Thirty-six students find themselves and their school building suddenly adrift in a void-like dimension. When supernatural powers awaken in some of them, a sense of detachment begins to divide the group. Despite the student council's attempts to impose order, they clash with the students possessing special abilities, who rebel against their strict control.
This conflict leads them to discover that this world has its own set of rules—and following them is necessary for survival. After one of the students decides to take a leap of faith, the school switches dimensions once again. While they deal with the unique challenges and circumstances that each world presents, the students must unravel the mysterious phenomenon and find a way back home.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
Comentários
SingleH
The only thing I don’t understand about Sonny Boy is what other people don’t understand about Sonny Boy. The story is a reimagining of The Drifting Classroom, only now, some of the students lost in limbo have thematically relevant superpowers. People all over the anime community have given this show a reputation for being abstruse, or “2deep4u” as the saying goes, but I could not disagree more, and in fact, I actually think the show almost suffers from being too simplistic. Sonny Boy is a metaphor for entering the Japanese school and work system, and the emotional issues of these characters stem from their middleschool graduation. It’s hard to see beyond what’s here at school; some of your friends are developing amazing talents and maybe you’re not; you have to take a leap of faith out into the real world; nothing comes for free, you have to stand up and work for it. Pretty much every episode can be boiled down to embody similarly basic coming-of-age themes, and everything interesting or innovative the show does is certainly not achieved though the depth of its writing. The very first piece of exposition at the beginning of episode one makes this crystal clear. “People who were nothing special yesterday suddenly gaining tremendous power. Of course they’ll want to test themselves to find out what they can do.” Tremendous power can symbolize adult responsibility, independence, or a salary, and testing one’s self can symbolize pushing boundaries which others may not have the confidence or maturity to: learning to drive, moving out of your parents’ house, starting a family of your own, and so on. It’s honestly really in your face. The school exists in its own pocket dimension where all your needs are met, all your resources are replenished, and all your wounds are healed, whereas the worlds they travel to outside the school hold actual risk and uncertainty. My friends…this is not subtle.
As a work of art, Sonny Boy is a modern masterpiece. It’s not flashy, but it consistently blew me away with its fluid animation and detailed artwork. As expected, this show is animated by 80% freelance talent from Shingo Natsume's friends list, and the names he continues to attract despite post-2011, post-Maruyama Madhouse being such a dilapidated ghost town never ceases to amaze me. Sonny Boy’s commitment to hand-drawn, non-digital stylization is worthy of everyone’s applause, and the work of art director, Mari Fujino, another genius to come out of Studio Pablo—such as Yuji Kaneko and Seiko Yoshioka, just to name a few—is stunningly beautiful and goes hand in hand with Natsume’s atmospheric tone. Every episode is endless wallpaper fuel, filled to the brim with cool, memorable shots, beautiful backgrounds, and excellent music which compliments the ambiance perfectly. I repeat, the messages delivered by each episode are pretty obvious and a little on the nose, but if I’m going to concede a single point to the people who are calling this show confusing, it’ll be this: what makes Sonny Boy a bit more difficult to watch than your average anime is how little is spelled out. We’re treated to so many short moments, gestures, and facial expressions which all tell a little story in and of themselves, and they exhibit character development in a nuanced manner any other show would devote five minutes to explaining with overwrought, melodramatic dialogue. But this is something I really liked about it. The show doesn't spoon-feed you, and it rewards you for paying attention and treating its characters like people. It’s not “high-IQ.” It’s just dense visual storytelling. Very few times in my life have I had the privilege to witness a series which pushes all my buttons so well and in so many ways, and even if you don’t share my exact aesthetic preferences, I promise you'll agree when I say Sonny Boy is an audiovisual masterclass.
What depth it lacks in the theme department, it more than makes up for in the character department, and not simply because they brought Hisashi Eguchi back from the grave. Natsume stated in an interview, “Sonny Boy is a simple story about a boy growing up and people drifting apart,” and the only reason he imagined it with such an abstract presentation was simply because “life can be absurd and inexplainable sometimes, and you find yourself asking ‘Why?’ a lot.” To me, this is very obvious. The tangible plot of Sonny Boy is a straightforward mystery box which just so happens to have a great deal of surreal elements, but this simplicity is a good thing, because with all the symbolism and character details you already have to keep track of, any narrative structure more complex than this would’ve been way too overbearing and—now that I mention it—probably would’ve made the series as confusing as everyone already says it is. What makes the cast so good is a combination of the expressive character animation I mentioned earlier and the fact Natsume personally wrote the script for every episode, making every character feel consistent. I was actually worried about him writing, because while Natsume is a fantastic director, I wasn’t sure how confident I was in his ability to direct AND write his own original project. While his themes weren’t as profound as he might've hoped, his character writing was first-class, and while some episodes were definitely more verbose than necessary, he still proved my worries wrong. There’s a cute, snarky cat girl whose cats work for Jeff Bezos at Nyamazon, an Indian exchange student who literally invents bitcoin, a New York Yankee’s fan who builds a religion around baseball playing monkeys, and a five thousand year old talking dog. This idiosyncratic charm defines nearly every character, and the few exceptions are still well-realized and serve as a much needed anchor.
Rereading everything I’ve written here, I suppose there’s always a chance I’m subconsciously handwaving parts of the show which are obviously lacking, or perhaps I’m similarly making excuses for what the average viewer may see as wasted potential by overselling what already stands out, but I sincerely think this is one of the most visually compelling anime to come out in years, and aesthetically speaking, I’m not sure if an anime has ever resonated with me in quite the same way. I imagine it's a simple lack of all the abhorrent digital filters, aftereffects, bloom, and other post-production alterations which are layered on top of every modern anime, but this show is just SO gorgeous. It looks like it has all the hand-painted goodness of older anime, but also the crisp visual resolution of digital anime. Its internal consistency is incredible. A lot of modern anime mix 2D and 3D together (where the 3D is usually poor quality), and then adds other effects on top of that. This is just the 2D and little else, with only two noticeable 3D models used throughout the entire show. It looks like Mamoru Hosoda's One Piece film without all the shitty CG. And I hardly did justice to Eguchi’s masterful character designs, or for that matter, the masterful music. The soundtrack for this show is just so immaculate, and it was advised by Shinichiro fucking Watanabe! It uses genres and styles you almost never hear in anime, and hardly for the sole sake of standing out or being pretentious. It just works. It sounds like seminal stage progrock, or some weird Close To The Edge stuff, and I love it. There’s a subtle yet worthwhile distinction to be made between something which is trite and something which is simply commonplace, and I think Sonny Boy has more than enough heart and soul in its creation to excuse any level of unoriginality you may perceive in its coming-of-age themes, and if you tried to call these audiovisuals anything close to lackluster, they’d scoff.
Thank you for reading.
danielsalt
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
nightshadekait
“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.
SunlitSonata
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.
KANLen09
I love me some "Blue's Clues" kind of shows where you need to sit on the red couch, have your handy-dandy notebook (with specifically red crayon of course), gather "dog's paw" clues and make up the entire picture, not having to be spoon-fed with infodump (like so many who prefer the "turn off your brain" type of enjoyment, which I really don't understand why). This formula was what made Spring 2021's Odd Taxi stood out for me as a modern-day masterpiece of a creation from nobodies like début director Baku Kinoshita and scriptwriter Kazuya Konomoto who did ONE HELL of a godly, breakneck awesome show(that will indefinitely be 2021's AOTY for me). And now in the Summer season, we're back with the same distinct experimentation of a show with Sonny Boy, directed and written both by Shingo Natsume, who's had many notable acclaims from directing One Punch Man Season 1 to co-directing episodes with Masaaki Yuasa on The Tatami Galaxy. So just right after the bask of Odd Taxi, how well is Sonny Boy really? Well, it's DEFINITELY not for everyone, and this adage will indefinitely ring true for both lovers and haters of Sonny Boy, whichever way you wanna put it as.
First off, I have to discuss the elephant in the room: everyone is entitled to their own opinion about what they think that Sonny Boy is to them, because the love-hate relationship that's amassed to the point of "elitism" is something that I hadn't wished to come across. But since this is the Internet, and people do love shooting their "elitist" views at other's people's mouth is always such hilariously mind-blowing, agnostic admonishment of mentality clashes. Yeah, "(stupidly) pretentious or (clumsily) artsy" as some would say, right? And this my friends, is what Shingo Natsume's Sonny Boy is all about: the fragmentation, deconstruction, and a certain catharsis case study of humans and society in real life, from the many perspective points of view to thinking what is fit for the society in our own heads by adhering rules to keep up law and order. In a nutshell, it's "Expectations vs. Reality" in the sense that we're constantly being tested of the facts and opinions between existentialism and nihilism, and how that contrasts with our warped or biased mentality that things should be done like so, and vice versa. It's like ColdFusion: its new thinking.
Sonny Boy is an enigmatic show where nothing AND everything makes sense, no matter how the ideologies, theories, hypotheses and all seem so fake or true to the Average Joe, from some being total "elitist" nuts to the pure open-minded. And knowing that Shingo Natsume had some experience on The Tatami Galaxy and its innard "complex" stories, with the guiding principle and influence from Masaaki Yuasa, Sonny Boy is his prized achievement that demands a lot of attention, and as the teachers say to the kids: "Put on your thinking caps kids, because we're about to self-insert ourselves into an adventure like no other!". As strange as it may sound, while Sonny Boy may appear to be in-your-face that looks a lot ridiculous than it sounds (ascertain hinting to that one Monkey Business episode), in actually this was purposefully done for the minds who are enveloped with the never-ending "mockery" of situations about what the characters think that the human society is to them. Truly, this is creativity that I'm hearkening for more in anime, where people like Shingo Natsume and his team take a very calculated creative risk just to stand out from any given season. And just like Spring's Odd Taxi, Sonny Boy is a quasi-experimentation of a big brain product, that depending on the people you ask, can go from the haters to say: "WTF are these people thinking of doing?", to the open-minded brains of people who like to analyze things (me included), I come up pleasantly surprised that there's shows like this to stray away from the wash-rinse-repeat business standards of modern anime, even if it turned out good or bad.
As much as this is a clash of 2 of the most influential works of the 20th Century with William Golding's 1954 Nobel Prize-winning novel "Lord of the Flies" and mangaka Kazuo Umezu's 1974 manga "The Drifting Classroom" (with a hint of Boogiepop in there), the eagle-eyed will notice the inept similarities to rouse awareness that this is not an "original" idea like we thought it was. The combination of these 2 works which gave rise to their own fictional success stories is what Shingo Natsume was aiming for, and as fictitious as the haters would you "make believe" that it's nothing special (which contributes to the plot's weirdness that looks like randomness justified for absolutely no reason), at least in my own view, there's no wrong if Sonny Boy was a figment of imagination. The re-imagining of both works into one, which provides the sense of depth into this "black hole" of a world filled with cartons of Amazon-like delivery boxes, a reference to an old manga, and cats who appear to be just normal cats, hiding the diabolical fact that they understood the whole drifting process and hid the truth, while the characters play hookie with what they could and can to survive in those different dimensional "This world"s. Bear in mind that nothing is set in stone, and the characters (which is the class of 36 students) make up their own rules on what they think is right and setting it up against others whom are in rebel.
Unsurpisingly, for such a show like Sonny Boy to work, the characters serve as the basis of the core foundation of the show's inner workings, breakdowns in a constructive way. And in this case, it's some of the class of 36 students, all of which have been given individual, unique supernatural abilties that has stranded in a void that's far away from home. And all of this entails a simple mission: to get all of them back home into their original world. A fun fact that the original character designer is Hisashi Eguchi, whom is the mangaka for the 80s series "Stop! Hibari-kun" and did character designs for Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue, and this is what that "a reference to an old manga" leads to, which veteran anime watchers can instantly figure out right away. But trying to explain the supernatural aspects in this show would skin off much of the show's appeal, so I will not mention them here. However, taking a deep dive into the narrative of the characters and their constantly mind-bending feelings and thoughts reveal personalities that from face value, you can't really tell what they're up to unless they're engaged with some issues and situations.
Let's take the central trio for example: Nagara, Nozomi, and Mizuho. Nagara is blessed with the ability to interchange dimensions if he feels like it. But at his core, Nagara is this passive lonewolf of a character who does things at his own will, he needs people to help push dreams into reality, being tugged along like a child to the other students who may find him loathsome. One of the first helpers that recognized Nagara's ability is Nozomi, who is gifted with the ability to see the future, and is a complete 180 of a stark contrast when compared to Nagara. Nozomi is an enthusiastically spirited girl who makes the best of her situations, such as trying to rally the class when the whole school drifted off into another "This world" dimension. Deep down, Nozomi looks like the kind of character where everyone looks to her for help, but there's a certain element about her that drives me nuts to think about how would she be like if she was forced by the aggression of others' actions being the person of interest. And on the other hand, you have Mizuho, which she is blessed with the ability of "Nyamazon", which is filing cats in a box, which again, if you're thinking out of the box for the quote "Curiosity killed the cat", then you'd be right. Mizuho constantly tends to find things that'd fill the void in her heart for her own satisfaction, something that can't be expressed in one-liners such as "happiness" or "love". Adding the other characters which again, form both existentialism and nihilism thought processes like Hoshi and best boy Rajdhani, you'll get a sense of the idea how everything interwines altogether like a messy jigsaw puzzle that you've just unravelled from a puzzle box. Even the small pieces do have significant contribution to the overall picture to the growth characterization.
Madhouse may be back while not doing much nowadays, but one thing that impressed me is that Sonny Boy hearkens on the "freedom of creativity" that is the studio's core back in the day (the pre-2010s before all talent got shuffled). And clearly with Shingo Natsume's approach, Madhouse is back on where they once belonged, taking in this prolific director's ideas to animation, and it's a visual treat. Remember how I said that Shingo Natsume took inspiration from Masaaki Yuasa? That inspiration comes from the aspect that it is looking a lot like 2014's Ping Pong the Animation with the exact closeness of lore, down from the animation direction to even its visuals which is a masterclass of a work that you sadly won't see much out there anymore.
The sound direction is even more fabulous. The OST for Sonny Boy is truly another style of work, that for a show that uses dialogue as its primary approach, so much that to use insert music for the scenes that required it, truly speaks volumes of how well sound design is truly wonderfully made and directed to a T. This can be credited to the insane sound master that is sound engineer Shouji Hata, of which Sonny Boy adds to the acclaim of his articulate work.
And there's the sole theme song of Sonny Boy: Shonen Shoujo by GING NANG BOYZ, and I definitely know what you're thinking: a "meh" song, just skip amidst the plain scrolling ED credits. I implore you to hold that thought, because even if you hate Sonny Boy to a degree, at least have an appreciation that this song plays a major, integral part in the overall articulation of the show. Just take a look at the lyrics (and even the song's MV on YouTube):
Starting now, from the moment our eyes met.
Everything that's been downloaded is allowed.
"It's Okay for you to be here"
The gangway bridge is long, and God is nowhere now
Under a rainbow umbrella, I heard the words
"It's Okay for you to be here"
Affection is the same as loathing
When you don't know the meaning of love
We held hands, on the edge of a world bathed in twilight
When we overcome sadness on a 2000-light-year-long train,
That's when boy meets girl
Pretty lonely people possessing the entirety of good and evil
That's when boy meets girl
Don’t say goodbye!
If you glance back at Sonny Boy in the character space, you'll realize that within the friendship triangle of Nagara, Nozomi and Mizuho,there only exists space for a boy and a girl. While Nagara is the obvious part, you'd reckon that between Nozomi or Mizuho, who will take the girl's place to stand alongside Nagara in the final sequences of the show. That's one underlying mystery that you have to figure out for yourself.
Sonny Boy is like an immaculate jigsaw puzzle that's worth administering the quote akin to "A picture of a thousand words". Slowly figure out those puzzle pieces that link and make sense by the count, and that's Sonny Boy in a well-rounded product of ideas that Shingo Natsume crammed what he desired to express without hold back, looking back of his work while dedicating a story to that. It's a delicately themed philosophical story unlike any other to resist the illogically born from that subjectivity, restraining law and order to achieve the balance between rules and freedom, that in all essence, defines what humans and the ever-changing society is all about: necessarily adopting in according with the times.
Shingo Natsume truly goes one level higher in Sonny Boy being a sci-fi philosophy of a work, and I'm glad to say that this abstract of a show (plus Odd Taxi and few analytical works) is why I love anime that works not just from a business standpoint, but one filled and fueled with passion and heavy risks involved to pull it off conscientiously and meticulously. Simply bravo with tenaciousness, and hats off to Shingo Natsume.
Persona111
Sonny Boy is, first and foremost, a piece of art. Not necessarily in a good sense; many people may criticize the lack of logic and the experimental non-sense of Sonny Boy, and they’re probably right on their own criterion. Nonetheless, what Sonny Boy does that captivates me the most is that it shows an unique perspective about anime narratives, where the entire project is sacrificed in favor of symbolism and messages. The circumstance that allows the magic of this anime to happen is that Sonny Boy is practically an one-man project on it’s basis, with it’s script and direction both in the hands of Natsume Shingo.That’s the best-case-scenario that could happen for such an ambitious idea. While Shingo is still a rookie in terms of scriptwriting, and that won’t come unnoticed for the viewer as the series has some unnecessarily weak moments that could be spent building on other elements, his inexperience could be blessing in disguise, and it helps him to break and subvert many narrative basis of modern anime while letting his imagination run wild on landscapes, concepts and metaphors. And, anime being an audiovisual media, none other than him could direct so impressively the bunch of abstract drafts that were germinating on Sonny Boy’s text. Wasn’t it for the whole staff’s brillianty on portraying with psychedelic and complex visuals the embrionary textual ideas, Sonny Boy would have been left rude and incomplete, just as a poetry written non-purposefully in a journalistic style.
On the other hand, the same point that constitutes what I find to be the greatest brilliancy of Sonny Boy is what stems in it’s biggest letdown. Sonny Boy is completely metaphoric and interpretative. Some may compare it to Serial Experiments Lain, for the difficulty of completely understanding both of them, but I see two primordial differences between them: Lain has an actual plotline, while Sonny Boy doesn’t, and Lain has a thematic unity that helps to understand all the elements brought. Meanwhile, Sonny Boy is completely viewer-dependent, and doesn't even treat themes as half as complex as Lain. The stories are all kinda placed under the same umbrella of a coming-of-age drama with supernatural elements, but there are disconnected passages and the chapters are semi-episodic in a way many things don’t actually have enough screen time to be properly developed. That leads to an underwhelming sensation on incompleteness in some passages, together with the fact that the lack of an integral and continuous plot makes the whole experience depend on to what extent the viewer is engaged with the metaphors and scenes of the anime.
And even while those metaphors are always present, some episodes, just as episode 4 and 9, use some elements to parallelize their messages that end up just being weird or idiotic. Creating an anime completely based on symbolism is attractive, but if you fail to make the symbols beautiful and engaging, you’ll completely lose the viewer’s attention.
Although, even if I had to go through some of Sonny Boy’s errors and limitations, I have to finally explain myself about what I mean with ‘Sonny Boy is a piece of art’. When I say that it sacrifices everything to enhance the message it aims, I mean literally everything. Characters are either plot devices or semi-symbolisms (for example, the comparison of Nozomi, hope, and a compass, being her the one that’s always pushing them further on the beginning but extinguishing it’s liveliness as time passes and students realize that they won’t come back). I'm not saying they are bad characters at all, but they exist in favor of the text. Complete scenes, just as the cinema world in episode 6, are just metalanguage and conceptual games, which doesn’t make them less complex and admirable. And finally, the world’s rules are never completely explained, and even the continuity of the plot is completely ignored when required. That might seem like a complete narrative disaster, but that’s what Sonny Boy aimed for since it’s first episode, and that freedom is just great.
Creating psychedelic landscapes as it pleases, aided by the insane visual work that Madhouse delivered here, using characters and situations as symbols that the director can move as he pleases in order to create a message: I find it wonderful. It allows Sonny Boy to bring new approaches to an already explored and rather simple theme such as coming-of-age, and make it in a new, indescriptible, beautiful way. It can take a simple chair, and put it in a context where a chair stops being only and object and somehow, magically, it seems uncommon and gorgeous.
The whole Sonny Boy experience is completely unconventional: you might see the same old message being told in a incoherent and wacky world with unidimensional characters, but, all put together, there’s something about the narrative freedom of Sonny Boy, it adventurous side and delirant scenarios that remind me of Tolkien’s Silmarillion in some odd, melancholic way. It makes me want to reflect, to find meaning on the myriads of small elements that the anime is constantly portraying in a mysterious, absurdly creative way, and leaving me with the impression that I’ve watched an immensely satisfactory show, with a lot of food for thought and an insanely high rewatch value. It makes me crave to unveil it's different layers, from the 'on-the-nose' coming-of-age metaphors the the complex subtext present in some specific cuts. Sonny Boy for me is an innovating, addicting, piece of art.
Wilkaoo
At first, it all begins when teenagers from a class travel to a dark and empty world filled only by their school, while totally ignorant of their situation. After a short time, they begin to organize themselves socially and establish power relations among themselves, but our protagonists refuse to participate in this, why? Nagara shows himself to be an extremely passive person, following what is ordered and what will cost him the least effort to accomplish, but this characteristic ends up being confronted when Nozomi, the only character who does not wear the white uniform of her school, begins to interact with him, because justlike Nagara she does not consider herself part of the large group that was forming but for a completely different reason: Nozomi is a free spirit who prioritizes fulfilling her desires rather than conforming to collective need, such a personality is what will guide the development of Nagara, our protagonist and observer.
As for the plot of Sonny Boy, which is extremely fantastical and surreal, there is a clear division of its story into two parts. The first focuses on the previously described organization that the students have made among themselves and their goals, some wishing to blindly follow the one who stands out and leads them, while others just wish to go home, this results in an exploration of the universe where, as the plot progresses, we learn that the students are not bound to a specific world, but to a set of infinite interconnected worlds which contain individual rules that must be followed to the letter or are just a feature for the world to function, some of these rules are insane, some are fun and some make a direct analogy to our society. Such a universe underscores Sonny Boy's undeniably strong points, which are its direction and animation, through several unique, beautifully crafted worlds, with some more like the earth we know, others more abstract and insane.
However, after a certain plot twist in the middle of the anime, we have the second part of its plot that focuses entirely on its protagonists, which for me was the true brilliance of this work. I admit that I definitely could not extract everything that was presented to me by this anime in this sequence, but following the individual conflict of these characters (direct consequences of the power relations between the students as a whole) was spectacular. The animation of their faces in their respective emotional catharsis, the dubbing, the use of animation as a media medium...Everything was intense, emotional and extremely striking. I decided not to expand on this because I believe it should be seen and reflected upon by each of us.
Sonny Boy is the anime of the year and was extremely authorial, from this I am interested in following all the new anime directed by Shingo Natsume. Without a doubt he has established himself as an industry standout after doing such exquisite work.
WhiteWolf3568
[This review has NO Spoilers] Well, take a deep breath before watching this anime and stay focused, because it is surreal and it has many allegories. I really enjoyed Sonny boy, it made me feel a variety of different feelings throughout and... here I am writing my first MAL review on it. This review is mainly for those who have not yet decided to watch this anime but I am actually just sharing my oppinion because I do not have necessary philosophical knowledge to make an analysis. First things first, I want to keep it short cause I hate that habbit people have here to write HUGE reviews,even though I undertand the hype one might have while writing about his/her favourite anime.
I assume that you have read the synopsis prior to reading this but let me give you my own.
"A bunch of high school kids have somehow traveled to an other dimension so the series shows us how they interact with that strange world, how they try to understand the complexity it has, how the relationships between the students change and all these while some of them try to find a way back. Oh, and did I mentioned super powers? Cause most of them somehow get one."
IS SONNY BOY FOR ME ?
Sonny boy is a VERY unique anime, I can't tell if it is what you might be searching for but I can guarantee that if you stay focused while watching you will never get bored. (Well you might get a little bit bored with all these strange dull students at the beggining but in sonny boy you will meet MANY different characters so don't worry)
In fact this anime is for anyone who wants some fresh interesting original anime plot. You might think that you are not interested in another isekai but really this anime is no isekai as we know them.
ARTSTYLE;
Now, for those who have watched a little bit or all of sonny boy I would like to mention that the artstyle is quite a rare one but totaly fitting to the surreal atmospher sonny boy has. You see, the artstyle is a minimalistic-like one from the prospective that there is no much detail where it is not needed but with many colours (if that makes sense), just what our plot needs cause most of the time your eyes will be glued to the subbtitles.
MUSIC!
The ending in one of the best endings I have ever heard and you should hear all of it at least once while reading the subtitles. Also you might notice that in the last few episodes it becomes quite common for scenes to have music playing in the background (but I can not explain why I think this is happening without spoiling even the slightest).
PLOT;
Some more things about the plot and it's stucture (at this point you might want to avoid reading this paragraph if you want to see sonny boy having no clue for anything)
Ohh boy, sonny boy, has a weiiird plot-structure and sometimes at the first few episodes I was strugling to understand what is going on! Stay focused because things are going fast and whatever is explained once won't be explained again in the future!
The interesting thing with sonny boy is that even though there is some main plot which is quite fast, every episode has it's own little story, it's own little message and most of the times every episode will add some new characters!
I am telling you, this think is no joke, some people may say that I am overrating it, some said that is like "Your Name"(objecively not true) but it is different for every person simply because every person understand a different percentage of it.
Hooopefuly I keep this as short as possible and I do that by only writing my oppinion without explaining it.
Hooopefuly you found it usefull, keep in mind that it is my first review and go watch sonny boy!
eliashilario
SPOILER FREE I have finished this anime having tasted so many emotions along the way, i will not share them though as i think that spoils things a bit. Sonny Boy was something that i knew i would love when i finished ep 1, it asked questions that were simplistic yet so dificult to answer , it made me think , better yet, made me reflect upon myself and my position on the world . This simplistic and somewhat cold, human, pattern is followed throughout the show, for most of the time there is no music, only ambient sound and dialogue, immersing you in the feelings of thecharacters in screen, but when music starts playing it just slaps, that end theme hits different and always at the right time. The art is gorgeous, simple yet detailed when it needs to, its just right.
The characters and the story around them and their world just fit together, being beautifully built with each episode that passes, everyone just seems alive, they all have reasons and discovering some of the characters backstory and what happens to them is absolutely amazing
In the end sonny boy became one of my favourite anime of all time, it´s just a unique one of a kind show thats a one hell of an enjoyable ride and everyone should give it a try, it might just be your thing
literaturenerd
Sonny Boy exploded on to the scene in Fall of 2021 and quickly proved to be amongst the most unique, challenging, and ambitious anime in recent years. If anyone asks me what my favorite anime time period is, I will quickly answer that it was the 10 years between 1995-2005. Evangelion was a HUGE financial success despite being weird, unconventional, and not at all holding the viewer's hand. This ushered in the most creative and bold period in anime history where TONS of weird, artsy shit got greenlit that probably wouldn't have in any other period. Especially original properties not based on a manga, LN,or game. Examples of anime from this period include the Satoshi Kon films, Paranoia Agent, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, Haibane Renmei, Kino's Journey, Mushishi, Utena, Cowboy Bebop, Princess Tutu, etc.
Sonny Boy is a return to that level of creative freedom; financial losses be damned. It's the new Serial Experiments Lain in a sea of isekai and shitty gimmick romances. However, this is where the problem with Sonny Boy rears its head. Sonny Boy does not do a very good job being a gateway show for modern anime audiences to get into the more cerebral, serious anime. If you show Sonny Boy to your high school or college anime club, it's going to go very poorly. I have some offline friends who tend to shy away from so called "elitist" anime and Sonny Boy is one of the worst shows I could possibly show them to change their minds. If you love trying to interpret metaphors and need an introduction to existentialism, Sonny Boy is great. This is the perfect anime for people who already hang out on book forums to discuss Camus and Dostoevsky. For everyone else, I fear that Sonny Boy is going to be painfully slow, dry, often esoteric, and just not too rewarding in general.
Evangelion is philosophical, but it also has giant robots. It has waifus. It has action scenes. It has horror scenes. You don't need to be a snob to appreciate something from Evangelion. Lain has great atmospheric horror. Utena and Princess Tutu are funny. Haibane has warm, cute, slice of life moments. Sonny Boy after the first 5 episodes has endless metaphors for how adulthood sucks, but you can never go back to being a kid. Along with the repeated message that your life has no innate meaning beyond what you yourself choose to give to it, because you live in an uncaring, chaotic world. One example of a metaphor from episode 2 is that the kids are safe in the school and items duplicate themselves, but if they journey outside the school, they have to pay for items or else they burst into flames. You know, because stuff isn't free in the real world. Yeah, the metaphors are often this obvious. Sonny Boy has a few genuinely enjoyable episodes like Cap's character development episode featuring monkeys playing baseball. Most of the time, Sonny Boy is like if Angel's Egg was a 12-episode anime instead of a 1-hour experimental film. This is the anime that casuals would be forced to watch in Hell.
On a positive note, the art and animation are spectacular. This was written entirely by a lifelong artist with no prior writing experience, which shows immediately. It reminds me a lot of Haibane Renmei in that regard. The visuals are really well planned out and have a precise vision, but there are large gaps in the plot that aren't ever explained. The writer clearly didn't care that these elements weren't explained because he has a visual artist's mindset. The whole plot is that a classroom of students is suddenly teleported along with their school building into a bizarre network of parallel dimensions. What caused this to happen? It's never explained. It's possible that their principal is a sadistic God that did it as an experiment, but that's another sub-plot that's very much left up to interpretation. We do learn that the answer to one of the riddles ends up being that magical talking cats did it, but the solutions in Sonny Boy often just lead to more questions.
Sonny Boy also has a pretty nice OST. It's not the FLCL OST or anything, but it's pretty good. It adds to the atmosphere and playful visuals. It does its job without ever being intrusive. I don't really have all that much more to say about it.
The characters in Sonny Boy are honestly a mixed bag. Some of the characters like Nozomi and Mizuho are compelling characters with rich character development and neat arcs, but others like Asakaze don't add much. I hate the fact that douche wastes an entire episode and the most entertaining character Rajdhani disappears for the entire middle section. It's hard to fully flesh out 8-10 characters in 12 episodes, so of course some characters end up being better than others.
In the end, do I like Sonny Boy? Actually yes. Mostly because I AM one of those pretentious assholes who reads Camus for fun, listens to classical symphonies, and watches French and Soviet arthouse cinema in my spare time. I am the exact target audience for this show. However, even I didn't love it as much as I wanted to while going into it. Sonny Boy did manage to knock off Penguin Highway and get into my top 150 all time, but I'm honestly not sure how long it will stay. Would I recommend Sonny Boy? It all depends on how much you like slow, artsy media where the only fun to be had is trying to decipher it and taking in the visuals. The perfect litmus test would be "Do you like Andrei Tarkovsky movies?" If the answer is yes, then Sonny Boy is definitely worth watching. If the answer is no, I personally wouldn't waste your time.
siphus007
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.
ChrisATX
I genuinely do not know where to start with this anime. I know people toss this phrase around a lot but I believe that this anime truly transcends the medium. It seems today all movies and TV shows follow a nice neat hero's journey with a 3 act structure and a satisfying conclusion, and to be honest that gets quite boring and predictable. Sonny Boy is such a breath of fresh air with dozens of intertwining themes and an ambiguous ending that feels earned/builds off of the pre-established themes. The lack of music in many episodes and the abundance of music in others is alwaysdone with a purpose. There are so many unanswered questions that I still have, yet at the same time, I feel perfectly satisfied. This anime couldn't have ended any other way. This entire anime was trying to drive home the fact that your desires make you human and without those desires you are dead. As I'm sitting here after finishing the final episode I feel so empty yet so full. I could go on forever about this, but then I'd never stop typing. Sonny Boy is a masterpiece, not just by anime standards but in comparison to all media, I will never forget the story it told.
Edenharley
Sonny Boy is a show I don't think I'll be able to explain very well, but it really was just a work of art. It was so stylised and intricate and there were so many small details that really meant a lot, it was so fun to think back about events in previous episodes and what they meant afterwards. The story was so well told, my understanding was that it was very much a story about graduating from childhood and escapism, told in an incredibly abstract way and with some very abstract themes too. There were so many thought experiment like scenarios and it was justso interesting to watch.
The characters were really fun, the cast were very diverse and all took their own paths through this other world that showcased off a lot of different ways people handle growing up. I absolutely loved the main 3 or 4 - Mizuho especially, the dialogue was all so engrossing and every conversation seemed to be thought out.
The art was really unlike anything I've ever seen in an anime or any animated piece of media for that matter, the psychedelic style really helped to showcase the absolute absurdity of the world. I really loved that the character designs seemed so simple yet also so full of personality, even the clothes the characters wore especially in the case of Nozomi.
The soundtrack was undoubtedly one of the best I've ever heard in an anime, every single song was incredible and fit the scenes they were in perfectly. I can't explain enough how unique it felt, there was such a clear overarching style that you absolutely never see in other anime, and so many of the pieces conveyed the emotion of the episode or scene with stunning accuracy.
Overall Sonny Boy is with no doubt a contender for anime of the year and for sure a must watch, it's so weird at first but you begin to look past that as more episodes come out and really accept it for the artistic masterpiece that it is.
RebelPanda
Sonny Boy is an experience. A philosophical, poignant, and inventive experience. It would be pretentious to say, "this anime isn't for everyone." Sonny Boy is accessible to everyone, but it demands patience and an open mind. If you're willing to solve this puzzle of an anime, the payoff is worth it. Rewatching it, you will notice clever foreshadowing, irony, and metaphors within the complex story and mesmerizing visuals. Sonny Boy is about an entire class that suddenly shifts into the void—comparable to a sci-fi take on Lord of the Flies. Out of the thirty-six stranded students, a couple dozen of them gain mysterious supernatural abilities. The studentsclash with each other's values, causing all kinds of interpersonal conflicts. Each argument represents a more significant societal issue. Controversial political topics, including capitalism, totalitarianism, freedom, religion, and authoritarianism, are covered throughout the show. They present these themes objectively. The plot is not straightforward in the slightest. The writers purposefully wove it like a maze. Understanding it requires you to pay close attention. Often I had to rewatch episodes to follow along, pause scenes to process what I saw, or rewind. Understanding fighting a final boss each time—though challenging, the reward is always satisfying. The cycle of confusion, curiosity, and solving the puzzle becomes addictive. Anyone who struggles to understand Sonny Boy is perfectly valid, it is intentionally obtuse, and that's not everyone's cup of tea. Though the complex themes and tangled narrative may lead you to assume the character writing is thin—they are anything but one-dimensional.
Rather than focusing on one point of view, the narrative follows multiple students to explore new themes. Nagara, the self-insert protagonist, is at the center of the plot, as the author has confirmed himself. He is one of, if not the best, self-insert lead characters I've seen in anime. Nagara's journey involves finding a reason to live. His arc is a classic coming-of-age story—beginning as a depressed teenager. Along with his friends, especially an eccentric girl named Nozomi, he transforms into a new person. Nagara's deadpan personality makes their dialogue oddly funny, though you must still pay attention. Each person is utilized as a mouthpiece for the author's philosophical musings. Their conflicts in values allow us to peer into his mind.
The show is as much of a journey of self-discovery for Nagara as it is for the author. The classmates who accompany him, Nozomi, Mizuhara, Rajidani, and Asakaze, undergo character development. Asakaze is the weakest of the bunch because he grows much less than his friends. He began as an average teenage rebel. He lacked the intriguing background and internal strife of the other, much more compelling characters. Nagahara has a monotonous voice, and he is a coward, but we know why. There is depth to him that's not shoved down our throats. Even though his outlook on life is wildly different from his classmates, they share a goal. Find how they get home and who sent them to the new world, and why. That's what makes Sonny Boy's characters so good—they have motivations. Even though we may not necessarily agree with them, it is obvious why they do the things they do.
As the show explains the superpowers and complicated logic of the setting, you will notice character development is seamlessly woven in. We learn about Mizuho's power simultaneously that we know she can create anything she wants. We find Nagara's power when we see him get confronted and anxious, not told through info dumps. The writers treat us like adults. We see characters act out their distinctive personalities then create our judgment. There is one slight exception to this: After the mysteries occur, such as spontaneous blue fires, there will be a follow-up explanation from the most intelligent person in the class: Rajidani. He gathers together the students to lecture them about how their new world works. He does not set rules, unlike the authoritarian student council. He learns as much about reality as possible because his goal is to escape. Rajdhani sticks with the main cast to conduct his intriguing experiments with them. The author develops the multiverse concepts through him: There are days and nights in the alternate world, but the characters do not age or need to change clothes. All of them are permanently stuck as middle schoolers. Through their inability to age, the author pries open the door to eternity; some students find peace, and others futilely attempt to escape their solitude. The anime begins as an inconspicuous middle school drama, moving through group hysteria, personal anguish, then endless lamentation.
Sonny Boy is visual poetry. Every setting could be framed in a museum, whether it be shots of nature or the trippy visualization of the multiverse. The atmosphere flows from whimsical, melancholic to cosmic horror—the director's clever use of hard cuts slicing apart the show like a layered cake. Tonal dissonance would typically be a source of criticism, but it illustrates the group dynamic's fragility. When the characters are framed at a distance, they fade into the background like an oil painting. Their figures quietly morph into shapes rather than human forms. This passion project was helmed by Shingo Natsume, known for directing One Punch Man's first season. Given how good the writing is, I'm shocked to see he has never written anything before now.
The soundtrack is one of the best of the year—with 20 distinctive tracks. Every instrument works together, the basslines are strong throughout, and the talented singers suit the rhythm. The songs build up and have direction, used to guide the show's narrative. Numerous audio effects combine to make the setting feel grounded and realistic. The sound engineers did not use stock sound effects; they expertly recorded the sounds themselves with foley techniques. Although the audio was overbearing at first, they found their groove as the episodes progressed.
Not all is explained in Sonny Boy, but enough is there for vibrant discussion to break out the minute the credits roll at the end of every episode. I've got my theories about all of it, and everyone will walk away from it feeling differently. What's undeniable, though, is the staggering profundity that emerges from a seemingly innocuous experimental anime. This is one we will look back on for years to come.
GhostsCroak
Some call Sonny Boy a masterpiece, But others call it a mess. Many proclaim it philosophical, Yet many more say it’s nonsense. I’ll tell you what it certainly is; It isn’t easy to watch. It doesn’t concern itself with traditional story beats, or really a coherent plot. It doesn’t concern itself with explaining the world,or telling you what the characters think.
It doesn’t concern itself with making sense.
The harder you try to understand,
The more you become lost,
Until you wonder what anybody could see in this show.
But surrender yourself to the journey,
And maybe you’ll find your way to the light.
And the light is something beautiful.
bboy_OatsnRice
A highly controversial series that manages to be one of my all time favorite anime. Some phrases I’ve heard people describe this anime are pretentious, confusing, and poorly written. Time and time again I’ve made it my duty to dispel these claims. For it’s an impeccable feat that a show was able to exceptionally portray themes of growing up and taking on the world after highschool. Showing such a daunting period of our lives that’s typically portrayed as daunting in a more optimistic light. This is a show that gets better with each rewatch. During my initial viewing I was perplexed by all the variousthemes at play, that I let the show kick my ass. Taking mental notes and preparing myself for the next round. Though as it aired, I and many others, while understanding the general narrative, were doing our best to fully understand the bigger picture and what could happen next. This is a show that keeps you thinking and on your toes as it dishes out a flurry of double entendres, unique world views, and giving perspective credence to unpopular opinions. How can a show that touches on various existential subject matter be able to have a message clear as day for how to live your best life?
Sonny Boy is an utterly creative, and inventive expedition that requires the viewer’s utmost patience and thoughtfulness to get the full experience. The story tackles various subject matter in dangerously meta-ways that usually pertain to growing up and acclimating to society after highschool. As well as philosophical topics such as death and what it means to truly be alive, if ignorance is truly bliss, just how much control do we have in our lives, and how one’s inability to move on can hurt others more than themselves. The ideas and topics go far beyond what I mentioned, and due to the abstract presentation of the show’s themes, what one person might see as a logical explanation can be completely left field from somebody else’s. Although the concepts the show presents can be left up to personal interpretation, the story itself is rather straightforward.
Nagara is a third year middle school student who has a terrible home life and no future aspirations. It’s implied that he initially thinks life is meaningless upon refusing to help a dying bird, possibly alluding to himself being suicidal. A genki know-it-all transfer student takes an interest in Nagara, and tries befriending him. Moments after their introduction to each other, their school goes, “adrift” into a black void, where the students have powers, and find themselves struggling for a purpose in this new world as returning to their old world seems less and less likely. And that is all I will touch on for the premise, for I hold the initial viewing experience for Sonny Boy in such high regard. The events placed throughout the show can mean different things to different people. Making the discussion always fun and a great way to postulate the different perspectives and feelings this show evokes in people. Even the director Shingo Natsume admitted to the staff having a mixed reaction towards the ending. One portion feeling extremely positive about the end, and the other feeling depressed by it. I fall into the former camp of considering my belief that this to have one of the most uplifting messages in all of anime, and though I won’t spoil anything, I’ll say that the feeling and message I took away from this is what I assume many first time viewers of EVA also had. And for the record I do prefer this over EVA, but I digress.
I can speak for most when I say this in regards to more anime than just sonny boy, but I was euphoric upon finding out that we can’t read or hear the thoughts of the characters. Okay well, we can in one episode, but that’s not the point. The point is, the show isn’t lazy with its characterization of the cast. You get a feel for Nagara being depressed through his reluctance to help the bird, a feel for Mizuho’s standoff vibe with her confiding in her cats and away from everyone else, a feel for Yamabiko’s loyalty through his tale, and a feel for a certain blue monkey who’s exceptional ability at baseball. The characters all have fine-distinctions that make their inclusion and departure from the story felt throughout. It’s through the cast’s developing an understanding of their predicament and seeing them grow, or stagnate in some cases, that the show feels surreal.
One of the best parts of this series is how each episode is distinctly unique from the last. Not that it’s an episodic series, but the show isn’t afraid to jump forward in time or show various other universes outside the one of the main events we follow. It’s in these episodes that we have some of the most gorgeous, refined, and hypnotic visuals I’ve seen in such a long time. As if rewatching this show isn’t already a blast, the visuals make it an absolute pleasure. From bright and sunny beaches, to a vast golden grain field, to hyperspace, to the most abstract location you can imagine, the art, animation, and background left me pausing and admiring the art numerous times. The character designs are also unique. Looking life-like but lacking detail in their face and body. Each character is easily distinguishable on their silhouette alone. With the colors being bright, distinct and simple, this show does a phenomenal job of using complementary colors. And fret not for the soundtrack is also just as delightful as I’ve put it on in the background many times, and have the ED (both versions) forever imprinted on my memory after watching this series three times as of writing this.
Back to the question at hand, How can a show that touches on various existential subject matter be able to have a clear message for how to live your best life? I think the most obvious message from the story is to not remain stagnant in your life and that just because times may be hard for you now, doesn't mean that they'll always be that way. And that it's always worth seeing what the future holds for us, and to tackle our fears head on. The changes Nagara makes at the end of the story is tremendous in how realistically we must take life with both its success and failures as it goes. I can see why some people may see Nagara's smile at the end as off putting or artificial. But to me, he looked like he was mentally equipped to take on whatever the world was ready to throw his way. As for all the vast worlds and lessons they took from each world, it always was full of struggle, but they still made it through. The real world is just another struggle he has to deal with and much like the previous worlds, he managed to conquer and overcome them even if those around him failed to take a step back and see things for what they truly are. And lastly, If you could dream for eternity, eventually you would get very bored because nothing was dictated against you. You'd want to stop being lucid just to have a genuine experience, regardless of how mundane it is. Like I said, it’s one of the most optimistic anime out there, contrary to popular belief. If you don’t see it that way, that’s okay, because that’s part of the fun.
HarryTirio
Sonny Boy is an edifying revaluation on human society and the roles each of us play inside of it--is what I would say, but I feel as though this show has much more to offer than what one sentence can capture. I've heard some claim to have grasped everything about the show, and I've heard others claim that it's not worth trying to grasp anything. Both do the show a disservice. Sonny Boy is so rife with meaning that every individual can and will interpret it in their own way: some moments may be particularly striking to one individual while being overlooked by most others.Unlike 99% of shows, there is no one decisive point that you could point to in Sonny Boy, leading to the aforementioned openness to interpretation and appreciation. This is fitting, considering a major theme in the show is the subjectivity of reality and a society's chosen reason for being in the form of the various "worlds." Your world is different from mine, and therefore your interpretation of not only this show, but also the meaning (or lack thereof) of life itself, will be different from mine. However, Sonny Boy suggests that these realities are not fixed. You have the power to create new worlds, and thus you have the power to change from a bleak, cynical reality to a reality of optimism and opportunity; however, you must first accept your individuality and find the compass that points to your heart's desire, or else the worlds you make will be arbitrary and unfulfilling. Sonny Boy is a worthwhile watch for most of us in the modern era, nihilistic as our world is. You don't need a critical analysis in order to take something from this show--in fact, I would highly recommend not looking to some guy on YouTube to explain what happened (as he interpreted it). By accepting your individuality and attempting to come to your own conclusions when watching it, you will certainly find meaning in this show, even if you can't put it into words.
PygmySnake
Sonny Boy is unlike any other piece of art I think I've ever experienced. If you cannot understand it, find it boring, meaningless, I dont believe you've ever been alive. Sonny Boy is a surrealist masterpiece regarding the sometimes over-used themes of growing up in Japan in many anime that wish to have deeper messages or meaning. But Sonny Boy is unlike any other, its use of personified themes, visual storytelling, and minimal handholding creates a double-edged sword. Those who are unable to interact with this kind of art that requires a "Coming to the table" mentality will never understand work like this. Sonny Boyrequires not only a genuine attempt to interact with the work but a genuine attempt to interact with parts of yourself that are difficult to rationalize. It asks the viewer to take a third person perspective on the way they make decisions, the decisions they make, and the way they live their life. For many, these questions go unanswered until they die. Reducing one's living processes to its nuclear level and analyzing the aspects of our own personalities and existences is something that only works in a give and take medium like storytelling can provide. We, as viewers, are given a responsibility when consciously engaging with storytelling to listen, look, and think about the things being presented to us. Both in writing, theme, and visual/sound, does Sonny boy amplify the messages it wants you to hear at a deafening roar.
Sonny Boy is not a masterpiece for everyone. But if you give it the chance, it could change the way you think about your life forever.
ThatAnimeSnobRE
During its airing Sonny boy was hyped up as an anime unlike anything else out there. Because it’s an isekai and there was a great shortage on those, am I right? But this one was different, you see, because it wasn’t a power fantasy about otakus forming harems in a videogame. For some reason being so different to the point it becomes completely alien to the reasons people are watching something is supposed to be a good thing. No, the actual reason they were hyping it was for thinking it’s deep and mature, and even then it was an overestimation of its presentation. The themes andmeanings of the show were fairly easy to understand; it’s just that no one was infodumping them on the viewer. The average anime fan is used to having the characters going Captain Obvious all the time and explaining everything they do. The moment he finds a show where they don’t do that he instantly thinks it’s deep, when in reality the only difference is he can’t be playing some gatcha game on his smartphone while hearing the plot of the anime he is supposed to be watching by letting the characters constantly explaining everything.
Nonetheless, because of that Sonny boy was niche compared to what most people are use to in anime and ended up being overlooked or dropped by the majority of people who just wanted a good action adventure. This one was closer to a surreal character drama that lacked stuff like action, adventure, or harems in a videogame. It also lacked a compelling cast, because all the major characters were typical school students going through typical first world problems, like getting a job or paying taxes. The gimmick was they were going through all that while exploring alternative dimensions. This means the bizarre setting ended up overshadowing the normal characters, which is not a positive thing when the story is supposed to be character-centric.
As if that wasn’t enough of an issue, the anime is presenting itself as a mysterybait where you are constantly made to wonder how superpowers powers work or what are the rules of the weird world they end up in. You are wasting so much time on trying to figure out what is going on, for something that won’t matter by the next episode since the setting is constantly changing, the message is fairly simple, and the cast is bland.
As I “Captain Obvioused” already, the issue is there isn’t much focus given to the characters who are supposed to be dealing with social issues, and they feel like flower symbolisms for whatever moral message the episode is going for, instead of being interesting on their own. None of them are compelling, you are just looking at the situations they are going through, you are thinking about superpowers and weird social symbolisms, but you never give a damn about THEM experiencing ALL THAT.
One could say they are easy to understand and thus easy to relate with, since in effect they become self inserts. The counterpoint to that is how you just don’t care if they get over their issues. Other similar shows like Fooli Cooli, Abenobashi and Tatami Galaxy were also surreal and also had average people going through social issues, but the character chemistry and the comedy in them were superb. The cast of Sonny Boy has absolutely no charm.
What you will mostly remember will be the artwork and the directing. It was very artistic with attention to its scene composition. Too bad it ends up being art for the sake of art, since as I “Captain Obvioused” already, it isn’t deep and doesn’t have interesting characters. Thus all the pretty colors go to waste and you end up dropping the show after a couple of episodes in favor of some generic isekai that is fun to watch.
