ThatAnimeSnob

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 and meanings 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.