Sonny Boy initially aired in the Summer of 2021, featuring a class of 36 students drifting through a void. The setting is based on the 1970’s horror manga, The Drifting Classroom, however, the show quickly abandons this setting as it moves from scene to scene. The abrupt shifts in plot often leave the viewer disorientated and left with many questions unanswered.
Despite all the confusion surrounding Sonny Boy, with some explanation, many of the puzzle pieces fall into place. Unfortunately, not all of Sonny Boy can be explained, and perhaps that is intended by design. Even though there might not be an answer to every question, the ones that can be answered will help make sense of Sonny Boy.
What Can be Explained?
Fortunately, the cause of the students drifting does have an answer. Nagara’s ability to create worlds is what created the parallel worlds the students exist in. Mizuho’s cats created copies of the students who exist in the worlds Nagara created. Finally, Mizuho’s true ability is to grant immortality, which is why everyone can live for so long. However, the reason why they ended up drifting is left unanswered, which can be unsatisfying for some viewers.
The power holdovers, which are the objects that have special powers, also have an explanation. Rajdhani mentions in episode 11 that as a person grows older, they eventually lose their consciousness and humanity. After a long enough time, the students will eventually turn into a power holdover. While we don’t know exactly what happens to every student, we do learn that Rajdhani eventually turns into a forest. Knowing that the rest of the cast will eventually turn into power holdovers provides some more closure for the series.
Why Was the Ending so Mundane?
One of the most frustrating parts of Sonny Boy is the incredibly mundane and unsatisfying ending. Nagara’s return to the real world is incredibly anticlimactic. After traveling parallel worlds, in the end, Nagara ends up working a terrible part-time job and is still a shy, awkward teen. The most devastating part is Nagara’s failure to talk to Nozomi after promising to once again become friends in the real world.
At the very same time, Nagara does end up becoming a slightly different person. At the beginning of the series, Nagara left a bird to die on the sidewalk, and Nozomi later reprimanded him for it. By contrast, at the end of the series, Nagara decides to check on the birds at the train station. Despite being prompted by Nozomi to take care of the birds, Nagara refuses, but the simple act of Nagara checking on the birds represents some change.
Sonny Boy intentionally uses the mundane ending to reflect Nagara and Mizuho’s decision to return to their original world. There are no groundbreaking changes to the world or the characters, no revelatory moments. It’s just two kids who came back from a long vacation. However, it does not make that time meaningless. In the final scene, we see a shot of Nagara walking away from the station after failing to make friends with Nozomi. While Nagara didn’t make any huge changes, he is smiling, which is the most significant change of all.
How to Make Sense of Sonny Boy
Even with some of the bigger pieces explained, there is still so much left unanswered. Who is War and why did he need to die? Why did the teacher show up on the shore of the island? What did it mean for the principal to be God’. Sonny Boy intentionally chooses to not answer these questions.
What is the reason for Sonny Boy to leave so many open ends? A big reason is that it doesn’t matter. There is no meaning to why the students had to travel through parallel worlds, it just happened. There doesn’t need to be a meaning for why a package is sent to the wrong address, and Sonny Boy adopts the same mentality. This is why so much is left unexplained to the viewer because there is truly no meaning behind the developments of the plot.
However, Sonny Boy does not embrace the meaninglessness behind all the twists and turns. After all, to Nagara the trip did have some meaning to him. It meant enough to cause him to change, even if only slightly. It didn’t matter if the trip was through parallel worlds or an ordinary school trip. What mattered was what Nagara chose to make of everything.
In the end, Sonny Boy is still incredibly confusing. Admittedly, it can be incredibly unsatisfying for Sonny Boy to choose to not answer some of the bigger questions the viewer might have. Despite this, with some explanation, it makes sense why the series chooses to leave so many questions unanswered. The secret to explaining Sonny Boy is explaining why there are no explanations. After that, the series begins to make sense, even if only slightly.