Normally with a series where I’ve read the manga – especially one like Yakusoku no Neverland – the challenge is to write a post while navigating the spoiler minefield.  In this case, though, that comes with a twist.  We were warned that the second season would be making some changes to the story (with the help of mangaka Shirai Kaiu), and one could assume that if they felt the need to issue a warning, the changes would be significant.  But this is the moment when the road splits, clearly, and we’re headed down the one not taken.

I think the best approach for me to take here is to more or less limit myself to “they’ve changed a lot” and strap in with the rest of the new viewers.  I’m not going to have any more idea than they are what’s happening, at least for a while, and I can’t really talk about what’s missing without spoiling what might get dumped back in later.  Suffice it to say, it is a lot – like, wholesale blocks of chapters and a really important character not where they should be.  Given that I’m of the opinion (and I’m not alone) that the manga pretty seriously derails in the third act, changes aren’t necessarily a bad thing – though the part that should be at this point in the narrative and isn’t is actually a damn good one, IMO.  We’ll see if it’s deleted or merely deferred.

As it stands, the material is still damn good.  The kids are spending their final day and night with Sonju and Mujika, who are an interesting pair to say the least.  Sonju takes on Ray at chess and is thrashed, which leads to a discussion of how Norman is even more formidable (as Emma and Mujika are looking at his picture).  Sonju tells Mujika after the sad parting that he has no plans to turn the kids in, even though the reward would be huge.  They’re “good kids – and smart” he notes – before adding that he looks forward to the day where he can eat all the humans he wants.  Which he can do, according to the codes he lives by, if the Grace Gang breeds and spreads and becomes “naturals”.  All in good time, which Sonju acts like he has plenty of.

Sonju does the escapees one last favor.  He was the one who left a message for the pursuers, as it turns out – to lure them to the slaughter, which he hasn’t even told Mujika about.  Emma and the children head off across the wastelands towards B06-32, only to find nothing but more wasteland when they arrive.  After the younger kids get their tantrum out of the way, Ray calmly gets out Minerva’s magic pen and promptly reveals that a secret entrance to an underground complex is nearby – which the kids find quite easily.  To be fair. it’s clear Minerva wanted them to find it, though.

What they find underground is a shelter – a massive complex of tunnels and rooms, living quarters and surface surveillance and power generation, even a garden and a radio to eavesdrop on communications between the farms and the oni.  Hell, there’s even a piano, which Nat promptly sits down at and starts playing (jazz, rather incongruously).  There are also hidden passages, secret rooms, and a letter from Minerva expressing his regret that he can’t welcome them personally.  The shelter he’s left them seems Heaven-sent, everything the children need to hide out and gather their strength even as they fret over the ones left behind.

Yes, this seems a truly wonderful place – though the secret room with “HELP” scribbled all over the walls might suggest otherwise.  There’s yet another secret room (I think there are more secret rooms than non-secret ones in this shelter) with an old-school pay phone – which promptly rings as soon as Emma and the others find it.  In their shoes, I might have been reluctant to pick up the receiver but Emma doesn’t hesitate.  And it’s William Minerva’s voice on the other end of the line – welcoming the kids and everyone else, including manga readers, into the great unknown beyond this point.