It does still feel worth reiterating that Sega of America just making up a bunch of stuff that would resonate with a 90s American audience itself didn't really come down to them actively deciding to throw away all the hard work of Sonic's original creators; they just straight-up weren't allowed access to a lot of that stuff and HAD to make do. Hell, American creators are NOT shy about saying when their former employees screwed them over, so when I hear even comic writers saying SoA tried hard to get them what they could, I believe them. The revelation that Sega of Japan's beef with them ran way back even to then and they had to fight for the actual scraps genuinely feels consistent with knowing how the two branches of the company feuded and the Japanese executives would often force decisions that literally destroyed the company as a first-party console manufacturer, how this culminated in them screwing over the US Saturn launch so bad the ripple effects killed the Dreamcast. None of this saying that anything the US side of things established holds a candle to the Jp material, just that I think you still misplace some of the blame and vitriol by framing it as cynical American executives bastardizing a Japanese product into something more marketable. Would 90s American Sonic lore have been utterly unchanged from Japanese if they HAD given them shit to work with? Probably not, I'm sure some things would've still been altered, but it sure as hell would've been closer to Oshima and co's vision if their parent branch let or even made it be instead of the opposite.
so, it would appear that sega has always been totally fucked. they make some good arcade games and got lucky with sonic, but they've pretty much been floundering on a business management level for as long as anyone can remember
I always found Pariah bias against American Sonic funny considering is a by product of the incompetence of the japanese branch. Thanks for putting it in words, didn't know how to convey it.
The Sonic OVA was closely supervised by Sonic Team and was part of the “Project Sonic” initiative in Japan during the Saturn era. I suspect it didn’t serve as a direct inspiration for SA2 or Heroes, but rather was just an early incarnation of concepts they intended to fully flesh out later on. It could’ve made a damn fine 26-ep TV show with a bit more luck.
To me his most contorversial thing is not an opinion but rather a roast HE ROASTED MODERN SONIC IN THE GENERATIONS STORY VIDEO He almost killed my love for his channel for this 'I'll call classic sonic as sonic and modern sonic as worse sonic'
Game-continuity Knuckles being a treasure hunter makes sense to me. Knuckles would explore Angel Island while growing up, trying to piece together the full story he doesn't have. When he's older, Knuckles could think, _"Treasure hunting", huh, that's basically what I was doing in my spare time on Angel Island, maybe that can be my job while I'm off-island._ It doesn't solve why he's leaving the Master Emerald unattended for long periods of time, but that's an issue for later Knuckles whether or not he's also a treasure hunter.
the OVA was a two-episode pilot so it was kinda meant to be a low-budget proof of concept headed by Ohshima too (he's in credits at least) in fact this OVA is even way more accurate to Sonic's character and interests than I thought with the living in a plane thing and fantasy magical floating islands and whatnot
And in my country it apparently debuted in _2007,_ late enough for someone like me who was born in 2004 to be able to stumble upon it on TV without knowing much about Sonic. Heck, if Wikipedia is to be believed, it was emmited as late as *_2020_* on certain channels. *What the hell?*
I feel like AOSTH feels the most faithful out of all these cartoons is because this franchise, at its core, IS basically just old school Looney Tunes. Sonic was always meant to evoke Golden Age animation design philosophies, he was based almost entirely off of Felix the Cat, and Sonic/Eggman's dynamic always had that classic cat and mouse chase like Tom and Jerry. It just has that touch of anime flavor to him, but otherwise is mostly just a homage to classic cartoons.
Considering Sega was inspired by American old cartoon icons like Mickey Mouse or Felix the Cat and when Sonic was supposed to be a rabbit he looked very similar to them. AOSTH just captures that insanity of Classic Sonic world and it always makes me laugh game fans bash the show for the same things games did. Like, the show got a lot of classic game zones, badnicks similar to classic Japanese ones, over the top architecture and the even show loop in the pitch pilot. It even showed Chaos Emeralds way back in 1993 in 4-part special
The OVA has Naka and Oshima as producers and its pretty clear like with Sonic X that Sega had a big involvement. The Tornado runway for example was shown in this first but in the games it was featured in the games in Sonic the Fighters. I imagine it wad a concept they already had and was just featured in the OVA first.
SatAm - Spinball footage, makes sense cuz it was made in America and the Freedom Fighters show up as a cameo AoStH - Mean Bean Machine footage, also made in America many characters from the show appear in that game OVA - Sonic CD footage for obvious reasons Boom - Boom footage for obvious reasons and the funniest of all: Underground - Sonic Blast footage cuz they're both ASS
Those first two things aren't cameos, the games actually take place in their respective continuities. Spinball is in the SatAM universe and MBM is in the AoStH universe.
@@evdestroy4121 MBM is in the "we're localizing a puzzle game starring a loli and pretty-boy Satan with cameos from random mummy's, sentient fish etc. what the fuck do we do with this" universe.
AOSTH isn't art by any means, but I do miss cartoons like that, we're not allowed to have them anymore. I just admire how absurdly stupid and illogical AOSTH's world is. Characters like Mamma Robotnik and Wes Weasley were the best recurring of the cast.
Shout out to Amy who, for some reason, didn't get any animated adaption until Sonic X. While at least Metal Sonic got the OVA along with Knuckles who was also in Underground for a bit, our pink Hedgehog was ignored the whole time and wasn't in any 90s animated series. Sucks it took awhile for her to be acknowledged, but I get it to a point, as we can't have girly girls in our manly boys series :P (the eariler series probably didn't know she existed as Sega probably didn't mention any of Sonic CD to the peeps behind series like Adventures or Satam).
@@Cretaceous158 who cares what you think also if this was Spider man you wouldn’t be saying anything. Like people allow Spidey to have multiple versions yet when it comes to Sonic you all want them to be like game Sonic
@@hattoripool1533 I didn’t say I disliked multiple adaptations. The manga, the OVA, Boom, Adventures, and Fleetway are all good adaptations because the resemble the source material. SatAM, Archie, and Underground are bad adaptions because they do too much of their own thing. Too use your Spider-Man analogy, imagine that an early adaptation of Spider-Man was a wizard that used magic to get his powers. Also, SatAM Robotnik is not even a mad scientist, but rather some guy who stole a thing from Sonic’s uncle.
I think its kind of telling SATAM has all these reanimation and revival season 3 projects and AoStH has this masssive internet influence with YTPs, memes, and references in many other pieces like media, but Underground only got a cancelled Archie comic finale we know mostly the summary and what people like ian flynn have said about it (that i think got redone in a archie fan continuation?) of as well as what ever is going on with Tamers12345. Also its kind of funny this comes out the same day satoshi okano confirmed his modern sonic redesign was inspired by the wray/martin mohawk design after a SATAM fan twitter asked him.
To be fair, I think that has to do more with the window of its release. The first two shows came out at the same time at the height of Sonicmania in the 90s. Underground kinda came out in that windows in the late 90s when the hype was dead.
@@CyberNymphZX to an extent, but i feel like even shows AFTER underground get a lot of love too. Boom gets a lot of praise both in and outside of sonic's fandom and has a lot of fans, sonic x still kinda acts as a touchpoint for a lot of sonic fans I feel and even with all its issues is still sorta recommended and talked about especailly season 3, and primes a bit too early to tell. I feel like a lot of undergrounds issues come from just people also not likeing it. Its a much worse show than SATAM and AoStH imo. If I recall the OVA movie also didnt release in the west til the same year as underground even though it came out in japan in 1996. At the same time tho, it's much better remembered in the west too so I dont think timing is the only reason. Even now the sonic OVA still kinda gets a lot of love like the references in places like scrapnik island or how much people love the knuckles hat for instance.
I know its technically a different continuity, but your spiel about how Bunnie got roboticized is essentially confirmed in the old comics. Its sort of halfway though cause that was back in that series' comedy days so while its taken seriously, its held back by a few choice quips here and there.
If we do get another Sonic anime,I want it to be kind of a slice of life with no real overarching story,but can still have some action and character development. Basically,the Sonic channel comics,but a full show.
That may need a bit of work. It would be alright for the series to series to start with a decent plot first, say a 2 or even 4 parter to establish some things and get some cool action stuff done, and then do some more slice of life stuff with lil adventures going on, with muti parters coming later.
In Sonic SatAM, the creators at first didn't know that Tails was the science prodigy that he was in Japan. Tails in America was just the child sidekick. Towards the end of Season 2, they realised the disparity between the game series and the show and began to allude to his hidden talent. They planned to expand on this in Season 3. As you can probably guess based on the show's length, they never got that opportunity.
I thought Sonic Underground was a fever dream until a few years ago when I found out it was real. I used to love it as a kid. But never thought it was real lol
I don't remember for sure, but I think we see Bunny's partial transformation in a time travel episode. Pretty sure that's also how Robotnik accidentally got his robotic arm.
I strongly disagree lol Sonic 1 and 2 might have not been as dark or serious as what SatAM tried to be, but they also weren't weird overtly juvenile Dr. Seuss/Looney Tunes knockoffs like AoStH (the closest thing to that kind of tone in the games is Robotnik getting charred ala Wily Coyote when a boss is defeated) was a lot of the time. Neither show really accurately captures the actual feel or tone of early Sonic, although SatAM was more derived from the games' nature vs. technology theming. It feels like they both lean too much towards the opposite extreme, which makes sense when you consider that the only reason why AoStH even exists to begin with is because ABC wanted SatAM to be more darker in response to the trends that Batman: TAS created at the time and DiC made AoStH to compensate for what they originally intended SatAM to be, even though they ended up making it considerably more juvenile due to ABC's mandates to DiC. I would say the first DiC Mario cartoon from 1989 for example is actually much more closer to the tone and thematics of Mario (even having a similar approach in treating the cast as actors in unconnected, self contained stories) than the first two Sonic cartoons were to their own source material, even if it still had some corny TMNT 87-esque writing like other cheap toy tie-in animated shows of it's time.
@@galten7361 Nintendo of America sort of did, but were reluctant about the whole thing, hence why they only gave DiC the OK to produce one season for SMBSS. (and why they switched to NBC and Reititalia for the network exclusive sequels after they parted ways with Viacom and Haim Saban) Nintendo Co Ltd. afaik was never involved in the show's production (in contrast to DiC's work with Sonic where Naka and Ohshima actually got to see the scripts before the episodes were produced and aired), and DiC didn't have much more reference material to work with aside from ingame sprites and Yoichi Kotabe's art that was in the SMB2 USA manual. They even merged Bowser and Wart's designs together because the first two SMB games at the time had completely different villains and they didn't know if Bowser would become a reoccurring antagonist.
@@JoshuaSchaferhund-yl9fz To be fair, SEGA of Japan wanted a Mickey Mouse Superman, while SEGA of America wanted a Bart Simpson Spider-Man; The former inspirational, the later relatable.
I think AoStH is fun. I like the main characters just fine, and it just seems like the team just wanted to have some fun making this show. I really like the lackeys Coconuts, Scratch, & Grounder. They are very simplistic, but I like them. And I enjoy it when later Sonic material brings them back. My favorite is easily Coconuts. As, even though he’s a villain, he feels line someone I would like to root for to finally get Robotnik’s respect. And I also just like his design and voice. It’s very easy for me to get attached to characters with their designs. It’s why I started loving Mighty so much, and even more than characters like Shadow. 16:05 I agree with this statement. I think that if people like this type of show for kids, I think it’s up their alley. But for everyone else, I don’t mind if you skip or not care.
Childhood: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog sucks! It's just wacky and zany for no reason and it makes no sense and it's so dumb! Adulthood: haha long john baldry said pingas
Also got damb I didn't expect a full video for X, that's gonna be awesome, I'm excited to hear your thoughts on it. One thing I didn't even realize until my most recent rewatch is that Chris Thorndike is supposed to be the audience surrogate- he's a normal kid [barring crazy superstar parents and a fucking mansion] who likes to go on adventures with Sonic, who just appears in his life one day. I think a lot of kids and even now-adult Sonic fans can relate to that- parents gone a lot of the time, so they get you a game to keep you entertained at home, and it just so happens to be a Sonic game, and you get super into it and it helps stave off the loneliness. It's a cool idea tbh... so it sucks that Chris does nothing but drag down the story until the literal ending of season 2 and some of season 3.
@@aortaplatinum ...maybe I should watch Sonic X so that I don't repeat the same mistakes Chris did _(yes, I'm in my "dumb self-insert fanfic" phase, don't judge me)_
Alright, so in this video there's a lot that Pariah says that i agree with and a lot that i disagree with. So let's start with: Sonic Satam I definitely agree a lot with Pariah here, i have a huge respect for this show but since it's just a Saturday morning cartoon from the 90's with a low budget, it doesn't get to fully realize that potential, which i think that the idea of Robotnik taking over the world is fairly well executed, but i think it's executed far better in the Fleetway comics. Speaking of comics, i find it interesting that Pariah proposed a reboot for this show, and since a lot of the people who worked on this show originally probably either moved on from Sonic or died. I think this would be the perfect time to hire Ian Flynn, since i've seen a lot of people complain that his writing style doesn't fit the games, putting him to write this he would be a lot more on his area of expertise, and while he writes the show you could hire a japanese writer to write for the games, so people like me who love his writing from Archie get to have more of that, and people who don't really like his writing and only like the japanese stories can have what they want, and then everyone would be happy! (Who am i kidding, we're Sonic fans we're never satisfied) Sonic OVA I also agree with Pariah that this could have been a full show, not because it's an amazing piece of fiction, just because it would be interesting to see what they had going for it. It also would have been great to see a show based directly on classic japanese Sonic lore as we never actually got that, the closest we have to it are the Fleetway comics, but it's still based on the american lore for the classic games, so it's still not quite there despite being very close, it's overrall a shame that this never got continued but oh well, what can you do? Sonic Boom I disagree with Pariah on this mainly because this show is a lot more my type of humor, and i kinda disagree with what he said about the designs, as i think despite being inferior to their main designs, they work for these versions of these characters, like it just wouldn't fit having these characters act like this while having their main series designs (that didn't stop pontaff and graff for trying but we all know how that turned out) I didn't touch on AOSTH and Sonic Underground as there's not much i can say that Pariah hasn't already said, but Sonic Underground in specific was a part of my childhood as when me and my little sister were young, we used to watch Sonic shows on tv, we watched the OVA in jp with subtitles on youtube, we watched basically every show that there was of Sonic at the time, but the ones that she loved the most were Sonic Boom and Sonic Underground, she didn't care for Satam, she liked Sonic X, but these two show in particular she just kept loved so much that these were our most frequently watched shows, i still remember when Sonic Underground was on Netflix, good times.
On the mention of Fleetway Sonic, to some extent, I agree. But like Satam and Archie, I consider Fleetway doing its own separate thing in terms of the characters.
It’s funny. I HAVE seen every episode of every cartoon series but I haven’t played most of the games. So from an animation enthusiast I’ll just give my two cents. Sonic SatAM: Cool Story. Like that it takes itself seriously. Though I do think it is overrated as the best Sonic Show. AoStH: Very funny show. Robotnik steals every scene he is in. Scratch and Grounder make for great banter. And Sonic and Tails have the best buddy duo relationship. Sonic Underground: It’s a Rock Opera, essentially. If you can accept that, and enjoy the music, you’ll be fine. Manic is the standout new character as a thief and street smart wise guy. He’s basically the cooler Sonic. Sonia is pretty cool too, she’ll rough it up with the guys but still enjoys High Class and female things. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be, but even I can laugh at how ridiculous the songs and situations can get. Sonic OVA: It’s cool. Interesting setting. Would have loved to see more stories set in this world. Also Sarah is a cat girl, not a monkey girl. Sonic X: Pretty Rad Anime. I’ve only seen the dub version, but I’ll check out the Sub eventually. It was a great introduction to the Game Versions of the characters and a nice way for someone like me to digest the stories of Sonic Adventures 1 and 2. Sonic Boom: Hilarious show. Love these characters. Love how they bounce off of each other, heroes and villains alike. It’s its own thing and that’s totally fine. Character designs I do not know why people have a problem with them. But I’m biased as this show was my first Sonic Cartoon. Sonic Prime: Solid series with a cool concept. Just wish the ending was less action and more plot and character exploration. Nine was the standout character for me and I hope we can see him in other media someday. And there you have it. Thanks for reading all that if you did.
Ah, here we go, what I was expecting before. Now it makes sense. I don't really associate with any of the US Sonic shows anymore, even though they were literally the first things I ever watched from this series. I don't like Adventures or Underground. SatAM is definitely the most interesting story-wise and thematically, though on my end, I didn't really like many of the side characters, even though they're mostly good. I bet the main reason why people remember Adventures is because of the memes. I actually really like Sonic OVA despite its flaws. In fact, the movie-style Sonic media (like this and the recent movies), I still think OVA is significantly better. I tried watching Sonic Boom and I recall kind of liking it. Maybe it's because I don't watch many shows nowadays anyway, but I just stopped watching less than half a season in. And oh my goodness, I really look forward to the Sonic X discussion. I grew up with X like I did with the 90s US cartoons, albeit, a few years later. I think X is super flawed, but I still quite enjoy it, especially Season 3. Doubly so when I viewed it with the Japanese dub.
So this is a far more understandable take in general. Tho a few things I want to talk about SatAm: Your grievance are perfectly understandable but concerning its character design is there something I feel is very important to keep in mind. It was made before Sonic 2 even released. So the creators of the show had very little things to base there original designs on (like around the same time in Japan did the Sonic Manga have similar issues despite being able to work together with the Sonic CD team which includes Sonic's character designer). So all they had was Sonic 1, Sega of America Promotional material and very few peaces of concept art from Sonic 2 which is also why Tails is brown in all DIC shows its a left over from them basing there Tails on early concept designs for Tails when he was still envisioned with a more brown color. And this also than explains why the other Animal Characters look so different. What Little Sega of America offered did imply with the Kintobor story that they didn't use that Sonic's blue fur color is not something natural and that was further supported by Tails at one point being intended with a more realistic fox brown fur color. So as such did they than design most of the other animals with far more traits of the animals that they are representing as this is what was seemingly even the games intention based on the resources that they had access too. AoStH: I'm not to big a fan of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog my self but I do feel being basically Loony Toons is if nothing else a valid direction to take Sonic given his design which was pulling a lot of its inspiration from Loony Toons like 1920-1930 animated cartoons like Felix the Cat. So at least from a base design concept does Sonic feel right at home here and even Japanese Media that isn't the games (like especially all Sonic Manga's ever) go for a similar ridiculously cartoony take on the franchise. But yes comedy is subjective and this show kind of lives and dies on the question "do you find it funny?" Underground: No surprise really. Even Undergrounds creators especially the series lead weren't happy (he would much rather have continued SatAm but Dic wanted to start over and make it about music to retain the rights to the songs to make the big money on reruns or that is at least the story I heard) Sleet and Dingo are properly the worst of Eggman/Robotniks henchman in the franchise. At least the Intro song is cool and Sonia and Manic are okay characters at least after a bit into the series. OVA: Well I skip this you are just wrong the OVA is 100% perfect, Its only flaw is that its only 2 OVA's long and not an entire 78 episode Anime extravaganza. Okay I joke but I do love the OVA so here is a quick error correction tho Sara is a Catgirl not a Monkey she also got Cat ears. If this means the President as a anthro cat for a wife or if its just "Nekogirl sells so put it put it in" I can not say tho. The influence the OVA had on the franchise is insane all things considered. Like from minor stuff like the flight path in SA1, over bigger characters stuff like all of Metal Sonic and Knuckles being a treasure hunter to Knuckles Indianer Johns hat still coming back for things to this day. Hell even the Archie comics didn't escape it with basing one of there first post SA1 story's in it being directly inspired by it and a latter story with dimension shifting stuff also referenced the OVA directly and even than did all of the flash forward stories gave Knuckles the hat. I don't really care about the fact that the story is not that deep. I mean the core of this story are the characters and the action scenes. The story deepness and the high focus on action fit the "shonen action" genre it goes for pitch perfect and I commend it all the more for being the only non Sega created Japanese Sonic Media that isn't a comedy. Boom: Similar to AoStH does this show life and die by the viewer finding its joke funny so yes its highly subjective if this show can be enjoyed or not. I do agree that Boom has little to do with what Sonic is. Than again this is exactly what Sonic Boom was mend to be which is why it got its own universe and character redesigns and such. Sticks is rather strange to be in Boom given how her conspiracy stick got no backing in the way the Sonic Boom world works most of the time. She would make far more sense in the games were we get ancient horrors reawaken(Chaos), alien invasions(Black Arms) and Government conspiracy(the arcs shutdown) as bases for entire games stories.
AoSTH was one of those shows that didn't need to make sense because it was just a fun jolly silly thing, in fact, the show is remembered more because of Robotnik and the effect his appearances had on the internet rather than the show itself
Why yes, I do enjoy listening to a grown man prattle on about children's cartoons, how could you tell? And, yep, Sonic OVA is KINO and SOVL, even if its story is a little inadequate. Besides Mania Adventures (why didn't you talk about that, actually?), it's probably the closest to the essence of Ohshima Sonic. It's a shame, because with just some minor tweaks, it could've been an excellent loveletter to Sonic of that era, but even then there's still a lot to appreciate.
I don't. I guess it's just not my kind of humor, but I can't even watch a minute of it before clicking off. After reading about it on TV Tropes, I see I'm not missing much. But if you guys enjoy it, that's cool. 👍
Looking forward to the Sonic X video. I'm less fond of the old cartoons these days. My preferred Sonic cartoon is one where Sonic is as agile/capable in speed and combat as his game counterpart, like Prine Sonic. But where Prime Sonic fails for me is how he's written, and his behavioir. I'm looking for the characterization found in the storybook games, or the adventure games.
Same here (except without the friends part q_q)! It was either that or a let's play of Sonic CD. Underground came weirdly late to my country. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2014 airing I found today was the one I watched back in the day. The first airing in 🇵🇱 was around 2007 if I recall correctly. *Imagine getting Underground after Sonic 06.* Imagine that.
@@coreyander286 Why not Chaos himself? Assuming Sonic Battle is canon, Chaos is still around. He could go back to being the original guardian as Tikal tells Knuckles to explore the world.
I do wonder how the Sonic cartoons from DiC would’ve been received had they aired in Japan. Especially SatAM. Hell imagine an alternate timeline where Sonic SatAM was what finally made Sonic popular in Japan.
Credit where it's due, the one thing I do like about the Sonic Boom redesigns is that they toned down the cast's proportions. Currently, the mainline Sonic cast has massive hands and massive heads that just look really weird and uncanny. Boom keeps the cartoony proportions but within reason, and I actually wish they would apply that to the mainline Sonic designs (but without the added lankiness of course)
Speaking of slang... were some of Sonic's catchphrases actually used in the 90s? Stuff like "way past cool" or "gotta juice". I was born after 90s and outside of America, so I had no way of encountering such slang when I was growing up. Is it similar to as if present day Sonic started saying things like "drip" or "goated", or "bruh"? _(or whatever's hot these days)_ He already said "big oof" so I guess it's still sort of a thing.
So we ARE talking about the individual cartoons! Will edit with my thoughts later! EDIT: okay so for SatAM, I actually do wish it's fans would get a that third season. I've seen fan revival projects for it and im generally very supportive of them. That said, I don't really care for the show even though I see the vision and the intention in it. It's just not really one I personally resonate with? I enjoy BunnyRabbot as a character and as a concept. I think then idea of a half robot character is really big untapped potential in general on this series given the nature and tech stuff. I personally do prefer the AoStH cartoon, though, as I find it more consumable. Once in a blue moon and look up a random number episode and have a pretty fine time. Oddly, my first time engaging with the show was the Christmas Blast special. I wasn't surprised by the assessment of Underground. I have nostalgia for it, but I'm not gonna try and convince anyone it has high production values or anything. I personally really liked the music angle of the show. Sonic being in a sort of traveling band, I personally liked more as a setup compared to SatAM. The idea of him jn a bad also kinda harkens back to the original idea of Sonic being in a band if you think about it. I also enjoyed the sort of social class contrast they had going on with thr siblings and how they were raised in poverty, rural and upperclassmen environments, respectively, and how that impacts their worldviews and proclivities. Also, I like a good deal of the vocal tracks personally. I think a lot of vocal tracks when I think of Sonic in general, regardless of era of Sonic, so I like that it's played up in the show. Speaking of Fastest Thing Alive is definitely a jam. I was actually kinda surprised by your take on the OVA, I will admit. I myself as well have come to find it quite overated, or rather it is largely carried by the novelty of its existence imo. I do still like it and would have loved to see the actual full show, but I find people overlook so much of its flaws just because the fact it exists at all is "neat." I still can't get over that supposedly Metal Sonic giving Oldman owl his Sonic's clothes is supposedly something Sonic would do? And that this is what gives Tails the idea he has similar A.I. to Sonic's personality? Like...what? A lot of contrivances all over the writing and the pacing is pretty stilted, and overall, there isn't all that much of a strong plot even though I do like the characters and general vibe. I don't care for boom much at all. You say it hits for you 25%, but for me, it's more like 15%. There was a period where I upplayed the show because I felt the need to do damage control for the series reputation, but the show is not really remarkable to me the same way I don't much care for Family Guy. The shows are similar to me in that I feel they are more liked for people clipping specific scenes for meme factor on social media more than actually being all that fun to watch. But to each there own, I guess. Real confused how Amy's design is seen as normal compared to Tails. At least Tails having Goggles isn't so weird for him in all honesty. He even has an aviator cal in some past media. Show, in general, has a very washed-out feel because of the rendering. I like Sticks, but I don't get the hyper insistence people have over needing her to be ported as she was in Boom onto the core game cast or whatever. She wouldn't really fit that way imo.
AoSTH was made before SATAM, after they finished production with season 1, the executives didn't like it, so they made SATAM and streamed AoSTH on a different channel
27:50 with the whole knuckles being a treasure hunter in the main- line they coulda said something like he took it up in his spare time espescially since he got so good at finding the master emerald pieces and such but they didnt.
I watched your video on 2d mario games and would be interested in your thoughts on the main megaman series especially since its very different design philosophy than sonic and mario.
I think the reason Sonic says, “We’re counting on ya, buddy! The world’s greatest treasure hunter!” is because Knuckles is really good at finding the Master Emerald shards. Also side note, Ryan Drummond was badass as Sonic
Actually what happened was SOA only had one cartoon in mind so DiC pitched the AOSTH pilot to ABC but they wanted something more serious so they pitched SatAM
I think all Sonic cartoons are extremely flawed in their own ways: SATAM, Adventures of Sonic and Underground are way too different from the source material in addition that i dont care for satam and underground just sucks (i like aosth though) Sonic X has an incredibly low budget and was made in a tight deadline except for the 3rd season because it wasn't part of the original plan Sonic Boom is also incredibly different from the original source material although it was intended to be an alternate spin-off unlike the American Sonic shows and the first season isn't that great Sonic Prime has heavy mischaracterization and incredibly lame generic themes And it's a shame too because the Sonic universe has a ton of potential for basically any type of show yet that potential isnt being used very well. Oh also the Sonic OVA is cool it's not a 100% accurate and has it's own issues but its my favorite out of all of them
9:43 Yup. He even thought about including Knuckles into the show as well. And I guess that means Angel Island as well. But I can’t remember the specifics.
Pariah's last video sent the Twitter Sonic on flames this week. Even Ken Panders saw the video. But I saw many people agreeing with Pariah and talking how much they like japanese Sonic media.
Been watching some of your videos lately (“Sonic is Fundamentally Japanese” and the Classic Sonic lore video for example) and been really enjoying your outlook on things. I’ve always been a fan of American Sonic media because I grew up with it, but it’s really cool to have videos explaining why people prefer Sonic’s original Japanese characterization and the differences between that and what was changed. I more or less agree with everything you say here. Really glad to hear that you appreciate SatAM! I think it kind of gets shit on a little too much recently for “not being sonic enough”, but you pointed out all the accurate Sonic elements I’ve seen in the show. Speaking of, I always thought that the end of the SatAM intro with all the freedom fighters celebrating and Sonic being kissed by Sal and winking to the audience was a reference to Sonic’s 1 ending, with all the animals in Green Hills celebrating and Sonic jumping towards the screen. To me that just further solidify the freedom fighters as adaptations of the background animals from Sonic 1.
General thoughts: Satam: grew up with this show and respect the heck out of it, it looks gorgeous aesthetically and Sonic, Sally, Robotnik, and snively are great, unfortunately I think the show just slowly gets worse and never gets to truly nail its premise. I’m often times more bored than I’m not. But the series highs are quite good. ASOTH; never seen Underground: a miserable experience even tho I really like the premise and world. Like pariah I can not get into it at all, it repels me. OVA: just wonderful. Endless charm Boom: haven’t seen
One thing I noticed in Sonic SatAM is that Sonic and Freedom Fighters aren't really smashing and destroying those robots like in games almost as if the studio were pretty vincy about the violence in their kid's cartoon. Well so much for robots being the convenient enemy for violence.
I think creators just tried to show how hard it is to destroy Eggman's army. I know, a lot of fans won't even try to understand that and would bash the show that "It turned Sonic into a wimp"
@@ashesGeek It can be interpreted that the swatbots are pretty tough but it also can be interpreted that the studios in charge of the creative team and therefore the show itself would not allow even slight violence in the kid's cartoon. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there were moments when swatbots got shot by the lasers and they only got disabled instead of being blown to pieces. And the fact that close to no robots were blown to pieces does support the theory that they had a problem with violence. However, I do admit there is also a possibility that animating explosions and robot parts flying around would be hard to animate. This is a low-budget cartoon after all.
Real talk, there's not a single bad Sonic cartoon. Sonic Boom's show is insanely good and people only hate it cause baaaa Sonic Boom bad cause the one game was bad
i personally like sonic underground and personally i prefer an actual distinct hedgehog as a sonic mother than just an owl or another blue sonic that's a girl. But i think i mostly like his siblings because of the fan stuff, those are great.
Queen Aleena had so much potential to be a deeper character, at least she's the only Sonic's mother who can be developed. Her, Sonia and Manic were the best version for Sonic family to be honest, aside from Uncle Chuck, he's perfect and honorary member too
@@ashesGeek Nah fr. i mean i think the owl is good too but so much less especially in how it worked out. I really think Queen Aleena really worked a lot better as character, i mean even though she had a lack of appearance somewhat, i still prefered her helping in the background every time they were in deep trouble.
As a huge Looney Tunes fan, I've formed high standards for old-school cartoony slapstick, and personally don't think Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and many other Looney Tunes knock-offs are anywhere close to being as funny as the old Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry shorts.
we have officially entered the multi-media arc of pariah sonic videos.
...before Forces videos
We entered the "Pariah doesn't want to review Sonic Forces" era.
Yep
He'll probably save it until the Sonic F Trilogy is complete once the last game releases who knows when.
@@AlexanTheMan i mean there's sonic x and the comic i guess
06:28 "Bunny is obviously based off the rabbit" might be my favorite Pariah quote ever.
Taking certain phrases out of context is the peak of comedy.
The floor is obviously a floor
Nobody:
People on the internet:"Bnnuy is bnnuy"
It does still feel worth reiterating that Sega of America just making up a bunch of stuff that would resonate with a 90s American audience itself didn't really come down to them actively deciding to throw away all the hard work of Sonic's original creators; they just straight-up weren't allowed access to a lot of that stuff and HAD to make do. Hell, American creators are NOT shy about saying when their former employees screwed them over, so when I hear even comic writers saying SoA tried hard to get them what they could, I believe them.
The revelation that Sega of Japan's beef with them ran way back even to then and they had to fight for the actual scraps genuinely feels consistent with knowing how the two branches of the company feuded and the Japanese executives would often force decisions that literally destroyed the company as a first-party console manufacturer, how this culminated in them screwing over the US Saturn launch so bad the ripple effects killed the Dreamcast.
None of this saying that anything the US side of things established holds a candle to the Jp material, just that I think you still misplace some of the blame and vitriol by framing it as cynical American executives bastardizing a Japanese product into something more marketable. Would 90s American Sonic lore have been utterly unchanged from Japanese if they HAD given them shit to work with? Probably not, I'm sure some things would've still been altered, but it sure as hell would've been closer to Oshima and co's vision if their parent branch let or even made it be instead of the opposite.
so, it would appear that sega has always been totally fucked. they make some good arcade games and got lucky with sonic, but they've pretty much been floundering on a business management level for as long as anyone can remember
It's quite odd because aosth animators actually got access to an early spritesheet of sonic 2 that had an earlier design of tails
Sometimes it feels like Sonic succeeded in spite of Sega, rather than because of it.
I always found Pariah bias against American Sonic funny considering is a by product of the incompetence of the japanese branch. Thanks for putting it in words, didn't know how to convey it.
What was the beef about? First I'm hearing about this
The fact that AoSTH has special stages in which Sonic and co. collect rings remains one of my favorite bits of trivia.
Love that cartoon.
Despite how weird it is, it is more faithful.
The Sonic OVA was closely supervised by Sonic Team and was part of the “Project Sonic” initiative in Japan during the Saturn era. I suspect it didn’t serve as a direct inspiration for SA2 or Heroes, but rather was just an early incarnation of concepts they intended to fully flesh out later on. It could’ve made a damn fine 26-ep TV show with a bit more luck.
You know Sonic X is GOATED, cause it's gonna get it's own dedicated video
His Metarex opinions will be interesting
Season 3 is peak sonic for me in terms of shows. Shame we never got season 4
Japanese version, the 4Kids version is crap. But overall Sonic X is not GOAT.
Does anyone know how to watch sonic x in Japanese? I try looking it up but somehow always end up back in English dub
So badly animated
"I don't care for the hat"
Finally, Pariah's most controversional opinion
ehh him not liking the soap shoes is more controversial
Him hating Tails boom design is more controversial imo.
I thought it was him not liking Pizza that was his hottest take.
@@themissingbits6375He doesn't like WHAT????!!!
To me his most contorversial thing is not an opinion but rather a roast
HE ROASTED MODERN SONIC IN THE GENERATIONS STORY VIDEO
He almost killed my love for his channel for this
'I'll call classic sonic as sonic and modern sonic as worse sonic'
Game-continuity Knuckles being a treasure hunter makes sense to me. Knuckles would explore Angel Island while growing up, trying to piece together the full story he doesn't have. When he's older, Knuckles could think, _"Treasure hunting", huh, that's basically what I was doing in my spare time on Angel Island, maybe that can be my job while I'm off-island._
It doesn't solve why he's leaving the Master Emerald unattended for long periods of time, but that's an issue for later Knuckles whether or not he's also a treasure hunter.
the OVA was a two-episode pilot so it was kinda meant to be a low-budget proof of concept headed by Ohshima too (he's in credits at least) in fact this OVA is even way more accurate to Sonic's character and interests than I thought with the living in a plane thing and fantasy magical floating islands and whatnot
Sonic Underground is much more insane when you learn it released in 1999
And in my country it apparently debuted in _2007,_ late enough for someone like me who was born in 2004 to be able to stumble upon it on TV without knowing much about Sonic. Heck, if Wikipedia is to be believed, it was emmited as late as *_2020_* on certain channels.
*What the hell?*
I feel like AOSTH feels the most faithful out of all these cartoons is because this franchise, at its core, IS basically just old school Looney Tunes. Sonic was always meant to evoke Golden Age animation design philosophies, he was based almost entirely off of Felix the Cat, and Sonic/Eggman's dynamic always had that classic cat and mouse chase like Tom and Jerry. It just has that touch of anime flavor to him, but otherwise is mostly just a homage to classic cartoons.
Considering Sega was inspired by American old cartoon icons like Mickey Mouse or Felix the Cat and when Sonic was supposed to be a rabbit he looked very similar to them.
AOSTH just captures that insanity of Classic Sonic world and it always makes me laugh game fans bash the show for the same things games did.
Like, the show got a lot of classic game zones, badnicks similar to classic Japanese ones, over the top architecture and the even show loop in the pitch pilot. It even showed Chaos Emeralds way back in 1993 in 4-part special
The OVA has Naka and Oshima as producers and its pretty clear like with Sonic X that Sega had a big involvement. The Tornado runway for example was shown in this first but in the games it was featured in the games in Sonic the Fighters. I imagine it wad a concept they already had and was just featured in the OVA first.
Tails Boom design is the one that looks the closest to his main game counterpart???
SatAm - Spinball footage, makes sense cuz it was made in America and the Freedom Fighters show up as a cameo
AoStH - Mean Bean Machine footage, also made in America many characters from the show appear in that game
OVA - Sonic CD footage for obvious reasons
Boom - Boom footage for obvious reasons
and the funniest of all:
Underground - Sonic Blast footage cuz they're both ASS
Boom is ass and underground is good and you don't roast Sonic blast because Sonic robo blast 2
Sonic Blast is GOATED what do you meeeaaaaannn
Those first two things aren't cameos, the games actually take place in their respective continuities. Spinball is in the SatAM universe and MBM is in the AoStH universe.
@@evdestroy4121 MBM is in the "we're localizing a puzzle game starring a loli and pretty-boy Satan with cameos from random mummy's, sentient fish etc. what the fuck do we do with this" universe.
AOSTH isn't art by any means, but I do miss cartoons like that, we're not allowed to have them anymore. I just admire how absurdly stupid and illogical AOSTH's world is. Characters like Mamma Robotnik and Wes Weasley were the best recurring of the cast.
Shout out to Amy who, for some reason, didn't get any animated adaption until Sonic X. While at least Metal Sonic got the OVA along with Knuckles who was also in Underground for a bit, our pink Hedgehog was ignored the whole time and wasn't in any 90s animated series. Sucks it took awhile for her to be acknowledged, but I get it to a point, as we can't have girly girls in our manly boys series :P (the eariler series probably didn't know she existed as Sega probably didn't mention any of Sonic CD to the peeps behind series like Adventures or Satam).
sara wad probably meant as a stand-in for her
Kinda sad to think we were screwed over from a Satam revival because of Ken
Good riddance. I prefer adaptations that resemble the source material.
@@Cretaceous158 who cares what you think also if this was Spider man you wouldn’t be saying anything. Like people allow Spidey to have multiple versions yet when it comes to Sonic you all want them to be like game Sonic
@@hattoripool1533 I didn’t say I disliked multiple adaptations. The manga, the OVA, Boom, Adventures, and Fleetway are all good adaptations because the resemble the source material. SatAM, Archie, and Underground are bad adaptions because they do too much of their own thing. Too use your Spider-Man analogy, imagine that an early adaptation of Spider-Man was a wizard that used magic to get his powers. Also, SatAM Robotnik is not even a mad scientist, but rather some guy who stole a thing from Sonic’s uncle.
@@Cretaceous158bro just described the japanese spiderman live action show 💀
@@hattoripool1533there is a difference, spider man adaptions still have spider shit from its source material, sonic satam doesnt follow it at all
In OVA Knuckles was the smartest he's ever been. He also wears that to protect his brain from Sega Team writers, such a interesting concept i say.
I think its kind of telling SATAM has all these reanimation and revival season 3 projects and AoStH has this masssive internet influence with YTPs, memes, and references in many other pieces like media, but Underground only got a cancelled Archie comic finale we know mostly the summary and what people like ian flynn have said about it (that i think got redone in a archie fan continuation?) of as well as what ever is going on with Tamers12345.
Also its kind of funny this comes out the same day satoshi okano confirmed his modern sonic redesign was inspired by the wray/martin mohawk design after a SATAM fan twitter asked him.
To be fair, I think that has to do more with the window of its release. The first two shows came out at the same time at the height of Sonicmania in the 90s. Underground kinda came out in that windows in the late 90s when the hype was dead.
@@CyberNymphZX to an extent, but i feel like even shows AFTER underground get a lot of love too. Boom gets a lot of praise both in and outside of sonic's fandom and has a lot of fans, sonic x still kinda acts as a touchpoint for a lot of sonic fans I feel and even with all its issues is still sorta recommended and talked about especailly season 3, and primes a bit too early to tell. I feel like a lot of undergrounds issues come from just people also not likeing it. Its a much worse show than SATAM and AoStH imo. If I recall the OVA movie also didnt release in the west til the same year as underground even though it came out in japan in 1996. At the same time tho, it's much better remembered in the west too so I dont think timing is the only reason. Even now the sonic OVA still kinda gets a lot of love like the references in places like scrapnik island or how much people love the knuckles hat for instance.
34:45 why does this shadow standing over sonic look like the Invincible meme with "THINK MARK THINK"
Aosth slander will not be tolerated
Scratch and Grounder >>>>>> Any of Robotniks other minions.
I know its technically a different continuity, but your spiel about how Bunnie got roboticized is essentially confirmed in the old comics. Its sort of halfway though cause that was back in that series' comedy days so while its taken seriously, its held back by a few choice quips here and there.
If we do get another Sonic anime,I want it to be kind of a slice of life with no real overarching story,but can still have some action and character development.
Basically,the Sonic channel comics,but a full show.
So boom...
That may need a bit of work. It would be alright for the series to series to start with a decent plot first, say a 2 or even 4 parter to establish some things and get some cool action stuff done, and then do some more slice of life stuff with lil adventures going on, with muti parters coming later.
I agree! That’s pretty much everything I wanted out of Sonic X when I first watched it.
In Sonic SatAM, the creators at first didn't know that Tails was the science prodigy that he was in Japan. Tails in America was just the child sidekick. Towards the end of Season 2, they realised the disparity between the game series and the show and began to allude to his hidden talent. They planned to expand on this in Season 3. As you can probably guess based on the show's length, they never got that opportunity.
Pariah, you forgot the "Man of the year" short from Sonic Jam.🙂
I thought Sonic Underground was a fever dream until a few years ago when I found out it was real. I used to love it as a kid. But never thought it was real lol
I don't remember for sure, but I think we see Bunny's partial transformation in a time travel episode. Pretty sure that's also how Robotnik accidentally got his robotic arm.
It still weird that DIC released two completely different Sonic shows within 12 days of each other
So so satam is sonic but he’s thrown in to one of those dark children’s fantasy book type hell hole worlds where everyone’s an animal .
Fun fact one of the only sonic elements in sonic boom (if not the only) was tails being afraid of lightning
Wrong lol
@@jasonblack2477wrong how?
@@igirjei3717 bc that's not the only thing lmao
@@jasonblack2477 "one of the only"? Unless you mean to say there are way more than we think there are
@@igirjei3717 there are more things
Sonic X is still unrivaled
AoSTH feels like the most accurate in tone.
I strongly disagree lol
Sonic 1 and 2 might have not been as dark or serious as what SatAM tried to be, but they also weren't weird overtly juvenile Dr. Seuss/Looney Tunes knockoffs like AoStH (the closest thing to that kind of tone in the games is Robotnik getting charred ala Wily Coyote when a boss is defeated) was a lot of the time. Neither show really accurately captures the actual feel or tone of early Sonic, although SatAM was more derived from the games' nature vs. technology theming.
It feels like they both lean too much towards the opposite extreme, which makes sense when you consider that the only reason why AoStH even exists to begin with is because ABC wanted SatAM to be more darker in response to the trends that Batman: TAS created at the time and DiC made AoStH to compensate for what they originally intended SatAM to be, even though they ended up making it considerably more juvenile due to ABC's mandates to DiC.
I would say the first DiC Mario cartoon from 1989 for example is actually much more closer to the tone and thematics of Mario (even having a similar approach in treating the cast as actors in unconnected, self contained stories) than the first two Sonic cartoons were to their own source material, even if it still had some corny TMNT 87-esque writing like other cheap toy tie-in animated shows of it's time.
@@JoshuaSchaferhund-yl9fz The Mario shows were actually made with oversight from Nintendo. Hence them including lore like Mario being from New York.
@@galten7361 Nintendo of America sort of did, but were reluctant about the whole thing, hence why they only gave DiC the OK to produce one season for SMBSS. (and why they switched to NBC and Reititalia for the network exclusive sequels after they parted ways with Viacom and Haim Saban)
Nintendo Co Ltd. afaik was never involved in the show's production (in contrast to DiC's work with Sonic where Naka and Ohshima actually got to see the scripts before the episodes were produced and aired), and DiC didn't have much more reference material to work with aside from ingame sprites and Yoichi Kotabe's art that was in the SMB2 USA manual. They even merged Bowser and Wart's designs together because the first two SMB games at the time had completely different villains and they didn't know if Bowser would become a reoccurring antagonist.
@@JoshuaSchaferhund-yl9fz
To be fair, SEGA of Japan wanted a Mickey Mouse Superman, while SEGA of America wanted a Bart Simpson Spider-Man; The former inspirational, the later relatable.
Wait isn't the concept of sonic underground that been sonic in a music band sounds similar to the sonic 1 cut idea
I think AoStH is fun. I like the main characters just fine, and it just seems like the team just wanted to have some fun making this show.
I really like the lackeys Coconuts, Scratch, & Grounder. They are very simplistic, but I like them. And I enjoy it when later Sonic material brings them back. My favorite is easily Coconuts. As, even though he’s a villain, he feels line someone I would like to root for to finally get Robotnik’s respect. And I also just like his design and voice. It’s very easy for me to get attached to characters with their designs. It’s why I started loving Mighty so much, and even more than characters like Shadow.
16:05
I agree with this statement. I think that if people like this type of show for kids, I think it’s up their alley. But for everyone else, I don’t mind if you skip or not care.
Super excited to hear you talk about Sonic X, it’s what got me into Sonic all those years ago
Childhood: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog sucks! It's just wacky and zany for no reason and it makes no sense and it's so dumb!
Adulthood: haha long john baldry said pingas
Also got damb I didn't expect a full video for X, that's gonna be awesome, I'm excited to hear your thoughts on it. One thing I didn't even realize until my most recent rewatch is that Chris Thorndike is supposed to be the audience surrogate- he's a normal kid [barring crazy superstar parents and a fucking mansion] who likes to go on adventures with Sonic, who just appears in his life one day. I think a lot of kids and even now-adult Sonic fans can relate to that- parents gone a lot of the time, so they get you a game to keep you entertained at home, and it just so happens to be a Sonic game, and you get super into it and it helps stave off the loneliness. It's a cool idea tbh... so it sucks that Chris does nothing but drag down the story until the literal ending of season 2 and some of season 3.
Literally me
@@aortaplatinum ...maybe I should watch Sonic X so that I don't repeat the same mistakes Chris did
_(yes, I'm in my "dumb self-insert fanfic" phase, don't judge me)_
Alright, so in this video there's a lot that Pariah says that i agree with and a lot that i disagree with. So let's start with:
Sonic Satam
I definitely agree a lot with Pariah here, i have a huge respect for this show but since it's just a Saturday morning cartoon from the 90's with a low budget, it doesn't get to fully realize that potential, which i think that the idea of Robotnik taking over the world is fairly well executed, but i think it's executed far better in the Fleetway comics.
Speaking of comics, i find it interesting that Pariah proposed a reboot for this show, and since a lot of the people who worked on this show originally probably either moved on from Sonic or died. I think this would be the perfect time to hire Ian Flynn, since i've seen a lot of people complain that his writing style doesn't fit the games, putting him to write this he would be a lot more on his area of expertise, and while he writes the show you could hire a japanese writer to write for the games, so people like me who love his writing from Archie get to have more of that, and people who don't really like his writing and only like the japanese stories can have what they want, and then everyone would be happy! (Who am i kidding, we're Sonic fans we're never satisfied)
Sonic OVA
I also agree with Pariah that this could have been a full show, not because it's an amazing piece of fiction, just because it would be interesting to see what they had going for it. It also would have been great to see a show based directly on classic japanese Sonic lore as we never actually got that, the closest we have to it are the Fleetway comics, but it's still based on the american lore for the classic games, so it's still not quite there despite being very close, it's overrall a shame that this never got continued but oh well, what can you do?
Sonic Boom
I disagree with Pariah on this mainly because this show is a lot more my type of humor, and i kinda disagree with what he said about the designs, as i think despite being inferior to their main designs, they work for these versions of these characters, like it just wouldn't fit having these characters act like this while having their main series designs (that didn't stop pontaff and graff for trying but we all know how that turned out)
I didn't touch on AOSTH and Sonic Underground as there's not much i can say that Pariah hasn't already said, but Sonic Underground in specific was a part of my childhood as when me and my little sister were young, we used to watch Sonic shows on tv, we watched the OVA in jp with subtitles on youtube, we watched basically every show that there was of Sonic at the time, but the ones that she loved the most were Sonic Boom and Sonic Underground, she didn't care for Satam, she liked Sonic X, but these two show in particular she just kept loved so much that these were our most frequently watched shows, i still remember when Sonic Underground was on Netflix, good times.
On the mention of Fleetway Sonic, to some extent, I agree. But like Satam and Archie, I consider Fleetway doing its own separate thing in terms of the characters.
@@khriskirby8986 I like both Archie and Satam, but for me, Satam is good, Fleetway Sonic is great, and Archie Sonic is perfect.
Unironically we need Scratch and Grounder to return to replace Orbot and Cubot, they are still Robotniks best lackeys by far 😭
Pariah is a Japanese fanboy, yet he doesn't like the OVA.
"STRANGE ISN'T IT!?"
It’s funny. I HAVE seen every episode of every cartoon series but I haven’t played most of the games. So from an animation enthusiast I’ll just give my two cents.
Sonic SatAM: Cool Story. Like that it takes itself seriously. Though I do think it is overrated as the best Sonic Show.
AoStH: Very funny show. Robotnik steals every scene he is in. Scratch and Grounder make for great banter. And Sonic and Tails have the best buddy duo relationship.
Sonic Underground: It’s a Rock Opera, essentially. If you can accept that, and enjoy the music, you’ll be fine. Manic is the standout new character as a thief and street smart wise guy. He’s basically the cooler Sonic. Sonia is pretty cool too, she’ll rough it up with the guys but still enjoys High Class and female things. It’s not as bad as people make it out to be, but even I can laugh at how ridiculous the songs and situations can get.
Sonic OVA: It’s cool. Interesting setting. Would have loved to see more stories set in this world. Also Sarah is a cat girl, not a monkey girl.
Sonic X: Pretty Rad Anime. I’ve only seen the dub version, but I’ll check out the Sub eventually. It was a great introduction to the Game Versions of the characters and a nice way for someone like me to digest the stories of Sonic Adventures 1 and 2.
Sonic Boom: Hilarious show. Love these characters. Love how they bounce off of each other, heroes and villains alike. It’s its own thing and that’s totally fine. Character designs I do not know why people have a problem with them. But I’m biased as this show was my first Sonic Cartoon.
Sonic Prime: Solid series with a cool concept. Just wish the ending was less action and more plot and character exploration. Nine was the standout character for me and I hope we can see him in other media someday.
And there you have it. Thanks for reading all that if you did.
The distinction you made from the video game american sonic to cartoon sonic made so much sense to me, last video i was confused
Sonic ova slander is where i draw the line.
Ah, here we go, what I was expecting before. Now it makes sense.
I don't really associate with any of the US Sonic shows anymore, even though they were literally the first things I ever watched from this series. I don't like Adventures or Underground. SatAM is definitely the most interesting story-wise and thematically, though on my end, I didn't really like many of the side characters, even though they're mostly good.
I bet the main reason why people remember Adventures is because of the memes.
I actually really like Sonic OVA despite its flaws. In fact, the movie-style Sonic media (like this and the recent movies), I still think OVA is significantly better.
I tried watching Sonic Boom and I recall kind of liking it. Maybe it's because I don't watch many shows nowadays anyway, but I just stopped watching less than half a season in.
And oh my goodness, I really look forward to the Sonic X discussion. I grew up with X like I did with the 90s US cartoons, albeit, a few years later. I think X is super flawed, but I still quite enjoy it, especially Season 3. Doubly so when I viewed it with the Japanese dub.
Can't wait for the spin all review. Really excited when I found out you can make the game faster in the settings
I maintain that with very few tweaks, Amy's boom dress is peak
So this is a far more understandable take in general. Tho a few things I want to talk about
SatAm:
Your grievance are perfectly understandable but concerning its character design is there something I feel is very important to keep in mind. It was made before Sonic 2 even released. So the creators of the show had very little things to base there original designs on (like around the same time in Japan did the Sonic Manga have similar issues despite being able to work together with the Sonic CD team which includes Sonic's character designer). So all they had was Sonic 1, Sega of America Promotional material and very few peaces of concept art from Sonic 2 which is also why Tails is brown in all DIC shows its a left over from them basing there Tails on early concept designs for Tails when he was still envisioned with a more brown color.
And this also than explains why the other Animal Characters look so different. What Little Sega of America offered did imply with the Kintobor story that they didn't use that Sonic's blue fur color is not something natural and that was further supported by Tails at one point being intended with a more realistic fox brown fur color.
So as such did they than design most of the other animals with far more traits of the animals that they are representing as this is what was seemingly even the games intention based on the resources that they had access too.
AoStH:
I'm not to big a fan of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog my self but I do feel being basically Loony Toons is if nothing else a valid direction to take Sonic given his design which was pulling a lot of its inspiration from Loony Toons like 1920-1930 animated cartoons like Felix the Cat. So at least from a base design concept does Sonic feel right at home here and even Japanese Media that isn't the games (like especially all Sonic Manga's ever) go for a similar ridiculously cartoony take on the franchise.
But yes comedy is subjective and this show kind of lives and dies on the question "do you find it funny?"
Underground:
No surprise really. Even Undergrounds creators especially the series lead weren't happy (he would much rather have continued SatAm but Dic wanted to start over and make it about music to retain the rights to the songs to make the big money on reruns or that is at least the story I heard)
Sleet and Dingo are properly the worst of Eggman/Robotniks henchman in the franchise.
At least the Intro song is cool and Sonia and Manic are okay characters at least after a bit into the series.
OVA:
Well I skip this you are just wrong the OVA is 100% perfect, Its only flaw is that its only 2 OVA's long and not an entire 78 episode Anime extravaganza.
Okay I joke but I do love the OVA so here is a quick error correction tho
Sara is a Catgirl not a Monkey she also got Cat ears. If this means the President as a anthro cat for a wife or if its just "Nekogirl sells so put it put it in" I can not say tho.
The influence the OVA had on the franchise is insane all things considered. Like from minor stuff like the flight path in SA1, over bigger characters stuff like all of Metal Sonic and Knuckles being a treasure hunter to Knuckles Indianer Johns hat still coming back for things to this day. Hell even the Archie comics didn't escape it with basing one of there first post SA1 story's in it being directly inspired by it and a latter story with dimension shifting stuff also referenced the OVA directly and even than did all of the flash forward stories gave Knuckles the hat.
I don't really care about the fact that the story is not that deep. I mean the core of this story are the characters and the action scenes. The story deepness and the high focus on action fit the "shonen action" genre it goes for pitch perfect and I commend it all the more for being the only non Sega created Japanese Sonic Media that isn't a comedy.
Boom:
Similar to AoStH does this show life and die by the viewer finding its joke funny so yes its highly subjective if this show can be enjoyed or not.
I do agree that Boom has little to do with what Sonic is. Than again this is exactly what Sonic Boom was mend to be which is why it got its own universe and character redesigns and such.
Sticks is rather strange to be in Boom given how her conspiracy stick got no backing in the way the Sonic Boom world works most of the time. She would make far more sense in the games were we get ancient horrors reawaken(Chaos), alien invasions(Black Arms) and Government conspiracy(the arcs shutdown) as bases for entire games stories.
How did you get the spinball running at 60fps?
AoSTH was one of those shows that didn't need to make sense because it was just a fun jolly silly thing, in fact, the show is remembered more because of Robotnik and the effect his appearances had on the internet rather than the show itself
Why yes, I do enjoy listening to a grown man prattle on about children's cartoons, how could you tell?
And, yep, Sonic OVA is KINO and SOVL, even if its story is a little inadequate. Besides Mania Adventures (why didn't you talk about that, actually?), it's probably the closest to the essence of Ohshima Sonic. It's a shame, because with just some minor tweaks, it could've been an excellent loveletter to Sonic of that era, but even then there's still a lot to appreciate.
I have no idea what KINO or SOVL mean, can you please explain?
@@Raynoir4779 It's a long explanation, but basically it means it's good.
well, i agree! it is very kino and broshima-pilled. we should chat about it.
@@Raynoir4779 4chan lingo for quality
I think we can agree that Tamer's Sonic Underground is the best Sonic show
I don't. I guess it's just not my kind of humor, but I can't even watch a minute of it before clicking off. After reading about it on TV Tropes, I see I'm not missing much.
But if you guys enjoy it, that's cool. 👍
Looking forward to the Sonic X video.
I'm less fond of the old cartoons these days.
My preferred Sonic cartoon is one where Sonic is as agile/capable in speed and combat as his game counterpart, like Prine Sonic.
But where Prime Sonic fails for me is how he's written, and his behavioir. I'm looking for the characterization found in the storybook games, or the adventure games.
Are you gonna eventually discuss the movie stuff? And if so, will it be before or after Sonic 3?
Watched Sonic Underground as a kid. Must have enjoyed it. Remember reenacting it with my friends. Might have been my first exposure to Sonic
Same here (except without the friends part q_q)! It was either that or a let's play of Sonic CD.
Underground came weirdly late to my country. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2014 airing I found today was the one I watched back in the day. The first airing in 🇵🇱 was around 2007 if I recall correctly. *Imagine getting Underground after Sonic 06.* Imagine that.
Sonic Team was actually really involved with the development of the OVA.
The Master Emerald should have shattered permanently when Chaos was released.
They could have maybe introduced a new character who replaces Knuckles as guardian. Hm, could they still establish that retroactively?
@@coreyander286
Why not Chaos himself? Assuming Sonic Battle is canon, Chaos is still around. He could go back to being the original guardian as Tikal tells Knuckles to explore the world.
I do wonder how the Sonic cartoons from DiC would’ve been received had they aired in Japan. Especially SatAM.
Hell imagine an alternate timeline where Sonic SatAM was what finally made Sonic popular in Japan.
I did enjoy listening to a grown man prattle on about children's cartoons!
Pretty sure that's why I watch CZcams... to hear people around my age complaining and giving a shit about stuff i liked as a kid..lol
That's what he's always done. It's great stuff
Credit where it's due, the one thing I do like about the Sonic Boom redesigns is that they toned down the cast's proportions. Currently, the mainline Sonic cast has massive hands and massive heads that just look really weird and uncanny. Boom keeps the cartoony proportions but within reason, and I actually wish they would apply that to the mainline Sonic designs (but without the added lankiness of course)
The one thing I liked about sonic satam was the fact the ai got an episode where they had to learn 90s slang to TALK to Sonic.
Speaking of slang... were some of Sonic's catchphrases actually used in the 90s? Stuff like "way past cool" or "gotta juice". I was born after 90s and outside of America, so I had no way of encountering such slang when I was growing up. Is it similar to as if present day Sonic started saying things like "drip" or "goated", or "bruh"? _(or whatever's hot these days)_ He already said "big oof" so I guess it's still sort of a thing.
@@robertlupa8273 Some of it yes.
So we ARE talking about the individual cartoons!
Will edit with my thoughts later!
EDIT: okay so for SatAM, I actually do wish it's fans would get a that third season. I've seen fan revival projects for it and im generally very supportive of them. That said, I don't really care for the show even though I see the vision and the intention in it. It's just not really one I personally resonate with? I enjoy BunnyRabbot as a character and as a concept. I think then idea of a half robot character is really big untapped potential in general on this series given the nature and tech stuff. I personally do prefer the AoStH cartoon, though, as I find it more consumable. Once in a blue moon and look up a random number episode and have a pretty fine time.
Oddly, my first time engaging with the show was the Christmas Blast special.
I wasn't surprised by the assessment of Underground. I have nostalgia for it, but I'm not gonna try and convince anyone it has high production values or anything. I personally really liked the music angle of the show. Sonic being in a sort of traveling band, I personally liked more as a setup compared to SatAM. The idea of him jn a bad also kinda harkens back to the original idea of Sonic being in a band if you think about it.
I also enjoyed the sort of social class contrast they had going on with thr siblings and how they were raised in poverty, rural and upperclassmen environments, respectively, and how that impacts their worldviews and proclivities.
Also, I like a good deal of the vocal tracks personally. I think a lot of vocal tracks when I think of Sonic in general, regardless of era of Sonic, so I like that it's played up in the show.
Speaking of Fastest Thing Alive is definitely a jam.
I was actually kinda surprised by your take on the OVA, I will admit. I myself as well have come to find it quite overated, or rather it is largely carried by the novelty of its existence imo.
I do still like it and would have loved to see the actual full show, but I find people overlook so much of its flaws just because the fact it exists at all is "neat."
I still can't get over that supposedly Metal Sonic giving Oldman owl his Sonic's clothes is supposedly something Sonic would do? And that this is what gives Tails the idea he has similar A.I. to Sonic's personality? Like...what?
A lot of contrivances all over the writing and the pacing is pretty stilted, and overall, there isn't all that much of a strong plot even though I do like the characters and general vibe.
I don't care for boom much at all. You say it hits for you 25%, but for me, it's more like 15%. There was a period where I upplayed the show because I felt the need to do damage control for the series reputation, but the show is not really remarkable to me the same way I don't much care for Family Guy. The shows are similar to me in that I feel they are more liked for people clipping specific scenes for meme factor on social media more than actually being all that fun to watch. But to each there own, I guess.
Real confused how Amy's design is seen as normal compared to Tails.
At least Tails having Goggles isn't so weird for him in all honesty. He even has an aviator cal in some past media. Show, in general, has a very washed-out feel because of the rendering.
I like Sticks, but I don't get the hyper insistence people have over needing her to be ported as she was in Boom onto the core game cast or whatever. She wouldn't really fit that way imo.
omg so am i
AoSTH was made before SATAM, after they finished production with season 1, the executives didn't like it, so they made SATAM and streamed AoSTH on a different channel
27:50 with the whole knuckles being a treasure hunter in the main- line they coulda said something like he took it up in his spare time espescially since he got so good at finding the master emerald pieces and such but they didnt.
I eagerly await videos about the Archie comics. Looking forward to the several layers of whiplash from the constant shifting of focus.
I watched your video on 2d mario games and would be interested in your thoughts on the main megaman series especially since its very different design philosophy than sonic and mario.
25:50 so he before the OVA was exactly how he is now...
I think the reason Sonic says, “We’re counting on ya, buddy! The world’s greatest treasure hunter!” is because Knuckles is really good at finding the Master Emerald shards. Also side note, Ryan Drummond was badass as Sonic
When you say you dislike the sonic boom designs, are you also including Sticks? Cause i actually think she looks great, she's the only good one.
Actually what happened was SOA only had one cartoon in mind so DiC pitched the AOSTH pilot to ABC but they wanted something more serious so they pitched SatAM
Sonic X? I get its an anime, but is it getting it's own video? (haven't watched the vid yet, so idk if you covered it or not)
You may know everything I’m going to do… but that doesn’t matter because I know everything YOURE GOING TO DO! STRANGE ISNT IT??
Not to be THAT GUY but what do you think of Sonic mania adventures? Maybe just bc i saw them as a kid but i really like them! 8/10 imo
Snooping As Usual I See?
I think all Sonic cartoons are extremely flawed in their own ways:
SATAM, Adventures of Sonic and Underground are way too different from the source material in addition that i dont care for satam and underground just sucks (i like aosth though)
Sonic X has an incredibly low budget and was made in a tight deadline except for the 3rd season because it wasn't part of the original plan
Sonic Boom is also incredibly different from the original source material although it was intended to be an alternate spin-off unlike the American Sonic shows and the first season isn't that great
Sonic Prime has heavy mischaracterization and incredibly lame generic themes
And it's a shame too because the Sonic universe has a ton of potential for basically any type of show yet that potential isnt being used very well.
Oh also the Sonic OVA is cool it's not a 100% accurate and has it's own issues but its my favorite out of all of them
@Pariah 695 What would you have in your dream sonic cartoon?
9:43
Yup. He even thought about including Knuckles into the show as well. And I guess that means Angel Island as well. But I can’t remember the specifics.
The Sonic Underground review it's here guys
Are the official sonic CZcams animations/shorts gonna get their own video?
I love listening to a grown man prattle on about children's cartoons! XD
This is the third exact same comment.. ?
@@trufreedom I was just directly referencing what he said at the end of this video.
this sonic spinball gameplay is like subway surfers gameplay but in the 90's
will you talk about Sonic X and Prime maybe even the movies?
Can’t wait to see if this guy does the comics.
Snooping as Usual I See
I very much enjoy listening to a grown man rant about children’s cartoons
Pariah's last video sent the Twitter Sonic on flames this week. Even Ken Panders saw the video. But I saw many people agreeing with Pariah and talking how much they like japanese Sonic media.
Sonic Twitter is a cesspool in general, you really shouldn't put much stock in what they have to say.
What happened with Ken Penders???
Been watching some of your videos lately (“Sonic is Fundamentally Japanese” and the Classic Sonic lore video for example) and been really enjoying your outlook on things. I’ve always been a fan of American Sonic media because I grew up with it, but it’s really cool to have videos explaining why people prefer Sonic’s original Japanese characterization and the differences between that and what was changed.
I more or less agree with everything you say here. Really glad to hear that you appreciate SatAM! I think it kind of gets shit on a little too much recently for “not being sonic enough”, but you pointed out all the accurate Sonic elements I’ve seen in the show.
Speaking of, I always thought that the end of the SatAM intro with all the freedom fighters celebrating and Sonic being kissed by Sal and winking to the audience was a reference to Sonic’s 1 ending, with all the animals in Green Hills celebrating and Sonic jumping towards the screen. To me that just further solidify the freedom fighters as adaptations of the background animals from Sonic 1.
10:55 that is Winnie The Pooh by the way
When he started playing the mania footage I thought he was going to talk about my favourite Sonic show Sonic mania adventures lol
Oh boy, here we go 😅
Nice Video.
Boom is so damn good. The game would be great if it had half of the cartoon's soul.
General thoughts:
Satam: grew up with this show and respect the heck out of it, it looks gorgeous aesthetically and Sonic, Sally, Robotnik, and snively are great, unfortunately I think the show just slowly gets worse and never gets to truly nail its premise. I’m often times more bored than I’m not. But the series highs are quite good.
ASOTH; never seen
Underground: a miserable experience even tho I really like the premise and world. Like pariah I can not get into it at all, it repels me.
OVA: just wonderful. Endless charm
Boom: haven’t seen
One thing I noticed in Sonic SatAM is that Sonic and Freedom Fighters aren't really smashing and destroying those robots like in games almost as if the studio were pretty vincy about the violence in their kid's cartoon. Well so much for robots being the convenient enemy for violence.
I think creators just tried to show how hard it is to destroy Eggman's army. I know, a lot of fans won't even try to understand that and would bash the show that "It turned Sonic into a wimp"
@@ashesGeek It can be interpreted that the swatbots are pretty tough but it also can be interpreted that the studios in charge of the creative team and therefore the show itself would not allow even slight violence in the kid's cartoon. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there were moments when swatbots got shot by the lasers and they only got disabled instead of being blown to pieces. And the fact that close to no robots were blown to pieces does support the theory that they had a problem with violence.
However, I do admit there is also a possibility that animating explosions and robot parts flying around would be hard to animate. This is a low-budget cartoon after all.
Real talk, there's not a single bad Sonic cartoon. Sonic Boom's show is insanely good and people only hate it cause baaaa Sonic Boom bad cause the one game was bad
i personally like sonic underground and personally i prefer an actual distinct hedgehog as a sonic mother than just an owl or another blue sonic that's a girl. But i think i mostly like his siblings because of the fan stuff, those are great.
Queen Aleena had so much potential to be a deeper character, at least she's the only Sonic's mother who can be developed. Her, Sonia and Manic were the best version for Sonic family to be honest, aside from Uncle Chuck, he's perfect and honorary member too
@@ashesGeek Nah fr. i mean i think the owl is good too but so much less especially in how it worked out. I really think Queen Aleena really worked a lot better as character, i mean even though she had a lack of appearance somewhat, i still prefered her helping in the background every time they were in deep trouble.
You're hesitant on reviewing the Sonic Boom games huh, man?
He isn’t gonna review them according to what he said in the video. He just reviewed them here
As a huge Looney Tunes fan, I've formed high standards for old-school cartoony slapstick, and personally don't think Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and many other Looney Tunes knock-offs are anywhere close to being as funny as the old Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry shorts.
I'm an Animaniacs guy, personally.
If anyone knows how we wanted more Sonic is that SEGA really enjoyed Animation Shows.
Boom had good humor. Was nothing like in the Games. Like way better
games are children’s humor, Boom is twitter clip humor. not much of an improvement imo
We did get an actual Sonic anime show with X.
21:33 YOU TAKE THAT BACK OVA IS THE BEST!!!