Sunny (TV series)

Sunny is an American black comedy television series created by Katie Robbins, based on the novel The Dark Manual by Irish writer Colin O'Sullivan. The series premiered on July 10, 2024, on Apple TV+.

Sunny
Genre	Black comedy Drama Mystery thriller
Created by	Katie Robbins
Based on	The Dark Manual by Colin O’Sullivan
Starring	Rashida Jones Hidetoshi Nishijima Joanna Sotomura Judy Ongg annie the clumsy Jun Kunimura
Country of origin	United States
Original languages	English Japanese
No. of episodes	3
Production
Executive producers	Katie Robbins Rashida Jones Lucy Tcherniak Ravi Nandan Jess Lubben Nancy Won
Running time	34-35 minutes
Production companies	A24 Twenty First City Babka Pictures Poppycock Pictures
Original release
Network	Apple TV+
Release	July 10, 2024 (2024-07-10) – present (present)

Premise

A woman living in Kyoto whose husband and son vanished in a plane crash is given/gifted a domestic robot from her husband's robotics company.

Cast

• Rashida Jones as Suzie Sakamoto
• Hidetoshi Nishijima as Masa Sakamoto, Suzie's husband and a roboticist
• Joanna Sotomura as Sunny
• annie the clumsy as Mixxy, Suzie's friend and an aspiring mixologist
• You as Hime
• Judy Ongg as Noriko Sakamoto, Masa's mother
• Jun Kunimura as Yuki Tanaka, a roboticist

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
1	"He's in Refrigerators"	Lucy Tcherniak	Katie Robbins	July 10, 2024 (2024-07-10)
In an Imatech facility, a robot begins hitting a man in the head with chair, apparently killing him before it is shut off. At a later time, Flight 405, carrying Suzie Sakamoto's husband, Masa, and son, crashes enroute to Hokkaido. Susie and her mother-in-law, Noriko, meet with crash investigators, and Suzie struggles to recount what her husband and son were wearing in the crash. Suzie returns home to find Yuki Tanaka, an Imatech employee, at her house, delivering a domestic assistance robot, Sunny. Suzie, whose mother was killed by a self-driving car, resists to having Sunny in her house. Yuki explains that she is receiving Sunny because Masa worked on it at Imatech. A confused Suzie explains that Masa worked in the refrigeration department, but Yuki informs her that the refrigeration department moved to Myanmar twelve years prior. Confused, Suzie goes to find Yuki at the Imatech holiday party, and learned that Masa was a feared manager at his company. She then discovers the room where the engineer was killed by a robot, and sees the blood still spattered on the wall and carpet. Afterwards, she meets Mixxy, a bartender, and claims that she and her husband have split up. Mixxy explains that a local politician is believed to have been killed by his domestic robot. As Suzie returns home, she is being monitored by a man viewing surveillance footage. As she gets inside, she sees what appears to be blood on her floor, and takes Sunny to a bridge and leaves her there. The next morning, Suzie wakes up to find Sunny back in her apartment. She goes to destroy Sunny with a baseball bat, but is surprised when Sunny does the same hand gesture as Masa.
2	"Don't Blame the Machine"	Lucy Tcherniak	Katie Robbins	July 10, 2024 (2024-07-10)
Suzie becomes frustrated when Sunny will not talk about Masa's history. Suzie takes Sunny to be inspected, and learns that Sunny is an upgraded model of the homebot that receives regular updates. Suzie learns that there is a hidden community that hacks their homebots to unlock additional features that is identified by a red symbol. Suzie recognizes the red symbol as something from Masa's notes, but is unable to find it. She goes to the ImaTech building, and finds it locked down; the room where the robot killed a man is boarded up. Security comes looking for Suzie, but she escapes with the help of Sunny. At home, Sunny answers the door and receives Masa's shoes, indicating that his body had been found after the plane crash. Outside, the bot that delivered the shoes meets with the man that has been watching Suzie, and reveals that they lied about the shoes belonging to Masa. In a flashback, Masa works on his computer, and signs it with the hacking group's symbol.
3	"Mmmm, Hinoki"	TBA	Nancy Won	July 17, 2024 (2024-07-17)
4	TBA	TBA	Kimi Howl Lee	July 24, 2024 (2024-07-24)
5	TBA	TBA	Julissa Castillo	July 31, 2024 (2024-07-31)
6	TBA	TBA	Aja Gabel	August 7, 2024 (2024-08-07)
7	TBA	TBA	Ken Kobayashi	August 14, 2024 (2024-08-14)
8	TBA	TBA	Sarah Sutherland	August 21, 2024 (2024-08-21)
9	TBA	TBA	Nancy Won & Yugo Nakamura	August 28, 2024 (2024-08-28)
10	TBA	TBA	Katie Robbins & Aja Gabel	September 4, 2024 (2024-09-04)

Production

In February 2022, Apple TV+ announced it had given Sunny a series order. Rashida Jones is set to star in and executive produce the series, which is set to film in Japan. In July, Hidetoshi Nishijima joined the cast. In October, Joanna Sotomura, annie the clumsy, You, Judy Ongg, and Jun Kunimura were added to the cast.

Filming for the series began in Japan in July 2022.

Release

Sunny was released on Apple TV+ on July 10, 2024.

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 92% approval rating with an average rating of 7.2/10, based on 26 critic reviews. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 71 out of 100 based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

External links

• Sunny at IMDb