VIZ announced an English release for Beyond the Promised Neverland, a new short story collection.
As described by VIZ, the new book will feature short stories set in the world of the award-winning manga, including a new epilogue chapter set after the events of the original story's conclusion. All of the stories were put together by the series' original creators, writer Kaiu Shirai and artist Posuka Demizu. The English version of the collection is scheduled to be released sometime during the fall of 2022.
Announcement: Go beyond The Promised Neverland with a short story collection from the master storytellers themselves. Includes an epilogue chapter to the hit series! Kaiu Shirai x Posuka Demizu: Beyond The Promised Neverland releases Fall 2022. pic.twitter.com/QXZBrUl5iW
— VIZ (@VIZMedia) February 14, 2022
The Promised Neverland was created by Shirai and Demizu in 2016. The series centers on a group of orphans being raised in an idyllic rural environment, who live seemingly happy lives until they realize that the orphanage, their caretakers and the entire world around them are not what they seem. Shirai and Demizu's manga was praised for its smart writing, tense atmosphere and memorable characters, and quickly became one of Weekly Shonen Jump's most critically acclaimed series. The series has achieved a worldwide circulation of over 32 million copies.
An anime adaptation of the series premiered in 2019 and was produced by CloverWorks, the animation studio behind Wonder Egg Priority and the current anime season's biggest surprise hit, My Dress-Up Darling. The series was directed by Mamoru Kanbe, who previously worked on Elfen Lied and A Place Further than the Universe. The first season of the anime received a similarly positive response to the manga and was heralded by multiple media outlets as one of the best anime series of the decade. However, reception to the series quickly soured after the premiere of the anime's second season in 2021. Season 2 of the anime was widely criticized for wildly diverging and simplifying the manga's original story, compressing several years worth of plot down into just a handful of episodes. While the original season received near universal praise, the second season was named by many professional critics as one of the worst anime of 2021.
Amazon Studios is currently developing a live-action series based on the manga, which will reportedly be helmed by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-director and writer Rodney Rothman.
The Promised Neverland manga published its final chapter in 2020. Since then, Shirai and Demizu have collaborated on a number of one-shot manga, the most recent of which was released last summer. Demizu also recently teamed up with Monogatari writer NISIOISIN to create a sequel series to Cool Shock B.T., a classic manga from 1983 that was originally created by Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's Hirohiko Araki.
Source: Twitter
