Sonic X

Sonic X

## **More Information**

***Sonic X*** (ソニックＸ *Sonikku Ekkusu***?**) is a 2003 Japanese animated television series loosely based upon the original *Sonic the Hedgehog* franchise.

It was animated and produced in Japan by TMS Entertainment with the partnership of Sega and Sonic Team. It was first broadcasted in Japan in April 2003 by TV Tokyo. During that same year, 4Kids Entertainment obtained the license to localize and broadcast the show in America.

Originally planned as a 52 episode series which would be inspired by the storylines of the *Sonic Adventure* series, *Sonic X* expanded to 78 episodes between 2005 and 2006. These additional episodes (53 to 78) were never aired on Japanese television but they were streamed on rental services. However, as part of Kids Station's 2020 line-up of programming, it was announced that as part a tie-in promotion for the *Sonic the Hedgehog* film, the network would finally broadcast the remaining episodes, marking the first time that the full series would air in any format on Japanese television.

From June 2012 to 2014, the copyright and branding of *Sonic X* in America was passed onto Saban Brand's Kidsco Media Ventures following 4Kids Entertainment's bankruptcy due to a lawsuit. Despite this, the show did not receive significant differences from 4Kids Entertainment's changes. As of 2015, the American rights for *Sonic X* now belong to Discotek Media & Warner Bros. Television Distribution.

The series follows a group of anthropomorphic animals who accidentally teleport from their home planet to Earth after attempting to save one of their friends from their enemy Doctor Eggman. Separated, Sonic the Hedgehog is saved by a human boy named Chris Thorndyke, who helps him find his friends while repeatedly scuffling with Doctor Eggman and his robots over control of the powerful Chaos Emeralds, and becoming celebrities. The final story arc sees Sonic and his friends return with Chris to their world, where they enter outer space with a newfound plant-like creature named Cosmo and fight an army of aliens called the Metarex.

## Overview

### Season 1

A slight malfunction causes Chaos Control, and sends Sonic the Hedgehog to Earth. While there, Sonic meets Chris Thorndyke, who aids at collecting the Chaos Emeralds, so Sonic and his friends can go home.

### Season 2

Eggman awakens a creature named Chaos from the Master Emerald. The animals fight a losing battle to retrieve the Emeralds until Chaos absorbs all seven and becomes giant in his perfect form, but an echidna girl named Tikal, who entombed herself and Chaos in the Master Emerald millennia ago, emerges to help placate him. After Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic, he defeats Chaos, who returns to the Master Emerald with Tikal.

### Season 3

Six months later, a race of villainous robots known as the Metarex attempt to steal the Emeralds from Sonic, but he scatters them across the galaxy. Meanwhile, on Earth, where six years have passed and Chris is now eighteen, Chris builds another device to return to his friends' world; he is twelve again when he arrives. A sick plant-like girl named Cosmo lands on their planet and they nurse her back to health, so she joins them, and they all board Tails' new spaceship, *The Blue Typhoon*. On the *Typhoon*, they scour the galaxy for the Emeralds and "Planet Eggs" (objects that allow life to flourish on planets, which the Metarex have stolen to depopulate the galaxy) and fight the Metarex at every turn.

## Cast

*This section is currently unfinished.*

* Jason Griffith/Junichi Kanemaru as Sonic the Hedgehog\*
* Suzanne Goldish/Sanae Kobayashi/Masakazu Morita as Chris Thorndyke
* Amy Palant/Ryo Hirohashi as Miles "Tails" Prower
* Lisa Ortiz/Taeko Kawata as Amy Rose
* Dan Green/Nobutoshi Canna as Knuckles the Echidna
* Rebecca Honig/Sayaka Aoki as Vanilla the Rabbit
* Jerry Lobozzo/Bin Shimada as Chuck Thorndyke
* Kathleen Delaney/Rumi Ochiai as Rouge the Bat

* = the American and Japanese actors are both credited here.

## Production

The show was created by TMS Entertainment, the animation subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings. It was primarily influenced by other anime rather than work from the West, and was created for a Japanese audience. Yuji Naka, then the head of Sonic Team, filled in as executive producer, and Satoshi Hirayama designed all of the original characters, basing the designs on Yuji Uekawa's original concept. Most of the series consists of original content featuring new as well as established characters, but the second season is mostly based on the plots of *Sonic Adventure*, *Sonic Adventure 2*, and *Sonic Battle*. While traditionally animated, it includes non-outlined CGI elements for things such as Sonic's homing attack.

Two trailers for the series were produced. The first was developed before Cheese had been given a name in *Sonic Advance 2* (2002); it referred to Cheese simply as "Chao". It was made up largely of footage that would later appear in the series' intro, but also of unused scenes featuring unique anthropomorphic people. Sega showed off the second, which was narrated in Japanese, at its booth at the World Hobby Fair video gaming event in February 2003. It consisted mostly of scenes from the first few episodes, followed by introductions to the main characters. However, it also showed a still frame of a silver anthropomorphic hedgehog who never appeared in the series, people referred this character as 'Nazo', which means mystery. Years later, in April 2015, Sonic Team producer Takashi Iizuka clarified the character was simply Super Sonic in its early contour.

Several of the Japanese performers had voiced their characters in the games, but they were also given ample information about their characters' roles in the anime. Chris' voice actress Sanae Kobayashi was not sure she would be able to effectively communicate Chris' growth as a person owing to Sonic's presence, but found that a worthwhile goal. Chikao Ōtsuka, who voiced Eggman, found him a difficult character to play due to the tension in his voice and the desire to have children who watched the show recognize the character as a villain but not hate him.

Iizuka believed that *Sonic X* and its merchandise, along with the game *Sonic Heroes*, had helped expose the *Sonic* franchise to a new generation of potential gamers in 2003, and he dubbed it a "Sonic Year" as a result. More boldly, Naka hoped that *Sonic X* alone would cause the popularity of the *Sonic* series to skyrocket, as that of the *Pokémon* series did after its anime adaptation was first released.

4Kids Entertainment handled the show's American localization. The episodes were heavily edited for content and length; 4Kids has been described by Destructoid as being "infamous" among anime fans for this type of overzealous editing. 4Kids removed alcohol consumption, coarse language, instances of breaking the fourth wall, and numerous sexual scenes. Unlike some other series that 4Kids translated around the early to mid 2000s, such as *Kirby: Right Back at Ya!*, *Sonic X* suffered no full episodes being cut. Producer Michael Haigney personally disliked realistic violence in children's programs, but had not intended to make massive changes himself. Instead, he was bound by Fox Broadcasting Company's strict guidelines, which forbid content such as smoking and strong violence. In 2006, near the end of the show's American production, Haigney stated in an interview that he had never played a *Sonic* game, read the comics, or watched any of the previous *Sonic* animated series.

4Kids found new voice actors rather than using those from the games. 4Kids president Norman J. Grossfeld invited Jason Griffith and Mike Pollock to audition for Sonic and Eggman, having known them from their work on *Ultimate Muscle* and *Kirby: Right Back at Ya!* and chose him for his yelling and pitch-wavering talents; Pollock and Griffith also voiced Ella and Shadow. 4Kids allowed Pollock to make minor alterations to the dialogue when lines "[didn't] work for some reason." He recalled being given only short samples of Eggman's voice from the games—he was not told specifically which game—and brief descriptions of his characters' roles. The rest of the cast assumed their characters' voice roles after their auditions. Beginning with *Shadow the Hedgehog*, the cast of *Sonic X* would assume their respective voice roles in all Sonic games released between 2005 and 2010, at which point all the roles were recast with the exception of Mike Pollock as Eggman.

*Sonic X* aired in Japan on TV Tokyo's 8:30 a.m. time slot from April 6, 2003 to March 28, 2004. It consisted of three seasons, each of them 26 half-hour episodes long. The series suffered from poor ratings in Japan, so the third season was never aired on TV until 2020 or released on DVD there, but was available through rental streaming services. 4Kids licensed the series in North America from the beginning, ShoPro Entertainment was also made a license holder in November 2003. It aired in North America on the FoxBox block of Fox channels. The series was also localized for other countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In June 2012, the bankrupt 4Kids sold its *Sonic X* license to Saban Brands's Kidsco Media Ventures. TMS Entertainment has since taken US rights, and in 2015, Discotek Media licensed the series alongside several other TMS properties for home media releases.

## Trivia

* The voice actor for Sonic at the time, Ryan Drummond, offered to voice Sonic for the dub but was rejected by 4Kids for not living in New York. Eventually, Drummond was removed as the voice actor for the Sonic games, after Sega of America decided to replace the entire voice cast for the games with the 4Kids cast shortly before the death of Deem Bristow, the previous voice actor for Dr. Eggman. Allegedly, he was only told when he asked if he would be needed for voice recordings in *Shadow the Hedgehog* from the beginning. Even though Drummond wanted to continue voicing Sonic, he was declined to voicing him for *Shadow the Hedgehog*, which resulted in many complaints from fans of the previous voice cast.
* When the first thirteen episodes of Series 2/Season 3 were released on DVD in the US, they were packaged as the *The Complete 5th Season* (with thirteen episodes being a "season", and those episodes being the fifth division of thirteen episodes); also, the cover art to the DVD resembles the poster for the movie *Firefox*, with the Blue Typhoon in the same space as the MiG-31, the movie's titular jet fighter.
* The last season only aired on television outside Japan, despite a full Japanese voice track being produced. In 2020, to commemorate the release of the *Sonic the Hedgehog* movie, all three seasons were set to be rebroadcast in Japan in 2020.
* For the original Japanese dub, this marked the first time that Ryō Hirohashi had voiced a version of Tails, and later became the traditional voice actress for the various incarnations of him since then.
* *Sonic X* once had the largest number of episodes among the Sonic television series at a total of seventy-eight until it was surpassed by *Sonic Boom* with their episode "Robots From The Sky Part 2".
* The silhouette of Sonic's head in the logo of *Sonic X* is from the main artwork of Sonic used for *Sonic Adventure*.
* The Australian *Sonic X* DVDs came with a trailer of *Sonic Mega Collection Plus*.
* Shadow was seen removing his Limiters and receiving a huge power boost as a result in the ending of his story in *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006), a concept originally used in this show.
* In an interview, the English writer of *Sonic X* states that he does not know a thing about Sonic, stating that he never played a single game, watched a single episode from any Sonic show, or even read any of the comics.
* France was the only European country to dub the complete version of *Sonic X* without any edits.
	+ Starting with *Sonic Generations*, the French voice cast (with the exception of Vector) all reprise their roles.
* In an interview, Jason Griffith revealed that he originally auditioned for the part of Chris, but was instead cast as Sonic. He did say that he thought it was exciting to be Sonic's companion but the producers thought his voice was better for Sonic.
* In a commercial for season 3 of *Sonic X*, there are four videos of the game *Shadow the Hedgehog*, most likely an error. In this same commercial, a small clip from the Japanese opening plays. Both can be seen using frame-by-frame views.
* This is the first Sonic cartoon in America to not have Dr. Eggman referred to as "Dr. Robotnik". The second is *Sonic Boom,* this is because both *Sonic X* and *Sonic Boom* took place in the Modern Era.
* *Sonic X* is notable for being one of the continuities in the *Sonic* series of which Sonic and Amy's relationship borders more on romance than most other media. While Amy remains roughly the same in her approach to Sonic, he shows more affection that borders on romance, something that doesn't happen in most media aside from optional dialog and optional scenes in various games such as *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood* and *Sonic Unleashed*. Another continuity is the *Sonic the Hedgehog* manga series, where Amy is the love interest of Nicky, whose alter ego is Sonic the Hedgehog.
* 4Kids had Jason Griffith and Dan Green as Sonic and Knuckles sing along with other 4Kids voice actors singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" for American Independence Day.
* In Mission Mode of *Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut*, during missions 3 and 12, a *Sonic X* poster with Sonic and Chris is visible in Station Square.
* *Sonic X* has been on the air for fifteen years (including reruns), making it the longest running Sonic television series, and it is still on the air currently on the Video On Demand network known as Kabillion.
* *Sonic Shuffle* was the only Dreamcast *Sonic* game that was not adapted for *Sonic X*, however, the designs of Lumina Flowlight and Void are very similar to the females of Cosmo's species.
* *Sonic X* was added to Netflix on 1 December 2019. However, only season 1 and 2 are available without adding the Metarex saga, it is unknown if the third season will be added to Netflix soon, knowing that Amazon Prime Video and Hulu have the third season available.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *Sonic X* on Sonic News Network
2. ↑ https://www.kids-station.com/program/fastinfo
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 *Sonic X* on Wikipedia
4. ↑ *Sonic X* on IMDB
5. ↑ 第１話｢超音速ヒーロー登場！｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
6. ↑ 第2話｢潜入！エリア99｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
7. ↑ 第３話｢Ｄｒ．エッグマンの野望｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
8. ↑ 第４話｢カオスエメラルドを手に入れろ！｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
9. ↑ 第５話｢激突！！ソニックｖｓナックルズ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
10. ↑ 第６話｢熱戦！スクール・ウォーズ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
11. ↑ 第７話｢大混戦！クリスのホームパーティ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
12. ↑ 第８話｢緊急発進！Ｘトルネード｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
13. ↑ 第９話｢渚のエミー｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
14. ↑ 第10話｢激闘！ソニック野球軍｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
15. ↑ 第11話｢美しき怪盗ルージュ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
16. ↑ 第12話｢エッグマン基地 総攻撃！(前編)｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
17. ↑ 第13話｢エッグマン基地 総攻撃！(後編)｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
18. ↑ 第14話｢英雄ソニックを追え！｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
19. ↑ 第15話｢移動要塞エッグフォート襲来！｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
20. ↑ 第16話｢目指せ！南海の沈没船｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
21. ↑ 第17話｢ナックルズ！怒りの鉄拳｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
22. ↑ 第18話｢サバンナの大決闘！｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
23. ↑ 第19話｢古城の亡霊キングブーブ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
24. ↑ 第20話｢出撃！エッグフォートⅡ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
25. ↑ 第21話｢スピード勝負！ソニックｖｓサム｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
26. ↑ 第22話｢夏休み・チャオ～な観察日記｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
27. ↑ 第23話｢大混乱！６カオスエメラルド｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
28. ↑ 第24話｢暴走ソニック！捕獲大作戦｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
29. ↑ 第25話｢最後のカオスエメラルド｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
30. ↑ 第26話｢誕生！スーパーソニック｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
31. ↑ 第27話｢災いのはじまり｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
32. ↑ 第28話｢謎の生命体カオス｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
33. ↑ 第29話｢囚われのエミー｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
34. ↑ 第30話｢エッグキャリアの戦い｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
35. ↑ 第31話｢さすらいのガンマ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
36. ↑ 第32話｢パーフェクトカオスの叫び｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
37. ↑ 第33話｢プロジェクト・シャドウの謎 ｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
38. ↑ 第34話｢逃亡者ソニック｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
39. ↑ 第35話｢プリズンアイランドからの脱出｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
40. ↑ 第36話｢宇宙からの脅迫｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
41. ↑ 第37話｢スペースコロニー・アークの戦い｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
42. ↑ 第38話｢マリアの願い、みんなの願い｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
43. ↑ 第39話｢カオティクス探偵事務所｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
44. ↑ 第40話｢エッグマン株式会社｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
45. ↑ 第41話｢光をわれらに!!｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
46. ↑ 第42話｢エミー愛の逃避行!?｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
47. ↑ 第43話｢家電大パニック!!｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
48. ↑ 第44話｢おかしなおかしなスパイ大作戦｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
49. ↑ 第45話｢ソニックバトル・開催!!｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
50. ↑ 第46話｢ソニックバトル・決勝!!｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
51. ↑ 第47話｢緯度０大決戦!!｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
52. ↑ 第48話｢ソニック対地底怪獣｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
53. ↑ 第49話｢世界が静止する日｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
54. ↑ 第50話｢別れの朝｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
55. ↑ 第51話｢クリスの長い旅｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.
56. ↑ 第52話｢風の思い出｣. TV Tokyo. Retrieved on April 23, 2014.

 ***Series***

 2020's | *Sonic Colors: Rise of the Wisps* (2021) · *Sonic Prime* (2022)