been this disappointed in a season since the final one for Game of Thrones and that is saying a lot.
If Episode Nine’s convient scene where Vylk somehow provided a pen that magically solved all of the characters’ problems had me laughing my head off, then the entirety of Episode Ten had me rolling on the floor.
Directed by Ayako Kurata, Ryō Kodama and Shigeru Fukase, Episode Ten is just one rushed, convenient, unintentionally hilarious scene after the next.
First, we get the instant reveal that Vincent was just acting like he was betraying Norman to trap Peter Ratri, rendering the cliffhanger scene as instantly pointless.
Then, the children somehow build mutliple hot air balloons in mere hours with no prior knowledge on how to do so and launch an all out assault on a heavily guarded farm.
Next, Vincent and Norman are somehow hacking into the system, despite it never being established that they had these skills beforehand.
It’s just convenience after convenience, in rushed scene after rushed scene that ruins various parts from the manga.
The manga may have had its issues, but there were still moments that had me tearing up, like Emma’s reunion with Phil.
Here, I felt literally nothing because of how rushed everything had been to get to that point.
But, oh no, Isabella, the other mothers, and Peter Ratri have now surrounded and captured the children!
The horror!
Oh, wait, no, Isabella and the mothers have betrayed Ratri, even though there’s been little to no build up for this happening.
But, oh no, now trained demon soldiers are about to storm the farm and overpower everyone!
Our heroes are doomed!
Oh, wait, no, turns out they have been taken out by a completley random and untrained army of demon civilians that just suddenly decided to rebel against the system.
Say it with me, “How freaking convenient!”
And then, the stupidest scene that brought the biggest laugh.
Emma literally gives the guy who wanted to feed them all to demons a helping hand and offers him a chance to be free with them.
This was a really dumb moment in the manga and, like everything else, it is 1000 times worse here because Emma coming to this mindset where she becomes so dedicated to helping everyone was skipped over, along with some very important story arcs.
Heck, this episode somehow even screwed up Sonju’s arc, since now he’s helping Emma and the other kids when this should go directly against his plan of eating their descendants.
Episode Ten is a joke.
It’s nothing more than an unintentionally funny series of convenient twists and turns that had me face palming when I wasn’t laughing at how god awful everything was.
Even the animation can’t save it, with weird looking shots all around.
At least there’s only one more episode left and then this misery can end.

The Promised Neverland Season Two, Episode Two Review: The Truth of This World.

4 stars
After a great start to the second season of The Promised Neverland, episode two continues the quality of the last, delivering plenty of new information for the story, and formally introducing two new and interesting characters. 
These two characters are Mujika (Atsumi Tanezaki) and Sonju (Shin’ichirō Kamio), two demons who, mysteriously, do not want to eat Emma, Ray and the other Grace Field children. 
Directed by Ayako Kurata, the episode follows the kids getting to know these two demons, their way of life, and eventually learning the truth of their world, or rather worlds. 
I say worlds because Sonju reveals later on in the episode that the demon and human worlds are split because of a 1000 year old promise.
Humans and demons had been in constant state of war before this, and the promise not only separated their worlds but allowed peace between them, at the cost of many sacrifices because those humans who were left behind are now breed, butchered and fed to the demons as livestock, in various farms.
This is a startling revelation that makes Emma and Ray cheer for joy, much to Sonju’s, and I’m sure the audience’s, shock. 
The reason for their excitement is because, even though they are in a terrible situation, Emma and Ray now know that there is a place for them in the human world, they just have to get there. 
Although, this will obviously be a tough ordeal because, as Sonju and Mujika point out, they are an exception, not eating the children for religious reasons, and most demons who gladly gobble up the Grace Field kids.   
Along with this dark piece of information, however, there is also humor, with a scene of Gilda comedically coming at Emma with a fire in her eyes, demanding that she not push herself until she faints again. 
This humorous confrontation then transfers to Ray, who is told by the younger children that he keeps trying to die, not helped by Sonju comedically cutting in to say that Ray definitely would have died if he hadn’t saved him. 
Sadly, the entire episode can’t all be jokes because we have to get into the depressing stuff again, as Emma loses another piece of her innocence, when she asks to go hunting with Sonju. 
Emma manages to kill a bird for food, with Sonju’s guidance, and I absolutely love how this scene  was framed to mirror Conny’s death from the very first episode, with the falling water droplet. 
Even more of a parallel is when Sonju has Emma perform the act of Gupna on the bird, draining its blood with the vampiric plant Vina, again, just like Conny. 
This tragic scene is immediately followed by the cliffhanger of the episode, as Emma’s face is revealed, looking extremely depressed, despite her claims that she is fine, showing how she has lost more of her innocence. 
Given how long of a journey she and the Grace Field children have, if they are to ever reach the safety of the human world, it is very likely she will lose more of it. 
All in all, episode two is another enjoyable episode of The Promised Neverland  season two, and it will be interesting to see if this quality can be maintained, or even grow, as we get closer to my favorite arc of the story.