This Promised Neverland article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 5, as well as the manga source material.

While Netflix-watchers eagerly anticipate The Promised Neverland Season 2, fans who watch the anime on Hulu or elsewhere are five episodes into the second season, and—for the most part—are increasingly nervous about the series’ narrative choices. After the latest episode, The Promised Neverland anime seems to be making major changes from the manga… and, by “changes,” I mean skipping entire arcs of the story, seemingly without any plans to replace them with narrative that bridges the beginning of this story with the end.

For anime-only fans (like this one), who have yet to read the manga, it is confusing. For fans of the manga who have been eager to see this full story adapted in anime form, it’s probably even harder to watch. Let’s talk about some of the major...