The Jet Black Hedgehog: Shadow the Hedgehog (Manga)

Any alternative way to read this right now without waiting for the translation? I don't have a Twitter account.

 

Incredibly janky translation but good enough to fill in the gaps, very interesting little story though

 

I know these translation were rushed, but I really liked it. The way they told Shadow's and Maria story were really well-done and much more dramatic than the games. I did enjoy this a lot. The artstyle is also awesome.

Can't wait for the rest.

 

I actually got the Coro Coro Comics digital and checked the manga. The art is good and even being a kids manga it gives a dramatic vibe, specially the final page.
It´s 30 pages long, I believe other chapters will be around that too.

When a tankohon is released will import it.

 

I can't see the replies without a Twitter account. But nothing stopping me from reading it if I get direct links to the replies. :^)

For my fellow fat finger, mobile browsing, Musk hating friends

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Nitter also helps too (unless... it doesn't work for you).

 

The fact that they not only executed a full merciless GUN invasion, but doubled down on humanity failing both Shadow and Maria with the same researchers you're supposed to save in Lost Impact is insane

Really cool stuff to see. Not sure how representative it is of how it "really" went down with the new additions, and I'm sure Shadow not outwardly reciprocating Maria or her beliefs will be controversial, but the things like Maria pulling a Bellemere, how that effected Shadow, Shadow having a heap of self loathing about the Ultimate Lifeform title, the way he catches the bullet while saying he finally found his reason for living... it's all so good, genuinely wasn't expecting this out of corocoro.

Speaking of corocoro though, this magazine is DENSE. Sonic is finally making a serious attempt at cashing in on the kids' manga magazines, but actually reading through it has me wondering just how much work it'll take for Sonic to actually take off in a medium with this much competition. Definitely a better opportunity at bringing in new Japanese fans than anything else they put out, but I dunno.

 

Does Sonic really have any chance to actually break through in popularity in Japan at this point, it's been 30 years

 

Yes because he has. The movies, Frontiers' more RPG approach, and collabs with Korone has done a ton for Sonic's Japanese reputation in the past 2-3 years.

 

And the re-release of both Sonic Adventures on Steam. I'm not so sure about movies tho'. Wasn't the audience for Sonic 2 kinda mid? Not because they didn't liked it, but because not many people from Japan have heard about it. I think the situation is going to change for Sonic 3, tho'.

 

I think it's a strong contender for actually achieving what they wanted out of the series. Like think about it, they kept incorporating all these crazy angles that felt like they were trying to directly draw appeal from what was popular in their own country, and it can be seen arguably before Shadow all the way up to Frontiers itself. And by Frontiers they were actually admitting that was their goal with those elements, rather than the subtle "in order to surpass Mario, we must become different from Mario" quotes from Maekawa on SA2's story.

But with how little Sonic is actually known in Japan, how does that attempt for appeal actually get communicated to the audience you want to reach? If the marketing is abysmal, if people see the character and say "Oh yeah, that's the guy from the Olympic games", what's actually going to succeed in communicating Sonic's "storytelling" appeal to the same kid audiences that love this stuff in the west? Sonic Team already knows that these concepts work, they've been used in manga for decades, so...?

Make a manga lol

And it's not like breaking through into Japan is impossible



Adventure was probably the height of his popularity over there, and we can see that popularity roll off onto SA2 in second place, and Advance doing moderately well in third place. It absolutely was a decline ever since that popularity boost, but there was some degree of retention, and I think that largely can be chalked up to Adventure being one of the more impressive tech showcases of the Dreamcast at the time.

Gamers can be sold on Sonic games by having them look impressive to their own sensibilities, like Adventure and Frontiers. Past a certain point though, I don't think the visual identity of the series is enough to break into that market, just because of what's considered popular over there.

Story and characters though, 100% you have to approach the already incredibly dense market through the same avenue that all the other popular IP in Japan came from. It's not enough to just be written like manga, I genuinely believe that Sonic needs to *be* manga in order to reach the heights they want it to reach, in the same way Sonic was a cartoon, comic, and now movie character everywhere else.

Get in on the ground floor of kids picking up magazines looking for cool characters they can read along with. Actually invest in this series as a kids series in the #1 format that the kids look to for entertainment over there. Those magazines are distributed to millions of kids practically every month; it's definitely worth a shot beyond the gag manga that they might otherwise write off. And maybe, after doing that consistently enough, there will be less "that guy from the olympics!"/"is that a mouse/cat/dog?" responses, and more actual recognition of the characters on the same scale as the mickey-mouse branding Sonic is afforded by the constant marketing push he gets over here. If kids can routinely get into and read his stories in widely distributed format, that seems like a much better strategy than relying on SEGA making a breakout hit in video games to the point Sonic becomes a household name.

Especially when their efforts to break into that market run directly counter to the "household name" nature of stuff like Mario and Kirby because of those more self-serious manga directions cough cough

 

Sonic 2 came out in Japan 5 months after it premiered everywhere else. I don't think people gave a shit at that point.

Sonic 3 releases within the same window as everyone else so it may do better.

 

Amazing work from the mangaka.

If anyone wants to support them directly by purchasing the manga in Japanese:
https://csbs.shogakukan.co.jp/book?comic_id=…
https://bookwalker.jp/deecf7db59-3559-41d6-a676-5e96b6dc418d/

You can get it from either of these 2 links in Japanese. Just use Chrome to translate the page for you (or any browser that can do that) . Otherwise, the process is very easy, and it costs only 847 yen with taxes ($6).

Genuinely, support it if you can and spread the word! This is basically a gauge and a gateway for getting more Japanese content like this including new anime.

 

So Doom's Eye sits in the background as the GUN Soldier takes his shot at Maria. I've seen folks complaining that this is a retcon that suggests Black Doom's behind it all, but I see this more as a revisit of Shadow's memories in line with SxShG being a revisit of parts of Shadow's past.

Either way, I really like Shadow explicitly being a failure of a cure for Maria and the animosity he has for her beliefs. That's a nice bit of characterisation that recontexualises their relationship - if this is canon, of course!

 

Really dynamic art - the mangaka did a great job here. Lots of exciting angles, easy to read action scenes, and the mostly simple use of tones makes the use of them for mood really impactful. Definitely excited for more of this.

 

So looking forward to reading this! Will try to get my hands on it as soon as possible!

In the meantime, some more drawings by the artist of the manga:


The style is very cool.

 

I really hope the use of angles in this manga will be reference for future games, animation and even movies, becausae those are really awesome and style-ish.