Sonic X

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Anime television series
title Sonic X
Original title ソ ニ ッ ク X
transcription Sonikku Ekkusu
Sonic x logo.svg
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
Year (s) 2003-2004
Studio TMS Entertainment
length 25 minutes
Episodes 78
genre Fantasy , shons , action series , comedy
Director Hajime Kamegaki
production Matato Matsumoto, Takeshi Sasamura
music Yorihiko Ike
First broadcast April 6, 2003 - March 28, 2004 on TV Tokyo
German-language
first broadcast		 August 1, 2004 on Fox Kids
synchronization

Sonic X ( ソ ニ ッ ク X, Sonikku Ekkusu ) is an anime television series from 2003. The series is mainly based on the video games Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast console from Sega .

action

One day, Sonic accidentally triggers a mysterious machine. This is fed with energy by the seven Chaos Emeralds and moves Sonic, his friends, Dr. Eggman and his companions into a strange world. In this human world, Sonic finds shelter in the city of Station Square with a boy named Christopher Thorndyke and his family.

Little by little, Sonic finds his friends again and they go in search of the Chaos Emeralds, with whose help they want to return to their homeworld. Meanwhile, Dr. Eggman and his companions after the Chaos Emeralds. However, the goal is to gain dominion over the new world through its enormous energy. Sonic learns of this plan and tries to thwart it from now on.

Later, during a fight between Sonic and Eggman, the seven Chaos Emeralds come together and create Chaos Control , a magical spell which has brought the protagonists into the human world. But instead of the hoped-for home planet, Sonic discovers that they are not on their planet, but that part of their home planet has been teleported to Earth. The now missing part of the home planet is called Angel Island, on which the Master Emerald can be found, whom Knuckles, one of Sonic's friends, swore to protect with his life. In the following episodes, Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 were used as the basis for the plot, episode 39 was based on Sonic Heroes. In episodes 40 and 41, Dr. Eggman controls the moon and creates an artificial solar eclipse in order to deceive the inhabitants of the earth, only Sonic does not fall for Eggman's trick. Little by little his friends also discover the doctor's trick. Ultimately, Eggman ends up in jail. The plot of episodes 42-46 is like a base story for Sonic Battle. The second Sonic-X season ends with Tails and Chuck building a machine with which Sonic and all things from his world can return to his home planet. In the course of episodes 50-52 they all return.

The third season of Sonic-X takes place in the home universe of Sonic, where Sonic and his friends have taken up the fight against an alien race, the Metarex, whose leader Dark Oak intends to take possession of the Chaos Emeralds and everything animal Extinguish life in the universe. Up to episode 64, Sonic and Dr. Eggman restores the Chaos Emeralds, each for his own purpose. However, when they invade a Metarex base as temporary allies to claim the final two Emeralds, events roll over. There is also a duel between Super Sonic and Super Shadow, who secretly survived the fight in episode 38 and is now working with Eggman. During this fight the emeralds get lost in a gravitational field. While Sonic and his friends prepare for battle, Shadow and Dr. Eggman. The latter briefly allies with the Metarex, but secretly acts as a double agent and tries to steal information from the Metarex database. Eggman is later captured. Meanwhile, Shadow finds out that Cosmo, who told Sonic and his friends everything about the Metarex and has accompanied Sonic since then, is actually a Metarex spy.

Production and publication

The series was produced in 2003 by TMS Entertainment, directed by Hajime Kamigaki , with character designers Satoshi Hirayama and Yuji Uekawa and artistic director Yukiko Iijima. The first broadcast took place from April 6, 2003 to March 28, 2004 by the Japanese channels TV Tokyo and Kids Station .

The anime was aired in English by FOX and YTV , in French by TF1, and in Spanish by Jetix and TV Azteca. There were also translations into Italian, Polish and Portuguese. The US television channel 4kids TV has revised the series due to its own release policy.

In Germany, the pay station Fox Kids first broadcast the series on August 1, 2004, and two months later it was also broadcast on Kabel 1 . The German version is based on the version licensed by 4kids Entertainment for the USA and the post-processed version from the USA was also broadcast in the other countries. Only in France was the original version from Japan broadcast instead of the revised version from the USA, as Jetix France had already secured the rights to the series before 4kids Entertainment.

synchronization

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
Sonic Jun'ichi Kanemaru Marc sting
Chris Sanae Kobayashi Stephanie waiter
Dr. Eggman Chikao Ōtsuka Hartmut Neugebauer
Miles "Tails" Prower Ryō Hirohashi Anke Kortemeier
Knuckles Nobutoshi Kanna Claus-Peter Damitz
Amy Taeko Kawata Shandra Schadt
Cream Sayaka Aoki Sabine Bohlmann
rouge Rumi Ochiai Simone Brahmann
Shadow Kōji Yusa Jan Makino

music

The music in the series was produced by Yorihiko Ike. The opening title is in the Japanese Sonic Drive (SONIC DRIVE) by Hironobu Kageyama and Hideaki Takatori, in the western version Gotta Go Fast .

The first two end credits are Mi-ra-i (ミ ・ ラ ・ イ) by RUN & GUN and Hikaru Michi (光 る 道) by Aya Hiroshige. The Japanese version also uses TOP (TOP) from KP and URU. In the edited version of 4kids, an instrumental short version of Gotta Go Fast was only used as the end credits .

It should also be noted that the US version generally contains a completely different soundtrack than the original version. The original version also contained individual pieces of music from the video games "Sonic Adventure" and "Sonic Adventure 2", for example the song "Live and Learn" from Crush 40 (theme song from Sonic Adventure 2) in episode 38, which is also the final sequence of the plot from "Sonic Adventure 2" was. For licensing reasons, the pieces of music from the games were not adopted in the 4kids version.

Success and criticism

The series could not assert itself in Japan, which is due on the one hand to the rather lower popularity of Sonics in Japan and on the other hand to the greater success of other animes. Initially, the series had a lot of viewers, but the ratings dropped with each subsequent episode. In Japan Sonic X could not prevail, but the series found a lot of fans in the USA and France. The series was particularly successful in France.

Mostly Sonic fans gave positive feedback, but the international implementation was often heavily criticized: Shortly after the Japanese release, the US company 4kids Entertainment had secured all international market rights to the series and changed them due to its own release policy. Many scenes were cut or removed, dialogues were partially changed or completely rewritten. The soundtracks and title songs from the original version were not taken over either, but completely new pieces were recorded (see section “Music”). Except for the French version, all conversions were based on the US version.

Adaptations

Comic

In the US, Archie Comics published a comic book adaptation under the title Sonic the Hedgehog from September 2005 .

toy

McDonald’s brought out a number of toys for the series. The Leapster company released action figures and an educational Sonic game for children.

Trading card game

Score Entertainment released a trading card game for Sonic X in August 2005 .

Web links