Author: Lenlo

Welcome all to episode 4 of Sonny Boy! Apologies for the delayed post, Otakon was this weekend and ended up going so its been busy the last few days. As for Sonny Boy, this is a weird episode, arguably a bad one, but one that interested me nonetheless. So without further ado lets dive in!

To start I thought this episode was pretty visually boring. Large portions of the episode consisted of nothing but wide shots as the characters talked about baseball. No pans, no interesting angles, not even motion to draw or keep the eye. Just wide character shots. And while I liked the lineless mini-versions of the characters, an almost painterly style, that didn’t make the scenes any more engaging. Now a friend of mine made the argument that these shots were to sell the “realism”. That it put us in the shoes of the characters as Cap wouldn’t shut the hell up about baseball. But all that tells me is that they made the scenes boring on purpose, which is even worse. Whatever the case, whatever the reasoning, I didn’t find this episode of Sonny Boy to be that visually engaging outside of the opening swimming scene. With that, lets talk narrative!

Continue reading “Sonny Boy – 4 [The Great Monkey Baseball]” →

Welcome to another week of Sonny Boy! This is a pretty trippy episode all things considered, but one I still enjoyed. So without further ado lets jump in!

On the visual side Sonny Boy is still weird. I continue to like it! The flat coloring and low line count is very appealing and I think it works with the surreal presentation. Stuff like the background falling and splitting like a curtain was great! Yet some stuff, like Rajidani’s toys that he creates with his power, still feel out of place. The white outline around them combined with their incredibly cartoony nature doesn’t mesh well with the students. One could argue that this is on purpose! That these toys were made from a different world, a different set of rules, from the students and thus shouldn’t fit with them. I’m not opposed to that argument and I’ll wait and see how Sonny Boy continues to use them as sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. For now though consider me wary of their continued inclusion.

Continue reading “Sonny Boy – 3 [The Cat Who Wore Sandals]” →

Welcome everyone to another season of anime! This is a pretty slow one all things considered but through some clever word play, see “asking nicely”, I was able to get what I think is the most promising show of the season: Sonny Boy! So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off lets talk about how Sonny Boy, with one of the more unique styles, looks . Character wise all the designs have low line counts and each section of their body is flatly colored. There’s no complex shading or patterned clothing, these are very simple and straightforward designs. In that way Sonny Boy reminds me a lot of Masaki Yuasa’s work and the freedom it grants him in their animation. Sonny Boy hasn’t yet done much with said freedom, a nice water splash on Nozomi, some nice character work across the episode and on Mizuho, but that’s it. Instead Sonny Boy has focused on evocative imagery and heavily stylized effects work. The blue fire, shifting sand or water around Asakaze’s landing for examples of that. And I have to say… I like it. I like the style and the unique scenery it brings and I hope for more.

Continue reading “Sonny Boy – 2 [Aliens]” →