is it me or Sonny Boy has SOMA vibes?

Jun 27, 2022 12:46 PM

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Nov 2020

I’ve just finished playing the 2015 game SOMA and from pretty early on i saw kinda the resemblance between the two, because of the copying your mind and pasting it onto another body so it seems that there are two of you… But there’s a specific scene that specially caught my attention and it is (spoilers for SOMA)

(Spoilers for Sonny Boy)

Maybe its purely a coincidence but the way its worded it makes me think Shingo Natsume took some inspiration from SOMA to make the plot.
Idk either way play the game if you like horror games or even if you don’t it’s a must xdd

murisioJun 27, 2022 12:53 PM

Jun 27, 2022 3:03 PM

AliasterB2003

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Mar 2019

636

I played SOMA too.
The I think the concept behind SOMA and Sonny Body regarding copying minds is similar but I highly doubt the director took any inspiration from SOMA since SOMA's focus is on the horror and humanity of the topic but Sonny Boy feels different since its not horror focused and instead challenges the mind in a different way.
I'm potentially very wrong on this of course but I doubt SOMA is an inspiration.Its just the two concepts are similar but taken in different directions in my opinion.

Jun 28, 2022 4:31 AM

murisio

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Nov 2020

AliasterB2003 said:
I played SOMA too.
The I think the concept behind SOMA and Sonny Body regarding copying minds is similar but I highly doubt the director took any inspiration from SOMA since SOMA's focus is on the horror and humanity of the topic but Sonny Boy feels different since its not horror focused and instead challenges the mind in a different way.
I'm potentially very wrong on this of course but I doubt SOMA is an inspiration.Its just the two concepts are similar but taken in different directions in my opinion.

fair. The concept itself of both despite being the same, they diverge into what they wanna focus on. Still the way it was explained in both were too similar since they used the same metaphors and stuff, but yeah probably its more of a coincidence and nothing else

Jun 28, 2022 10:20 AM

uwu32

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Jul 2020

I interpreted Somny Boy to be wholly different from SOMA besides superficial similarities. SOMA was, yes about horror and exploring existential science fiction ideas with mind cloning and the surreal implications it allow. However, I feel that Sonny Boy’s main focus isn’t on sci-fi technological dilemma but rather the texture and emotions of various transitions/change. Sonny Boy used it as an instrument to explore other ideas while SOMA was about the existentialism in of itself (SPOILER but the ending being supposedly good, sending away the ark-ship successfully, but with the “original” protagonist and companion left behind, is when the mechanism of mind copy vs mind transfer is finally revealed. Its reveal is itself the destination)

Jul 3, 2022 2:44 AM

murisio

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Nov 2020

avianworld said:
I interpreted Somny Boy to be wholly different from SOMA besides superficial similarities. SOMA was, yes about horror and exploring existential science fiction ideas with mind cloning and the surreal implications it allow. However, I feel that Sonny Boy’s main focus isn’t on sci-fi technological dilemma but rather the texture and emotions of various transitions/change. Sonny Boy used it as an instrument to explore other ideas while SOMA was about the existentialism in of itself (SPOILER but the ending being supposedly good, sending away the ark-ship successfully, but with the “original” protagonist and companion left behind, is when the mechanism of mind copy vs mind transfer is finally revealed. Its reveal is itself the destination)

absolutely agree, but despite not focusing on it (also Shingo Natsume said in an interview that he wanted to introduce some quantum mechanics nuances into Sonny Boy), maybe you can in certain episodes ask the same questions as in SOMA, like for example in episode 6 when the director say they are just copies, or in the end where they successfully escape to another dimension implanting themselves in other “copy” of them. Perhaps i’m reading too far into it but despite focusing on maturing and whatever, you can derive into similar dilemmas, I never said it was the main plot point its just a tangential nuance that can be found in both of them with almost the same application

Jul 20, 2022 4:49 PM

Darkthanblack201

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Jan 2015

Late to party here, but like every one said Sonny boy doesn't have similar themes as SOMA despite having similarities of the whole "copies" thing.

But I did see similarities (and differences) of "copies" between the two. To get it out of the way, the whole "coin toss" turn out to be a lie in Soma, in Soma your conscious stays in the same body and your copy becomes it completely own entity. So in Soma there is no "transfer " of conscious, if fact you have people killing themselves after they had their copy data uploaded to the satellite for the false illusion that their conscious was "transferred" to their copy.

Compare to sonny boy, the "copies" operated in a similar but ultimately in different way. The students did have copies of their conscious made while their originally stayed in reality (or maybe it's the way around where original conscious wad "drifted" and a copy of them was left behind in the real world. This is probably the case) . However, as we see in the end of Sonny boy, our two main characters escape and have their conscious transferred, not copied, to their bodies in the real world. It should be noted that they transferred their conscious to their originally bodies to a different reality(or changed reality?) where Nozomi wasn't dead and not the originally timeline before they drifted where the original Nozomi died.

So in short, Soma is just "copies" with originally mind/soul stuck with the originally, copies being it's own entity. While in Sonny Boy, when you escape the "drift" reality your conscious is transferred to your body and become one in the real world. No originally is left behind compare to Soma where a originally is left behind and copy goes on do their own thing.

Jul 26, 2022 3:28 AM

murisio

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Nov 2020

also forgot to add perhaps i forgot about the episode 6 thing where they were about to transfer but they couldn’t because the odds were against them and nobody in the parallel reality bat an eye about them going back so perhaps i just overthought it and forgot critical points or he just wanted for the audience to not think about the sad part and didn’t correctly apply that principle on purpose. Idk either way kudos both SOMA and Sonny Boy are a masterpiece that made me reflect on stuff and learned new lessons and changed my life respectively

murisioJul 26, 2022 3:33 AM

Jul 26, 2022 1:21 PM

Darkthanblack201

Offline

Jan 2015

murisio said:
also forgot to add perhaps i forgot about the episode 6 thing where they were about to transfer but they couldn’t because the odds were against them and nobody in the parallel reality bat an eye about them going back so perhaps i just overthought it and forgot critical points or he just wanted for the audience to not think about the sad part and didn’t correctly apply that principle on purpose. Idk either way kudos both SOMA and Sonny Boy are a masterpiece that made me reflect on stuff and learned new lessons and changed my life respectively

For sure, those two (Soma and Sonny Boy) have ideas that are well explored and leave you thinking which is not common these days. I'm always glad though when people make comparisons/connections with anime with video games (or other mediums outside of anime,manga,LN) because it leads to interesting conversations like this. I wish more people did that so we wouldn't have this overwhelming circle jerk and stale discussions you see with these Japanese mediums (anime,manga,LN, ect)

Jul 27, 2022 1:39 PM

murisio

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Nov 2020

Darkthanblack201 said:

absolute facts. The only problem is that people in general when they consume this type of media a lot of the time is to be entertained and not reflect on anything or maybe learn a lesson, which is absolutely fine there are so many ways in which people have fun. I don’t want to sound like a jerk or the incarnation of 🤓 but media with actually mature philosophical nuances in general is pretty niche and like 60% of the genre is pretentious trash devoid of any interesting plot points or a bearable dissertation (looking at you SEL) and when stuff like this show or SOMA comes up its a breath of fresh air.
TLDR since its a niche genre for starters there’s not a lot of people willing to watch it, and adding the fact that this type of thing needs for its audience to use the brain instead of giving you some dumb “deep” knowledge already chewed then all the pseudointelectualls out there won’t give it a shot too so its not economically viable something like this or soma to come out

murisioJul 27, 2022 1:50 PM

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is it me or Sonny Boy has SOMA vibes?

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