The Promised Neverland Introduces Major Story Shake-Up with Surprise Season 2 Return

The Promised Neverland has introduced a major story shake-up for the anime with a surprise return in Season 2! Before its official premiere, one of the more intriguing announcements going into the second batch of episodes was that original series writer Kaiu Shirai would be contributing original content for the new season. With the original writer adding new elements to the anime that were not in the original Weekly Shonen Jump manga release, there was a question of what kind of changes would be made to how the story was first told. Now we're starting to see it.

Episode 4 of the series continues a string of noticeable changes from how the manga handled the Search for Minerva arc following Emma and the the Grace Field House kids' escape. While it was notable that one major character from the manga's story is missing in the anime, it's even more notable when Isabella (known as "Mama" in the first season)
makes her return to the anime in the fourth episode.

Without going into too many spoilers from her return in the manga just in case they're incorporated later, Isabella does not appear for a long string of chapters (it's over 100 in total) following the kids' initial escape from the Grace Field House. While her story develops in the background, she's not an active participant in the actual action of the series until much after where the second season currently is.

That's why her return in Season 2 Episode 4 is such a major shake up. Not only do we see the immediate fallout of the kids' escape much earlier, but we also see Isabella now taking a more active role in the series. This includes her new mission which has tasked her with capturing all of the children in order to win her own freedom and a second secret promise being kept from the audience for now.

Having more involvement from Isabella seems odd, but it also makes a lot of sense given Shirai and Demizu's recent returns to The Promised Neverland's world. Although the manga had come to an end, the two creators released special prequel chapters for Ray, Isabella and Krone as they fleshed out more of the Mother system as a whole. This could potentially be a retroactive way of making sure the future reveals coming much later hit harder in the anime. But what do you think?

How do you feel about Isabella returning to The Promised Neverland in the second season? How are you liking the new episodes so far? Anime only fans, is the second season working out for you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!