Hello everyone. Justin here and welcome to the Otaku Mind. Well guys, I won’t lie, things have very crazy these last few weeks. Everyone is panicking and scared, which is why I feel my blogs are now very important in these troubling times. In times like these I feel that it is important to keep our spirits up and give people something to laugh and smile at. Which is why I intend to do my part and continue to deliver entertaining blogs each week to get everyone through these troubled times and make your day a little better. So, last time I talked about the Sonic movie and how good it was. After that, a fan emailed me and asked what I thought about the Sonic’s other media outings and I thought it was a good question. For those of you too young to understand why everyone loves so much, Sonic was a game changer. You see back in the 80s, Nintendo pretty much ruled the game industry with nobody able to hold a candle to them. However, things changed in the 90s when Sega introduced Sonic the Hedgehog who embodied the 90s perfectly. He was a character who kids in the 90s could identify with and seems to still resonate with kids today as well as his games are still fondly remembered and liked by the masses. I think a large reason for his relevance in today’s culture is thanks in large part to his TV shows and . . .other movie. For this Otaku Mind we’re going to take a look at Sonic through the years in the media and see which shows were good, bad, or somewhere in between.
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Let’s start off by taking a look at probably the most well-known of the Sonic cartoons, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. This was the first show I remembered watching of Sonic the Hedgehog. I remember as I kid I would always watch it in the morning before going off to preschool/kindergarten and enjoyed it a lot. The show focused on Sonic and Tails and their episodic adventures through Mobius while also fighting and stopping the evil plans of Dr. Robotnik. The show unfortunately hasn’t aged-well and isn’t looked back fondly by a lot of people. For starters, the characters come across as annoying most of the time due to their voices. The voices of Scratch and Grounder were the most annoying of the bunch. Second, the show is all over the place and frantic with its animation and stories each episode. The show was trying to emulate both the Looney Tunes and Ren & Stimpy by having the clever writing and timing of Looney Tunes and combining it with the insane animation and antics of Ren & Stimpy that was popular at the time. They fail on both ends as these two shows are the complete opposite of each other and should never be combined into one show. The show was created by DiC and lasted for 65 episodes before the plug was pulled and managed to be remembered solely for their Sonic Says segments, a series of PSA messages where Sonic would give helpful advice to kids. Now that I’m older and looking back I admit the show wasn’t really all that good and not the best, but I still have a soft spot for it. It was goofy and made no sense but I still got some entertainment from it. This was my first exposure to Sonic at a young age and got me interested in the games.
Sonic SatAM
Oh yeah! Now we’re talking. This is hands down my favorite show of Sonic and it’s still the best of the bunch. This show began airing after the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog ended and was done once again by DiC only this time they actually gave a damn. This time the show took on a darker more serious tone than the other show. In this show, Robotnik becomes the ruthless dictator of Mobius, capturing its citizens and turning them into his robot slaves. Sonic along with his friends form a resistance group called the Freedom Fighters who fight to liberate Mobius from Robotnik’s evil tyranny. The show featured the return of Tails only this time in a more minor role and new characters who would go on to become fan favorites such as Sally, princess of the kingdom Robotnik betrayed and Sonic’s on-again and off-again girlfriend, Bunnie the half-robotized bunny, and Antonie the cowardly French coyote. This show also featured the coolest version of Robotnik as well. Robotnik was dangerous, ruthless, and downright evil here. Plus, he had the chilling voice of Jim Cummings that made him all the more evil. The animation was better as well. The backgrounds were more detailed, the character designs looked distinguished and fit well with the characters, and the show was a lot more subtle with their themes and messages. The show dealt with a lot of mature themes at the time such as loss, romance, and even death. For example, there’s this one Freedom Fighter who gets captured and we never see him again. Sally is looking for her father the king who got sent to another dimension by Robotnik and when she does find him and is able to bring him back they find out that he turns to crystal, so he has no choice but to stay in the other dimension. The show had 2 seasons with the second season being more comedy driven at the request of ABC, and a total of 26 episodes before it was cancelled, but it ended on a high note. Robotnik has captured a majority of the Freedom leaders and is planning on launching a doomsday device to destroy them all. Sonic and his friends mount a rescue, destroy Robotnik’s device, supposedly kill him, and free Mobius with a new danger on the horizon. To this day the show is still fondly remembered by fans as being the best show of Sonic and would go on to inspire the Archie Comics series. As for me, I still regard it as being one of the best cartoons of all time and even watch it on Youtube from time to time during my work breaks. It still holds up. Actually, it’s better than I remember it being.
Sonic Underground
The most obscured of the Sonic shows and considered the worst of the bunch. Once again done by DiC this show takes place in a different universe than SatAM. In this universe, Sonic has two other siblings named Sonia and Manic (all of who were voiced by Jaleel White) are the children of Aleena, the queen of Mobius who was overthrown by Robotnik who took over the kingdom. Aleena gives her kids to an orphanage and goes into hiding awaiting the day to reunite with her children and save the kingdom. Until that time comes, Sonic and his siblings battle against Robotnik using medallions that transform into music instruments and continue to search for their mom. Christ, where do I begin with this one? If you thought Adventures was bad, then this is just awful. Say what you want about Adventures, we can at least say it’s so bad it’s good, while this show was so bad that it’s bad. The show was pretty much trying to be the middle ground between Adventures and SatAM. It would have the dark atmosphere but at the same time fun storylines of Sonic and his friends. Did it work? Hell no! The plot was too complex to follow, the whole band thing felt out of place, the sibling characters were unlikable, and there was barely any action or violence. The show had 40 episodes and no conclusive ending before it was cancelled and for good reason as nobody liked this show. I gave it the 3-episode rule and I could not get into this series at all. The only thing it had going was a few catchy songs and being the first show to have Knuckles in it (so if you guys ever wanted to ship Knuckles with a female Sonic, this show is for you). However, this show is nothing compared to what comes next.
Sonic the Hedgehog the Animated Movie
Yep, there was actually an animated Sonic movie. The movie was produced by Pierrot (Naruto, Bleach, and Yu Yu Hakusho) in 1996. While technically a 2-part OVA in Japan, it was released as a full-length movie in the west. Now, out of all of the Sonic medias this is the one that fans despise the most. In fact, some are even in denial and refuse to believe that this movie exists just like the Mario Bros. movie. In the movie, Robotnik has created Metal Sonic to fight against Sonic and destroy the world. Just like adventures this movie is all over the place with unfunny slapstick humor, anime clichés, terrible voice acting in the both the dub and sub, and an annoying princess. I will at least say the artwork can look good. I think the artists behind Sonic CD worked on the movie and the fight between Sonic and Metal Sonic was good for the time. Other then that though this was not all that good and I didn’t enjoy it all that much either. Thankfully, they would make another Sonic anime with better results.
Sonic X
Ah~ Sonic X, one of the last Saturday morning cartoons I remember watching before Saturday morning cartoons died out. Released in 2003 and done by TMS Entertainment (Detective Conan and Lupin the Third) which is a subsidiary of Sega, this show was primarily influenced by other anime rather then any stories or shows from the west. The story is, is that Sonic and his friends get transported to our world thanks to Robotnik (now being called Eggman). While in our world, Sonic and his friends befriend a lonely rich kid named Chris (the most hated character in the series). Robotnik also gets teleported to our world where he tries to establish the Eggman Empire, so it’s up to Sonic and his friends to stop Eggman and find a way back home. The series had 3 seasons and a total of 78 episodes. The first season had its own original story with Sonic and the others entering our world and hiding out in secret from the government. The second season followed the stories of Sonic Adventures 1 & 2 and the third season returned to having an original idea by introducing a new original character to the series named Cosmo. The show was alright. It was a big improvement over Adventures and Underground. The show had a good balance of light-hearted comedy, some dark themes such as loneliness and loss, touching moments, and some good original ideas such as the space exploration in season 3. The two things that everyone complain about is the character designs and voice acting which I’m not gonna lie are pretty bad. However, despite this, the show was quite popular in and out of Japan. It became TMS’s best-selling anime in 2007 outside of the Japanese market and even encouraged them to start focusing on properties that would sell well in foreign markets. This show also helped revitalize Sonic’s popularity with a new younger audience.
Sonic Boom
Alright, last show, Sonic Boom. Produced by Sega of America and airing on Cartoon Network. This was the first computer-generated show in the series and even though it was based off the videogames, the show took a number of liberties and changes. For starters, the characters went through a redesign, particularly Knuckles and received a whole new story. In the show Sonic along with Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and new character Sticks defend their village from Eggman and that’s it. The show got lasted from 2014-2017 with 2 seasons and 104 episodes total making this the longest Sonic series to this date (although each episode was 11 minutes). This show was like a blend of Adventures and Sonic X. Rather then have the dark themes and mature story as they had in SatAM and Underground, they instead decided to just go for laughs and adventure. I have to admit, when I first watched this show I wasn’t a big fan of it. I didn’t like Knuckles’ new design or how they changed his character into an idiot and how they were instead going off into a more humor direction rather than just adapt the Archie comics which would have been a guaranteed hit. However, looking back, and re-watching a few clips from the show I have to say that this was actually a funny and good show. This is what Adventures was trying to be. Sonic Boom had good writing, good jokes, good slapstick comedy, voice acting, and was even self-aware of itself as the in-jokes were funny. The new character Sticks was also a good addition to the franchise and had a fun personality. She’s a paranoid badger who was born and raised in the jungle, and she was usually the one who got the most laughs out of me next to Robotnik. Like I said before this show had some good and clever writing (watch this clip about Knuckles talking about feminism, https://youtu.be/Ikc_uZw2mqo). Shoot, that was brilliant writing. The whole show was filled with moments like these whether they be in jokes about the series or social commentary and it’s executed in a funny and clever way. This was definitely a good series not to sleep on and is worth checking out. Next to SatAM this has to be my favorite Sonic cartoon.
Final Thoughts
So those are the Sonic cartoons. Some were good and still hold up to this day, some were bad, and some were down the middle. While the good shows definitely outweigh the bad shows, I feel that it’s important to address the mistakes of the franchise and look at both the positives and negatives in order to grow and learn from them. Over the years Sonic has changed and shown us how funny and clever he can be to dark and mature as well. Like I said before I still consider SatAM to be the best of the bunch and would love to see a show or game based off the Archie comics. For me, that seemed to be where Sonic was at his best. Dark and mature, but at same time funny and clever. What will be the next Sonic show we see? I don’t know, but the one thing I do know is that the Sonic fandom will never die. It’s had its low moments, but it’s always found a way to bounce back better then ever and keep moving forward. Let me know what you’re favorite Sonic show was. As always, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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