When The Promised Neverland launched in Shonen Jump back in August of 2016, you could tell that the Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu manga was something special. The series about a group of children living in a mysterious group home held sinister secrets that have been slowly developed and revealed over the years. Now, though, the thrilling and sinister story has come to an end, as the last chapter of the manga official debuted in the 28th issue of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.
The writing has been on the wall for the conclusion of The Promised Neverland for a while now. The manga entered its final arc in September 2018, and around that same time, author Shirai stated that they didn’t want to extend the story too much. Shirai and the editor shared that the story would be “ideally 20 to 30 volumes long.” It seems they just barely landed within that benchmark, as Shueisha published the 18th volume of the series on March 4th and plans to publish the 19th on July 3rd.
If you’re sad about the ending of The Promised Neverland, you’ll be pleased to know that there’s a metric ton of new content in the franchise coming soon. For starters, Weekly Shonen Jump is commemorating the end of the manga with an upcoming artbook and fanbook releases, alongside a December 11th exhibition in Tokyo. On top of that, though, anime fans can look forward to the second season of the anime to arrive in January 2021. The follow-up of the January 2019 anime adaptation of the series was originally set to debut this October, but was delayed due to the effects that the spread of COVID-19 was having on production. The first season of the anime was streamed on Crunchyroll, Hulu, Funimation, and HIDIVE. Funimation will be releasing an English dub of that season this July on its streaming platform.
Besides a new anime season and an English dub of the first season, though, there are also multiple live-action The Promised Neverland adaptations in development. The first one is a full-length theatrical film being produced in Japan that’s set to arrive in theaters this winter. Noriko Gouto serves as the scriptwriter for the film, with the main cast consisting of Minami Hamabe as Emma, Jyo Kairi as Ray, and Rihito Itagaki as Norman. Hamabe previously contributed voice work to anohana, Saki, and hello World, while Kairi has voice acted on Erased and My Little Monster. Itagaki previously worked on Show By Rock!!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Amazon has just announced that they’re producing an English-language live-action adaptation of The Promised Neverland for Amazon Prime. Variety reported the news on June 10th, revealing that some major talent from Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse is set to work on the adaptation. Specifically, Rodney Rothman will be directing the series alongside scriptwriter Meghan Malloy. Masi Oka, Roy Lee, and Miri Yoon are credited as executive producers on the series.
Source: Anime News Network
