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[笑い犬} (Warai inu)
“Laughing Dog”
I think the lack of comments on Sonny Boy is reflective of my experience with it. This series is interesting in an abstract and intellectual way, but I just don’t think many viewers care about it all that much. Appreciate it, yes – its uniqueness, its striking visual style, its willingness to avoid modern anime cliches. But if a show is never willing to meet you half way, sooner or later you get a little tired of trekking all the way to wherever it wants to hang out. Frankly, it’s exhausting.
My thinking was that a paring down of the cast to the essential core (which now includes Yamabiko the dog) might help in this respect. It still might, but Sonny Boy’s immediate response was to use a flashback to expand things outward again with an all-new subplot. It was interesting (there’s that word again), but we already have so much to parse after seven relentless episodes. And if anything the developments in this episode were some of the most cryptic in the series so far.
We already knew Yamabiko was old, though I don’t remember if he specifically said 5000 years before now. After Mizuho pushes him to tell she and Nagara how he became a dog, that’s exactly what Yamabiko does. From his days of wondering aimlessly alone to his meeting with a group led by a charismatic young woman named Kamara. Kamara has a special power, to seemingly bend the this world and its inhabitants to her will. But as we’ll find out there are exception, and the reason for that at least is laid out plainly, if nothing else.
The most effective part of the episode for me was the early portion of this sequence, with the isolated Yamabiko (in human form) resisting the pull of Kamara and her seemingly idyllic commune. While the reasons aren’t clear it’s obvious that Yamabiko sees his isolation as a deserved punishment, but more than that there is something a little off-putting and creepy about Kamara and her followers. There’s an air of cultishness to them, as if they’re trying a little too hard to deny the emptiness of their existences.
Eventually, inevitably, Yamabiko falls in love with Kamara. But soon she and the others fall ill (the first occurrence of illness in this reality that we’ve seen), mysterious crystalline tumors forming all over their bodies. Only Yamabiko is unaffected, and eventually, after resolving he would do anything for Kamara, he turns into a dog (it just happens). The others discover a strange man in a cave, who seems to be the source of all the tumors. Eventually he tells Yamabiko that his name is War, and that the reason Yamabiko is immune to the illness is that he created this world himself.
That all seems clear enough. So does the fact that Yamabiko lives with regret over the fact that he probably could have saved Kamara, and never did. But what does it all mean, really? What is it in the context of the larger story? There’s no hand-holding with this narrative, that’s for sure. Soon the trio meet back up with Nozomi, though she scolds them for being two weeks late – which is due to the fact that their time has been moving more slowly than hers (obviously an important point). And the spark between she and Nagara is apparent immediately when they reunite, to the extent that matters. I’ve rarely has less idea where a series was going next at any given point, which is interesting in its own right. But I wish I cared a little bit more about the answer.
Dropped it last episode. Watching this show became a chore.
I have a RahXephon rule in place now, which addresses the sunk cost fallacy. If I remember correctly, RahXephon was 24 episodes, but it wasn’t until ep 22 that “it all clicked”. It’s great when it happens, but overall wasn’t worth 21-22 eps of grunting a series for. Basically I drop it when I see a point of no return (to improvement), no matter how far I am in the series.
For Sonny Boy, I would have dropped it 2 episodes ago but became curious about the school event and hoping it would all click then. Unfortunately last episode they kinda glossed over the subject and kept the story threads as diluted as ever instead of concentrating the narrative.
I feel that this show’s target audience evolve around conspiracy theorists XD
I dont think the amount of comments are anything to go by, if I look at what shows generate most comments…I dont think those shows would even need a story, it probably would be enough to show pictures of a certain part of the female body. I also dont think a show must ever „meet“ the viewer“. And I think this episode for once wasnt cryptic at all.
„But what does it all mean, really?“ Its answered in the show itself. You should stop holing yourself up, even if the outside world is scaring you, dont hold on to a fake reality, just because its convenient and easy. That is more or less said in the episode and then connected to Nagara. Its also pretty obvious that they were saying that you can only really deal with mental wounds if you‘re facing reality. To close onself off of the world will never heal your wounds. By creating this world, Yamabiko pretty much denied everyone the possibility to come to terms with their issues. I thought there were episodes which were much less straightforward than this one.
I totally like this show exactly because it doesnt care about what the viewer thinks and I wished there were more shows like this.
So this show was preaching at me and I didn’t even realize it? Dropped.
It is a little sad to see comments of people dropping Sonny Boy because it is being cryptic for too long. I think the show so far is going great it sets situations and rules with each episode and has yet to trip over its own rules, which if it manages to do until the end, will be really remarkable.
It is a dense series with lots of rewatchability. the first piece of media (anime or otherwise) that has gotten me to rewatch episodes over and over as it airs. every time discovering something new, or a little clue that comes into play later on. etc…
unlike other dense series I have seen before like Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, Monogatari series, or Tatami Galaxi, this series chooses to show us clues and not just tell a massive amount of exposition, or bombard us with a massive amount of text. The dialogue is efficient and full of subtlety, and the text in the bg is minimal. If it doesn’t F-up like Darling in the franxx did by just flipping the table and shouting incoherently, this has lots of potential to be a master piece