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Rated Sonic X 10/10

Not just an ok anime that so happened to feature Sonic the Hedgehog - it's a great anime with something to say. This review is for the original Japanese version of this anime, viewed with English subtitles. It probably won't resemble a lot of what you've heard about the Japanese dub vs. the English dub. I hope you enjoy it as an educational experience. Sonic X gets a reputation for being uneven, for spending too much time on the humans (a criticism that I don't see coming up with the recent Sonic movies, presumably because the human protagonists are the only good parts in that lousy franchise), and I think it's all pretty unfair. Everyone who watched it when it aired on TV is older now than they were then, but that's mostly only manifested in lots of people embarrassedly kicking under the bed the weapons-grade amounts of homophobia targeted towards the central human protagonist. Not a lot has been done in the years since as far as engaging critically with what Sonic X is, as opposed to what it hypothetically could've been. So let's talk about what it is! It's a show centered around a rich kid whose comfortable life nonetheless fails to fill the hole that his absent parents left in his heart. There's no tragic death keeping him from having a loving relationship with his family, and they didn't exactly abandon him either, no - it's their overwhelming SUCCESS that is keeping them out of his life. For all intents and purposes, the Thorndykes are "winning" at life! And yet Chris is missing something so important before one day Sonic crash-lands in his pool. Chris comes to his rescue, and so begins a bond that changes a lot of things in Chris's life. We have A LOT of fun as Sonic's friends begin to crop up in Chris's world. Lots of antics, lots of life lessons, the works! There's plenty to love throughout seasons 1 & 2 of Sonic X, for fans of Sonic X and just fans of good anime alike, but something bigger than adapting the events of Dreamcast games (for what was at the time the biggest audience those stories ever had)… Chris's parents start spending more time with Chris. More than that, EVERYONE is acting differently. As it turns out, Sonic has a profound impact on the society he joins - his punk philosophy inspires people to focus more on life than the many distractions that keep us from it, including (in the Thorndykes' case) "success." This is legitimately one of the most transgressive messages that any Sonic media has ever had. It directly targets the heart of capitalism, from a vantage point I seldom see elsewhere - the fundamental emptiness of it, even when you're not struggling to make ends meet. Sonic X posits that Sonic is antithetical to capitalism, and that capitalism is antithetical to life itself. It's only as this all comes into focus that we learn the world that Sonic and his friends come from used to be part of Chris's world! Until it wasn't. But now they're beginning to combine again! And it's going to mean the end of the world. Sonic has to go home now. Season 2 ends on a truly emotionally-challenging note as Chris fights this inevitability like he's never fought for anything before in his life. Sonic's friends have all returned to their home, it's just Sonic left, and Chris refuses to let him go. It's selfish of him, Chris realizes this and it weighs on him, and what does Sonic do? He lets him sit with that. He goes along, doesn't raise all that much of a fuss, allowing Chris to wrestle with it until he fully accepts and decides for himself it is finally time to let go. There's a whole other season after that, it's a blast and well worth watching, but with this review I really want to highlight the depth of this series. After begrudgingly surrendering the homophobia angle of criticism of this show, Sonic fans have reached a loud and obnoxious consensus that the show should've instead focused on Helen - Chris's disabled friend who uses a wheelchair and wishes she too could spend more time with her father. It stems from the show taking the time to dedicate a whole episode to what I presume people wish the whole anime was built upon - the story of Helen getting to go places she isn't able to go without Sonic, and getting to spend more time with her dad after he realizes she would like to spend more time with him and he can afford to spend a little less time at work. It would seem like this is an important issue to the people asking for this show to be transformed into that show! And yet I never see any of the people asking for this noting that Sonic bungles wheelchair etiquette in the one episode he handles a wheelchair, which goes completely unremarked-upon because the creators didn't know and presumably still wouldn't have known had they gone that route. I'm gonna be a bit of a bitch and say the people saying they want this mostly don't understand the show, don't actually appreciate the gravity of the issue they're flattering themself with, and can't actually articulate how the show would be better for it beyond saying the word "dynamics!!!" over and over. Sonic X had the ambition to tell a more unique and challenging story than that, and I applaud it for it. That it's also the first (and seemingly last) big push of the broader cast, that helped introduce tons of people to fan-favorite characters like Rouge the Bat and Cream the Rabbit before we decided to focus only on the top 5 most-popular characters forever and ever until the sun burns out, makes it a bittersweet but worthwhile watch. Check out the English sub if you haven't seen it before, or if you've only seen the English dub. It's a different show, and not just because they removed some Japanese text from some signs in the international version! Also, yes, Rouge the Bat and Agent Topaz DEFINITELY have a thing going on and it extends further than the famous "hard play" meet cute. Roupaz rights!!!

#SonicTheHedgehog #EnglishSub #AntiCapitalism #tv

Published 2020-05-09 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere