"Sunny" is a new Apple TV+ series about a grief-stricken woman and her robot. We explain why this quirky mix of comedy, thriller, and a story in the vein of "Tokyo Vice" actually works.
The series "Sunny" begins with blood splattering on bright orange walls and a robot killing people in the living room around him. Then we see Rashida Jones as Suzie Sakamoto, an American expat who came to Japan a few years before the main story to "lick her wounds" and live a quiet life alone. Instead, she met charming Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima); they got married, and they had a son, Zen.
Then we jump to "our" time, where Masa and Zen disappear in a mysterious plane accident. Yuki, a colleague of Suzie's missing (deceased?) husband at a tech firm, brings her a home robot named Sunny as a comforting gift.
But this is not just any random bot; it was programmed by Masa himself for his wife, tailored to her habits and personality. Surprisingly, she always thought her husband worked on refrigerators. After this, she decides to learn more about Masa's past, which holds many secrets.
Since Suzie has technophobia, the show starts off with plenty of comedic situations that sharply contrast with the otherwise tragic story of losing loved ones who also had secrets from you. This aspect, by the way, is handled quite well. The creators reflect on the obvious impossibility of truly knowing another person, as well as grief and loneliness. For example, we learn that Masa lived as a hikikomori, which partly brought him closer to his future wife, a loner by nature.
The series "Sunny" is not limited to swinging between drama and comedy (even if sometimes dark!). Despite its slow pace, it finds room for a conspiracy thriller involving the yakuza (and a striking blonde psychopath played by Judy Ongg) and timely thoughts about the potential of artificial intelligence (for good or ill).
And let's not forget that Suzie is a stranger to Japan, not very familiar with the history and culture of these parts, which is also given plenty of screen time. This continues the trend of stories about foreigners assimilating in the Land of the Rising Sun, set by "Tokyo Vice" and picked up by .
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Open material
The pile-up of genres and themes, chaotic but slow pace, does not prevent "Sunny" from being an engaging series. It has the "detached" atmosphere present in many projects from A24 (the studio responsible for producing the project released on Apple TV+), a great Rashida Jones capable of holding the viewer's attention, a detective-like intrigue that is maintained until the final episodes, and a cute mascot Sunny, vaguely reminiscent of its counterpart from "Black Mirror." In short, it has everything to pleasantly spend a few evenings watching while waiting for the new season of "Severance".
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