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Sonny Boy is beautiful in the way a Beckett short story or an Ionesco play is beautiful: to experience, to know, to find personal meaning in the disconnection and small moments of somewhat terrifying empathy art can conjure. It is frightening because, as the viewer or reader, you do not always care to be reminded of your similarity of life or mind, especially when the work projects absurdity and fatalism. The greatest failing of this show is likely marketing to folks like myself when the reality of watching is not enjoyable only for aging arts students. It is equally at home with Angel Beats and ... Gurren Lagann despite typecasting with Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane Renmei.

Why invoke arts first then, especially on MAL? Well, because comfort with the uncomfortable is necessary here at its core. Sonny Boy draws literature in immediately - it is inspired by Umezu's Drifting Classroom though invoking Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, French fatalism and absurdity, American voices of surrealism, and many others. At times this is as much Drifting Classroom as it is Waiting for Godot; the industrialism of the worlds at hand go as far back to evoke Zola's Germinal then pivot to classic horror manga even for a brief scene. If unfamiliar with similar art that aims to disorient to evoke an emotional response over practical, this will seem confusing and at worst open offensive if pitched without some qualifier to shonen or seinen.

It's not all that confusing though if you allow Sonny Boy to wash over you. The disorientation and confusion are expected - the characters feel the same. Their decisions are grounded in it, and the philosophies of the core trio provide a consistent emotional grounding. The plot is not what ties you here, or at least not "plot" as in lore and canon. This universe could exist endlessly, and it chooses not to (not a spoiler, referencing series being over) specifically to give three singular emotional throughlines. If you are trying to make a timeline or, hell, have Lain or Akira in your brain during this as only reference, you're probably overthinking it. There are twists and changes, but only back to what is shown as possible as early as the first episode and certainly by the end of episode four. Episodes 8, 9, and 10 explicitly show the world as governed by these rules from other perspectives relayed to us just as they relayed to our core characters. Our decisions and confusions are again at one with the children caught up in all this.

The children aspect is where this comes home as to being an experiential work. The logic, inventions, and emotions are all child-like or childish; no matter how long life can last, there is an ever-present nostalgia. Too often that word is associated with positivity - this is a nostalgia for better and worse: awful homes, wreckless emotions, and the dual need and desire to grow constantly waging war. Each moment exists to call these things for the characters and the audience. It's dream logic to allow those things to happen.

So to go into this show and expect either a jarring psychological probe unlike anything else or a simple (for kids-with-powers anime, anyway) multiple world conflict are both at odds with the core message. Those things can draw you in, but it's ultimately a very sentimental, heartfelt paean to the confusion of youth and the beauty and horror present. The sentiment would go far too badly without that horror - the acceptance of an unchanging world when new worlds can seemingly spring forth from a curtain seems incredibly puzzling. That is youth though; that is, for this group, coping with the new social pressures of ending middle school in Japan. It's really any youthful moment though - the characters are drawn outside a stereotypical age range at times to evoke a sense these could be anyone facing massive personal change as an effect of time and undergoing self-reflection as a result.

So, is Sonny Boy a masterpiece? I honestly would say a nine for now as combining as disparate sources of influences as it does while remaining effective and, frankly, very simple if held for emotional resonance is incredibly difficult. It is much better at its peers at allowing its message to come through, however difficult that message really is, and will put you off and you may not agree with it at some or any level. But that is kinda the point - you should experience things for yourself and come to a meaning and path that will suit you. It may be years before you ever decide to return or even have a chance to. Time does that just as easily as our feelings. And ultimately that's what Sonny Boy pitches - you may grow and get better, but it's going to take some time, and it's going to take looking at yourself and the people around you and seeing how you want to grow. It's not a difficult message. It''s just not a very fun or easy one. It's a great one though.