scrobble.life
← Back

Title · no scrobbles indexed yet

Sonny Boy

The first scrobble for this title is still propagating, but a community review is already indexed below.

Reviews

Longform community posts about this title

Review: Sonny Boy | Surreal and emotional journey through dimensions [ENG-ESP]@jessuses1381590d
Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post

Comments

No comments yet — be the first.

6 more reviews

  1. ›Sonny Boy - Facing changes 🕰️@necronx24688d

    The entertainment world serves as a medium for sharing "something". This "something" can take the form of a feeling, an idea, or a story. It depends on the creator's emotions and the intended impact on the audience.

    Sometimes, the author aims to provide a relaxing experience, a piece of art that allows you to disconnect for a while. But other times, the author wants to make you think, to make you doubt, and they create masterpieces like "Inception", "Perfect Blue", or the work we are reviewing today, "Sonny Boy".

    El mundo del entretenimiento es una medio para compartir "algo". Este "algo" puede tomar la forma de una emoción, una idea o una historia. Depende de las emociones del creader y el impacto deseado en la audiencia.

    En ocasiones, el autor espera ofrecer una experiencia relajante, una pieza de arte que te permite desconectarte por un momento. Pero otras veces, el autor quiere hacerte pensar, hacerte dudar, y crean obras como "Inception", "Perfect Blue" o la obra que estamos revisando hoy, "Sonny Boy".

    image_2024-08-19_215956493-modified.png

    The true intention of Sonny Boy

    This review wants to deep into the real intention of the story, the message it's telling to us, the audience. And, it looks relative, it can vary depending on what you get (at least it's what I think looking at the different opinions on internet) but, my favorite interpretation of the plot is: Sonny Boy tells a story about how people face the life changes.

    This anime makes references to everything, so you can find references to changes in adolescence, adult life, job cycle, and it would not complete with references to death.

    Este review quiere indagar sobre la intención real de la historia, el mensaje que intenta decirnos a nosotros, la audiencia. Y, parece relativo, puede variar según lo que entiendas (al menos es lo que pienso viendo las diferentes opiniones en internet) perom mi interpretación favorita es: _Sonny Boy cuenta una historia de cómo las personas afrontan los cambios en la vida.

    Este anime hace referencia a todo, por lo que puedes encontrar referencias a cambios en la adolescencia, la vida adulta, el ciclo del trabajo, y no estaría completo si no tuviera referencias a la muerte image_2024-08-19_215956493-modified.png

    Sonny Boy shows how people can be excited about the future, while others are afraid about it. The way the characters persevere, or how others remain trapped in memories, combined with the unique animation, beautiful soundtrack, and profound meanings in every situation, makes this anime an unusual yet thrilling experience.

    If you are looking for something different and a fresh idea with deep thoughts, you should take a look.

    Sonny Boy muestra como las personas pueden estar emociones por el futuro, mientras otros le temen. La manera en la que los protagonistas perserveran, o como otros se quedan atrapados en recuerdos, combinado con una animación única, una hermosa banda sonora y un significado profundo en cada situación, hacen este anime una experiencia inusual y enganchante

    Si buscas una idea algo distinto y una idea fresca con fuertes reflexiones, deberías darle un vistazo image_2024-08-19_215956493-modified.png

    Final words

    I have been out of Hive for a while (since 2020) so there could be a lot of things I don't know about how things could have changed. I decided to come back and take a look, so I expect this review and my blog as a project can take a new beginning

    Also, I want to say that @takeru255 made a post about Sonny Boy recently, I decided to talk about this anime because is one of the most original ideas I watched recently (and I watched some time ago but it is incredible). I hope you see this review as a different approach to the same anime

    He estado fuera de Hive por un rato (desde 2020) por lo que pueden haber muchas cosas que no sé acerca de cómo ha cambiado. Decidí volver y dar un vistazo, por lo que espero que este review y mi blog como proyecto puedan tomar un nuevo inicio

    Además, quería decir que @takeru255 hizo un post de Sonny Boy recientemente, decidí hablar de este anime porque es una de las ideas más originales que he visto recientemente (y lo vi hace un tiempo pero es increible). Espero que vean este review como un vistazo diferente al mismo anime

    Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post
  2. ›🎬 📹 Sonny Boy 🎬 📹@takeru255695d

    image.png

    For as long as I can remember anime has been in my life. I remember that when I was eleven years old I was already going to conventions with my friends, which made me a person full of that culture to the point of boredom. Anime is a difficult thing, you have to admit that, whether it's because of its different culture, humor or way of looking at life, there are too many shocks when watching anime that, if you're not used to it from a young age, are easily a redflag that will make you stop watching possibly a masterpiece. But it also counts as a double-edged sword, because when you are already too used to it, you realize that most anime are the same, there are very few innovations and you are tired of how things are and how they develop, however, there are always a few flashes of light that make me want to watch anime again, either because I find a refuge and something quiet to watch while having dinner, or because I see a story that is really worth watching from beginning to end.

    Desde que tengo memoria el anime ha estado en mi vida. Recuerdo que a mis once años ya iba a convenciones con mis amigos, lo que hizo de mí una persona llena de esa cultura hasta el punto de aburrirme. El anime es algo difícil, eso hay que admitirlo, ya sea por su diferente cultura, humor o forma de ver la vida, hay demasiados choques a la hora de ver anime que, si no estás acostumbrado desde pequeño, son fácilmente una redflag que te hará dejar de ver posiblemente una obra maestra. Pero también cuenta cómo un arma de doble filo, porque cuándo ya estas demasiado acostumbrado, te das cuenta de que la mayoría de los animes son lo mismo, hay muy pocas innovaciones y estás cansado de cómo son las cosas y cómo se van desarrollando, sin embargo, siempre hay unos destellos de luz que me hacen querer volver a ver anime, ya sea porque encuentro un refugio y algo tranquilo para ver mientras ceno, o porque veo una historia que realmente vale la pena ver de principio a fin.

    image.png

    image.png

    Sonny Boy is not a new anime, it came out three years ago, but it is an anime that gave the green light for the mythical animation studio Madhouse to return to the anime. That's why I started watching this anime that is so complicated to explain how to watch, because of its strange plot: a group of teenagers are transported to a world with different rules from the real world, where each of these teenagers has some power. This, added to chapters that are in a swing of quality and absolute nothingness, make it a strange anime; strange because despite being teenagers who are transported to another world at no time the anime tries to be an isekai (anime where the protagonist is transported to a fantasy world), but rather tries to enter the psyche of the characters with a drawing and animation worthy of a movie in each of its ten chapters.

    Sonny Boy no es un anime nuevo, salió hace ya tres años, pero si es un anime que dio luz verde para que el mítico estudio de animación Madhouse volviera al ruedo. Por eso empecé a ver este anime que es tan complicado de explicar cómo de ver, esto por su extraña trama: un grupo de adolescentes son transportados a un mundo con diferentes reglas a las del mundo real, dónde cada uno de estos adolescentes tiene algún poder. Esto, sumado a capítulos que están en un vaivén de calidad y una absoluta nada, lo hacen un anime extraño; extraño porque a pesar de ser adolescentes que son transportados a otro mundo en ningún momento el anime trata de ser un isekai (anime dónde el protagonista es transportado a un mundo de fantasía), sino que más bien trata de entrar en la psique de los personajes con un dibujo y una animación digna de película en cada uno de sus diez capítulos.

    image.png

    But as I said, I've been watching anime for a long time, and a nice animation is not enough reason for me to watch a whole anime. With Kimetsu no Yaiba, the most mediatic anime of the last years, something similar happens, since this one has the best animation I've ever seen in an anime. I mean, the character design, the animation, the fluidity, the 3D and the drawing raised the bar to the ceiling and above, but I don't go beyond watching just its fights because from then on, I feel that's all it has to offer.

    Pero cómo dije, tengo mucho tiempo viendo anime, ya una animación bonita no es para mí razón suficiente para ver todo un anime. Con Kimetsu no Yaiba, el anime más mediático de los últimos años, pasa algo parecido, ya que este tiene la mejor animación que he visto en un anime. Quiero decir, el diseño de personajes, la animación, la fluidez, el 3D y el dibujo subieron la vara hasta el techo y más arriba, pero yo no paso de ver solamente sus peleas porque de ahí en más, siento que es lo único que me puede ofrecer.

    image.png

    image.png

    Sonny Boy is different, because it is not an extremely polished animation, but an aesthetic one. It seeks to have its own essence and this it more than achieves, and, in addition, it also tells us a gripping story that can go from one side to the other without fear of consequences. It is something so incredible and it is so hidden, that I need to talk about this one-of-a-kind beauty that I know is not for all audiences, but I am sure that for the audience that does like that kind of content, Sonny Boy will be something completely different from what they have seen so far.

    Sonny Boy es diferente, porque no es una animación extremadamente pulida, sino estética. Busca tener su propia esencia y esto lo logra con creces, y, además, también nos cuenta una historia atrapante que puede ir de un lado al otro sin miedo a las consecuencias. Es algo tan increíble y está tan escondido, que necesito hablar de esta belleza única en su tipo que sé que no es para todo público, pero estoy seguro de que para el público que sí le guste ese tipo de contenido, Sonny Boy será una cosa completamente diferente a lo que hayan visto hasta ahora.

    image.png

    image.png

    image.png

    Consider following our trail on HIVEVOTE click on the image below,We thank all the support.

    To all of you artists out here at HIVE! If you ever are lost please join Bokura No Digital World at our discord chat

    image.png

    https://wsrv.nl/?url=https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/takeru255/23tbPiVmWdWXH8LcNuaJKKDtzjgRQEcgK6pDH7Gj7jJM1ey1Uy7mf5ynSorqKLEr8MD8p.png&q=80&l=7&output=webp

    Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post
  3. ›Anime Review for Sonny Boy, Season 1 Episode 4 - The Great Monkey Baseball@shortshots1773d

    Series Summary

    A group of students on summer vacation find themselves transported to another dimension and granted superpowers to survive there. (IMDB)

    Episode Summary

    As the castaways swim in a mysterious sinkhole, they seem to be momentarily taken back home. (Hulu)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-30 at 12.59.49 PM.png (Bigfoot Monkey Blue at the pitcher's mound)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-30 at 2.30.57 PM.png (Nagara trying to bat Ace's pitches)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-30 at 2.37.14 PM.png (Nagara warping the class to everywhere but the real world)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-30 at 2.56.18 PM.png (Ms. Aki walking out of the ocean toward the students)

    Notes & Thoughts

    • Glasses Kid ears a burger in the woods near the beach. Probably got fast food from Mizuho.

    • Nagara stands on a plank over a big hole. Nozomi runs past and jumps off. She lands in some strange liquid darkness where a transparent shimmer of herself bounces on the surface before her real self emerges and goads him to jump in. Other students around her cheer.

    • Mizuho tells Nagara that Nozomi won’t wait for him forever. Asakuze runs past him and jumps in. He high-fives her. Mizuho tells Nagara that Asakuze beat him to the punch.

    • Another student kicks Nagara off the plank but he falls too short toward some rocks. Asakuze reaches out to use his telekinetic power and save him but Nozomi stops him and says watch. Just when Nagara is about to hit the rock, he wakes up on the home plate of a baseball field. The other students look around to find themselves at the baseball field with him. Is his power not just finding other worlds but transporting them all too? There’s a blue Bigfoot with a baseball at the pitcher’s plate. Nagara backs away in fear but then him and all the other students get transported back to the black watering hole on the island.

    • One of the students ask if that was the real world they just visited. The Clubhouse Guy from last episode looks down on them from afar menacingly. I feel like all the “bad guys” on the show are just kids who don’t want to go back and return to the real world.

    • Nozomi looks happy as if she knew it would happen, because if she didn’t she almost killed Nagara.

    • Rajdhani, Machi, and Tanigawa have a similar conversation to Nagara and Mizuho’s last episode where they point out that powers equal special treatment, akin to being born rich in the real world. Machi asks if Rajdhani has solved their predicament but he says he needs more time. Tanigawa tells the two not to worry and looks away to say someone will come and save him. We can’t see his face when he says this but I don’t believe he meant that all. He has even more power here than he did in the real world.

    • A large kid in a red turban cooks fried rice in a pan over a fire. Asakuze tells other students that Nagara might be able to take them home if that baseball field they visited was from their world.

    • Mizuho points out that it might be a world pretending to look like their own. Nozomi adds that it wasn’t in the direction of the light that she sees the real world through. Nagara mentions the blue Bigfoot but Nozomi just looks at him confused. Maybe he’s the only one who saw it?

    • Cap shows up with supplies. Asakuze glares at him and then leaves. Probably still pissed about Cap going berserk in episode one’s void world and braining him with the baseball bat. I remember Rajdhani said all their wounds heal in the school—so it’s possible that Cap might’ve killed Asakuze there but the school brought him back.

    • Mizuho tells Cap that Asakuze is mad at him. Cap says he already apologized but she says it’s not enough. She says he heard he has a special power but Cap says it’s nothing special and asks Nagara to play baseball with him.

    • Nagara asks Cap why he doesn’t play baseball with Ace but Cap says Ace’s too busy with his girlfriend. Who’s Ace? Who’s Ace’s girlfriend? Clubhouse boy and electric girl?

    • Cap calls Ace a girl magnet. Mizuho reveals Ace’s power is called Sweetwater which lets him make any water drinkable.

    • Mizuho, Nozomi, Nagara, and Cap go to a field to play baseball. Nozomi hits a home run that goes into the woods and frightens what sounds like monkeys. Cap says there’s a Monkey Baseball League on the island. He says the Monkey King used to rule the island’s baseball league until a Bigfoot called Monkey Blue dethroned him. Probably what Nagara saw. He says the last Monkey League game was interrupted by a murder. Mizuho and Nozomi ask him where the monkeys are because they want one as a pet but he says they need something to see them.

    • They go to the clubhouse and ask Clubhouse guy for the Monkey Getter, a flashlight that will show them the monkeys. The electric blonde girl tells him not to give it to them because she doesn’t like Mizuho. As a compromise he says he won’t give it unless they hit one of his pitches. Is he Ace? Also why was Electric Blonde Girl’s subtitles in brackets? Is she speaking another language? He also whispers a secret condition to if he wins and then gives Electric Blonde Girl a strange look.

    • Clubhouse boy is Ace and apparently he’s so good at baseball that the pros have tried to recruit him. Nagara doesn’t stand a chance.

    • Rajdhani asks Asakuze why he isn’t helping the others play against Ace. He says because Cap’s there. Rajdhani says the Monkey Getter if it works reveals that they may not be alone in the worlds the school goes to.

    • Cap helps Nagara and Nozomi practice while Mizuho watches.

    • The next day, Ace strikes them all out from the pitcher’s mound. Before striking out, Nagara says it wasn’t the monkey dying that killed the game but the death of baseball itself as an honorable sport. Flashback reveals that Ace wants Nagara to return them to the real world because other than being a girl magnet he’s less special and “not appreciated” without the many people of the real world and the hope of playing professional baseball. When he strikes out, Nagara takes everyone to another world for an instant. No idea what the point of this episode is, first one I haven’t liked so far.

    • The next day everyone gathers at the beach to go home because Ace says Nagara can control his warping ability now. Unfortunately, Nagara discovers he cannot control where he warps them to, and that each place is random except for the island where the school is.

    • Asakuze calls Nagara useless and then points to a figure walking toward them from the ocean—a large chested woman they recognize as one of their teachers.

    Analysis & Criticism

    Unlike last episode which was about exclusion and being reintegrated to local groups and personal functionality, I don’t know what this episode was trying to say. There’s something about how playing baseball to get into college ruins love for the sport, blue Bigfoot monkeys, but most importantly—Nagara finally uses his power on purpose. He can transport himself and others to other worlds but can’t send them home or choose which world they go to next. At the end, one of their teachers inexplicably appears. She’s severely large-chested, wears glasses, and tells the students that the fun and games are over. At least we get two new semi-villains on the show, Asakuze because he hates Nagara and I think he has a crush on Nozomi, and Ace a popular guy who wants to return to the real world and all the adoration he received there. Sometimes we watch a thing and slowly or instantly get what type of lesson or moral they’re trying demonstrate or deconstruct … and other times we just get to see a blue Bigfoot play baseball.

    What was that black pool at the start of the episode?

    Why is one of their teachers suddenly there?

    What language is Ace's girlfriend speaking?

    Does Mizuho have a crush on Nagara?

    Find out on the next episode of Why's this called Sonny Boy.

    Thanks for reading see you next time.

    Shortshots out.

    Picture Credit Picture Credit

    Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post
  4. ›Anime Review for "Sonny Boy", Season 1 Episode 3 - "The Cat Who Wore Sandals"@shortshots1775d

    Series Summary

    "A group of students on summer vacation find themselves transported to another dimension and granted superpowers to survive there." (IMDB)

    Episode 3 Summary

    "Nagara, Nozomi, Asakaze, and Rajdhani continue searching for new worlds." (Hulu)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 6.33.15 PM.png (Nagara & Mizuho sitting with one of the frozen missing students)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 6.41.55 PM.png (Mizuho & Nagara interviewing the student with the terrestial power)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 12.58.40 PM.png (The black curtains holding the frozen students being lifted into the air--it looks like a dark rose)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 12.59.36 PM.png (Tanigawa ominously talking to someone in front of a portal to a solar eclipse)

    Notes & Thoughts

    • Nagara, Nozomi, and Red Shirt Boy find a “gate” to another world in a toilet. Nozomi pushes Nagara in and he sinks into a red watery abyss with giant worm-like serpents at the bottom before Nozomi and Red Shirt Boy pull him out.

    • Red Shirt Boy’s name is Asakuze.

    • Indian Boy’s name is Rajdhani. He is s some kind of tech-wiz genius and created a multi-layer map of the school and all the gates and worlds they lead to. He reveals that using a special device and Asakuze psycho-kinetic flying feature that the point her “compass” hones in on is in a dimension outside theirs since measurements have it never growing closer or farther.

    • Do some students have different powers in different worlds?

    • One of the students has become a black statue near a stream. Machi calls it “freezing” during a meeting with other students.

    • Mizuho shows up with what looks like a Starbucks drink. Everybody’s struggling to survive or solve the mystery of their predicament—and here’s Mizuho, the human Amazon Prime machine. Machi asks her to help solve the freezing mystery and when Mizuho says no, she offers them all to vote on it. We get a glimpse of Tanigawa and then Mizuho agrees to help on the condition that Nagara help.

    • I think the Rajdhani’s power is creating weird brightly-colored machines—I don’t know how I’ve missed that but the toy lightsaber thing Nagara and Mizuho are using is very cartoonish.

    • Mizuho and Nagara “listen” to the first frozen body and hear him streaming a game. The second guy is working out. Strange, their bodies are not moving and yet they can hear them doing something inside themselves. Mizuho says the only thing the two frozen guys have in common is that they weren’t very popular and no one paid attention to them.

    • Mizuho says she’s the boss and Nagara’s the assistant. Her cat shows up with fast food. I wonder if the cats actually have the item-producing power and that’s why she was so distraught over losing Tora.

    • They visit a guy in charge of some weird clubhouse on the island. He wants Mizuho to join his club but she says he doesn’t want her, he just wants her power. When she and Nagara leave, the guy gives a weird look back at Asakuze’s friend sitting by a no cats allowed sign, the blonde electrical girl. Possible culprits?

    • Nagara points out that thanks to Indian Boy’s digital money, everyone has to work and pay Mizuho for the items she makes with her power so the items don’t burst into flames. He points out that everyone has to slave away for the things she makes on a whim without labor. Mizuho says powers are wealth and every system has poor who labor for the goods of the rich.

    • The two interview students about the ones who “froze.” They show the difference between the many students sweating while laboring and the Bowl Cut Kid who lifts three trees by raising his hand. Not sure if he can only move dirt/sand or if he has telekinesis like Asakuze.

    • Mizuho tells Nagara her cats belong to her grandma who got institutionalized for dementia. And then adds a huge new element to the story—she could use her power before their school “went adrift.” In a flashback, a package spontaneously appears under one of her grandma’s cats. It still feels like this ability might be related to the cats. She says she could only use her powers at school and that there were others who had powers back then too. We get a glimpse of Tanigawa staring at a test marked 100 percent and then his class becomes empty and a hidden man says a power you can only use at school.

    • Tanigawa visits one of the frozen students and Nozomi comes over to voice her concern. She wants to know if this is someone’s secret power or a new rule of the island. He reveals he knew the school would go adrift before it did and that a voice speaks to him and tells him things.

    • Rajdhani tells Asakuze they haven’t found a new gate in three days since Nagara’s been gone but Asakuze says he doesn’t need Nagara and that eventually he’ll find a new gate.

    • Mizuho criticizes one of her cats for bringing her the wrong item. It hisses at her. I knew it. The cats are like sentient magic lamps.

    • She tells Machi and Cap that all victims were people who were excluded and that it’s probably someone’s power.

    • Mizuho and Nagara ask Glasses Kid for a list of student powers that Hoshi made. Who’s Hoshi? Last time that name was mentioned, Cap got really upset. One of Mizuho’s cats brings Glasses Kid a bowl of noodles so he lets her look at the list of powers.

    • Super Gravity.

    • Newtonian Clay.

    • Nyamazon, Mizuho’s power to order things from her cats.

    • Switch, that’s Machi’s power to switch places with objects.

    • Universal Clubhouse, probably the power of the guy who wanted Mizuho to join his club. I wonder if people kicked out of his club get “frozen” as an embodiment of their exile from the group. There was a no-cats-allowed sign near the blonde electrical girl, which felt like a trap to reveal that Mizuho’s powerless without her grandma’s wish-granting cats.

    • Electric Zap, probably the blonde girl’s power.

    • Terrestrial, possibly the Bowl Cut Kid who appears to control dirt and sand, maybe trees too.

    • The Glasses Kid with the noodles reveals that’s he’s A-ranked for his ability to light up his finger like E.T., Nagara is not impressed and neither am I.

    • Mizuho stares at the Universal Clubhouse power on the list but says none of the powers seem obviously related to the frozen excluded people. She adds that they can’t trust that the list is complete because someone might be hiding their power or using their power to keep everyone misinformed, probably referring to Tanigawa.

    • Asakuze flies in and lies to Nagara, telling him that they’ve found plenty of gates without him and that Nozomi said she doesn’t want his help anymore. It’s awkward and obviously a lie but Nagara apologizes and Asakuze flies away.

    • Asakuze and Mizuho share a strange look.

    • Their phones ring and on Group Talk it’s revealed another student named Kaga has frozen. In the chat, students panic and ask if it’s some sort of disease. Some says this is what we get for letting Mizuho try to solve this. Despite her continuing to help everyone, they’re very suspicious of her.

    • Mizuho asks Nagara why Asakuze would say all that stuff to him. He says he doesn’t know and she says they both know Asakuze’s a lying scum bag but wants to know why he dislikes Nagara but he says it doesn’t concern her. Probably because it concerns Nozomi.

    • She keeps bugging him and he says Asakuze’s flying power is better than his gate-finding power, so fighting him is pointless.

    • The world ripples around them. Nagara looks at the sky strange and then pulls it all down like a curtain revealing they’re in a strange room with a yellow floor and black curtains. They travel through the black curtains and find the missing students alive in different rooms, doing different activities. They reveal that they disappeared when they wanted to be alone. None of them wish to return to the island. I wonder if Nagara’s gate-finding power revealed a doorway to the pocket dimensions the excluded have run off too.

    • They report back to Machi and Cap. Machi’s annoyed that they haven’t undone the missing students “freezing” but Nagara says the frozen students don’t want to be unfrozen. Mizuho says they could ask Asakuze to force them back into the real world. She gets annoyed and says maybe they could lure them out with money and goods but Nagara says that won’t work either. She asks him what will work but he says he doesn’t know. She ridicules him for his lack of solutions and says this is why Nozomi will give up on him someday. Mizuho says Nozomi has been following Nagara like a puppy and that Nagara’s afraid to find out if they’re more than friends. He says maybe he prefers it that way, not knowing, not doing anything more. Mizuho yells at him that doing nothing won’t be enough for him or the frozen students, that if you don’t chase things you’ll lose them.

    • What happens next is confusing. Nagara claims Mizuho wanted to investigate the frozen students to find out how powerless she is, that he thinks she lied about having her power before the school left the real world, and she’s ill-natures for wanting labor and hard-earned money in exchange for the stuff she could easily give away for free if she didn’t secretly always want something in exchange. Why does he think she’s lying? And doesn’t he understand the island’s blue fire demands they exchange Mizuho’s goods for labor or currency?

    • Nagara goes to Rajdhani’s tent and sulks. Indian Guy says they haven’t found new gates since Nagara’s been gone with Mizuho. Nozomi shows up and says they need Nagara’s help because Asakuze can’t find new gates without Nagara. They ask how his case is going. He says all the frozen people hate life on the island and have run away to pocket dimensions they refuse to leave from. Nozomi points out that one of the gates to another world at the school was hidden by a black curtain. Rajdhani says that’s interesting since Nagara never found a gate outside the school before.

    • Mizuho sits in her room in her castle and wonders if she was too mean to Nagara who texts her an apology and says to meet him at the black curtains to start over on the frozen people problem again tomorrow.

    • Nagara shows up the next day with some robotic cartoon dogs that look similar to the inventions Rajdhani makes. Are Rajdhani and Mizuho’s powers related? I don’t remember him asking for anything in return. Mizuho watches him set up a giant fan from Rajdhani. He uses to it blow the black curtains into the air, before he uses some floating robotic hands to hold it high in the sky. Up there, the black curtains look like a giant dark rose. Nagara presses a button on the robotic dog leash and it turns into a laser beam that destroys the black curtains. This unfreezes the frozen students. Far away, Nozomi says it’s extremely difficult to talk about the things deep inside yourself.

    • Mizuho says they solved the case and Nagara apologizes for being mean to her. She says they both were. They shake hands and Machi frowns at the two from a distance. Perhaps she didn’t actually believe or want Mizuho and Nagara to solve the case but to fail and further their own isolation from the group.

    • Asakuze goes to the school’s audio lab and tries to activate the black curtain gate but nothing happens. The part of the island where the black curtains were destroyed is black and Rajdhani confirms to Nozomi that the island was the cause of the freezing. He wonders how Nagara and Mizuko found a gate/portal outside the school. Nozomi looks happy and says she thinks Nagara’s power is the ability to find and leap into new worlds. She points out that the school moved to a new world when he went out of his way to save her, and that his intent to save her may have moved the school from the void to the island.

    • Machi plays with a shred of the black curtain in secret and asks herself if it is a “power hold-over.”

    • Tanigawa stands in the middle of ruins we’ve never seen before and dark doorway with a solar eclipse in it. He says as if speaking to someone, “A savior? Why, who could that be?”

    • Why is this called Sonny Boy?

    Analysis & Criticisms

    While last episode was about the emotional costs of voluntary and involuntary transactions, episode three appears to be about the patience of solving a problem versus the impatience of wanting solutions. There’s a small bit about the will to do things that makes things happen, good or bad.

    Machi doesn’t like Mizuho and sends her off to investigate the freezing problem to further isolate Mizuho if she fails. Sensing Nagara is a nice person, Mizuho asks him to help her. They have to gather clues and learn more about the freezing problem, which takes time. They interview people and learn a few things but Machi isn’t happy with that. She doesn’t want to learn more about the problem, she simply wants Mizuho to admit she failed or for the problem to be immediately solved. While learning about the problem, Mizuho and Nagara learn more about each other. She has a grandma with dementia and that’s where her cats are from. Also, she claims she had her power before the school moved to the void. When Nagara finds the frozen people behind the black curtains, he doesn’t force them to return to the island and just listens to them. He seems to identify with their feelings of exclusion and despair. I wondered to myself while watching if the hard frozen shell around the missing students and the black curtain represented depression. Unable to identify, solve, or confront a problem, people can retreat not just from society but personal functionality itself—like the students. They’re all off doing their own things in a hidden pocket dimension but they’re both sad and unwilling to return to the world or happier versions of themselves. When Nagara uses Rajdhani’s cartoon machines to destroy the black curtain, I didn’t think that was too different than Mizuho’s idea of Asakuze forcing them out with his power. But later, we see everyone surrounding and talking to the missing people once they’re hard black shells crack and fall away. Maybe all they needed was recognition or someone to show that they cared. It felt like an oversimplified solution that they just glossed over with pretty colors and catchy music. Depression can’t be cured by pulling people out of depression. Their problems must be identified, studied, and attempted to be solved, while rehabilitating the person to their former adequate or above adequate standards of personal functionality. Rajdhani’s cartoon machines felt like a magic Big Pharma pill that “fixed everything” in a very nondescript nonsensical way. It was also bizarre when Nagara used the machines to lift the black curtain in the air and it looked almost like a giant black rose. Is the show trying to say depression is the dead form of something, or maybe that it is in some morbid and unorthodox way—beautiful?

    There’s a moment when Mizuho tries to insinuate that Nozomi might like Nagara since the girl is always following him around but he says he doesn’t want to know whether she likes him or not, that he likes how they are as is. He seems afraid to find out if there’s more to the two of them and Mizuho basically calls him a coward for not wanting to find out or not. She compares it to his unwillingness to force the frozen students from the black curtain rooms, or lure them out with money and goods. I wanted him to say that he understood the frozen students, that what’s wrong with them can’t be forcefully solved or fixed through trickery. At one point, Nozomi says it’s difficult to talk about what’s deep inside a person and that’s the closest we get to addressing that issue of internally abysmal torment. Anyway, his will to do something is revealed to be a part of his power to enter new worlds since when he went out of his way to catch Nozomi when she jumped in the void world OT not only sent the two of them to the island world but the school and the other students too.

    I was curious about Tanigawa’s power existing before the school moved to the void and what that meant for him and Mizuho, along with anyone else whose powers emerged in the real world. That voice in his head, reminded me of the weird voices connected to him and his visions/hallucinations—and that final scene of him in some ruins in front of a dark doorway to a solar eclipse felt very ominous. Is the voice responsible for their powers and their school moving around to different worlds? Like Nozomi mentioned, are they being tested and why? Also, what role is Tanigawa playing in all of this?

    picture credits picture credit

    Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post
  5. ›Anime Review for "Sonny Boy", Season 1 Episode 2 - "Aliens"@shortshots1776d

    Series Summary

    A group of students on summer vacation find themselves transported to another dimension and granted superpowers to survive there. (IMDB)

    Episode 2 Summary

    The students have relocated to a nearby island, where they have no shortage of food, and can get whatever they want through Mizuho's power. (Hulu)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 3.33.15 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 5.36.11 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 5.35.17 PM.png

    •	Amazon Box Girl sees blue flames on a big tree at night, while Nagara watches her from a distance.
•	Nozomi throws a crab at Nagara. He notices a bleeding cut on her hand but she says not to worry since it’ll heal quick anyway.
•	Indian Boy is playing with some equipment, with headphones on.
•	Red Shirt Boy can fly now, not sure how that’s related with his world-cracking ability. He tells Indian Boy, Nozomi, and Nagara that the ocean around the island is seemingly endless and that their island is the only thing he saw.
•	Someone named Ms Mizuho has a castle. A girl wandering the castle says that Ms Mizuho can order anything to appear regardless of price, like the castle. Sounds like a god-like power until we learn it’s limits, since Red Shirt Boy went from breaking windows to flying over endless oceans.
•	Amazon Box Girl is Ms Mizuho.
•	Indian Boy addresses the class in front of a chalkboard on the beach. He’s sent out radio signals but no ones responded, so they might be alone again wherever they are. Their phones can contact each other but not the outside world. 
•	Nagara has found “gateways” around the school that lead to other inhuman worlds. 
•	Indian explains that unlike the school, things that are broken on the island stay broken. This makes the school an endless source of electricity, water, and food. He adds that they might be cycling through worlds and that eventually they might be able to go back home.
•	Tanigawa asks Indian Boy a question and his voice sounds deep and weird for a moment, something that only Nozomi notices.
•	The girl that was in Ms Mizuho’s castle puts on lipstick but drops it when it erupts into blue flames like the big tree Miss Mizuho was looking at earlier. Is this an additional power of hers, or Nagara since he was also at the blue burning tree?
•	The same girl and other classmates look at a house consumed in blue fire. Tanigawa asks if she’s okay, with a frozen look on his face. Machi says someone should get water. Cap runs off to grab some but when he returns a boy with a bowl-cut hairdo uses his power to lift up tons of sand and smother the blue fire. Someone says blue fires have been appearing on the island, destroying stuff.
•	Tanigawa asks if anyone knows where the blue fire’s from. Machi gives him a weird look and a flashback reveals before the school moved that the two committed election fraud to make her student council President instead of rebellious boy named Taichi. Geez, this show’s hitting close to home in the real world.
•	Alone in her castle, surrounded by a collection of stuffed animals and other goods, Ms Mizuho scrolls through her phone and calls some of the other girls beach pictures ugly. All that stuff but there she is, jealous and alone. She flops on her bed and plays with a ring on her left hand—perhaps a promise ring between a friend or lover? Funny how such a small thing can feel more interesting than the vague ability to summon whatever one wants. Nagara shows up at the gate of her castle. He tells her Machi is wondering when the essential goods Mizuho said she would order would arrive. She says maybe three days which is confusing if she can instantly summon objects. Why is she delaying the delivery of essential items to the rest of her class? Also, important, she now has two cats instead of one … can she summon living things too? One of her cats is name Tora.
•	While working on the beach with a kid in glasses, Nagara lets slip that he saw Mizuho staring at tree covered on blue flames—hinting she might know more about the blue fire. They see more blue fire in the distance. In the next shot, we see the Indian Kid kneeling in front of electrical equipment that’s been destroyed. 
•	A girl shows up and reveals that everyone that has caught on fire are objects that Mizuho “ordered”/summoned. These conjured objects might have a limited lifespan that ends in their blue combustion.
•	The guy in glasses misunderstands Nagara and a girl ends up telling others that Mizuho is causing the blue flames, instead of her conjured objects are eventually bursting into blue flames. Nagara does not look too concerned at the thought he might have have just caused a witch hunt against the powerful girl who lives alone in a castle in the woods.
•	Nagara and Indian Boy see Nozomi with a backpack, talking to Tanigawa and Cap.
•	Machi finds out on her laptop that other students have discovered her election fraud. 
•	In what looks like a flashback, Mizuho expresses her displeasure with something to a teacher who has a similar or same ring she wears in her castle. When he looks away, she glances at him longingly.
•	Flashback continues—Tanigawa and Machi confront Mizuho about posting online about their alleged election fraud. They reveal that Tanigawa’s grandfather has enough connections that they got access to phone records and discovered it was Mizuho. She tells Machi it doesn’t matter if they know it was her since she’s only spreading the truth. Tanigawa tells Mizuho that since she used library wifi to slander a student, the presiding teacher will be liable for Mizuho’s actions.
•	Back in the present, Mizuho looks for her other cat on the island while the students begin piling goods from Mizuho and claiming that the blue fire is a curse she put on everything she “ordered” for them. Nagara just watched from afar and does nothing to correct them.
•	At sunset, Nagara sees a seagull fatally injure itself against a classroom window. Nozomi tries to rush the bird inside the building to undo the injury but Nagara says it’s too late and that there’s nothing they could’ve done. Nozomi remarks this isn’t the second time he’s done this. Confused, Nagara asks what she’s talking about—she reveals right before their school moved, he did nothing and let a wounded bird die. She points out that people who ignore hurt animals, do the same to people.
•	Tanigawa and some other classmates confront Mizuho outside her castle, about the blue flames. She tells Tanigawa to stop with his trickery. We see the entire island engulfed in blue fire and gaunt students walking through a burned forest. Back at the castle, the other students look nervously at Mizuho while Tanigawa smiles and claims they only want to help her. He finally admits that what they’ve all seen is an example of what he thinks will happen if she doesn’t let them help her. So it’s confirmed, Tanigawa can give people visions of whatever he wants them to see. 
•	Indian Boy reveals to Nozomi that a GameBoy device that Mizuho made for him was the only object that didn’t get destroyed by the blue flames. He reveals that it is the only object from her that he traded for, having given toys he made in exchange. He hands her a block with a leaf in it. When she hits it, she grows raccoon ears and a tail. Soon after the ears and tails erupt in blue flames before Indian Boy puts her out with some water. He then reveals that the box was something he made and that Mizuho cannot be responsible for the blue flames—and that it might be a rule similar to the rule system in the black void world. Also the blue fire doesn’t hurt anyone and just feels warm.
•	While looking for her cat Tora in her castle, some boys throw rocks through the windows and for some reason Mizuho’s head starts to bleed.
•	The episode flashes back to Tanigawa and Machi confronting Mizuho in front of her castle. They warn her that if doesn’t apologize and submit to them, she’ll lose another person who is precious to her … so they might have Torah and got her favorite teacher fired or something.
•	In the present, money starts falling from the sky before shortly bursting into blue flames. The fire spreads over the island.
•	Nagara finds Mizuho’s cat so he and Nozomi return it to her at the big burning tree.
•	The Indian Boy and Red Shirt hover in the sky and rain clouds move to put out the fire.
•	The students stare at the burnt remains for a moment before it all reverts to the paradise it was before.
•	In the morning, Mizuho reveals she made the money fall from the sky and set it on fire but that all the blue fire was not her.
•	Indian Boy reveals that anything taken and not traded eventually bursts into flames. He reveals he’s made an app with digital money for them to use and circumvent the blue-fire rule of the island.
•	Mizuho gives Nagara a straw hat as a thank you for finding Tora. He asks her what she wants in exchange so it doesn’t burn but she says nothing since it’s a gift.
•	Red Shirt asks Indian Boy what they should do now that the island’s reverted to normal. Nozomi reveals that she can see their way home and her power is called, “Compass.”

    While last episode was about law and freedom, this episode is about the emotional and physical repercussions of voluntary and forced transactions—and witch hunts. Mizuho, the girl who can “produce” anything becomes a broken vending machine for the rest of her class. They tell her what she wants and she gives it to them without anything in exchange. Exploited for her power, she isolates herself in a faraway castle and begins to resent everyone who takes from her. The only persons who traded with her are Indian Boy when he gave her toys and Nagara when he gave her back her cat—which felt near equal due to him starting the rumor she was responsible for the blue fire.

    I’m curious why the past two worlds the school has moved to have rule systems—as in are they an innate trait of each world, or are they a reaction to activity of the students? Did the black void respond to the corrupt nature of the student council—and did the island world respond to the exploitation of Mizuho’s power? Will every world respond to some feature or flaw of the students group dynamic?

    Another thing I noticed was that the hallucination Tanigawa made when they confronted Mizuho at her castle gates, came true. Yes, the island reversed back into its undismayed state but blue flames did destroy the island’s vegetation and the students did sadly walk thru a barren patch of charred trees. It made me wonder if his ability might, instead of being hallucination-sharing, prophecy-sharing. That might be a stretch but it created a sense of dread for me due to episode one’s hallucination of a death-like figure swinging a scythe and students laying around the school, sickly, unconscious, and possibly dead.

    Also, what was up with that weird voice Tanigawa had for a moment that only Nozomi noticed? Does her “compass” power reveal to her things other than the way home—instead of safety perhaps danger or threats?

    There was a weak attempt at a lesson in compassion with Nagara and injured animals but no more significance to his rather flaccid personality was added to that secondary story thread.

    Having watched too many scandalous dramas, I assumed there was an inappropriate relationship between Mizuho and her favorite teacher but perhaps she “produced” a copy of the man’s ring to remind herself of what happened the last time she went up against Tanigawa and Machi, and that it was a platonic fondness and nothing else.

    Red Shirt Boy apparently has telekinesis now, and another kid also has a similar ability or can control sand. I was expecting to see more abilities but I do like the gradual inclusion of abilities and the current lack of absolute X-Men chaos that could ensue.

    But my new ultimate question is, why is this show called Sonny Boy?

    Picture Credit Picture Credit

    Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post
  6. ›Anime Review for "Sonny Boy", Season 1 Episode 1 - "The Island at the Far End of Summer"@shortshots1776d

    Series Summary

    A group of students on summer vacation find themselves transported to another dimension and granted superpowers to survive there. (IMDB)

    Episode 1 Summary

    Midway through summer vacation, 36 students, some with newfound super-powers, find themselves all alone in their high school, adrift in a black void, unable to contact the outside world. (Hulu)

    Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 2.47.17 PM.png Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 2.34.05 PM.png Screen Shot 2021-08-27 at 2.35.42 PM.png

    Notes & Thoughts

    •	Japanese school gets stuck in a black void and some students develop superpowers.
•	Art style reminds me of Devilman Crybaby and Hayao Miyazaki. The students look like teenagers, which is good. Sometimes anime's gloss over the fact that their kids/teenagers look too similar to the adults in their respective stories.
•	There’s a conniving dude, student council representative, named Tanigawa. He’s smart but duplicitous, and has a star under his left eye. 
•	Tanigawa, a big guy, and a pony-tail girl try to create order with a rules system that asks those with powers to refrain from using them.
•	There’s 36 students.
•	The pointy tail girl is Student Council President Machi.
•	They vote for a leader and the big guy gets chosen.
•	There’s a short haired girl and long haired boy who seem to be the main characters.
•	There’s a girl with long hair with a lot of Amazon boxes.
•	One of the rules, no using powers in the school.
•	The class communicates through Group Talk, an app on their phones which still work.
•	There’s a boy in a red shirt who can “fracture” reality, making the world look like it’s being viewed through cracking glass, which also breaks things. 
•	When someone breaks the rules, the big guy points at them and yells penalty which makes a black “x” show up on the rule breaker’s face before they have to carry out a determined punishment. 
•	The red-shirt boy protests the new rules. He uses his power and is punished with continuous long division all night.
•	The short-haired girl’s name is Nozomi.
•	She refuses to participate in the student council’s new rule system. When she breaks the phone they give her, she is punished in the form of laps around the school. 
•	When the black-x’s fade from their faces, the students’s penalties are over.
•	The big guy with the baseball hat is called Captain, or Cap.
•	There’s an Indian kid who’s studying the black void around them and the rules of their situation. He draws a circle on his hand and sticks it into the dark but when he pulls back the circle is gone. Does the dark undo change made inside the school—or does it revert students to their exact condition when the school moved to the void?
•	There’s a focus on Nozomi’s eyes and she mentions seeing lights in the black void that no one else can see.
•	The long-haired boy’s name is Nagara.
•	One of the red-shirt boy’s friends is a blonde girl with an electrical ability. I find it fitting and funny when yellow-haired characters have electrical powers.
•	Tanigawa asks Machi why she’s studying and when she says they’ll still have exams when they return to the real world, he looks concerned or upset at the idea of them going back. I don’t think he wants them to return to the real world. 
•	The structure of the school gets distorted, folded in on itself and twisted around. Gravity is off in different areas. This is the doing of the red shirt boy and his friends. There is a mullet boy who is able to reshape their environment. 
•	Machi and/or Tanigawa have secretly had powers too. One or both of them can switch places with targeted objects. They use this ability to free themselves after being restrained in basketball hoops and a cage made of student desks.
•	There’s a moment where a floating light bulb in front of Tanigawa splits into two identical light bulbs. I think his power may be object-cloning and Machi’s is location-trading. 
•	Nozomi wants to escape the black void and the school, which will put her at odds with Tanigawa who I think doesn’t want to leave.
•	Cap is an athlete who played baseball. When red shirt says Cap only got nominated because of Hoshi,  he gets emotionally triggered.
•	It’s revealed that the reshaping of the school was red shirt’s friend and not him, making him immune from penalties. He even wonders if the rules and penalties are an independent system and not actually Cap’s power.
•	Cap clobbers red shirt with a baseball bat, leaving red shirt on the ground with blood around his head.
•	Cap says it’s ok for him to break rules but I don’t know if not hurting students is a rule. He threatens Machi when she says he’s gone too far. Tanigawa doesn’t look worried.
•	Currents rules: do not dirty or damage the school, do not break school supplies.
•	New rule: let’s follow the rules without teachers around.
•	Tanigawa scolds Cap for breaking the rules and reveals the rule-penalty system isn’t Cap’s power by pointing at him and putting a black-x on Cap’s face. Cap’s penalty is to strip and hop naked like a frog, which other students laugh at. Not sure if Tanigawa specified the penalty or if penalties are random. 
•	Red shirt asks what the point of the rule-penalty system is. Tanigawa says it’s to keep them quiet and obedient. He taunts an angry red shirt and then a gaunt man with a scythe appears. Images of the students looking gaunt like the scythe man are shown(The gaunt look may represent death, that they are all dead, and this is some afterlife, limbo, or hell). Maybe object-cloning is not his power but instead some form of hallucination-control.
•	Red shirt and the other students are terrified.
•	Nozomi and Nagara go outside. She sees a feather and takes a running start before jumping into the black void—but Nagara hangs off a fence and catches her. The fence breaks and the two fall into the dark.
•	The void changes to something bright. Nozomi and Nagara land in water. They look up at a cloudy sky and at the ocean around them. The students are happy the school has moved. Amazon Box Girl is happy. Cap is still hopping naked and Tanigawa looks at Nozomi and Nagara with a displeased look. There is a nearby island with a mountain on it.

    Analysis & Criticism

    This episode seems to revolve around the governing of groups, the idea of punishments being automatic or enacted by individuals, and individuals desire to escape old systems for new ones. Ironically, it is not the persons who like chaos that abuse the powerless but those who want order. Tanigawa wants to control people while Red Shirt doesn’t want to be controlled. Despite the property damage from their powers, no one was hurt until Tanigawa’s student council tried to enforce their rules on others. Cap, the strongest but dumbest member of the student council, when given power becomes violent and claims immunity from the rules and penalties he deals on others—a common real world occurrence. This episode might be asking if obsession with order, leads to the very chaos that order was supposed to counteract or prevent. I am curious about Amazon Box Girl. Why does she have so many recently delivered goods? Can Machin only switch herself and others with objects she can see? What is Tanigawa’s power? If it is object-cloning, can he clone people? if it's hallucination-control, can he make anyone see anything he wants them to? And the ultimate hook of the show, what happened and is happening to the school and the student?

    Picture Credit Picture Credit

    Permalink·Open on PeakD ↗·Linked from existing Hive post