Sonic the Hedgehog & Dragon Ball – Influences and Inspiration

I brought up this similarity in the article. I asked Yamaguchi, who I must reiterate was the creator of Tails, as he has been the most open about the Dragon Ball influences to Sonic and he said that Goku’s tail flight was not factored into the creation of Tails.

He says that for Tails design they were thinking of a way to have a character match Sonic’s speed without looking unnatural. They then came up with the idea to have two tails like propellers in order to keep up with Sonic. In turn they could then make Tails fly in the air like a helicopter.

違います。
もともとソニックと同じくらいのスピードを出しても違和感のない表現方法を模索していたところ、2本の尻尾をプロペラのようにすれば足の速いソニックに追いつけそうだという理由で考えました。
ヘリコプターの様に空を飛べる事にしたのはそれの応用の発想です。
Translation via Google Translate:
No.
We were originally looking for a way to express a character moving at the same speed as Sonic without it looking unnatural, and we came up with the idea that if we made the two tails like propellers, they would be able to keep up with the fast Sonic.
The idea behind making it possible to fly in the air like a helicopter was to apply this idea.
https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1838792196042141923

https://archive.ph/1ShOE
This same kind of thought process went into the creation of Metal Sonic. In the Sonic CD dev diary video Kazuyuki Hoshino said that Metal Sonic's torso was designed to be a jet engine in order to match Sonic's speed.

This sounds interesting. Do you have any links and sources for this? I would like to know more about this please.

I know Ohshima has already stated that he was not thinking of Goku when he was designing Sonic as people compared Sonic’s quills to Goku’s unique hairstyle but I think the information I have found about Goku’s hair is worth sharing.

I was watching a video by the channel “Casual Anime Guy Explains” which was about Goku’s creation and there is a part where he mentions the design of his hair bringing up a sourced quote from Toriyama

(@15:26)

I wasn’t conscious of this when I made it, but thinking about it now, I suppose it might have been the influence of Astro Boy. The angle of the “horns” and the flat part in the middle look similar, don’t you think? I often receive items that are being released, like figures; I really admire how the sculptors are able to bring out that hairstyle in three dimensions.
-Dragon Ball Full Color Comics: Freeza Arc Vol. 5
https://web.archive.org/web/2024030...color-comics-freeza-arc-vol-5-akira-toriyama/

I recommend watching the entire video. It was done very well.

I am also aware that Yamaguchi dispelled the connection of the Chaos Emeralds and Dragon Balls but I would also like to share something I have read. There was a theory that loosely connected both of them in order to make the comparison and that is that the reason they are called Chaos Emeralds is because apparently dragons have been historically symbolized as chaos.

Here are some articles about this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony)

https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/56042

https://www.theosophytrust.org/705-dragon

From the research I found that Tiamat seems to be the most associated with chaos:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tiamat

https://www.worldhistory.org/Tiamat/

https://arsgoetiademons.com/blogs/s...-the-primordial-goddess-of-chaos-and-creation

I’d like to point out that Sonic 3 planned to include a dragon. There are 3 instances were the dragon was shown:

1) In a concept art for Mushroom Hill Zone at the bottom of the page you can see a layout where there’s a mural with a dragon on it:
https://web.archive.org/web/2023060....net/images/a/ad/Sonic3_Level8_ConceptArt.png

2) A colored concept art of Super Sonic fighting the dragon seen in the MTV Rock the Rock special:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230508192739if_/https://i.imgur.com/c1rkwKI.png

https://web.archive.org/web/2024073...rf.net/images/4/4d/S3_Doomsday_ConceptArt.png
Also note that the color of the dragon appears to be golden like Super Sonic

3) The Japanese manual mentions the dragon. In it Knuckles thinks the crashed Death Egg is the egg of the dragon:
Knuckles walks out of the altar, stunned.
Then, as he gazed helplessly into the distance, he noticed something eerie appearing around the lake.
Knuckles felt a shiver run down his spine when he saw the huge round egg-like object.
"That big egg is the legendary dragon's..."
The egg must be the one that brings misfortune to the island, as depicted in the legend on the altar of the Chaos Emeralds.
https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3/Manuals

It seems like the idea of the dragon eventually became Perfect Chaos in Sonic Adventure.

It turns out that Naoto Ohshima was the one who designed Perfect Chaos as he shared this concept art on his Twitter account:
https://web.archive.org/web/2023082...m/media/C8fxqANUMAESv5R?format=jpg&name=large

https://web.archive.org/web/2021100...er.com/NaotoOhshima/status/848912772741988352

More recently with Sonic Superstars the character of Trip becomes a golden dragon when all the Chaos Emeralds are collected for her.


Year of the Dragon artwork by Ohshima:
https://web.archive.org/web/2024100...m/media/GCr1Zsna0AAzeP5?format=jpg&name=large

https://twitter.com/NaotoOhshima/status/1741474031839367642

https://archive.ph/ORlfD

Is it possible they went back to that initial golden dragon concept art from Sonic 3? They did reuse a piece of concept art for Sonic 1 depicting a golden landscape and distinctive loop for Golden Capital Zone

Also Trip is a Sungazer Lizard and according to Wikipedia they are also known as the “giant dragon lizard”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_girdled_lizard

It is an intriguing theory and connection as to why the Chaos Emeralds have chaos as its name.