Utopia or hell?
What They Say:
The science-fiction ensemble drama centers around 36 boys and girls. On August 16, midway through a seemingly endless summer vacation, middle school third-year student Nagara (center in image above), the mysterious transfer student Nozomi (right), and classmates such as Mizuho (left) and Asakaze, are suddenly transported from their tranquil daily lives to a school adrift in an alternate dimension. They must survive with the superpowers that have awakened within them.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One of the more anticipated shows of the summer season, Sonny Boy comes from writer/director Shingo Natsume, who has done some strong work on things that I’ve loved like One-Punch Man and ACCA-13. It also goes a little old school with Hisashi Eguchi handling the original designs, as they worked on things like Roujin-Z and Perfect Blue, with Norifumi Kugai adapting them for animation. And with a project like this you know Madhouse is going all in on it. But what has me the most intrigued is Shinichiro Watanabe being involved as a music advisor and working with a range of groups for the series. Sadly, this opening episode is almost entirely free of music in general, so that’s just a huge tease.
The premise opens up in a slow way at the start so that we get to be at the same point as the students quickly. For reasons unknown, thirty-six of them have become trapped within their middle school and surrounded by darkness. The building is functional but everything else beyond is pure blackness. To make matters stranger, some of the kids have developed superpowers and are experimenting with them, causing some damage along the way. Everyone has fallen to their usual cliques and we see some isolated, student council members sticking together, and others in different configurations, such as Nagara and the transfer student Nozomi. It’s taking some time but we see them slowly come together to try and find a kind of balance and agreement on how to work together in this environment.
Suffice to say, almost nobody acts like an actual middle school student but rather they all feel like young adults in this situation instead, which is frustrating at times. But it also has its moments of feeling so like middle school, such as the student council leader whose ability has it so he can penalize students with dark X’s on their face that fades over time depending on the severity of the penalty. Since the “captain” hands out the penalties, they tend to be exercise-focused which keeps people in line. Which, of course, comes back to haunt him in the most embarrassing and humiliating way. He’s struggling hard with this entire thing in trying to lead by example, figuring the adults will eventually learn what they do here, and it forces him into some really bad decisions.
With the days going on, the supersmart are trying to understand this world while the rest are simply existing within it. The flashbacks to the time before help to fill in a couple of character gaps so we have a better idea of who they are, but mostly it’s just seeing how Nagara and Nozomi first met, which hints at a bigger plan of some sort coming from her by the way she speaks. We don’t get a ton of time with her but with the distinctly different uniform as an overseas transfer student that’s returned and her push toward the end to escape this world, she gets the most focus and definitely feels like the wild card here.
In Summary:
The opening episode of the series isn’t going to give us any real answers and I didn’t expect it to. What we got was an interesting setup that plays to a Lord of the Flies concept anime-style that we’ve seen before but with some quirks about it to give it the unique trappings. It takes on a stranger and stranger feeling as it progresses and we see more of the division in the students as some are very much acting like elementary school-aged ones with their powers to cement their position. It’s interesting in a basic kind of way but as it starts facing consequences, then it starts to show its potential, though I’m wary as to how effective and consistent it’ll be in that regard. Sonny Boy definitely showcases some potential in all quarters here.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation
