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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buy | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 9 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:4348#1552] |
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A rather unique 2021 anime, Sonny Boy focuses on a group of high schoolers who find themselves trapped in an alternate world and a number of them somehow gaining mysterious powers as a result of their situation. While seemingly random and nonsensical with exploring the ordeals of the students, the series actually dabbles into a number of elements involving coming of age and adulthood for the characters as they are all in their final years of high school and coping with the end of their teenage lives in different ways that manifest through the abilities and the alternate worlds that they travel into. The series explores how characters cope with their abilities and the alternate worlds as some adjust to them better than others or attempt to exert control over the other students for their own gain with their abilities. While the series does start off seemingly lighthearted with the situation of the students in its first half, some shocking truths concerning the true nature of the alternate worlds and how they are governed does lead the storytelling to get more serious in its developments for its second half. The visuals implement a rather unconventional style with depicting the alternate worlds and powers of the students that can often get pretty abstract in action. The mind-bending nature of Sonny Boy's story makes it rather unique compared to many TV anime that have come out in recent years, but may not be everyone's cup of tea because of how seemingly bizarre and weird its premise is and the likelihood you may need to rewatch it more than once to follow everything that is going on. But still with what I was able to follow of it, I must admit Sonny Boy was surprisingly engaging for me with its story, themes, and rather unique visual style. If you are into mind-bender anime, this is certainly one worth dabbling into.
Last updated Saturday, November 26 2022. Created Saturday, November 26 2022. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:4348#628] | ||||||
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(Three episodes watched): Uh, what?--that was my response to the climax of episode one. No explanation had been provided of just what had happened, or why, and very little of the tactic which had apparently fixed the problem. I started watching thinking that this was the first episode of a new Summer 2021 anime, then became convinced that it must actually be an OVA of some sort, then re-checked before writing this review and found that my initial interpretation had been correct. It seemed like an OVA because there didn't seem to be any sort of longterm plot coming together: characters weren't being developed all that much, and rather than a mystery that would gradually be solved this show seemed to be racing ahead towards a conclusion of some sort. But I'll be damned if I knew what the message behind episode one was. That you'll be better off if instead of going with the flow you trust your own feelings and take a (literal) leap of faith? I had no idea where things would go from this point. It was semi interesting as different students theorized about what might have happened and what rules they should obey while separated from the normal world, so I decided to watch episode two as well. But episode one left me with an infinite number of questions and few if any answers. Was it more about human nature, in a Lord of the Flies sort of way, or about finding a way out of this situation (and has that goal really been accomplished?)? I was left in danger of becoming so confused that I would rather quit than try to make sense of this. In episode two the teens are now on an otherwise deserted tropical island--the ocean seems to extend endlessly in every direction. In other words, not all that different a situation than in episode one. If virtually magical powers and bizarre 'rules' in contrast to the laws of physics exist, it seems unlikely that anyone will be coming to rescue them. There seems to be a theme here: a simple minded, intolerant group gets the idea that someone needs to be persecuted, and does so even though the person turns out to be innocent (or are they? Mizuho turned out to be sort of guilty of setting strange fires after all, didn't she?). New rules are deduced, but they make little sense and don't tell us much about WTF is really going on. I don't sense any real pattern to the new evidence which is uncovered, and as a result little progress is being made towards that goal, and without it I am frustrated with this show. Most of the characters--even the main ones--make little or no effort to think their way out of trouble. Isn't it obvious that this didn't all happen by accident and instead some intelligent entity is playing with them? Episode two seemed unrewarding; maybe the characters are still too shallow for me to care all that much about who gets persecuted and whether the teens as a whole will ever see their homes again. Based on the show to this point, I can't imagine any moving, cathartic solution to this problem coming about. I watched episode three, but things had gotten to the point that I did so after telling myself that if I slogged through another episode of Sonny Boy, I'd reward myself by watching a show I really liked afterwards. Someone makes the remark that he was warned that he would soon find himself in a situation where everything would be 'absurd'--but sheer absurdity is not entertaining. The characters have got to make some sense of it, not just try and fail. And the characters have got to be fairly interesting themselves, not the sort that verge on being fingernails-on-chalkboard types. This was a show which had a radical premise, yet somehow managed to be more annoying than intriguing. It felt like a tremendous waste of potential. Last updated Friday, October 01 2021. Created Tuesday, July 13 2021. | ||||||||
