Season one, episode four of Sunny entitled “Sticky,” gives the viewer more information about the mysterious woman who was at the robot fight and attends Masa’s (Hidetoshi Nishijima) funeral. Her surprising appearance triggers Suzie (Rahisha Jones) to ask Noriko (Judy Ongg) more questions about Masa’s life. As Suzie rushes to approach the mysterious woman, a man interrupts her by introducing himself and giving his condolences. The man briefly mentions that Shigeru’s (Ryosuke Watabe) ,Masa’s father, helped Masa out of hikikomori, which is strange because Shigeru’s death was supposedly the reason for Masa going into hikikomori. This immediately sticks out to Suzie, so she questions Noriko about it, asking for clarification about what really happened. Noriko doesn’t like this very much, so she passively and aggressively tells Suzie a story about a woman who questioned her husband too much and didn’t trust him, ending up divorced and alone. She tells Suzie that she always reminded her of that woman, and then she calls Suzie “sticky.”.
Suzie storms out of the kitchen where she and Noriko are talking to find that Mixxy (Annie the Clumsy) has arrived. They decided to steal a bottle of alcohol from Noriko and leave for food. They do not realize a man is watching and following them. This man had been seen following Suzie before, after she had left the house for the first time in weeks. Suzie tells Mixxy about what the man said regarding Masa coming out of Hikikomori. They look for an obituary for Shigeru but can’t find one or any information on him. Sunny has an idea of how they could get more information, but Noriko’s blessing or her own homebot would be required to help them. The chances of Noriko helping them are slim to none.
Mixxy suggests a bath might help Suzie decompress, which triggers a memory for Suzie, so she leads them to a bathhouse. She tells them that Masa used to joke about going there and being the only one not involved in yakuza. Mixxy points out that it is strange to hang out with men in yakuza, and it’s not exactly calming. The bathhouse tells them women’s hours are closed and they cannot enter. Sunny helps to create a distraction so that Suzie and Mixxy can sneak into the bathhouse. While Suzie and Mixxy find a spot to hide and eavesdrop on the men in the bathhouse, the man following Suzie calls the mysterious woman and offers to steal Sunny. The woman tells him to wait and just follow Sunny for now. Sunny leaves to go to Noriko’s house to get her drunk and get the information they need about Masa’s father.
Suzie and Mixxy are forced to hide in a sauna, despite Suzie being claustrophobic, and listen to dangerous men talk while bathing. The situation escalates when an intimidating man joins the bath session, scaring the others. He persuades them all to leave except for one man he evaluates, leaving the man confused and uneasy. The intimidating man reaches out his hand to help the man get out of the bath, but it’s a trick. Instead, he beats and holds the man’s head underwater. He eventually lifts him up and repeatedly smashes his head into the door of the sauna Suzie and Mixxy are hiding in. They can see both men, but the men can’t see them. Once the man is dead and the intimidating man is gone, they rush out of the sauna to find Sunny. Sunny finds them running on the street and tells them that she has discovered that Shigeru is not Masa’s father. Noriko possibly had an affair with Masa’s real father, Hiromasa Matsumoto (Jun Kunimura). Hiromasa Matsumoto is alive and was changed to Masa’s beneficiary just three days before the plane crash.
This episode had more suspense than the previous ones. There’s a good balance of information the viewer does and doesn’t know compared to Suzie. Color has been used in previous episodes to convey emotion. In this episode, color was used to show the changes in the stakes and the risks of each situation. This happens in the scene when the intimidating man enters the bathhouse; the saturation gets lower. Then, when we are beating the man in the water, everything turns red, even for Suzie and Mixxy in the sauna. Once he leaves, the original coloring is back to normal. This was an interesting use of color.
Rating: 7.5/10