Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be embarking on a journey through one more of 2021’s most acclaimed productions, as we check out the first episode of Shingo Natsume’s original production Sonny Boy. Natsume has been one of the top anime directors to watch for years at this point, having risen from being a formidable animator in his own right to something like an “animator’s director.” Through productions like Space Dandy and One Punch Man, Natsume has proven uniquely capable of attracting and collaborating with the best artists and animators in the business, resulting in some of the most aesthetically impressive works of the last decade. And with his works spanning from action spectacles to tone pieces like ACCA and Boogiepop, Natsume has demonstrated a welcome diversity of aesthetic interests, including a cross-medium passion for art design that makes it easy to see why he and Shinichiro Watanabe were so quick to collaborate.
And now, after spending a decade repeatedly proving he’s one of the greatest working anime directors, Natsume is at last tackling his passion project. With Natsume both writing and directing this project, it’s clear that Sonny Boy is his baby. Even through choices like hiring Hisashi Eguchi as character designer, we can glimpse Natsume’s broader appreciation for art design. As for Sonny Boy’s narrative, I’m going into this almost entirely blind, with merely a vague impression that this story will be “my sort of thing” to guide me. I’m eager to see this story Natsume was so determined to tell, so let’s not waste another moment, as we dive into Sonny Boy!
Episode 1
Hot damn. Right from the start, this superflat-reminiscent classroom aesthetic really pops off the screen. Or rather doesn’t pop; there’s an intentional lack of depth in the composition, placing this production in the company of the 20th century modernists, who spurned their forebears traditions of realism and romanticism. This feeling is amplified by the painterly imperfections of the wall’s design, with the details of the blackboard and cabinets more gestured to than fully realized. Quite the initial statement of purpose, emphatically declaring that Sonny Boy will be drawing from art history more generally, rather than anime design traditions specifically
The calendar tells us it is August 16th
There’s an intentional choppiness in the pacing of these cuts as we’re introduced to our first characters. It seems intended to create a slight tone of disorientation in the audience; even though nothing fantastical has happened yet, we already feel slightly off balance, as if we’re racing to catch up with the characters’ understanding
After the clock strikes twelve, there’s a sudden crash, and now perspective seems to be warping in the hallway outside. The girl says the boys are “playing powers,” and they do seem to have teleported a portion of an outdoor field into the school hallway
The boy is Nagara. Confident writing so far; no clumsy exposition, fairly naturalistic dialogue, and a willingness to disorient the audience by dropping us into an idle moment post-inciting incident. Always appreciate when the writer respects the audience’s intelligence and attention span, rather than coming across as desperate to entertain from the first few seconds
Everything except the school has disappeared, but this girl is taking it in stride
“Is this utopia or hell?”
The show seems deliberately light on shading, letting the contrast between Eguchi’s pop art characters and the more traditionally textured backgrounds stand out even more
“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.” All the characters so far are taking a pretty moderate, philosophical approach to their situation. Some interesting thematic threads to keep an eye on
The big guy on the toilet is worried about their destruction going on his permanent record. In spite of being transported to an entirely new reality, he’s mostly just scared about what the teachers will think
“Sheep aren’t that bright, after all. I have to show them the right way.” In spite of possessing no powers, this kid is all confidence, and continues to treat his classmates as interesting insect specimens
He suggests creating new rules for “This World.” The lack of either background or expression as his friend recites “a penalty” adds a sharp note of threat to their plans, as the idea of punishment is aligned with a total void of feeling
The full black background outside the school is such an interesting choice. Without some sort of starry background or whatnot, the composition almost looks incomplete, like we’re not getting the fully constructed image. It’s clearly another willful choice, deliberately drawing the audience’s attention to the artificiality of the composition, and through doing so emphasizing the “wrongness” of this whole situation. Just as the characters feel adrift, so do we feel the visual disjoint of the composition
“What if it wasn’t the city that disappeared? What if it was us?”
The girl briefly seems to notice something in the darkness, but Nagara doesn’t see it
Elsewhere, another girl is living the life, lounging on a bean bag chair while reading through manga from “Nyamazon”
The class are invited to join the “Drifting Classroom” group, making explicit this show’s connection to its clearest narrative inspiration
The message is from the student council member who was planning in the bathroom. Through their text, we are incidentally informed that the world has been like this for a week now. More graceful integration of needed context
Shots to the other classmates emphasize the modernist aesthetic tricks used to realize their strange powers. Perspective is terribly warped in the main hall, with characters clearly mismatched in scale relative to their environment, and no clear horizon line at all
“We must bear in mind that we are in our senior year.” Once again, these seemingly preposterous gestures towards traditional frameworks of authority and maturity. “Act like a senior” is proper advise on a sports team, but maybe not for a Twilight Zone episode
There are 36 students, and “Cap” is selected to be the leader. Of course, it seems like he’ll really just be a figurehead
Nagara didn’t join the group chat, because he thought it didn’t concern him. Already seems like we’re heading towards some Drifting Classroom/Lord of the Flies petty tyranny here
As expected, the first power we see actually messes with the base aesthetic of this world, sending geometric fissures through the background, and essentially turning the world cubist. Natsume’s certainly not aiming low for his first original production; he’s creating a story where art design and narrative are inherently conjoined
Cap seems to have a power that forces others to obey him. A terrifying ability, and his fellow student council members are already happy to abuse it
We learn that Nagara’s friend is Nozomi
Nozomi doesn’t wish to participate in their little dictatorship. A group of discontents is rapidly growing
After the break, we at last run into our first character who is genuinely engaging with the mystery surrounding them. This was coming eventually, but it was absolutely the right choice for Natsume to first set up the emotional tenor of life in the abyss, before actively poking at his own premise
“Lately, things have been tough for grown-ups, too.” In our first glimpse of pre-abyss life, we see Nagara talking with a teacher, and apologizing for his mother not showing up to her third straight parent-teacher conference. The teacher’s response falls neatly in line with Sonny Boy’s themes as articulated so far: a story about the sense of displacement we all feel when the floor drops out from under us, and how our systems of order are ill-equipped for a world in chaos. The mastermind told Cap that they needed to “act like seniors,” but that was really just a cover for his own private ambitions – in truth, neither adults nor children are equipped to handle these situations, just as Nagara’s mother is ill-equipped to handle the real world
“You aren’t alone. I’m here for you, if you need to talk about anything.” Heavy irony given the ensuing events, underlining how alone the kids truly are
Nozomi and Nagara first meet on the rooftop, as Nozomi sends her career assessment form floating in the breeze. Another thematically weighted choice: Nagara feels overwhelmed by the restrictive expectations of the modern world, but Nozomi seems unconcerned by these barriers, and gleefully tears her future to pieces. She’s performing the same role here as she did in the abyss, taunting our attempts at imposing order on a chaotic world
“Why are you doing that?” “Just because. It’s fun.”
In profile, the relationship between them is realized through color and angle. Nozomi stands high above Nagara, silhouetted against a clear blue sky, while Nagara is surrounded by fences, and pursued by vast storm clouds above
“I know people like you. Always pretending you’re so busy. It turns out people like that end up being the ones who have no place to go.” Nozomi’s perspective seems clear: if you chain yourself to the demands of the world around you, you’ll always be rushing, and never establish your own identity
Hah, I love this cut of Nozomi descending the ladder: she’s animated more in the style of the background than the usual character art, just a blur of colored shapes
“What am I doing? We still have exams when we get back.” The student council president clings to fragments of normalcy, wishing to return to the very structures that Nozomi and Nagara found so stifling. Being truly adrift is far more frightening
Apparently, one of the other students has another art history power, and turns the campus into an Escher print in order to capture the student council
The student council president’s power is to flip the location of objects, allowing her to free the council members
The boy who was punished before now lays into Cap, telling him he’s only got such an ego because he can play baseball. In this chaotic new world, old hierarchies fight to reassert themselves, while the existence of superpowers allows new forces a chance at the throne
Without the rules to fall back on, Cap just clubs his challenger with a baseball bat. And with the reveal that anyone can enforce the rules, order disintegrates
The thing Nozomi saw, her icon of freedom from this place, is a bird’s feather. A classic symbol of freedom, and particularly appropriate to this story of finding your place within strict social systems
“Are you a sunflower or a daffodil? If there was a place that shone brighter than the spot you’re at, would you want to go see it? Or would you stay where you are and just keep staring at it?” God this is tense. This whole episode feels like an inexorable build towards Nozomi destroying herself
She makes the leap, Nagara tries to stop her, and both fall. They awake in a new world, with the school now transported to a sea beside a vast island
And Done
Holy shit that was good! Just an absolutely fascinating series of aesthetic choices, all of them converging to create an utterly unique, intentionally fragmented art style. The way this show is weaving its art design fluidity into its actual storytelling is marvelous, and I’m so happy to see a show embracing such a wide range of art influences. And then the storytelling, too! So confident, such clean and unvarnished dialogue, and with such a compelling thematic throughline. In spite of this story’s fantastical premise, it’s clearly preoccupied with questions of society, agency, and identity that anyone could relate to. Through its understated dialogue and echoing preoccupations across the main cast, Sonny Boy is establishing a vivid framework for exploring our individual relationships with larger social structures, and how we either cling to or are alienated by the rules and expectations of the modern world. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
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