This is good news, though being buried in a 382 page topic is probably not the best place for it. Ding ding ding. That Knuckles shoe thing too. In fact, screw it, where's that photo of Michael Jackson's shoes that supposedly inspired Sonic the Hedgehog's design - that needs putting on the wiki too. We need all of the shoes. Shoes shoes shoes. As far as Did You Know Gaming goes... well, they don't always do their homework, but let's not pretend most of the internet is much better. Here I am, right here in this topic now suggesting we add concrete references to things, because we have been at least partly responsible for feeding the internet lies before now. Spoilers: we're really bad as a species at writing things down. Though it is probably worth noting that their target audience probably isn't aware of how important it is to verify things. They're probably more concerned about who does the voiceover*. *hey, whoever it is who did that one video, "Bros." is pronounced "Brothers". If you want to save on syllables stop calling it "N-E-S", and nez it up like us cool kids.
It's unknown. Lots of animals in Japanese anime have this style of marking. In fact, Becky the Bear from Sonic 2 had the exact same one. So it might not be a tribal symbol. Then again, in Sonic Adventure, the ancient Echidnas do have different types of white markings, so it could be.
Just did some research and... it must be these: Paired with the giant socks that he sometimes wore at concerts: As Naka showed in that video he posted in YouTube, they were still working on the Moonwalker game when the Sonic project started, so they had all this stuff still fresh in their minds. The pointier shoes in the Sonic 1/2 style even resemble MJ's better than the more cartoony shoes from Sonic 3 afterwards.
For the sake of completeness, I'd like to point out that some time ago someone suggested that Sonic's shoes have been inspired by the ones from the videoclip of "Bad" (the video in the old post has been deleted, but the timestamp in this one is the same, around 3:55 onwards). So pick your poison, I guess.
I swear to God I read an interview years ago from someone at Sonic Team that specifically said "Bad" was the source/inspiration for Sonic's sneakers. Short on time right now but I'll have a look later and see if I can find the interview. MJ was evidently a huge influence on Sonic beyond just music.
Ohshima mentions "Bad" in this interview: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132596/out_of_the_blue_naoto_ohshima_.php?page=2 Which makes it sound like he was only inspired by the colour scheme of the album cover. But I seem to recall another interview where the straps on MJ's shoes in "Bad" are mentioned.
That's the one! Thanks dude. Had zero time last night to search for it (have more time now but you already did). Yeah Bad was a huge influence. It's not surprising given how MJ was super popular at the time and Bad was a phenomenon - coming off MJ's previous album Thriller. MJ was the epitome of cool back then so it seems as though Sega wanted to be inspired by that to make Sonic also cool - and in that they arguably succeeded. It was an awesome source of inspiration to define Sonic's iconic sneakers/design. The linked interview is the only one where I've seen Bad mentioned but there's probably more out there somewhere. Perhaps we can find those too.
This Sonic 3 promo video mentions that the shoes Sonic wears are based on the design of the dancing shoes Jackson wore in the Bad music video. So yeah.
So we're not getting entirely confused, these are the shoes Michael Jackson wore in the Bad music video: (this photo is from an action figure but it's based on the real thing - there are a lot of imitators) These are apparently from the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards. So nothing to do with Sonic I'm afraid. This is from the HIStory World Tour, 1996-1997. Probably from a performance of Billy Jean from what I can understand. I think these also post-date Sonic, but I also think they're just socks and nobody really would pay much attention to that (Jackson wears white socks in the cover of Off The Wall but idk - they're just white socks). So I think what we're really talking about is pointy shoes with a buckle. The white stripe and red colour scheme are Sega inventions, and the socks are just... there.
Fun Fact: Michael Jackson wore white socks (which is a fashion no-no normally) to draw the audience's eyes to his feet. This certainly works in the case of Sonic, who's feet are probably his most important assets.
