Not trying to be curt or insulting. It's just a little strange to imply that the one person that's literally in charge of the whole franchise is somehow unhappy with a characterization that has been consistently pushed for like 10 years now.
Sonic fans have been trying to convince themselves and everyone else that there is a concerted effort to "ruin" Shadow from within Sega, whether they're scapegoating Ian Flynn or what have you. Because they can't cope with the fact that Sega simply doesn't care for a characterization from 18 years ago, no matter how many times they post Twitter clips of him blowing past Mephiles clones.
Shadow’s current characterization isn’t really all that different from how Iizuka portrayed him in Shadow. I think this is just kinda how he envisioned him, and the version most people prefer was only really in Maekawa’s scripts. The character was designed to be Sonic’s Vegeta after all.
I think it's understandable when many people gravitated towards his tragic story and his attempts to push forward despite it. To transition from that to a much more generic and less dynamic role was always going to be a tough sell. That being said, there's only so many times you can mine that tragedy for sympathy before it stops having the intended effect. By the time 06 rolled around, it would have been Shadow's 3rd time grappling with his morality and I think Sega felt they got everything they could get out it. And with the series transitioning to a more... brand conscious period, it made sense to tone Shadow's darker elements to make him more recognizable to a general audience and highlight his rivalry with Sonic. It's simple and doesn't require playing a game from three console generations ago to understand who Shadow is as a character. It's matter of debate if they even should have did that or not, but given that Shadow is still the most marketable character after Sonic, to the point of having a campaign and tends to get expansion packs centered on him, you can't really argue Sega wasn't entirely wrong even if the results are questionable.
Just wanted to point out that Eitaro Toyoda didn't say that the short itself is a parody, but that the "Between Two Hedgehogs" title is a parody of "Between Two Ferns." Because, yeah. There is that. It's been made very clear over the years that Iizuka (and also Hoshino) are very fond of Shadow, since they were responsible for his creation. If anything, they might be a bit more protective of how he is portrayed than, say, most of the cast.
Good point, I was trying to be generous with my phrasing. What I truly mean is that I'm disappointed that this is how he wants the character portrayed. That's fair. I did bring it up in my original statement, but it seems that the less 1D elements I ascribed to that game were just the result of it following up Maekawa's work.
I figured, your answer just amused me is all. I think I'll wait until Sonadow Generations or the movie is out to say what I think of Shadow's modern characterization. Now that he's back in the spotlight they're obviously going to think it through harder.
