After (or close to) 15 years, Japan will finally broadcast the un-aired Episodes on Sonic X in 2020.

No problem! Just glad I'm able to provide some level of more in-sight with the series.

Realistically, I don't expect them to do too much for these episodes, outside of maybe remixing some elements. Your best best is us getting a new Opening and Ending, as well as getting proper credits for these stretch of episodes, provided TMS still has this data archived somewhere (hopefully they do, as they've been generally pretty good at keeping masters as a whole, especially during the digital era, but we'll see).

It's really rare for companies to keep the original composites for their shows. Occasionally you hear stories of this, notably Sunrise doing it whenever possible (see: Gao Gai Gar OVA and Gundam Seed's HD remasters), but I'd imagine these could succumb to Digital Corruption and what not. Not to mention, for all we know, the original composites were also tossed after completion of production.

Either way, we'll see. I'll be able to get recordings of this airing, thanks to a friend, so I'll report on this situation as it airs.

 

Some more information.

Kids Station will start running 1 episode a day, twice a day. Starting on January 6th, Sonic X will starts it's reruns, with an episode at 19:30 JST (effectively 7:30PM) each day, with re-runs of that episode at 4:00AM JST the following day. It appears to be a weekday run with no runs on the weekend.

This lines up to what I suspected for an April release of 53, provided Kids Station withholds premieres of 53+ then (as this should finish up mid-way through March). Bakugan Battle Planet will finish on TV Tokyo at the end of March, with the movie of Sonic the Hedgehog premiering on March 27th, so if I was a betting man, Sonic X 53+ will likely premiere on TV Tokyo in April, replacing the Bakugan Battle Planet time slot, with Kids Station rolling the episodes out shortly after.

Curious that Kids Station is airing the episodes in what's essentially a Prime Time slot (or Golden Time), even for a paid cable and satellite channel. They definitely seem to be really putting a lot on this.

Either way, we're in for a couple months leading up to the premiere of these episodes in Japan.

EDIT: Updated first post with most recent information.

 

This might be more appropriate to post here, so I figured it'd be worth mentioning.

So there was a recent interview, which Comic Book had with the Director of Animation at Sega earlier this year. However, this tidbit was not mentioned or released up until about now (which makes me wonder if this was withheld due to NDA agreements and/or requests):

SOURCE

Considering the timing of Japan finally airing the remaining episodes in Japan come this Spring, I can't help but wonder about this if it's related at all. Plus curious that 53+ was being restricted from Netflix streams, despite remaining episodes have been released online. Could even be a new project all together.

Either way, onward to Spring when the Episodes finally air in Japan!

 

Giving this a minor bump.

So Sonic X's re-run has begun on Kids Station. We have schedule information up to the end of February, with Episode 38 (Battle on the Space Colony: Ark) airing on February 28th. Provided there is no preemptions, the first series run will wrap up on March 19th. Still no word how exactly the airing for 53 onwards will be handled, but I'll update that later once we get more information there.

I do however have some interesting information about the Kids Station run.

First off, a video of the Kids Station run, which includes the dead end of the Ending, commercials, preview, and Sponsor + End Card (which may be the first time anyone has seen this before):



Please note for any viewers in Japan, the video has been blocked by TMS Entertainment and I have no real intention of contesting this. Video is also unlisted.

Second, some general notes I made:

- Just 2 Ad breaks (after Opening, after Ending and before Next Episode Preview)
- Sponsor Cards (blank) are there. Blank Sponsor Cards are not that unusual for Kids Station airings, for the record.
- End Card is also there, which may be the first time the general Sonic community has seen this.
- Masters do appear to have been sourced from a TV master, as certain video changes are not present on the episode, however...
- Non-Composite, unlike Streaming Masters (which affected all Japanese Netflix versions, including France and Korea), which have been composite since the series started streaming since back around 2009 or so. These also used TV masters with minor video corrections (likely UHF airings that happened 4-5 weeks after the TV Tokyo airings).

Last point is a bit interesting, given it was assumed all broadcast masters were composite. However, this does not appear to be the case and now I'm very curious what this would mean for 53+, as some episodes for streaming were from composite masters for select episodes.

And for the record, here's a high quality image of the Ending Card, since I'm sure people would be interested in:

Either way, Sonic X is oddly relevant again for Japanese viewers! Let's hope this leads to some interesting things this year!

 

It needs to be stated, but 4Kids did not commission a third season (or Series 2). This is a misconception. TMS Entertainment and Sega paid for the production of the "Series 2". Plus, these episodes were likely made with the conception of the audience being slightly older (we believe Sonic X started at 8+, but these episodes were likely intended for 10+, which is enough of a difference in terms of subject matter and content, and Japan is known to do this sorta thing with productions that are ongoing). However, because 4Kids kept their rough 2-8 target demographic for the show, they edited it within those ranges, and well, you know the story there.

It's true that these were made for the International market, due to further success of the show in overseas territories, but these were not paid to be made by 4Kids Entertainment.

That said, 4Kids Entertainment did the same thing with Toei Animation's of Kinnikuman Nisei/Ultimate Muscle, which this is true that they themselves did pay for. The only thing they requested so it was easier for them, was removing the Japanese text from characters heads and stuff. Everything else was handled status quo (replacing the music, re-writing scripts, etc.). This was just standard practices for 4Kids Entertainment.

 

Will do a formal update/write up soon.

TL;DR, Sonic X Series 1 will finish up on March 24, 2020. The following day, Series 2, Episode 53, will start on March 25 and will continue the usual schedule. There's been a couple times the show has taken a break, and it will also not air on March 30th, as well.

Either way, seems the schedule will do day to day (skipping weekends), per usual. No other information at this time.

One add-on, since it's worth mentioning, TMS has begun adding Sonic X to Youtube subtitled. First episode is (technically) up.

You can check out their tweet here.

Video is currently (and mistakenly) privated right now, but should be resolved, hopefully soon.

EDIT: Video is now working. I'll need to figure out what regions are available, but should at least by North America.

EDIT #2: Wow. As of right now, it's available world wide. I'm not sure if this intentional, but current region lock outs only apply to Japan. So anyone should be able to watch this outside of Japan.