The Promised Neverland is returning to Weekly Shonen Jump in a few weeks. The manga by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with a series of projects, including a 36-page one-shot chapter that will appear in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 39 (2026), published on Aug. 24. Perhaps this will be enough to make fans of the horror fantasy series forget about the disastrous anime adaptation.
The Promised Neverland ran in Weekly Shonen Jump for four years, between 2016 and 2020. It depicts a dark future world where, to guarantee peace between humans and demons, human children are bred and raised in orphanages in the demons’ world to become their food. It’s a twisted tale that mixes childhood innocence with unspeakable horror, and it quickly became a bestseller, racking up awards and critical praise.
An anime adaptation by studio CloverWorks seemed to follow suit when it launched in 2019. The first season is generally considered excellent, so no one could have expected the disaster that season 2 turned out to be. The second season of The Promised Neverland made significant changes to the manga’s story, rushing to a completely unsatisfactory finale. At the time, Polygon compared it to the final season of Game of Thrones, which tells you everything you need to know.
Truth be told, some fans still believe that the issues with The Promised Neverland season 2 originated with the manga. The second half of the original work, after the children leave the orphanage, is considered by some to be rushed, overcomplicated, and ripe with plot holes. However, most fans agree that one of the anime’s biggest sins was skipping the Goldy Pond arc, which is considered not just one of the story’s best, but also essential to the plot.
Not much is known about the upcoming The Promised Neverland one-shot chapter, except that it’s set after the ending of the original manga. This will actually be the fifth one-shot connected to the series. In the official guidebook, The Promised Neverland 0: Mystic Code, Shirai stated that the ending of the manga was constrained by chapter length, so this could be another chance to expand on that conclusion.
Viz Media publishes The Promised Neverland volumes in English. The anime is available to stream on Crunchyroll.