"Only male hedgehogs can turn Super"

DefinitiveDubs · Feb 21, 2023

DISCLAIMER: This is not a thread for debating the aspects of Sonic lore. The purpose of this thread is for tracking down a specific quote from a specific source and combating misinformation.

Someone asked Morio Kishimoto on Twitter recently about the whole "only male hedgehogs can turn Super" thing, and this was his response:

ManyGreatThings: Sega officials admitted that only male hedgehogs can be super, but does this rule apply to the game or could it be changed?
Kishimoto: Thank you for your many letters! This is the first time I've heard you say that "only male hedgehogs can be super." I think it depends on the inevitability of the game play....
Click to expand...

So he's never heard of such a thing. This made me curious; What is the actual source of this supposed "mandate"? I've heard it thrown around my whole life, but not once have I ever seen an official source claim that. Or if I have, it's been so long that I seriously can't remember. After digging around, I found a thread on SonicStadium talking about a "Sonic Bible" written in 2010 where that is supposedly one of the rules for Sonic lore. It links to a quote from GeneHF here:

GeneHF said:

big smile said:

GeneHF said:

They do. There's a pretty beefy documentation about the series internally. There are a few weird things that most people don't know about.

Mind you, I only know of their plans circa 2012. That documentation certainly changed by now, but most of it isn't as indepth as you may think it is.
Click to expand...

Is there a copy of the documentation available on the net? If not, then how do people know about it. Thanks!
Click to expand...

As far as I know, it's not online. They're considered highly classified books and have IDs on them to track down who leaked it in the event scans go out. To the general public, we know it exists as some of the devs have mentioned it. I've seen one circa 2011-2012 and while it's mostly how to correctly draw the characters, there are several really interesting design and story specs in there.

The ones I can confirm are the ones Iizuka addressed in public:

-The Super Emeralds and the Hyper forms are non-canon. They may never be referenced again.
-Only male hedgehogs may have Super forms. Blaze is the exception because of her position as (now former(?)) guardian of the Sol Emeralds, and her power up is just called Burning Blaze to get around that. This is why Knuckles lost his super form.

And as Ruby stated, there are indeed two worlds in the Sonic-verse and they're separated by a gate: the human world (Sonic X (somewhat), SA2, Shadow, Unleashed)) and Sonic's World (Colors, Lost World). Blaze's world is separate from this paradigm. One thing that somewhat gets me there is when you consider Angel Island and Station Square are in the same world, and it's said humans don't live in Sonic's world, so...?

I know of a handful more things that may or may not be true now but don't know if I'm at liberty to share them. One thing I would like to do, as a site, is work with SoA and seek permission to reveal some more of these fun trivia. I think the fanbase at large would get a kick out of them... or be somewhat enraged. I can think of one particular hidden fact that may anger people regarding a certain planet...
Click to expand...

Now, I'm not one to doubt Gene, given his connections to SEGA. However, he mentions that Iizuka has said this publicly. He must have, right? Otherwise, giving info like this out would be a breach of NDA. Well, that same SonicStadium thread uses the Sonic Boom 2013 Q&A panel with Iizuka as a source. So he supposedly said it there. Unfortunately, there's no evidence that he did. The official livestream is lost media, but I managed to find camera recordings of the event's Q&A panel, and found no record of him mentioning this during either the Twitter or live crowd questions. While he did say there that the Super Emeralds and Hyper Forms were no longer part of the continuity, he said nothing about male hedgehogs and super forms.

I kept googling tons of different interviews and Q&A panels dating all the way back to 2011, but sadly I came up empty. Since I couldn't find a specific quote from Iizuka himself, I figured this was something relayed through some other person connected to SEGA. It could've been listed among the many so-called "mandates" detailed by Ian Flynn on his old forum, or Aaron Webber may have mentioned it on a livestream, similar to how fans first learned of the "two worlds" thing. But if that's the case, then just like the "two worlds" thing, it could be a misunderstanding or a mistranslation.

So I'm wondering if anyone else here has any real proof that Iizuka, or some other SEGA representative somewhere, has ever made the claim that only male hedgehogs can go Super, or if this really was pure hearsay bullshit.

raphael_fc · Feb 21, 2023

Some episodes on BumbleKast had questions about it. Ian talks about it as it is real, but I'm not sure if he does it because he actually knows this mandate exists, or if he is just like us thinking that it is real when it might not be. Gotta do a searching on that.

Londinium · Feb 21, 2023

Why don't we just walk up to Sega's offices and ask them ourselves

We should probably also pinpoint exactly who 'Sega' is. Are we referring to the board of directors? CEO? A representative? The janitor?

raphael_fc · Feb 21, 2023

BumbleKast for March 7th, 2022
44:12

- Is Sega aware that the statement "only male hedgehogs can go super" guideline is very controversial among the fanbase? (...)
- Some folks are aware (...).

BumbleKast for May 6th, 2022
38:42

- (...) The whole 'male exclusive Super' thing is unsavory, and I'm hoping that might get, if not repealed, adjusted down the line.

Pengi · Feb 21, 2023

I have to wonder how this was phrased in the series bible. Maybe it was "Only Sonic, Shadow and Silver can turn Super"?

Jayextee · Feb 21, 2023

This doesn't explain Super Blaze in Rush though.

Ura · Feb 21, 2023

Jayextee said:

This doesn't explain Super Blaze in Rush though.
Click to expand...

Burning Blaze doesn't count according to the Sonic Stadium thread linked, which makes sense, she's not using the Chaos Emeralds after all

Blue Blood · Feb 21, 2023

I've always taken the statement "only male hedgehogs can turn super" to be a poor paraphrasing of "in the series' established canon events up to this point, only Sonic, Silver and Shadow have turned super".

We've seen all the playable characters in Mania and 3K transform in supposedly non-canon events, as well as analogues for Blaze and 3K's Mecha Sonic. If it was a hard and fast rule that only male hedgehogs could turn super, I don't think SEGA would be willing to play the field at all. Whilst you could argue that 3K is an exception due to it pre-dating any rules, that's not the case for Mania. As it stands, the only characters who have been shown going super in storied events just so happen to be male. hedgehogs.

This is like the whole "two worlds" rubbish from a while ago. Lore that's only ever expressed outside of any canon material isn't really canon. It doesn't mean anything.

HEDGESMFG · Feb 21, 2023

Specifically saying "male hedgehogs" seems almost like bait. I agree that the original quote seems to be more meme than reality at this point... especially when we've proven that's not true in at least the classic style games, regardless of the canocity of other gameplay elements.

And Burning Blaze means the rules can be bent as needed for plot anyway, regardless of which set of Emeralds she's using.

Also, this is why I buy the PC versions of everything. Don't like it? Miracle Amy in Sonic CD mods, beyotches!

I now play Sonic games for the fan scene, much less Sega's official content.

nineko · Feb 21, 2023

This is like "Pan will never be a Super Saiyan" all over again.

saxman · Feb 21, 2023

I have never heard this before, nor do I find it particularly controversial. The fact is words take on different meaning when given a different context. I could easily imagine it being said that only male hedgehogs can be super. It is likely true. But outside proper discussion, it really doesn't mean a lot on it's face.

But even if this were a hard-set rule today, it's not as if the laws of physics will stop it from ever being changed.

DefinitiveDubs · Feb 21, 2023

I'm not really interested in how true the supposed rule is or whether it matters or whether it has any real effect on the Sonic series.

I'm just trying to find where and when, if ever, the first instance was of Iizuka or some other SEGA representative having ever said this publicly.

LockOnRommy11 · Feb 21, 2023

Ura said:

Jayextee said:

This doesn't explain Super Blaze in Rush though.
Click to expand...

Burning Blaze doesn't count according to the Sonic Stadium thread linked, which makes sense, she's not using the Chaos Emeralds after all
Click to expand...

At least, not from the current timeline

David The Lurker · Feb 22, 2023

I don't recall Iizuka commenting on the fact only male hedgehogs can turn super, so I don't know if there is any event in which he's gone on record about it. Doesn't mean he didn't allude to it in one of the ten million interviews he's done over the years, however. It can be easy to lose track of what was confirmed by him, or confirmed by someone else, or something that's just floated around as rumor forever. But personally, aside from Ian Flynn addressing it in the above videos, I can't recall anyone at Sega talking of the matter publicly.

I think the reason we've accepted it as fact is because of, funnily enough, a 4chan post. Which is mentioned in the Sonic Stadium thread posted above.

Anonymous on 25 Jun 2015 said:

The Internal Sonic Bible at SEGA has some notes in it. For example, only male hedgehogs are allowed to have super forms now, effectively killing off Super Knuckles.

Super Emeralds are non-canon, as are the Hyper forms.

Also, when making a game, you have to choose to either set it in Sonic's world (without people) or on "Earth" (with people.) Mobius is an official thing in Sonic's universe, but it is not the name of the world itself. It's actually the Sonic universe's equivalent to Mars.

I can dump a whole lot more info, but cannot provide scans. These shits are ID numbered to track leaks.
Click to expand...

I think this might be the first time the greater Sonic fandom went "wait, there's two worlds?" Since it was on 4chan, it was easy to question its validity, but then not long after Aaron Webber was interviewed on SEGAbits' podcast where he confirmed the Two Worlds concept, though he didn't want to get too deep into it. But since that was suddenly confirmed, it made everyone look at the 4chan post and go "hey, maybe the rest of it is real, too."

Aaron's comments, and then later Gene's post, helped strengthen the original 4chan leak. But like I said, other than Ian commenting on it, I can't recall anyone else, either employed at Sega or working with them, that has mentioned it being the case. We've certainly never seen scans of this version of the Sonic Bible, but maybe someday.

Sonic5993 · Feb 22, 2023

nineko said:

This is like "Pan will never be a Super Saiyan" all over again.
Click to expand...

Forget that, it was the exact same scenario in the Dragon Ball community for quite a few years before Caulifa and Kale in Dragon Ball Super came out. There were a few female saiyans at the time, but none of them were Super Saiyans for whatever reason.

So I'm inclined to believe @Blue Blood in that its less "only males can go Super" as a hard rule, but more of a statement of fact. That has, of course, been misinterpreted and misconstrued into meaning something else entirely.

RGamer2009 · Feb 22, 2023

At least we know that this may no longer be enforced, as Knuckles in Frontiers directly states he would have beaten the boss of Ares Island easier as Super Knuckles.

Sonic5993 · Feb 22, 2023

RGamer2009 said:

At least we know that this may no longer be enforced, as Knuckles in Frontiers directly states he would have beaten the boss of Ares Island easier as Super Knuckles.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure this is hyperbolic statement and not meant to be taken literally like many fans seem to be implying.

Knuckles is bluffing and just talking shit basically.

charcoal · Feb 22, 2023

Yeah I have to agree with @Sonic5993. A lot of the cutscenes on the island are just Sonic and Knuckles goofing around and being bros, so I don't see why this scene would be any different. Who knows, maybe Ian Flynn just left it open to interpretation like this on purpose.

BlackHole · Feb 22, 2023

RGamer2009 said:

At least we know that this may no longer be enforced, as Knuckles in Frontiers directly states he would have beaten the boss of Ares Island easier as Super Knuckles.
Click to expand...

I would say that's more him bantering. Like E-123 Omega saying "I would have destroyed the opponent faster, were I Super Omega."

Roller · Feb 22, 2023

We have the advantage that Ian will literally just state his motivation when asked.

It was a fairly recent podcast, but he wanted to split the difference between the hardcore fan's read and the casual read. If Super Knuckles is ever approved for a subsequent project, it becomes a connecting thread with his Classic empowerment. But if that never happens, it passes as excellent bluster.

"Only male hedgehogs can turn Super"

Useful Searches