Sonny Boy

Here is my very own, humble, spoiler-free take on Sonny Boy: Sonny Boy is an anime that had a lot of promise, and quite frankly, it absolutely delivered. Likely inspired by The Drifting Classroom, Sonny Boy is the surreal story of a class of students that is sent adrift into a void-like alternate dimension. With a touch, but not much focus into its fiction, Sonny Boy explores the relationships between charismatic, captivating characters and the inner challenges they face along the length of the story. Admittedly this anime is not for everyone, but it stands out from the bunch. Watching this anime weekly the pace already feltfast, and each chapter was very plot heavy: I can’t even begin to imagine what this anime is like when you binge it from beginning to end. It has its quirks, and it’s not easy to follow. If you dislike open endings or having to make your own interpretations of events or even themes of a story, you may want to watch a purer drama or psychological show instead. Art: 10/10 The art in Sonny Boy is magnificent, the artists skillfully use colors to express a flurry of emotions and the polished animation is reminiscent of the old Madhouse we saw years ago in OPM or HxH. Madhouse is back in full force, with APFTTU being the only anime of such excellent quality that they’ve produced in a long time, that I can think of that is. Sound: 10/10 The OSTs that Sonny Boy uses are outstanding, I can’t help but use the OST in the beginning of episode 11 as an example of how well Madhouse does to use sound that fits the scenes to perfection. Even background sound and silence are used as tools to evoke a mood or another. Additionally, the ED is an absolute banger that reflects the themes of the anime itself very well and is a great listen outside of the anime too. Characters: 10/10 Sonny Boy presents a variety of characters with different stories and motives, which make the anime miles more compelling than it would be without them. Characters like Nagara, Nozomi and Mizuho as well as less influential characters like Yamabiko, Pony and Cap are characters with real problems many of us have or will face and can relate to, and the way that the authors write the story so that every minor event and other characters around them affect their struggles and perspective is short of fascinating. I appreciate the fast pace of the anime because it allowed us to be introduced to plenty of different characters, stories, and contexts, all meaningful to the resolution of the story. This is something that I can say about very few anime, if almost any. Acting (VA): 10/10 Acting is always an area where I see points being dropped in MAL reviews, and I’m guilty of this too. I was going to rate the acting a 9 or an 8.5, maybe even an 8, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I really had no reason to. The voice actors in Sonny Boy are very experienced and talented, not only did they adapt to the characters very well, but they also generally fit their personalities, looking at their past projects. I’m not Japanese nor do I speak it, so I won’t get into the tidbits of it, but the VAs were able to adeptly personify the individuality of each character and bring us closer to understanding each one of them, and that’s a magnificent performance in my book. Story: 9/10 The story itself is the hardest thing to review from this anime, not only is it complex and often confusing, but it can’t be treated the same as most other anime. We’re presented with a simple enough premise: a, well… “Drifting Classroom”, but it quickly starts to spread in all directions. It would be easy to criticize the storyline and other notions like the powers each student has, but ultimately each event was meaningful and gave personality and quirks to each character, and overall, I believe the story delved into interesting concepts in each and every step of the way. What I can say with full confidence, is that this is *not* a rip-off of The Drifting Classroom, as many (myself included) first described it (I really wanted to get this off my chest, seriously, I don’t even know why, just really bothers me for some reason), I hear this ALL the time, and it couldn’t be further from reality. The premise is shared, and it would be foolish to deny that, but Sonny Boy is much more than “haha classroom go zoom, bad copy lol 3/10 gottem”. Enjoyment: 10/10 Sonny Boy is a wild ride, if you’re able to ride along a somewhat complex and confusing story and make your own out of it, you will be fascinated by what Sonny Boy has to offer. Sonny Boy is nothing less than a modern masterpiece in my eyes. Therefore, overall: 10/10

“You’re going to go adrift. It will be into a world governed by the absurd.” Sonny Boy is dense, messy, and sometimes pretentious beyond thematic purpose. Watching Sonny Boy requires patience and thought. In one episode, the audience is expected to sit through an entire five minutes of one character just talking about monkeys and baseball, and unless you’re someone who is either decently knowledgeable in baseball strategy or who is particularly fond of long metaphorical narrations, I don’t see how that could be appealing. Throughout its seasonal run, the show constantly divided the anime community, often sparking new chances to usher in the age-old conversationof “this is an elitist anime” vs “you just dislike it because you don’t get it”. And though I hate to admit it, both arguments may actually be kind of right this time. Sonny boy can be difficult to enjoy because it’s hard to grasp, but every episode also made me question whether its artistic value was just a result of symbolism-hungry anime watchers digging through scraps. The show is a divisive mindfuck with a jumbled narrative. Yet still… Sonny Boy has managed to touch the hearts of those willing to stick with it. So if you think that there’s even just the slightest possibility of this anime resonating with you, I cannot recommend it enough. For beyond Sonny Boy’s many flaws, there is so much to experience. Every episode of Sonny Boy is an unexpected moment. Almost every scene in this anime comes with it’s own unique feeling, story, themes, and focus. Like opening a book with random curiosity of what’s inside, no page is alike. Though the show begins with students suddenly getting thrown into a new dimension, it slowly breaks apart into a myriad of story pathways each with their own things to offer. One episode looks into how the students got where they are. Another episode looks at what the students plan to do next with their lives in their new dimension. There are a couple episodes that uncover the secrets of various students and their unknown pasts, giving them depth while still retaining a sense of mystery. It’s intriguing, and there’s tons of fun in trying to guess what's going to happen next. The way Sonny Boy's creativity branches out to build its story is so crucial to what makes watching the show unique that it would be counterintuitive for me to try and explain things in detail for prospective watchers. But just know that this anime has no limits. The synopsis is just the starting point. The true plot of Sonny Boy is a fluid ball of unknowns revolving solely around the fact that anything can be a metaphor and anything can be explored. While there is no set formula to Sonny Boy’s aesthetically erratic storyline, there are set rules to the setting. Like in every good work of creative worldbuilding, there must be some semblance of reality in order to create a sense of relativity amongst the viewers. In Sonny Boy, the setting comes with rules that force the characters to act as they would in a real society. Students form groups, they argue, they converse, they share things, they hide things, they create currency, they create cults, they are forced into labor. The societies the characters interact in and the experiences these environments create are all subplots that could act as their own anime. And as a result of the believable setting, the characters within this setting feel very believable too. Sonny Boy is a fantastic character drama. The characters are psychologically nuanced, they are flawed, they often represent something philosophical to some degree, and their deeper personalities are shown through us through atypical deconstructions over time. With over thirty students, the show definitely doesn’t give every single person screentime, but everyone that’s important to what is happening is a well-structured character with their own likable points. The show covers just the right amount of cast for its run with surprisingly touching depth. And though the character writing in this show is amazing enough on its own, it does even greater wonders for the show as a whole. The realism and subsequent attachment audience members will feel towards the characters is the solid foundation that allows the show to do all sorts of crazy things without making it feel like it’s completely lost all reason. On to technicalities, Sonny Boy’s art is... subpar. That is if you’re looking at just the drawings themselves. If you simply paused at one scene and looked up close to see the linework and the detail, you would be disappointed. Sometimes characters in Sonny Boy just don’t have faces. The show is absurd enough that no one can tell if it’s a budgeting issue or an actual artistic decision, but there are times when things are just missing. Shoelaces don’t overlap properly, and people walk weirdly. It happens often. But what Sonny Boy’s art lacks in detail, it makes up for in framing and directing. In those aspects, Sonny Boy is truly beautiful. Like the rest of the show, the art is far from the norm. But it’s that exact slight eeriness and boundless creativity that makes the animation so fun to look at. It is, in every sense I can think of, true “art”. The positioning of characters against the background in every frame is well-thought out. Slower moments are paired with just one or two characters on the screen to emphasize the quiet atmosphere. Even the slightest character movements like stares and head turns are impactful because of the way scenes are directed and edited. The show focuses on the right things at the right times, and it knows when to back off or look close. It’s cinematic and engaging. The music is one of the best parts of Sonny Boy. The ED is an immersive song that usually just plays over a black credit screen. It works in stark contrast to the quiet that plays in the majority of most episodes which makes it obvious and eventually, super easy to look forward to. The way the music suddenly comes in amidst the vast and empty world with empty sounds makes the ending literally and figuratively “music to one’s ears.” The background scores are wonderful and often ethereal. Highly tense and psychological moments get paired with magical sounding light eerie tunes that add to the events occurring on screen. The music stands out without being out of place and while still adding to story points and showing expert use of dynamics. Everything was simply picked out with perfection and masterfully directed into the show. Sonny Boy is an absolute gem that does so much more than one show probably needs to do. It isn’t afraid to explore, analyze, question, and discuss all at once. Through the limitless creative freedom the show allows itself, it takes the anime medium and art in general to heights often unseen. By having flawed characters that deconstruct away from tropes, and settings that reflect society but still overflow with unhindered originality, Sonny Boy is the culmination of all the good things anime may have to offer. It's a revolutionary must-see.

Sonny Boy was truly bad viewing, demanding the audience to infuse their own meaning into a bunch of disjointed, nonsensical stories, as the production quality slowly dwindles toward an unsatisfying ending. Story - 1/10 Characters - 2/10 Sound - 1.5/5 Animation - 3/5 Avg - 2.5/10 Sonny Boy has great potential due to its commitment to bizarro, intangible, freeform concepts and storylines that allow for deep psychological exploration and avant-garde animation. It wastes that potential by filling episodes with very poorly-developed plots that lack any realism to help the viewer make profound connections to real life, as well as a complete lack of cohesion throughout. The first 1-3 episodes work somewhat well,but after that, characters vanish, transport, go through dimensions, voids, and pretty much whatever the writer dreamed up the previous night. The show fully lost me with an awful, pointless episode where a contrived story is told about monkeys playing baseball. I could tell that the writer truly believed in their own poetic talent, and that things were not going to get better. Characters appear out of nowhere with hare-brained motivations and personalities, or disappear and are never seen again. Most events in the show can provoke reactions like "who cares?" and "just shut up", which easily sums up a pretentious show that wanted so badly to be intelligent. I'm sure there will be many viewers who are struck by it, fascinated by the quirkiness, and can see parallels in their own adolescent experiences. But it was very painful for me. 'Psychological' is my favorite genre, because anime creators can often make remarkably creative and imaginative takes on philosophical character studies. So I suppose I expect some proficiency from it. The show generally looks pretty cool. It wasn't for me, maybe it would be for you.

Whenever you browse a seasonal chart, it’s inevitable the majority of shows will be adaptations. Manga, light novel, visual novel, video game, music CDs, etc. It’s just less of a hassle for studios to tackle media proven successful elsewhere, and these works often provide a very clear path to follow as far as where their stories are headed or what key moments should be highlighted for the maximum oomph. Anime originals don’t have that same expected trajectory. They’re closer to western cartoons, in that they mainly get made because their creator attained clout within the industry and then was given the space by a studioto bring their new original animated concepts to life. This creative looseness can be a strength, avoiding publications that have specific molds they want to be filled for successful products, but it can just as often be an excuse to create something that wouldn’t easily find an audience within pre-established work. That often felt like the case when watching Sonny Boy. A show with loosely defined structure, loose animation tricks, and a loose core in trying to hit the target audience. You see this immediately from the first episode. Main character Nagara lies on his back staring at the ceiling, downbeat and dejected, approached by a girl with a similarly moody disposition. Focus quickly shifts to other characters in their own groups. A total of 36 characters are stated to exist within the show’s school, and, apropos of nothing, everyone has some sort of superpower. Every dynamic is suggested to be pre-established. No music plays the entire episode; the sky is often pitch black, or evenly split between blank blue and cloudy. A jarring CGI carousel appears in the middle of a gym auditorium. Main characters are suggested to exist, but their screentime is balanced out with several others arguing over some sort of dominance. It’s overwhelming for a start, but created distinctly as Episode 1, not chapters that fill in for an Episode 1. This serves as an easy way to stand out and an early indication of Shingo Natsume’s talent with using animation to create a distinct feel. As the remaining episodes go on though, any actual intentions Sonny Boy might have become harder and harder to define. Characters hop between places in separate worlds practically instantaneously. Scenes are placed in non-chronological chunks. Infighting is shown, and then gives way for more existential comprehension of what it means to evolve and live where you are. Entire sections of exposition are stated to present subjects invisible in the moment. Some characters will have focus for entire episodes and then be discarded from relevance. Growth will be suggested through dialogue, but all the introspection is reserved for the show’s main mystery. Amidst all of these very particular choices, the main takeaway I had was that amongst every character with some sort of grab bag superpower, two of them serve as hypothetical prophets, able to broaden new horizons and topple the domain of multiple worlds. One of them uses this power in service of trying to solve the mystery, and the other is tempted to use the power by a walking pair of boobs that serves a similar purpose to the snake in the story of Adam and Eve. This is the most consistent plotline I could find among the show’s roughly 4 hours of runtime, because the show likes to do something new every episode, yet ardently refuses to provide an anchor for the audience to take in the info before switching to another scene. The sense I get from Sonny Boy’s plot is that it WANTS to be a coming-of-age story. The world beyond highschool could be mysterious, unknowing, and in constant flux with deadly situations making headlines every day in real life now. Sonny Boy’s main characters are primarily near the end of high school, and the show uses their powers to represent some form of change they will or have undergone. One character’s power is deliberately ironic relative to their anxiousness at what life actually has in store for them. One episode ties the thread between school and concentration camp in a similar but more subdued vein to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Twice amidst all the exposition, it’s paraphrased that having the opportunity to decide your own future, and not have it manipulated by others, is the best way to hope to make it through life. I understand the intention for that demographic, but as I currently see Sonny Boy, much of the characterization is too loose and confusingly dolled out for any growth to be truly meaningful. Take Nagata himself, the main character. At the start, he feels downbeat and dejected, content to lie on his ass while staring at the ceiling. He continues to be confused and depressed as the show trudges on, but the whole time I was wondering….why? What happened to make this character be so dour at the start of the story, which was conveniently left out? Midway through, it’s said that something happened to his mother, that may have caused him to kill a bird, but that doesn’t really explain anything. His main role in the show itself is to ask about their situation, complain about being used, be unable to use his power properly, or convey more exposition. His loose personality suggests he might be an audience insert character, but he doesn’t feel like he’s there to clarify anything. Even his growth feels inconsistent. Halfway through he gets incredibly enthusiastic about certain subjects, but it feels less like earned character development and more like he had to act a certain way to propel a certain episodic narrative. If this were a show like Tatami Galaxy, Nagata would feel like the centerpiece of everything, to ground events in a way the audience can understand and emphasize with his goals and ambitions in a limited cast, but the show opts to hot potato the screentime focus among several characters. Mizuho is similar, being described as “having a moody personality and refusing to interact with others,” and shouldering the blame for a problem affecting the group, but before too long, she’s fawning over cute animals and talking about the plot in a significantly more chipper way. Once again, it’s hard to see what aspect of teenage life she’s meant to specifically relate toward when her characterization feels more in service of plot than anything else. Characters like Cub seem fairly important at first but gradually fade from relevance. One character is basically a background character with a power given major relevance as an excuse for why they were shoved in scenes at random. Another character comes from a completely different context and has an entire episode narrating portions of their backstory, and is…..probably the most rounded one in the show because of that extensive focus. The “false prophet” loses any of their own motivation in favor of taking naps in the busty temptress’s chest. Rajdhani is probably the show’s best character, the most committed to solving the mystery angle and a fun presence in general; the dub version even has him voiced by someone with Indian heritage, but he still mainly exists as smart guy^tm The point I’m trying to make is, given the inconsistent handling of the characters and loose definition of what constitutes character development, I think the target audience would find it difficult to connect to any of these characters in an impactful way after the show concludes. The expected prompt from the shows’ most ardent supporters would be: “You completely missed these tiny moments all adding up. It’s deep, actually, the characters don’t have obvious growth because they aren’t obvious archetypes! Look at all these metaphors you’re ignoring!” Yes, this is a show where a lot of context is very blink or you’ll miss it. Every episode is more or less its own story with a distinct message. You never know what you’re gonna get and I don’t intend to spoil that here. It can be pretty fun trying to break the individual messages of episodes, but a lot of these focusing choices, which I know exist the way they are because of Sonny Boy’s anime-original status, are easy to be overshadowed by the influx of lore, as well as Natsume’s visual direction. Sonny Boy’s at least a show that’s easy to appreciate on a stylistic level. Eguchi Hisashi, who hasn’t designed anime characters since the turn of the millennium, created a very distinctly designed cast in spite of their similarities from the head down. The way characters’ faces look avoids following the lazy expectation for modern anime art direction. Most episodes have some sort of impressive visual flex, like Episode 2 with the atmosphere established by the paper-looking blue fire, though particularly Episode 5 and Episode 8 for their specific style of animation and shading when distinguishing the mental realms. The mental twisting of many dimensions of pattered color is a particular animation highlight whenever it comes up, the bus flying through it in Episode 9 like it were The Magic School Bus’s serious YA adaptation. It does tend to shortcut with several static shots of faceless characters, but it has an especially unique choice for background characters in them being shaded like the type of “anime minimalist wallpaper” you can easily find on Google Images. There’s this scrapbook uncanniness to some of the scenes while avoiding the scrunched-up outlines often seen on characters out of focus, adding to the many wallpaper-worthy shots appearing throughout. At times the visual direction could be dull when not much was happening on screen, when it just hard cut between cast members starring into the screen trying to comprehend the tangle of plot with music missing, but it feels like that freedom of design is what Shingo Natsume saw with this entire series. This might sound negative, and as far as personal investment in the choices made with the runtime that exists, it is, but I implore you to check out this show if you think its distinctiveness appeals to you. What I’ve been saying about how loose and overambitious the writing feels in light of the visual pizazz is something that only could’ve come from an anime original, a longtime animator writing a script for the first time with that rawness and passion radiating forward at the extent of understanding how to meet the audience halfway. That freedom is worth cherishing. I’m grateful that shows like Sonny Boy are allowed to exist. I appreciate the light hints that the show leaves for people to ponder well after an episode ends. But in its current state, I believe the looseness of its execution precludes me from coming out as infactuated as Natsume wants me to be.

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