#RECAP: Sonny Boy Episode 3: Uncovering the Mysterious Veil

It’s a new week, which means another episodic dissection of one of the most interesting anime airing this season, Sonny Boy! Without further ado, let’s drift into episode 3!

If you still need more time to digest the previous episodes, you can find the episode 1 and 2 recap here. 

Episode 3: The Cat Who Wore Sandals:

When we last left off, Nozomi revealed that her ability, Compass, allows her to see a bright light in the distance, which is a beacon of hope for the students’ possible escape from this dimension. Since then, the students have become more accustomed to finding other portals to other worlds, and a team composed of Nagara, Nozomi, and Asakaze have been helping Rajdhani map out the portals to test the feasibility of navigating to the beacon. 

While there is some tension between Asakaze and Nagara — mostly due to the fact that Nagara seems to have an affinity for finding these portals —  the students have a more immediate problem at hand. Some students have gone missing, only to be discovered with an unknown affliction where they have become shadow-like statues.  

Have I mentioned that I’m a huge fan of the use of black color throughout this show?

Initially, the circumstances are quite suspicious. This could be the work of a student’s hidden power, but when Mizuho is tasked with finding the root cause alongside Nagara, a clear pattern arises. The rest of the group did not notice the missing students for a while because they were forgettable. Upon further investigation, it seems that this isolation was driving the condition, but is there another element at play? 

Nagara’s affinity for finding portals ends up quite convenient for the pair, and they find themselves tearing open the curtains leading to the world where the missing students ended up. The students are separated in their own individual spaces, illustrating the missing students as shut-ins. They could have had different reasons why they felt detached from the group, but this episode uses the island’s civil development as a parallel to the familiar real life counterpart. 

Nyamazon’s Free Shipping Does Not Come Without Cost:

This is probably why the rest of the students don’t like you, Mizuho.

The island’s rule from the previous episode demonstrates that items need to be settled in an agreed transaction to transfer an item from one owner to another. This leads to the demand where the students must work and spend their hard earned Hyō-Ryū-Coins to purchase any needed supplies or items from each other. It’s a rudimentary capitalist structure, but there really isn’t a reason for the students to have to work at all. 

Mizuho’s Nyamazon ability allows her to generate any item she wants, and nothing in the rules prevents someone from simply giving an item away for free, as evidenced by Mizuho’s gift to Nagara not combusting. She simply chooses not to use her ability for the whole class and believes that this is how the world operates, which might have led to some unintended consequences. Mizuho was already isolated in the group, but her unwillingness to help the students has caused much more friction from the other students. 

Imagine having to labor on this uncharted island all because of this rudimentary economic system, all while watching Mizuho making any item she wants to and choosing not to help. It would be quite understandable why there is growing hostility from the students, and Mizuho is perfectly aware of the situation. Her motivation to uncovering the truth behind the shadow statues is driven by her realization that she, too, could have fallen victim to the island’s mysterious new rule. 

Subtle.

So, why was Mizuho seemingly unaffected? While she was isolated from the rest of the group, she seems to still have a tether to keep on existing in the world — namely her cats, who she has been caring for since her grandmother developed dementia. I think that they provide the necessary grounding for her. The other students wanted to escape by other, fully isolated means, such as video games, bodybuilding, crafts, etc. In any case, the message of the condition is clear. Those who succumb to the isolation and yearn for escape from the toil end up in this state. 

New Revelations:

The Black Curtain is blown away, forcing the isolated students to have to rejoin the “real” world.

The explanation about breaking the shadow world is not very clear, but it does provide a fantastic visual sequence in this episode. Rajdhani’s elaborate setup of power-up fans and gadgets lift the curtain on the missing students by literally blowing the other dimension away. The connection between this curtain world and the school also appears to be severed, which leads me to believe that every possible dimension has a portal counterpart in the school. While there seems to be a formulaic approach to this episode, I don’t think that the next few will go the same way because of the revelations that we’ve seen.

Some students were already aware of their powers before the drifting occurred, including Mizuho and Hoshi. Even more surprisingly, Hoshi’s clairvoyant messenger even predicted that the school was going to drift! Based on Nagara’s affinity for finding these new worlds, his innate power is directly linked to the dimensional portals and could have caused the initial drift into the promised land. Nagara opening the school rooftop door in the flashback could line up with this idea, and even Nozomi believes that Nagara has the power to hop dimensions. 

There seems to be some parallels between Nozomi and Hoshi.

However, there is another cryptic puzzle that complicates the current situation. Hoshi’s messenger could be another student, but it is not entirely clear. In addition to its warnings, the messenger tells Hoshi of an incoming savior who will most likely be the one to break through whatever force is binding the students. The savior’s role is shrouded in mystery, and we do not know their full intentions. The viewer is left with an ominous sight of Hoshi staring at a dark canvas of a solar eclipse enveloped by darkness.

In case you needed another giant red flag for Hoshi.

While we haven’t seen Nozomi’s Compass power from her perspective, I’m assuming that this solar eclipse imagery is supposed to be a parallel to Compass. If the previous foreshadowing wasn’t enough, this image gives us confirmation that Hoshi’s motivations will be in direct conflict with Nozomi and the rest of the students. 

They both seem to have parallel powers. Nozomi’s Compass is only visible to her, but it requires the other students to have faith in her literal beacon of hope. On the other hand, Hoshi can invoke visions in the other students that causes them to see and feel intense fear, which directly opposes Compass in both its usage and capability. With that in mind, we’ll see if direct conflict will end up boiling between Nozomi and Hoshi, and I’m curious to see if others have been withholding information about their powers prior to the drift.

Sonny Boy is currently available for streaming on Funimation.