Pokemon Meets Monster Hunter World
Love, Death & Robots’ first episode takes us to the grimy underworld of “beastie” fighting .In an episode that feels like a combination of Pokemon and Monster Hunter World, Sonnie’s Edge is, on the surface at least, an episode used to showcase the impressive visual flair of the episode.
The story itself sees a battle hardened woman called Sonnie entering a monster arena with her chosen “Beastie”, battling against a menacing behemoth, brought to the arena by a foul mouthed bald man. From here, the episode explodes into a flurry of tentacles, blood and violence as the two monsters battle it out in a circular arena. As the audience looks on, applauding every drop of blood, the end to this fight sees Sonnie retreat back to her quarters as the crowd reels over what they’ve just witnessed.
It’s at this point where the story takes an interesting turn, bringing with it big questions around abuse before one of two big twists. The first, sees Sonnie stabbed as she lets her guard down, and the second seeing this turn into a double bluff as it’s revealed she was actually alive the entire time. It’s a really nicely worked segment too and one that works surprisingly well given the context of the episode.
The animation here is sublime too and the photo-realistic faces really do well to show off how far CGI has come in recent years. On top of that, the voice acting is top notch and despite a plethora of swearing throughout the episode, does well to really sell the moody, grimy underbelly of the arena the episode takes part in. It’s not perfect, and some parts of the episode do feel a tad too heavy on the swearing but despite that, Sonnie’s Edge is an excellent way to start off this anthology.
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Episode Rating
(4)
Hi folks, replying ‘Cam’, years later!
My take on Sonnie is that she was badly assaulted, damaged by a gang in the past that her mind was indeed grafted into her beastie, Kharnivore.
Here’s where leaving subtitles turn on is useful, we learn that the person we thought was Sonnie was just some clever neural components spliced onto a spine, enough to move around and talk and respond, but otherwise controlled by the REAL Sonnie, inside Kharnivore since that assault and transfer took place. As a result, whenever Sonnie steps into the ring, SHE is within the beastie and so her life is really on the line, giving her ‘the edge’.
Seconding this review. It was honestly the best episode of the series TO USE AS A PILOT. The main reason being I feel like it was one of the stories that a lot of diverse audiences could find something about it they liked. The queer, tough asian lead? The cyberpunk environment and sci-fi elements? Big, ugly monsters goring each other? An engaging story with a lot of depth?(This is totally something I’d try if it has been its own series) This episode has a lot of great elements to introduce it series. (And people to adult animation that isn’t by fucking McFarlane)
However, I have my issues with the episode. I felt like Sonnies backstory was an accessory and unconsciously trivializes that sort of traumatic experience. The way it was narrated into the story was a little shoehorned. The short is about how shes not just some angry, independent woman hellbent on revenge, it would have had more serious implications if her trauma had been less outrageous. However, and I realize this is dark, the fact that the gang did murder her is the only part of her backstory that makes it more realistic.
Thennn unnecessary sexuality. The mistress exposing her breasts and riding up her skirt to seduce Sonnie could have been taken out and the story would lose nothing.
Curious though, what exactly did the ending imply? Did her actual brain/consciousness die and her friends managed to make a technological copy of it? So now she’s a robot with all of Sonnies memories and experience? Or was her consciousness actually in Khanivore somehow? I wasn’t completely following.