I'm not sure the conversation is really about what is and isn't for kids. It seems more like something can give different impressions on how much it signals that it is kids' media depending on aesthetic sensibility. It's not so much that the tacky reused render shirts are "for kids" so much as adults, even adults who want to wear Sonic t-shirts, are more discerning about what the designs of those shirts are like. I've definitely gained a taste for more understated or minimalist graphic tees, I could never wear anything like what's been posted in this thread, even the more understated stuff.
I don't wear graphic tees much at all and I very rarely see Sonic clothes period so I can't comment on that disucssion, but it only started because it was being used as proof as Sonic being an 'all ages' property. I don't think that's true, or at least not intentionally so.
A slightly bigger target is still going to be hard for the average player to land on while going fast. Soulsborne still has lock-on and Mario Galaxy literally has a ground pound homing attack.
Not every 3D Mario game has a lock on attack though. Sunshine and Odyssey don't have anything like that and went in the direction of Mario getting new moves with huge hitboxes instead. 3D Land and World don't even go that far. The camera's positioned in a way where it's now possible to reliably jump on enemies in 3D, and the levels are designed around that idea.
Fair enough, I missed that. Though I honestly don't know what exactly marks the difference between a "kids" property and an "all ages" one.
Notice how they designed 3D Land the way they did because landing on enemies in 3D was unreliable even with a slower character like Mario, even after they already made the enemies bigger in previous 3D Mario games.
There are many Batman products that aren't meant for kids to consume at all. On the flipside every single piece of Sonic content is geared primarily toward their target demo. Every game, movie, and show. Older fans are usually an afterthought, and even in cases like Mania where they aren't it's still intended for young people to enjoy too. And my point is that they essentially were able to solve the issue without resorting to lock-on mechanics. It means the same thing is probably possible for Sonic as well if the game designers are willing to try. Yes, his movement is less precise but they already compensated for this over 30 years ago when they decided Sonic could hit any part of an enemy with his spin attack and it would count. He doesn't have to land on top of enemies like Mario does.
Sonic being able to hit an enemy from the front with a spin has nothing to do with the problem of landing on enemies in 3D.
It has everything to do with it because the game is already asking for less of you in terms of precision. If Mario jumps at an enemy and hits them from the side, it wouldn't count as a hit. If Sonic does that he's always able to destroy them unless they're covering themselves somehow. That's a quirk the designers can take advantage of.
What is the ratio required for it to be considered "all ages"? I assume you're not implying it would take just one piece of adult-oriented Sonic material to shift the paradigm, to say nothing of how we even hit the moving target of what constitutes "aiming for an older demographic". EDIT: I wanna add that this is not a rhetorical question, to be clear. I think it's an interesting thought experiment in how we judge the various qualia of "adult" and "child" content in media.
I'm not sure if I could tell you a ratio for something like that. I think to me it's more about creating adult content for a consistently reliable base. Sonic doesn't have R rated movies and comics coming out, or something something like the Harley Quinn series running. Maybe they'll go off the deep end and do something like that one day but it's not today.
No, it's just wrong. Sonic isn't exclusively for kids. For one thing, any of the OG fans who grew up with Sonic are in their 30s or up now. A story or franchise doesn't need a bunch of sex and violence to be "adult". There certainly is Sonic media and products geared more towards kids, like anything to do with the Boom franchise. And I'd guess most adult fans probably don't engage with that stuff. Avatar The Last Airbender is another good example of something that appeals to all ages by just being actually good.
There are a lot of older Sonic fans that like Sonic Boom. "Adults engage with it too" isn't enough of a distinction when adults engage with Bluey.
If an adult religiously watched the Boom cartoon like a kid, that might be a little weird. Again, there's a difference between liking something while still being a functioning adult vs. acting like an actual child. If someone has their bills paid, kids fed, and they also watch Sonic cartoons, then good on them. There's nothing weird about it. If they're a non-functioning NEET who does nothing but think about Sonic all day while not trying to improve in any way or assume any responsibility, then you can call that person a man-child or whatever.
I don't think you're really seeing the point, which is that the material was created with kids in mind first and foremost. You're talking about judging people for what and how they consume media, which isn't the discussion at hand. Avatar is a kids show too. Maybe older kids, but still. The discussion is not in what the people who happen to consume things are like, but who those things are trying to be consumed by. Lots of Sonic fans are adults, but for an individual Sonic product to be "adult", it would have to put the adults in the audience front and center. This doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be violent, sexual or otherwise unsuitable for minors, but it needs to tackle topics in a way that may be alienating to kids at the benefit of adults. This can range everything from narrative structure to themes to just the complexity of the plot and characters. Like, Adventure Time is still technically a kids show (admittedly one that goes harder than most Sonic content by default), but some of the emotional arcs that its characters go through can only be understood by people older than just the kids in the audience, and indeed, they're more complex than just about anything in Sonic, even the best-written Sonic material. And here in 2023, Fionna and Cake is a more adult show, pushing the franchise in general to more of an all-ages medium. It's about adult characters with adult problems, and while it has more blood and swearing than the show from 2009, it would be what it is even without those things.
I see the point, I just think it's wrong. I think the idea of Sonic being made "for kids" is a fundamentally flawed one. I think Sega has this wrong, too, based on their own internal materials. Because something can appeal to kids doesn't mean it's made only for them. I realize this might end up being a semantic distinction. EDIT: I think I took more issue with Blue Blood's initial referring to adult Sonic fans as "man-children" than anything else.
Nothing made for kids has ever been only made for kids. Every piece of media in existence has been enjoyed by people from outside its' target demographic, but that doesn't mean target demographics don't exist. At most, you can say that talking about demographics like this at all is reductive, when clearly the series is constantly paying respect and homage to older fans, but Blue Blood is right. Most adult Sonic fans were Sonic fans as kids. It's "made for adults" in that it is made for adults that are still in-touch with their child selves enough to enjoy this children's series, and that's the case for tons and tons of media that is still good. You're taking the adult-child dichotomy as one of judging the series or fans for their taste or quality, which is wrong.
I have a hard time imagining anyone outside the target demographic enjoying Teletubbies Then again, other than maybe stoners, I have no idea who the target demographic for that show was No, you're right though. I think perhaps I got the "for kids" and "man-children" ideas blended a bit in my head.
You'd be surprised. But yes, obviously there are properties that are made with more or less consideration for people outside their target demographic in mind, and Sonic is clearly made with some adults in mind (namely, us weirdos), but the bulk is always gonna be kids. This is essentially an argument of prescriptive versus descriptive reasoning as to who a piece of media is "for". The fact is, creators know who they've got most in-mind when they create things, and this is a more-stable definition of what demographic a property is for than the descriptive argument of who happens to be enjoying it. Think of it this way: if you flipped this argument around, talked about adult properties that are clearly made with tons and tons of mature content, that happened to be enjoyed by minors, you wouldn't suddenly start saying those properties were for kids, right? South Park was always enjoyed by adolescents, but recently had a popularity surge from random clips posted to tiktok, and now has a bunch of actual children in its fandom. But none of that has stopped it from being a TV-MA show! It's still clearly not "made for kids", and it won't become that way even if it acknowledges this weird trend in next week's episode or whatever. The target demographic is still gonna be edgelords in their late teens and their 20s. South Park is made for adults.
Yes, I agree you're completely right about all of that. I had two different but related ideas mixed up and I was arguing the wrong thing. I had the idea that when someone said Sonic was "for kids", that they were also insinuating that an adult would be a "man child" for enjoying it. But those aren't the same thing. So I fully concede the "for kids" point, but hold my ground that liking Sonic as an adult doesn't make someone a "man-child"
