Post — Aaron Ngo

Major Spoilers are included in this manga review. Please read with caution.

On December 6, 2020, The Promised Neverland—written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu—dropped another special one-shot chapter centered around Sister Krone’s background prior to her introduction in the series. Similar to Ray’s special one-shot chapter that dropped on October 4, 2020, this chapter peeled back the layers on Krone’s characterization. To refresh your memory a bit, Sister Krone was one of the primary antagonists recruited by Mama Isabella—during the “Jailbreak Arc”—to help stop the children from potentially escaping Grace Field.

However, while we were given glimpses of what Sister Krone’s background was in the main series, her untimely death and sacrifice to help the children escape didn’t allow us to explore it further. This is what made this latest special one-shot chapter so special—a gift for the most dedicated The Promised Neverland fan. Without further ado, let’s dive into my thoughts on this special one-shot chapter titled “Special Side-Story: Seeking the Sky of Freedom”.

The chapter kicked off with a young Krone becoming a mom in-training and reuniting with a friend from the same farm she was at, Cecile. They are happy to see each other, but Cecile does warn Krone that they cannot show weakness if they are to survive in this world and become a Sister, then hopefully Moms in the near future.

Krone is frightened to keep going with the mom in-training, clearly having no coldness in her heart to hurt others. Then the class is informed only one girl in their class will advance to being Sister, and the others will be shipped off and killed. As a result of this madness, Krone and Cecile plan to escape using a map created by the previous generations. When they see another girl in their class try to escape without a plan and getting killed for it, Krone and Cecile are officially ready to enact their plan.

Things became twisted once their plan inevitably fell apart due to obvious continuity. Allegedly, Cecile had betrayed Krone to Grandmother, which caused Krone to grow a coldness out of this betrayal, and twisted the same betrayal back on Cecile using the generations-old map that only Cecile could know about. Then Cecile is killed, and Krone eventually rises to Sister. The one-shot chapter looked to have ended with Krone’s official introduction into the main series meeting Emma and the other children, but then we’re given a few more pages of Cecile revealing she planned the whole betrayal thing to give Krone her best chance at surviving in this world.

Cecile and Krone’s friendship was the heart of the one-shot chapter, and the ending with Krone dying—reusing the same death scene from the main series—and meeting Cecile in the afterlife was a tear-jerker. I loved how they were finally “free” to run off into the heavenly sunset together. This was a beautiful ending for Sister Krone, and it brought closure to her background that we knew wasn’t 100% explored. Krone’s motives to help Emma and the others were also given full context, and how she was only self-serving to become a Mom because that’s what Cecile taught her out of love. That’s so damn tragic.

I have high hopes for the future one-shots like Mama Isabella’s one-shot chapter coming next week! Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu are hyping us up for the anime’s second season, which is coming out on January 7, 2021.

Thanks for reading this manga review, everyone! I’ll see you all next week for Mama Isabella’s one-shot manga chapter! I’m going to cry again, aren’t I?

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