Apple TV's "SUNNY" series

Review by Dennis D. McDonald

Things that happen in Sunny:

1. An American woman moves to Tokyo and marries a secretive Japanese software engineer. One day he and her child disappear on a doomed flight.

2. Afterwards a mysterious gift from her husband’s employer shows up at her doorstep: a domestic robot programmed by her husband. She’s surprised. She had been under the impression that her husband worked in his employer’s refrigerator division.

3. She gradually develops a complicated relationship with the personality-laden robot and begins to uncover surprising and disturbing details about her husband and his background. For instance, why is the Japanese yakuza mob so interested in her robot?

Sunny is unpredictable. The producers and writers have interwoven elements in a refreshingly unusual way:

1. The leading lady, an American played masterfully by Rashida Jones, is unapologetically prickly. She’s a mess, she drinks too much, she has no friends, and she has a terrible relationship with her husand’s domineering mother. All this leaves us asking, why did she move to Japan in the first place?

2. Flashbacks to her husband’s upbringing reveal a personality almost as prickly and unstable as hers. We also learn the source of his robotics expertise—which turns out to have more to do with trash than refrigerators.

3. Her robot moves around the house being helpful one moment and annoying the next. Its physical design is somewhat cartoonish, but one can’t help being impressed by how the robot’s oversized “face” expresses an incredibly broad range of emotions. (I would love to know more about how the facial expressions were designed and so well integrated with the robot’s “voice.”)

4. The yakuza subplot eventually converges with other plot threads but by the end of episode 10, we’re still not completely sure what the threatened wiping of the robot’s memory has to do with the wife’s quest for details about her husband’s fate. Apparently the answers are buried in the robot’s memory—but it looks like we’ll have to wait until season two to find out!

Throughout the series, numerous Japanese cultural details are presented. As much as I’m interested in Japanese history and media I can’t always tell what’s real and what’s invented. The “near future” in which the story is set looks a lot like modern-day Japan, but you can also tell a lot of thought has gone into ensuring that day-to-day technology looks and feels recognizably different from what we have today.

My only real gripe with the 10-episode series is that, while the robot moves around and interacts with people quite naturally, it’s never shown climbing stairs. Other than that, if you’re looking for something quirky and different, you’re interested in Japanese culture, and you enjoy a decent mystery with some bizarre details, you can’t go wrong with Sunny!

Review copyright 2024 by Dennis D. McDonald

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