Complimenting Sonic X

No no, I mean the characters can be snarky and mean but the show STILL wants them to be fluffy and the bestest most unvitriolic team ever. Like we don't see them have many actual conflicts or development together, they keep it safe, but them keep having these gags where they're randomly mean and it's never spoken of again. I like flawed characters but only if there are CONSEQUENCES. Without it's schizophrenically nasty AND saccharine. Again I feel like Boom done this better because while it was still comical, we saw more fall outs between the cast over their flawed qualities and moments a character acted up and it wasn't forgotten about, and more times the characters got their comeuppance over it. Boom revels in the cast kind of being assholes, while X tries to pretend there isn't remotely such a thing outside when it's funny.

I do agree the sub is generally written better than the dub though, like sometimes I wonder whether the 4Kids guys actually knew what the original script was about, the dialogue is sometimes barely in sentence form.

I suppose exagerrating it into a non-sensical space whale aesop was kind of the point though. There's worse gags 4Kids obliterated horribly, especially the ones they replaced with PUNS, because you know, puns are REALLY funny. :P

 

I recently had the pleasure of watching an uncut version of the series someone did which kept the original soundtracks from the japanese dub but kept the American dub voice (plus additional lines they voiced themselves to fill in missing gaps) and it felt much better than the standard 4Kids dub. The scene where Chaos Control happens and Chris thinks he's saying goodbye to Sonic forever had me in tears simply because Kotoba ni Dekinai was playing rather than generic action music that got reused a lot. It goes to show how small things in presentation can affect the entire product, kinda like the arbitrary changes in artstyle between SA1 & SADX.

It's certainly my favorite Sonic series (barring Mania Adventures) and I too didn't have too much problem with Chris.

 

The characters don't get their "comeuppance" because that would be useless and stupid most of the time. They are the way they are and that's how it is. I'm not even sure what specific things you think are worth punishing the characters over. Not every story needs a clean moral lessen.

 

Sounds to me that you're just taking everything way too seriously. It's a kids' anime, the characters are friends and like to mess with each other. There's nothing 'out of character' about them at all, and there's no need for 'retribution' or 'consequences', because what they're doing is not a serious offence. Even in the Adventure games, Heroes, and Battle, the characters poked fun at each other. None of them mean any ill will, and none of it is meant to be taken seriously. It's a kids' show, not a teen drama.

 

*Looks at Maria, Molly and Cosmo's morbid deaths* Eh sure.

The whole thing about characters having foibles and mean moments and suffering consequences for them isn't the exclusive creation of mature melodramas. Again Boom could handle basic parables and comeuppance plots between two characters in a very light hearted way. Hell even a simple pre school show like Thomas the Tank Engine can have one character tease the other or act like a jerk and get their comedic comeuppance for it. Again it feels like a nitpick but I think it takes some humanity out of the Sonic X cast, where any ugly side to the cast is restricted to quick gags, albeit exaggerated ones.

Sonic is NEVER reigned in for his recklessness like he is at points in other medias, which makes him feel a bit too glorified and unstoppable for example, and no matter how many people say 'girls abusing boys is okay in anime' I still say a character acting like an abusive asshole should get put in their place every once in a while if they still expect us to root for them.

Look like I said, I think I've derailed the thread by pointing out my qualms instead of positives.

 

X has some serious moments, but they're spread out. The series has more lighthearted moments than serious ones. You're once again taking everything way too seriously. The Boom TV show is mostly pop culture references and meta jokes, so it uses a different style of humor than X. X just uses typical Japanese anime humor, and you're going out of your way to make it into something it's not. There's no need for 'comeuppance' for it, because once again, they're not doing anything seriously offensive. You don't seem like someone that understands Japanese humor. It's not much different than Bulma pulling out a machine gun to shoot Goku in early Dragon Ball because he removed her panties, or Chichi and her temper towards Goku in DBZ. It's all exaggerated for humor. Do you freak out when Tom gets the short end of the stick in every episode of Tom and Jerry too? You're grasping at straws here.

 

Well that depends really. The times Tom persued Jerry and got outsmarted were fine. But the times Jerry started it I preferred it when he lost instead.

Actually that wasn't the best example. Those cartoons are actually very often karma based humour too. :P

 

The "morbid deaths" in the show are all well-done tonal shifts that flow with the story naturally. Children can handle sadness. Let me know when The Land Before Time stops being a kids film. Sonic X places dramatic high points throughout a mostly lighthearted series of adventures. This is normal.

I don't understand why Sonic X needs to be a series of "parables" where characters do something "wrong" and then they have to get their "comeuppance" at the end.

 

Sonic X doesn't need karma based humor, that might be your personal preference, but the humor it has works fine, and it's used in several anime and manga as I mentioned before. People poking fun at each other, and girls being over the top isn't something that always needs 'comeuppance'. It's just silly exaggerated humor.

 

I could argue that Cosmo's death was far more grim in execution than that of Land Before Time's. It felt like a really weird tonal shift.

And again I feel like this argument has gone on for long that what I put as a nitpick I have defended to the point I have made it look like I'm boycotting the anime over this folly. My basic point was I feel like the characters' flaws and uglier moments were played for humour a bit too much and should have been just got reigned sometimes, even just comically. Just a few light hearted times Sonic get his ego dented for being arrogant like he does in so many other medias, or times with Amy's nasty temper coming back on her (think like Miss Piggy's karate chops backfiring sometimes). That's it. That's as far as I mean. A little bit more fallibility. Just them always getting away with it for a gag was a bit obnoxious, that's all. Seeing only Knuckles as the Squidward-esque designated monkey (and Eggman as the more deserving butt monkey) got a bit old compared to other media's more indiscriminate takes. I'm not bashing the series' inability to show serious repercussions every-time a character talks nasty, it's just a simple case of thinking a more obnoxious joke got overdone.

 

Fair enough, I guess.

 

I never watched this anime when it came out because I was 13 at the time and thought I was too old for cartoons.

Ridiculous

 

I caught a few episodes on TV (I was a kid and a big SA2 fan right when it aired--hell, I was basically the target demographic) but never followed it much. It just...wasn't Sonic enough. Kid me didn't even like Chris at all even though the entire point of his character is that he's the one the kids relate to. Honestly, has one of those characters ever actually done their job? In my experience kids just want them to go away so the actual cool main character gets to shine but they keep putting these characters in kids shows. Like, I have never seen a Sonic fan actually like Chris enough to talk about him or make fanworks with him. Why do they keep doing this?

Now, I don't really wanna watch it because it was butchered by 4kids. Now, I would normally just watch in Japanese...but I'm too attached to the English voices to want to do that. Dammit. Granted, the 4kids cast is the worst of the three English ones besides Sonic and Shadow...

 

I remember when CITV aired it in the UK, they cut additional stuff out to fit the time slot. Not too uncommon though as they'd been doing it to imported shows since the late 80s anyway.

 

The art style of the show holds up quite well. The early 2000's Uekawa-esque designs just really works for the Sonic cast. It was great seeing characters like Big, Shadow, & the Chaotix animated for the first time. The SA1 & SA2 adaptions were interesting and nice to see adapted to TV.

Mike Pollock as Eggman is the real lasting legacy of the show.

 

I'm really surprised a lot of users in this thread like the BGM/OST of the show.

Is it better than the 4Kids version? Yes.

But I feel like it suffers from the same issues of being generic, being too noisy, playing at the most random of times and not matching the tones of the scenes.

I guess the only one that stands out is Sonic's theme and the good use of the few insert songs that were used.

 

I'm watching the show for the first time.
In general I find it kind of boring and the human characters are annoying, but I like how the Sonic-and-friends-plus-Eggman characters are portrayed.

Does anyone know when (if) the show talks properly about the relation between Earth and Sonic's world?

 

Are you watching in Japanese? If the thread hadn't made the importance of this question abundantly clear enough.

 

Actually I'm watching in Portuguese. Netflix is not displaying the Japanese option to my region.