C&C - The Promised Neverland - "Episode 9" [6/5]

[Yojimbo]

Boy, that was a quick end to that...

I mean I guess we knew Emma and Ray would be able to get through to Norman but still... the narrative has to zip them off to the next problem so let's make them all one team, bygones be bygones.

Yes, listen to Ray! It's a trap! Yerp, last minute deus ex machina from the old blind demon. Full schematics and the formula to the cure. Guess we know William Minerva's ultimate fate. "Then I ate him." Yeesh.

Vincent, oh come on.... how can the one with brains do something so stupid.

Think I'm starting to get why sentiment turned when season 2 first came out.

 

[PicardMan]

We only have two episodes to wrap this baby up, let's see how they rush it as this episode was 5 episodes worth of twists crammed into one episode. This is Dimension W level rushed, but at least we can comprehend what's going on. Let's see how everyone reacts to the finale and if the show takes the "worst nu Toonami show of all time" title away from Dimension W or not. If it does end up on the top 5 worst Nu Toonami shows of all time list, that would be a huge shame as it's the only exclusive dub so far this year. So far, Tenchi Muyo GXP and Dimension W seem to be the only shows in the "universally hated" category of Toonami shows. We've had heavily divisive shows like Sword Art Online, Akame Ga Kill, and Tokyo Ghoul Root A, but each of those shows has adamant defenders. If dub fans respond to the finale the same way subtitled fans did, this could easily reach the same the same territory as Tenchi Muyo GXP and Dimension W as being part of Toonami's "unholy trinity."

 

[Light Lucario]

I thought that this episode was okay. I thought that Emma reaching out to Norman generally worked. She is a caring and empathetic character, so her compassion would hit Norman enough to where he'd break down and apologize for what he's done. It was still a bit too quick of a solution, particularly when he was so set on committing genocide for the past couple of episodes, but in terms of Emma and Ray being the catalysts to change his mind, it was fine.

I had more of problem with Norman's followers being okay with the sudden change in the plans. I guess the ending implies that it wasn't the case for at least one of them, but that was still a bit too easy. Emma's friends being okay with not going for genocide kind of made sense when they're mostly little kids who haven't been more directly affected by the teams. A bunch of older kids who were physically and mentally tortured for years and believed that they were dying from experiments caused by the demons being fine with not committing genocide was a lot harder to believe, especially with the girl who actually eats demons.

Learning about what happened to William Minerva's fate was anticlimactic. I guess he would be killed by this point of the season, assuming that this does mirror what happened to him in the manga, but it was a bit disappointing when they've been hyping him up since the first season. Norman finding the cure for their diseases was such a pathetic deus ex machina though. The Grace Field kids being shipped out early was an obvious trap, but they kind of had no choice since they wouldn't want their friends to be killed an eaten. I honestly forgot that Isabelle was already set on getting Emma's group back. I wonder what she has been doing during the time skip. The attack on the village was resolved too easily, Norman's followers turned around too quickly and I still don't like how they've handled the demons in general. While one of Norman's followers seemingly betraying them sounds like an interesting cliffhanger to end on, I imagine that will be easily resolved too. Overall, it was an okay episode.