.
.
.
Jump 1 - Sonny Boy
...
"Ooooh. That is why you sons of b%&$ !" I cussed at the endless psychedelic visual clusterfuck of the pathway to the "Real World".
I had spent years stuck with a bunch of teenagers hooping from dimension to dimension ( or This Worlds, as the kids go to call it) having to deal with everything from a reverse-lord-of-flies bullshit island, stagnant society of centuries-old teenagers perpetually doing manual labor to build a giant tower to salvation, and 5 thousand-year-old mass murderers.
At its core, Sonny Boy was an oneiric and dreamlike take on the Isekai genre. An entire class of teens is transported to another dimension and some get special powers. Unlike any other Isekai though, ther is no fantasy, fights, romance or even a coherent storyline that can followed without a whiteboard. It is all a big exploration of philosophical and psychological themes such as identity, purpose, freedom, loneliness and social expectations.
The first months I spent in here I just isolated myself in empty worlds and tested how long I could actually stay moving, without eating, and completely and gripingly depressed ( it was a few hundred hours). Eventually, though, Nagara, Mizuho, Nozomi and Rajdhani would just find me. Even after the whole "Noahs Ark" bullshit, even after I snapped and beat the hell out of Sou and Seiji... they still did not left me to die.
The class, and hundreds of other classes just get flung around a bunch of connected pocket dimensions. Each dimension with different rules and honestly oneiric nature to them. And among all that, there is no adventure to be found. Even with an infinity of different worlds at their fingertips and it all just becomes... life.
The kids find ways to get themselves food, create a monetary system and social order, fall in love, and believe in god... the only difference is that here is that death and aging are not factors, time is more relative ( upon the fifth month a talking dog explained that sometimes when you are walking through different This Worlds you are also walking through time, so sometimes you can meet up with a friend you have not seen in a month only to find out you guys have not seen for 2000 years in his perspective ).
I think that that was the whole point of the anime. Or at least one of the major ones. No matter how different you imagine a world to be, humans are just humans and will fall under the same patterns and nature. Superpowers, immortality, and, Magic lands do not change that. With endless possibilities and infinite time, humans are just humans. Life is just life. And there is absolutely no overall meaning to it or specific way it has to be. Everything and everyone's life's are equal in their ultimate nothingness.
It took me longer than would like for me to get sending me here from all worlds - to this of all Isekai - was a huge mindfuck from my patrons to make me understand and accept my new existence.
"Fuck you ! Fuck you all very much !" I screamed into the ever-changing psychedelic void.
"Are you all right Amaro-san? " Nagara asked me, his hand tugging on the rope that connected the three of us. From behind me Mizuho was giving me one of her concerned-disguised-as-annoyed looks.
Just looking at the two of them made most of my angry frustration melt. This was their story I was intruding in. Their moment of choosing life, choosing to try despite everything telling them not to. Hell GOD himself told them not to. Yet this little boy who just two years ago would embrace defeat and unhappiness because its easier than trying. This little girl who could barely show any true vulnerability cried in my shoulder admitting she wanted to live but was scared of all that life might bring, that she might not be able to take it.
But when nothing matters why should we be scared of the little possibilities some things have terrible outcomes but others don't. Good things can happen. We lost Nozomi, yet Rajdhani reached enlightenment and knowledge like many man can even dream.
Mizuho told me there are things one cannot know unless they try. That life has to be lived, or else it all just wasted possibilities. There is no point in this journey, but as Nozomi told us, we can find value and meaning and If everything is pointless whatever meaning we choose to give it will not be better or worse than any other. One can create purpose out of a meaningless adventure.
" It's ... its nothing guys. Let's get out of here."
...
.
.
.
End
Authors Notes:
First jump... not my best.
But in my defense : It frustrates me how no one knows Sonny Boy, Which is my favorite Isekai of all time ( Re:Zero being the second) and I reaaally wanted the first jump to be a Isekai.
Also, "Sonny Boy" is about being positive in nihilistic sort of despairing situation, and that is what Amaro was thanks to all the chain alterations. He is doing this, against his will, forever and ever, It is the kind of shit that drives a man mad