Sonny Boy: The Human Sandbox

 

Yo, summer season why you gotta do me like that? I'm already following like 7 different shows dude. You've forced me to write three different essays in like a span of a week. That's like, two more than what should be my usual quota. And here I thought I was gonna be chilling till 86 comes back in fall. 

There is a lot to unpack in the first episode of 'Sonny Boy'. Like, seriously a lot, so much so that I myself aren't confident I understood everything there is to understand. But that's the beauty of great art isn't it? Even when you have seemingly overturned every last stone in the garden, you still find hidden secrets elsewhere for you to discover. These are the type of shows that practically demand you to watch it more than once. So, I've decided that we aren't in a rush for time; Meaning, we can take this anime step by step, slowly at our own pace. If you are equally as lost as me with this anime, then you have come to the right place. We don't need to understand all the chaos that happened in one sitting, of one episode, through one breath. We can overturn each stone and slowly make sense of each of them.

Today's stone will be on the concept I will coin, the 'human sandbox'.

The Human Sandbox

To understand a human sandbox, I want to explain how I came up with the term to begin with. See, there is this little known game that I love to play and its called 'Minecraft'. Don't know whether you have heard about it.

'Minecraft' is called a sandbox game, because in it, you can quite literally do anything and everything. Want to reconstruct the Death Star from 'Star Wars'? Baby stuff. Want to reinvent modern circuits and build a fully functioning television block by block? Well, you can become a red-stone-meister. Want to build a one-for-one scale of the entire world as seen from Google Maps? Tens of thousands of people are already in on that project. The beauty of a sandbox game is that with its simple game mechanics, players are given an endless wealth of creativity to tap into to accomplish any objectives, if such an objective even exist at all. Pure sandbox exist after all, a place where players are given the freedom to even make their own objectives, something that I think the wider 'Minecraft' sphere has developed into.

In that sense, I can draw this sandbox parallel to my own fiction writing as well. If you have ever fantasized about your own fantasy world or dystopian settings, then that world that you have imagined is itself your own sandbox. You put in elements that you like, you write characters that resonate with your own values and you craft beautiful stories that you yourself believe has the most meaning; A sandbox that is build upon your favorite ideas and concepts. But if this essay is all about how every story is a sandbox then that wouldn't be that interesting isn't it? But I can assure you 'Sonny Boy' is much more than that.

See, while most stories has the potential to be a 'human sandbox', most often fall only in-between or fall just short of being 'it' in all its essence. Take for example you imagined this fantastical journey where you want your hero and your party to fight the demon lord; You are so stoked about drawing out this epic battle with high stakes and unparalleled blows. But then you realized something; You need the heroes to prepare for the battle first. After all, where will they get their weapons, where did they gain their skills? If you have the hero just suddenly doing 'Kamehameha' then it surely would be quite jarring for the audience if they haven't at least seen a training arc of it. So even though you have a million crazy ideas brimming at the tip of your pen, you need to take a step back first. The epicness has to wait; You need to spend some time slogging through the build up first -- All in the name of 'realism'.

We as audience even expect such realism from our characters. For example, when we see a character get dropped into an isekai, many of us can be put off if we instantly see our protagonist just going with the flow instantly. We need to see a reaction of 'shock' or have the main character bumbling around through town doing some stupid shit before they finally get that snap! "Oh shit I am in another world now". That was like the entire first episode of 'Re-zero' by the way. We need characters to behave like we do, and behave essentially like 'humans' do. And thus writers of their stories too, need to spend more time than they want making their characters 'human', just like how Teppei-sensei needed Subaru to bumble around town before all the time-leap shenanigans.

What if a show doesn't have all that however? What if a writer was so bold as to say: "Fuck all that boring-ass bullshit, I want to get straight into the action! I want to tell the stories that I instantly want to tell, and convey the ideas that I want to convey! I want an unadulterated, uncut human sandbox!"

Cue 'Sonny Boy' opening.

I'll have to admit I had to coin this term, 'human sandbox', because I have no idea what else to call it. In fact, there is probably a more professional term for it but I just haven't learnt it. Thus for any of you story-telling experts out there who knows of the proper term for this, please educate me. Now, with all that boring-ass, realistic-like introduction out of the way, let us actually dive into the episode itself.

So, how is 'Sonny Boy' a sandbox?

First off, we can consider the premise itself; A group of kids and their school gets teleported into a middle of a void, torn away from the fabric of both society and reality. Let us just think about this one shot for a moment.

In this one shot, our entire setting is established. This school right now is where everything is; Just a simple school, interposed into the middle of 'nothingness'. It almost look like some conceptual art, like some CGI asset that was created on some software, yet to have been "applied" into an actual world itself. And I think that feeling itself is what the creators of 'Sonny Boy' was going for. Just looking at this school itself, will you be able to make out which country, which city this place is from? Well, not really. In fact we only know that this is probably a Japanese school because this is an anime, with an anime art style and with characters that speak Japanese. We can even go further with this thought. 

Here is a thought experiment: Take for example, we strip away the anime art style and draw it more like an American cartoon. Characters now speak English too. Now, does this change anything about the story? My answer is: No. This place can take place in the middle of Africa for all we know and we will realize that none of that actually changes anything about the story. Why that is so is because the characters themselves don't even reference anything concerning the real world. Their nationalities don't matter more so that they simply use its language to communicate, and even in that communication it doesn't reflect any of the more "Japanese" or "anime-like" tendencies of speech. Their parents -- Wait, did anyone actually even bring up their parents, or local authorities, or any associations in real life? Religion -- Other than the vague concepts of 'utopia' and 'hell', none of them seem to even like praying. In fact, what about the most basic concepts in the fabric of reality itself, physics? Well, we see in the first few minutes that the students can't even step onto the 'nothingness' surrounding them. In fact, we even see a moment ago that if you kick a ball out into the void, that shit gets blinked out of existence. They are in a world where physics quite literally doesn't "apply"; Even time doesn't matter when its a literal void. It is hence not just a matter of exaggeration when Hoshi brought up the concept of "this world" to describe their current setting; More so than them being just trapped in the middle of nowhere, the characters are literally stripped of all associations of reality, identity and continuity.

Many probably pick up on the lack of music or any sort of background sound effect as well. I think a great contrast of setting is shown through the flashback before everything got zapped into the void. In that scene of the office, we don't exactly know too much of the outside world but we at least knew that it was summer because of the cicadas. That reference of time, season and the existence of an ecosystem outside of the school allows us to pin our location in the real world. In our current void though, there is only 'nothingness'; No background effect as reference for us to make sense of this new world, and no music whatsoever for us to even make sense of what emotions we should feel in this new world. Just like the characters are trying to figure things out themselves, we aren't guided by what emotions to have by the show either; If you want to feel sad about the entire situation, go ahead. If you felt like it was pretty funny that a guy was nearly killed by a baseball bat, no dramatic music will stop you here!

Back on track with the references to real life. I find it highly appropriate that instead of having the first thing referenced being parents or local authorities, our first reference was actually to a manga -- Drifting Classroom. Think about it: The first real beacon to guide our understanding isn't something from the real world but instead an allusion to another literary work. This effect is much more significant than we actually think, especially for those that has actually read or knew about this story. From then on, we are no longer trying to associate the setting to our own reality but drawing comparisons of it with 'Drifting classroom'. We start to think about how this work is similar to the other one, which characters may have parallels and which themes are echoed while which ideas are subverted -- We have begun to think of 'Sonny boy' as some symbolic idea or concept.

Subversion is what I mostly felt throughout my first watch-through of the episode. I compared every single aspect of this show with the ideas presented in 'Drifting classroom'. The results are super interesting to me; Take for example in 'Drifting classroom' one of the biggest emotional conflicts is Shou's, our MC's, struggle to reunite with his mother. In fact, everyone displayed fear from being trapped in this world and the desire to return back to their reality. This is quite a big contrast from 'Sonny Boy' which seemed to be actively avoiding that subject to begin with, even making it seem like it isn't a big deal to the characters.

Another great contrast that can be formed is in the whole survival aspect of it; In 'Drifting classroom', everyday seemed like a fight to the death. Characters need to worry about food, water and a place to sleep; The idea of 'scarcity' is one of the biggest conflict-drivers there. In 'Sonny Boy', whoooooo boy is it a summer resort! 

You got 'Nyamezon' that seemingly has interdimensional shipping; They deliver pizza, cake and manga. They even deliver a bean-bag so you know your comfort is all taken care of. Scarcity in food? Somehow our school has boxes upon boxes of rations as if they were prepping for some kind of nuclear fallout -- Why? Don't worry about it, it isn't important lol.

None of the 'scarcity' conflicts in 'Drifting classroom' is relevant in 'Sonny boy'. The characters don't even utter any sort of word that implies as such. In fact, things so magically appearing doesn't even seem like a plot hole as much as it is just the writers not giving a shit. It is as if they themselves were thinking about the 'realism' I had described in my introduction and yeeted it out the window. The idea of 'a human needs to eat' isn't important to the more interesting ideas the writers want to convey.

Another interesting idea is their smartphones. Why would they have signal in an otherwise interdimensional void? Don't worry about it dawg, let's just give them signal so everyone can instantly communicate with one another without needing to meet up. Remember all the boring speeches, and fighting and bullshit 'Drifting classroom' needed to go through before a proper governing body is established? Welp, any % speed-run; It takes us a literal minute to go from lawlessness to having a leader and having people seemingly following the duty rosters and what not; All with the power of instant texting.

"So we have food, manga and the need to be on our smartphones 24/7 all settled for our characters." Shingo Natsume proclaimed as he pats himself on his back. The rest of his production team all cheered "EZ! EZ!" as they danced around in circles singing 'Kumbaya, my Lord". Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until one guy stopped and stared directly into the eyes of Shingo Natsume -- "But boss, what about the initial reactions of 'shock' and 'despair' when they first gets transported?"

The music abruptly stops and Shingo Natsume's smile fades. He looked down seriously, falling deep into thought. But it wasn't even a second before his eyes lit back up and he erected his chin -- "How about we do something, called a 'cold opening'?

'Cold opening' is a narrative technique used in television and films, whereby a show immediately jump directly into a story before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. This is often done so on the theory that the audience wants to directly be involved in the plot before they get bored and switch channels. 

'Cold opening' can also been made more flexible when we think about it in the sense of a story structure. If you remember from my previous essay on plot diagrams, the inciting incident will be like the fire starter of the conflict, which in 'Drifting classroom' was the instance the school got transported. The rising action afterwards was all the panic and accidental violence that presumed and our characters were forced to resolve those conflicts one by one. For 'Sonny Boy', we didn't even have an introduction or an inciting accident. In fact, we jump straight into a story where everything seemingly has already happened and that we are currently in the 'falling action' where tension has been defused. It is jarring for all of us, and even more so when you consider that we instinctually were expecting some big panic from other literary mediums we have consumed. Instead, we got something 'cold', as if all our expectations weren't met. Another term for this type of writing is 'anti-climax'. Take note that cold-openings don't necessarily have to be anti-climactic, but having an anti-climax serves to enhance its effects.

It should be clear at this point; The writers don't care about the panic or how humans would actually react, they don't care about the real world, they don't care about time nor do they care about the idea of 'being trapped' to begin with. They don't even care about whether the characters need to eat or breath. What they do care is simple; We put 36 students into a setting, free of any societal and academic responsibilities, free of any associations and attachments, free of any authorities or laws. You are in a literal human sandbox, a pure manifestation of ego -- Now, what will you do?

A concept personified

So we have our miniature humans in our playground. Each of them have their own desires and each of them embodies a concept. However, while I am eager to jump into character analysis, I have to first take a step back like I have said before. While it is true that we have some fantastic characters like Hoshi, Nagara and Nozomi for us to dissect, that will not be the stone I will be turning today. In fact, I would much rather have our characters show us more in the upcoming episodes before we truly do our deep-dive; No need to make complete sense of everything in its first episode like I said. For this essay, I want to continue touching on the concept of the sandbox itself and instead of asking 'why' characters act the way they do, I want to ask 'how' they act in the first place.

One of the most interesting addition to our miniatures are their superpowers. These powers range from more generic abilities like being able to control electricity, to reality-bending god powers such as folding up the entire school like some origami. Once again as critical viewers, our first thought would be: "Where did these powers come from? What are their origins, and what do they mean?"

And to answer that question, I will ask you: "Have you been paying attention to my essay thus far?" Okay, arrogant remarks aside, it seems like as of now how the writers has been treating the situation thus far is exactly like how they treat these new-found powers, which is: Don't worry about it lol. Characters don't question these powers and their origins and instead, they instantly acclimatize themselves to it. They test their powers upon inception, and by the time you blink, they have already mastered it and are using them to fulfil their personal objectives. 

Think back to all cliches you have seen with superpowers. You often get explorations of their limits and their consequences. You often will get the ethics of using power irresponsibly. For example, if I use this power, can I hurt this person? In 'Sonny boy', none of this is touched upon. Even the most absurd of reality-bending powers has not been portrayed to even cause anyone to bleed. And that is somewhat ironic that in the scene where we do see blood, it isn't caused by some superpower but by a mere baseball bat.

To this extent, superpowers are but mere manifestations of ego at this point. They seem to take on the personality traits of their wielders; Cap has the power to enforce punishments just like his need to feel powerful, our local scientist who is trying to make sense of this new world seems to be able to conjure up polygons to visualize his rapid train of thought and our rule-breakers quite literally have powers that bring destruction and bend things to liking. It even reminds me of guilty-crowns' approach of having their "soul" be manifested into a physical emblem. And with it having the nature of superpowers, characters are further empowered. All the previous times where they may have suppressed their deepest desires no longer matter. After all, they now have near superhuman abilities at their fingertips. 

So these superpowers manifests from their ego, which in itself empowers them to accentuate themselves, to force themselves onto other people and to reach their natural apex. One question I find myself asking is if our characters can even be considered "human beings" at this point. They don't need to worry about food or scarcity in any shape or form. They don't need to worry about laws as much as the laws they form themselves. They have no attachments, no associations, nothing to even vaguely identify them towards another human being. And to further accentuate these alien qualities, they are given superpowers to do and will as they please. What can be more fitting if I consider them to be the literal personifications of concepts and ideas?

After all, the writers no longer care about justifying anything. They simply want to have a brain-blast with all their ideas, and what better way to do that than to create a sandbox where those ideas can take a human form and interact with one another. Want a good way to contrast the concept of anarchy and order? You have these two superhumans instantly at hand, ready for you to bring those contrasts to their natural climax. 

To further highlight how much these characters may no longer be human, think about the scene with the only act of physical violence in it; Cap striking Asakaze with a baseball bat. This scene is impactful because it could have very well been the inciting incident I spoke about. Why that is so is because of all the same reasons from before. Till this point, nothing that we have done had any real consequences. Natural human reactions were met with anti-climax, survival concepts are ignored and even superhuman abilities don't bring actual harm -- But this baseball bat did. We see Asakaze seemingly bleeding and we might have even caught our first glimpse at mortality in a world where it previously didn't matter. This was going to be the moment where shit starts getting serious -- But that didn't happen, did it?

Look at our boy! He may be bleeding a little, but he is doing just fine! One thing I want to emphasize is that this isn't just a case of "Cap just didn't hit hard enough cause he didn't really wanted to kill". It should be apparent at this point that the writers has every intention to make every action symbolic of a concept at this point. The concept of such an act is that it is yet again another anti-climax at what was built up to be a point of conflict. You expected violence? Well instead what you get is that just like all the other "punishments" thus far, it ultimately doesn't pose much of a threat. You aren't meant to worry about it as much as the writers don't care about it. 

A point of contention to that, as I'll have to admit, is we are still in the early stages of the show and we will probably need one or two more episode before we can really decide whether violence matters. However, I think the results are slightly skewed when we consider the reveal of Hoshi as an actual omnipotent god. He has the ability to grant others abilities and he quite possibly can be the one responsible for creating this world to begin with as he reveals that everyone is dead in their previous reality. After Cap has failed to follow the laws that he set, he even becomes the main enforcer, being the one to remind everyone that nobody should play around with the rules with him on the watch: "There are no exceptions" as he says. If this is a sandbox, then he quite possibly can represent the admin. He makes sure the rules are followed and that no violence would ruin the "fun" or "results" of the experiments that are ongoing. So once again, with Hoshi being our omnipotent admin here, should we even expect any death or violence beyond this episode?

Well, I guess that is the question we will have to keep a close eye on next episode!

Thus far, we have quite thoroughly explored the details to how everything is but a playground for the writers themselves to enjoy themselves in. However, I want to bring up the one instance where it seemed like everything would've come tumbling down for them. I am talking about the one inciting 'panic' scene when everyone found out they were already dead in their previous reality. Yes, once again, actual representation of mortality and fear, something completely absent throughout the entire episode thus far. But by this point, I think you already know what I am going to say -- Anti-climax. 

As our two main characters were saved from being blinked out of existence, the black curtain pulls back. What was unveiled was that there laid a literal paradise in plain sight all along; Blue skies and billowing clouds, stretching out beyond the endless sea. Students are now tranced, no longer caring about their own mortality. What matters now is that they are now truly "free" in this utopia. And as if to justify such a feeling, even our streak of silence were broken as we get our first background sounds with the birds and also our first pop song to guide us into this sense of being "unbound" and "living in our youth". If the previous lack of music was the writers attempt to not influence our judgement, then the use of J-pop here was the writers attempt to scream at us: "We have finally finished all our build up now! Let's actually have some fun!"

And they are right about that. As the characters themselves have overcome their mortality and has fallen in love with this new reality, we no longer have to expect them to ever touch upon these topics again. Right now, it is the pure ego-driven stories where superhumans use their superpowers to achieve impossible feats to once again justify their own ego-centric ideas. And I use ego so often is because that is what true sandbox games are like. You want to not be bored? Well, you make your own objectives. You want to have a challenge? Conjure up a mountain for yourself to scale. Nothing bounds you other than the limitations of your own imagination.

You are in a literal sandbox, a pure manifestation of ego -- What will you do?

Conclusion

This sandbox idea of mine is really something I have never seen before in anime. So much so that I am doubting myself on whether this is really what the writers are going for. To that, I guess I have to leave it for time to tell.

If there is one thing you can take away from my essay however it is this: Don't view this show conventionally. Don't think about questions like why characters have magically appearing food or think about why characters don't react like normal humans. That isn't what this show is about. If you want that, 'Drifting classroom' is a really good manga for you to read. 'Sonny Boy' has something completely different that it wants to show us; That is what we should be the most excited about.

Other than that, the last time I got this excited about an anime is actually with 86. Each are just shows brimming with so much ideas and with the proper directing and cinematography to carry its ideas. There is just so much to unpack, so much I haven't even touched on after all. And thus far, we are even barely scratching the surface with just episode 1. "Will this be a disappointment?"  I found a lot of people being wary of the show thus far but for me, I am not so worried. Even if this show becomes a mess, I just know that with so much love and attention placed into this first episode thus far, it will at least be a mess that goes up in fireworks.