10 Years Later, This Shonen Jump Series’ Legacy Is Still Tainted By Its Failed Anime

August 5, 2026, 2:22pm

Ten years after it first began, this Shonen Jump series unfortunately has had its legacy tainted by such a massive failure of an anime adaptation that no fan will ever look at it the same way again. Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has been home to all sorts of major franchises that fans have seen in action over the decades, but some of them are looked back on far more fondly than the others. And many of these classic series are crossing over major milestones this year after their initial debut in the 2010s.

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That’s the case for Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu’s The Promised Neverland. Originally making its debut ten years ago on August 1, 2016 with Shonen Jump, it had a very hot start with the magazine with one of the strongest hooks of any other series running at the time. It was all but poised to go down as one of the legendary franchises to ever come out of the magazine at all. But thanks to such a huge failure of an anime adaptation in its second season, no one ever really looks back on it in the same way.

The Promised Neverland Made Its Shonen Jump Debut 10 Years Ago

The Promised Neverland introduced fans to a group of children living in an orphanage. Emma, Norman and Ray are the three oldest and smartest of all the kids there, and suddenly find out there’s a much darker conspiracy at play. Realizing that their orphanage was just a farm meant to raise children to be fed to monstrous demons, the first arc of the series sees the young trio planning their eventual escape to the outside world. But from then on, the kids discovered that this world of demons was a lot more treacherous than their orphanage ever was.

The series instantly became a hit with Shonen Jump fans as that first arc was one of the strongest of the 2010s era. That initial hook was already strong enough in its own right, but that first arc continued to build on all of those developments with a much stronger and darker mystery from that point on. It had trouble maintaining that momentum through its future developments, but was able to reach a new phase of action and interest during the fondly remembered Goldy Pond Arc. Which saw Emma facing off against a deadly bounty hunter during a hunting game.

The Promised Neverland eventually led to a full on conflict against the demons, and revealed why the humans and demons entered this agreement in the first place. And this is unfortunately where interest ultimately started waning for the series from that point. It always seemed like the story had a much better starting point than where it ended, and ultimately felt like the first arc was probably the best that the story was ever going to really be. Though this aspect is still up for debate, it’s even more true when you compare it to how the anime handled things.

The Promised Neverland’s Anime Really Messed Things Up

Even if there was a debate over how The Promised Neverland‘s manga ultimately reached its end, one thing that fans can agree on is the fact that the anime really messed things up for the franchise as a whole. When it was first announced that the series was going to get a second season, there was a great deal of anticipation to see how the anime would be handling all of the elements of the outside world. The first season wrapped up the first arc and left things on a perfect cliffhanger as Emma and the other kids escaped from the orphanage at last.

This left the anime nine more arcs to adapt with future seasons, but The Promised Neverland shocked fans when it quickly sped through and entirely skipped over its future events to reach the end of the story. It loosely adapted elements from a few of the future arcs to get to the manga’s ending, and that already weak finale was looked at in a much worse way thanks to the way the anime had haphazardly reached that point. It was pretty much ruined for not only those who were watching the anime and couldn’t quite understand everything happening, but also those fans of the manga who were aware of just how much had been skipped over.

It was a mess of massive proportions that ultimately ruined how fans had looked at The Promised Neverland moving forward, and ruined any good will that might have been there from the jump. The anime is now the legacy that the series will leave behind. Even if there’s a chance for a proper return from the franchise as it celebrates the 10th anniversary milestone, there’s no way that fans will give a new adaptation a fair shake. It’s been tanked, and even with a strong opening all fans will forever remember is how it all ended.