The Underrated Impact of Sonic X 

I'm very fond of how X addressed plot holes in the games, like the broken moon, and added context to underexplored/scrapped things, like Shadow and Maria's friendship. It made the stories feel a lot more complete. Makes me curious to see an alternate dimension where X kept going and fleshing out more Sonic stories, like Unleashed and Rush. And that popular fake screenshot of Blaze and Silver in the X artstyle in Crisis City made me wonder what an 06 adaptation could've been like.

Sonic X is a great example of something having many flaws but lovable nonetheless because of how great the positives are.

While I will never like the two worlds thing, (to the point I think it hindered the game adaptions instead of helping IMO) to this day I still consider Sonic X the best animated adaptation of the series so far. To be fair the negative energy wasn't dropped in after Sonic Adventure, it was used again for Shadow's game being the power source for Chaos Blast. Speaking of romances though, another thing the series seemed to introduce that made it into the games proper is Sonic actually liking Amy back. Correct me if I'm wrong but before Sonic X, Sonic didn't care for Amy in that way at all. However, in Unleashed Amy will ask Sonic for a date and the player is allowed to answer yes or no, which according to Black Knight Sonic canonically accepted and in Frontiers Sonic in the random dialogue can express wanting to share a umbrella with her and that he should've made up his mind up about her sooner. Furthermore, when asked about giving Sonic a love interest in the now canon IDW comics, Evan Stanley replied back that there was no need since Sonic Team's offical stance is that Sonic does like Amy back but isn't ready for full on relationship yet at this point in his life. A complete 180 from their old dynamic, which was sure to make some people happy and others less so.

The things I like in Sonic X not brought up in the video are: 1) The human cast. Ignoring Chris Thorndyke himself as he does get better and helpful in Season 3, I personally like some of the human characters that aren't in the games. Characters such as Chuck, Chris' grandfather and mentor to Tails. Those two have an interesting chemistry of making things. Sam Speed serves as a good human rival for Sonic being a racer police officer trying to push the limit of speed. The President is a lot more interesting as a character as he's not only leading the country and doing what's best for the people, but there's some sort of depth in his background once being a boxer in the Emerl arc and losing the match to the Black Knight. Molly is such a tragic character especially in Japanese for actually dying for the cause (Shadow deserves to have her as a friend in the games). But my favorite of the humans would be Topaz being one of the top ranking officers in GUN and the President's agency, but she's basically Rouge's partner in crime during the first two seasons. It's fun to see the dynamics where they but heads with one another. 2) The plot points being addressed. One thing I give Sonic X credit for is tying up some plot points that didn't get answered in future games or was just left up in the air. Such as the moon being fixed by Eggman and Shadow's inhibitor rings explaining why Shadow went down at the end of SA2. 3) Eggman's comedic robots. Decoe, Bocoe, and Bokkun to some degree make WAY interesting and funny Eggman robots as they not only do what Eggman tells them to do, we get to see them have issues with their creator as well (Something that Orbot and Cubot from Colors and onward really lack the charm). Hell, they even backstab and betray Eggman at one point for the mistreatment they have, showing us that the robots have some depth to their characters. 4) The Metarex Sage. It's a solid part of Sonic X by being a space adventure hunting down the Chaos Emeralds and exploring the different planets and species (which I have to imagine Sonic Colors probably got the inspiration from because there's no clear explanation as to how Eggman captured the planet and dragged them to Earth for his space amusement park). 5) Sonic and Shadow's introduction / battle. One thing that I personally like compare to SA2 is Sonic and Shadow having a battle of sort and a race after the GUN Walker mach goes down. It builds up the sense of mystery that Shadow is showing off the power Sonic has never seen before and has that villain comes out on top over the hero type dynamic. It builds up from encounter to encounter showing that Sonic slowly but surely gets the upper hand on Shadow, because in SA2 there's little conflict as Shadow just appears and disappears during the few seconds of that introduction scene of Shadow's. 6) Episode 68 A Revolutionary Tale. This is the only episode that doesn't feature Sonic and the gang as the main focus. No the focus is on the dark characters and I like stories when we get to see more of the antagonist or supposed antagonist doing a bunch of things behind the scenes (sort of like the Arbiter's Campaign in Halo 2). Like I said with the human characters, Molly is a tragic character and her connection to Rouge and especially Shadow is touching. She's sort of like another version of Maria, at least when your look at it from Shadow's point of view.

3:04 Fun fact, Ian has confirmed that was SEGA’s direction for the Sonic series during Forces development and release. They just decided to go back on that idea, probably around TSR to the TailsTube episode.

I personally love Sonic X, despite some flaws

What I love about Sonic X: The action, the adventure, the animation and character designs- I don’t care that Sonic X’s animation isn’t smooth as butter, its grounded simplicity makes me like it, Knuckles, Rouge, the friendship themes, the robots are hilarious, loose-ish adaptations of some early games, Uncle Sam. Things I didn’t like about Sonic X: This is long but it comes down to two things. Almost everyone seeing Sonic as a beat all entity and is rarely portrayed as wrong, imo Sonic characters should be equal, at times it got a little tiresome seeing Sonic one shot most enemies and solve everyone’s problems after they gave it their all, or how Sonic is the most important guy in the room while they discredit other characters accomplishments or strengths for a gag, especially Knuckles who actually is his own character and doesn’t revolve his life around Sonic yet is somehow the bad guy in every scenario or just gets ridiculed because he’s a hot head, or Amy going from a balanced character in s1-2 to a Sonic only fangirl tsundere in s3, and last but not least Chris, I understand he’s a kid, but him being a rich kid with friends and a loving family and a successful career as an adult but he actively wants to obsess over Sonic because the narrative wants us to believe he’s lonely was… a choice, especially since Chris and Tails feel more like best friends than Chris and Sonic, all Sonic did was run away from Chris and his friends but Chris was HIS best friend? But at the same time his parents are rarely home to be fair, but still he felt shoehorned in. But all in all I agree with the video, I love Sonic X, it was my introduction to Sonic as a whole aside from some of the early games, the flaws need a serious rewrite but it doesn’t take away the show did much more for a lot of us fans, I also loved the comics, they weren’t plot heavy they were just “hey let’s do something today!” and that’s why I love them lol

Sonic X was made by Sega and Sonic Team. It was made by TMS under co partnership with Sega and Sonic Team so it is official.

This Aosth and underground are honestly pretty under appreciated and need more love

The 4Kids Dub may be a blessing in disguise because without it, we wouldn’t have the GOAT, Mike Pollock.

I could be spreading misinformation here but I once heard that apparently Yuji Naka originally planned for Sonic X to rival the Pokémon anime in terms of longevity so we could've potentially seen the events of Heroes all the way to Forces or maybe even Frontiers. This honestly could've been a cool alternative for the younger generation who couldn't play the earlier titles. I still love this show despite all of its flaws. I rewatched it not too long ago and it made me realize how cool these characters back then. Early 2000s Sonic will forever be my favorite era of the series.

Watch the Japanese version. It makes the series so much better and Chris is a good character in it! Trust me, he makes the show better once you understand his character! Most people just don't understand his story because of the dub.

To be honest, I don't get where you got negative Sonic X reviews right now in 2023, it is highly regarded by audiences. The simple answer is why Sonic X impacted the franchise is because of Sega of Japan directing it. The last time they tried was Sonic OVA and that failed to be full on anime. I guess I don't need to talk about American cartoons since Sega of Japan didn't give a shit about them and it's fans and just those who watched it are treated as old weirdos in game Sonic community

It's also even better in Japanese. There's a lot that the English dub ruined in sonic x. And so do the games.

I would tell people, if they prefer the two worlds idea over the 1 world Idea, then in their head canon, they should put Sonic X in place of the adventure games, then have the IDW Comics afterwards. (Since they hinted that Sonic went to war with Eggman at the end.) After Season 3 there;s a time gap where Sonic meets the wisps and the Zeti off screen, (Since both Stories were kinda lazy.) and then the IDW Comics as a continuation.

Amazing video, what’s the music in the background called?

I love Decoe, Bocoe & Bokkun, Greatest henchmen that eggman ever had since Scratch, Grounder, & Coconuts from Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog! Way better of Orbot and Cubot!

I loved Chris in sonic X. And the role he played in season 3 was cool. And the end was sad

TBH I didn't like Sonic X, while the Sub version is better the 4kids dub is just as bad as their One Piece dub, Sonic X is where I started to question the series if I was getting to old for the IP, this was also at the time where I was starting to get into anime with shows like Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Outlaw Star, Hamtaro, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo and Gundam Wing thanks to Toonami. I'm sorry, I did not find Sonic X good, even if Sega-Atlus would get CrunchyRoll to do an Uncut dub of Sonic X with the current cast and new dialogue done by Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley, I still think it's mediocre at best, I prefer The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Satam, Sonic OVA and Sonic Prime on the plus at least Sonic X is better than Sonic Underground, on the plus We got Mike Pollock voicing Dr. Eggman, Prof. Gerald Robotnik and Eggman Nega (who's been voicing the former for 20 years.)

Sonic needs another anime or anime styled show for the modern era after sonic prime ends.

The Metarex were my favorite villains in Sonic X. Wish they were in a "Sonic Adventure 3" game.

I watched sonic x so much as a kid, to the point were I would rewatch the entire show so many times. I think I watched the whole series at least 8-9 times? I can't remember. I think it was because it was the closest thing I had to an actual modern sonic show then the classic 3 sonic shows we all know. And I will admit that I as well overdramatized any of the fight scenes as they were in my head. And I will also admit that this was my first take on Amy. And which made me not like her in the show as much. But either way I like the show because it kind of mixed the main game lore with its little side bits to it. It mainly stayed within the adventure and adventure 2 lore and was gonna slowly transition its way to heroes. I liked that Sonic and his friends interact with humans.

Personally, I don’t think any of the Sonic shows are bad. They all have genuinely enjoyable elements like characters, writing, music, etc. Underground is obviously the worst one, but I still like the characters, a bit of the writing and dialogue, along with the music. As for the topic X, I like the story, characters, humor, dialogue, premises, etc. I don’t necessarily have a specific thing I love the most, outside of the spin-off comic, as I haven’t seen the show in its entirety for years. Also, I like Chris to my memory, season 3, and in the comic. I don’t exactly remember that much more about him in seasons 1 & 2 tho. Outside of the ending to Season 2 obviously.

I still think about that 2nd season we never got.

The following are what I agree are disappointing about Sonic X: a) each 20-minute episode never seemed long enough b) the respective stories from SA and SA2 being recycled for the show is a sign of laziness on part of the writers. (Hard to believe Naka Yuji greenlit this as producer.) c) there's only a little focus on the rivalry between Sonic and Chris' uncle Sam (I consider this disappointing because early in the series, it seems like there's gonna be some kind of fated rivalry, but it's just a minor thing.) Maybe I was thinking a little too seriously, but I also remember wondering how exactly Chris' parents manage to stay in a marriage if they hardly see one another and have very separate lives...