Sonic X (Anime)

Sonic X (ソニックＸ) is an anime series loosely based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. It was animated and produced in Japan by TMS Entertainment with the partnership of Sega and Sonic Team. It aired in Japan on April 6, 2003 to March 28, 2004. It aired in the U.S on August 23, 2003 to May 6, 2006. It is the fourth cartoon of Sonic the Hedgehog following Sonic Underground and preceding the Sonic Boom (TV Series). The plot follows a group of anthropomorphic animals originating from the games—such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Amy Rose, and Cream the Rabbit—and a human boy named Chris Thorndyke, whom the animals meet after teleporting from their home planet to Earth. While on Earth, they repeatedly scuffle with antagonist Doctor Eggman and his robots over control of the powerful Chaos Emeralds, while also adjusting to their status as celebrities. The final story arc sees the friends return with Chris to their world, where they enter outer space with a newfound plant-like creature named Cosmo and fight an army call the Metarex.

Plot
Sonic and his friends accidentally arrived to Earth from their unnamed home planet via Chaos Control. Sonic met Christopher Thorndyke, becoming friends with him. Sonic then rescued his other friends who ended up in Earth as well and they agreed to settle into the Thorndyke Mansion as their new home in Earth. They mainly had to hide from the public because of their unique characteristics but were accepted by Chris' family and friends. Dr. Eggman vowed to achieve world domination over Earth with his robots but are stopped by Sonic and his friends. The President, however, is greatly concerned with Eggman's threats to the public society and issues the military to attack Eggman's base. Sonic and his friends also aided the military and at the end, Eggman's base was destroyed and Sonic was praised as a hero to the human population.

Now being hailed as heroes, Sonic's friends are able to get out of the house more often and went on vacations. Dr. Eggman and his diabolical attempts to achieve world domination returns, mainly using his flying fortresses the Egg Fort and Egg Fort II as his new operational bases instead of a stationary tower but this didn't stop Sonic and his friends from continuing to defeat Eggman.

Also, the heroes collected Chaos Emeralds, bringing their total to five while Eggman managed to steal one. As Knuckles was desperate to obtain the last Chaos Emerald but knew it was not possible due to Sonic and Eggman's differences, he made the mistake of entrusting Dr. Eggman with the Chaos Emeralds the heroes have collected. The Egg Fort II transforms into E-99 Eggsterminator and harnesses the emeralds' power to defeat Sonic but Chris manages to reclaim the emeralds and give them to Sonic, allowing Sonic to transform into Super Sonic and defeat Eggman. As a result of the seven Chaos Emeralds' proximity within another, Chaos Control occurred but instead of sending Sonic and his friends back to their home planet, parts of Sonic's world (such as Angel Island) has joined with Earth.

The series focused on an adaption of Sonic Adventure, introducing characters such as Chaos and Tikal. Eggman befriended Chaos so he could utilize its potential powers to achieve world domination and to Sonic and his friends' shock, Chaos grew more powerful every time he is fed a Chaos Emerald. While Sonic and his friends attempt to collect each Chaos Emerald they can find to prevent Chaos from growing stronger, Knuckles began to discover the history of his own tribe of Echidnas that lived on Angel Island as he found the pieces of the Master Emerald since it was shattered when Dr. Eggman awakened Chaos.

Eventually, Chaos betrayed Eggman, wanting the seven Chaos Emeralds for its own purposes and began to destroy and flood Station Square by assuming the form of Perfect Chaos. Tikal appeared, wanting to stop Chaos from destroying the world like it did several millennia ago so Sonic harnessed the Chaos Emeralds that Chaos discarded to transform into Super Sonic, not knowing that the emeralds weren't completely drained of its powers and defeated Chaos who became sentinent once more.

The series focused on an adaption of Sonic Adventure 2, introducing Shadow the Hedgehog, a new arch-rival to Sonic. Authorities mistook Shadow as Sonic as a fugitive for various crimes. As an act of revenge for the death of his close friend, Maria, Shadow wanted to destroy the humans and Eggman hones a powerful weapon called the Eclipse Cannon in order to threaten the world. It needed the power of the Chaos Emeralds so Shadow, Eggman and mysteriously Rouge went to gather the Chaos Emeralds. Although the trio only collected six of the emeralds, Eggman demonstrated the Eclipse Cannon's power by blowing half of the moon. Seeing that the source of the weapon and the emeralds are up in Space Colony ARK, Sonic and his friends traveled there to stop Eggman from achieving his goals.

Eventually, Eggman discovered that the heroes had the seventh Chaos Emerald and stole it to harness the full power of the Eclipse Cannon but this triggered a new program devised by Eggman's grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, who planned to collide the Space Colony ARK with Earth in order to seek vengeance at the humans when all seven Chaos Emeralds are used in the Eclipse Cannon. Sonic, his friends and Eggman set aside their differences in order to prevent this doomsday from happening by disabling the Chaos Emerald's energy. Shadow was reluctant to help the heroes but was convinced by Chris to remember Maria's true promise and aided the heroes in distracting the Bio Lizard that attacked Sonic and his friends, allowing Knuckles to nullify the Chaos Emeralds with the Master Emerald but the doomsday was not over yet as the Bio Lizard merged with the ARK, determined to keep on its collision course. Sonic and Shadow used the emeralds to transform into Super Sonic and Super Shadow and together, they defeated the Bio Lizard (then known as the Final Lizard) and teleported the ARK back to its spot, saving the world from doomsday. This however cost the life of Shadow and everyone remembered him for being a hero.

Following from the doomsday, more guests from Sonic's world began to arrive on Earth, most notably the Chaotix and Cream's mother Vanilla the Rabbit (although it is seen in the comics that the former somehow were transported back to Sonic's world under unknown reasons). All the while, Eggman wanted to repair the Moon as an act of remorse for his evil deeds during the Shadow Saga and does it so in a short amount of time, forming the Egg Moon.

Later, it was seen that Earth was seemingly under a permanent solar eclipse due to the fact that the Egg Moon malfunctioned (or Eggman claimed so anyway). To make up for this, Eggman began advertising Sunshine Balls which could replicate sunlight. Soon, the citizens started hailing Eggman as a hero but Sonic didn't trust Eggman and began sabotaging the Sunshine Balls' source, creating a major disruption within the public and demanded Sonic to be arrested.

Everyone wanted to know why Sonic was doing this until the hedgehog himself told authorities of Eggman's true motives. Now being informed of this, the authorities now swayed their decision to arrest Eggman and with Sonic and his friends' help, they were successful in handcuffing Eggman and escorting him behind bars. Sonic was hailed as the true hero once more.

With Dr. Eggman behind bars, he sends Bokkun to wake up Emerl in his abandoned base. Afterwords Bokkun goes to fight Sonic in a giant tank with Emerl inside. Sonic beats him, and the tank self-destructs launching Emerl far away. Bokkun explains to Sonic that he was a distraction while another robot is sent to break Eggman out of prison. But the robot is stopped by Sam Speed and Amy Rose. Emerl is later found by Cream and Cheese outside the Thorndyke Mansion hidden in the bushes, in a very serious condition.

Eggman, desperate to break out of prison, decides to work his way out via community service as a mechanic repairing old machines but as he repairs the machines he implants a device that makes them become alive and activate other machines to do his will. While Sonic is busy neutralizing the machines, Bokkun breaks Eggman out of jail.

To counteract Eggman's escape, the President makes a tournament and offers a grand prize of the red Chaos Emerald. Sonic, Knuckles and Rouge are persuaded to enter once they hear about the prize and because the tournament is open for anyone to join. Mr. Thorndyke enters Tails, Amy, Ella, Mr. Tanaka, Chris and Chuck. Along with them, Lucky, Decoe, Bocoe, The President, Hawk, Danny, Sam Speed, Big the Cat, Mr. Stewart, Topaz, "The Black Knight" and Emerl enter.

Emerl is declared the winner of the tournament, and is given the Chaos Emerald. But he becomes violent from the power of the emerald reawakening his old coding and his loyalty to Dr. Eggman. Sonic and his friends try to stop him but Emerl, using his ability to copy moves stops them and begins to wreck havoc on the arena and then the city.

Cream and Cheese then decide to persuade Emerl to stop attacking, Emerl thinks for a second, but the Chaos Emerald's energy was too powerful to change his mind and Cream and cheese attack him together. As Emerl tries to copy one of their abilities the other gets in the way and strikes him. Emerl falls into the ocean and as he sinks down he begins to cry.

After hearing a battleship of G.U.N. soldiers disappear, Sonic and his friends set off to rescue them. They are eventually led to the remnant of the lost continent of Murasia and discovered that Dr. Eggman was behind the disappearance of the soldiers and is planning to set off a volcanic eruption. Other members of G.U.N. also accompany the heroes in their attack against Eggman but were driven off. Sonic and the others managed to defeat the ship and landed an island of Murasia. Still intent on setting of the hotspot, Eggman explores the island to find it while Sonic and the heroes try to locate him. Unfortunately, they awakened native large robots that attack them but after a heated battle, Sonic and the others are victorious and escaped as the island begins to sink.

Back at Station Square, everyone appears to enjoy having carefree lives until Sonic and the others heard that their home planet and Earth, once two separate planets, are beginning to join together as one which could potentially cause the timelines of both planets to freeze. As a result, Sonic and all of his other inhabitants of their home planet have no choice but to return back. Tails and Chuck spent the remainder of their time together to build a machine capable of initiating Chaos Control and successfully send everyone but Sonic to which Chris stops the machine, who can't bear with the fact that Sonic has to leave.

Chris and Sonic run away to a distant location while Chris' parents are desperate to find him. At the end of their journey, Chris comes to terms with his feelings and admits to Sonic that he is lonely before Sonic came to Earth and is afraid that he might be lonely again. Sonic expresses hope that the two will see each other again. Back in Sonic's home planet, everyone notices that Sonic has not returned back yet. Eggman sees this as an opportunity to take over the world but admits that even wants Sonic to return back. After a battle between Sonic's friends and the doctor, Sonic charges into the scene and stops Eggman; everyone is glad to have the hedgehog back. Six years later, an older Chris is now developing a project in attempt to travel to Sonic's world.

In Sonic's world, a new girl named Cosmo arrives on Sonic's planet, looking for the legendary one who can wield the powers of the seven Chaos Emeralds. Sonic, having been nearly defeated in outer space by a new enemy called Dark Oak, scatters the Chaos Emeralds across the galaxy in order to prevent Dark Oak from using their power. When Chris uses the dimensional portal, he suddenly finds himself in Sonic's world. His age has regressed all the way back to the age he was when he first met Sonic.

Chris learns that to Sonic, only six months had passed. During their reunion, Dark Oak and his Metarex Army attack Sonic's planet and steals the "Planet Egg" from it. Without the Planet Egg, all the trees and plants on Sonic's planet will wither and die. Sonic and his friends decide that Dark Oak and his schemes must be stopped, and they venture into space to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds.

This series uses elements from Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog such as Shadow surviving and being released with amnesia for the former and the common Metarex resembling the common Black Arms for the latter. After many run-ins with Dr. Eggman, and the pursuing Metarex Army, Cosmo's dark secret is eventually unveiled: she has been an unwilling spy for the Metarex all along and the Metarex themselves are actually part of the same race of autonomous, anthropomorphic plants that Cosmo is of, having twisted and modified their bodies for combat after war overtook their planet. They now must depend on the energy of the Planet Eggs to stay alive. When the Metarex enact a plan that could destroy the entire universe, Cosmo sacrifices herself in order to save everybody with the help of Super Sonic and Super Shadow; much to the grief of Tails, who had fallen in love with Cosmo during the course of their adventure. It is Tails himself who must kill Cosmo in order to release her power, which would halt the advance of Dark Oak and return him to his benevolent form. Her essence is manifested in the form of a seed, which Tails later cultivates.

With the Metarex destroyed, Eggman builds an invention that sends Chris home and Chris accepts, willing to leave all his friends to return home. Soon thereafter, Dr. Eggman revives his previous rivalry with Sonic, albeit a lighthearted one. The series ends with unresolved cliffhangers, such as the whereabouts of Chris, Cosmo's true fate (in the Japanese version) and Shadow (although the Japanese version reveals Shadow is alive, depicting him looking at Molly's memorial).

Difference Between Anime Versions

 * In the Japanese version, all firearm sound effects had a bullet sound effect from a gun. In the American version, it was completely replaced with laser sound effects in any use of handguns was removed as well.
 * There are some scenes of blood, violence, death, text and gunfire in the Japanese version that were removed by 4Kids.
 * In the Japanese version, the characters (mostly Sonic) will say lines in Engrish, like "Thank you" or "No way", in which they mention other languages. In the American version, the only mention to other languages is Mr. Inteligente, which is Spanish for smart and Sonic saying "sayonara" which is Japanese for goodbye.
 * During the third season, Rouge blackmails Bokkun with a pendant. In the Japanese version, it was revealed that a picture of Cream is inside the pendant, thus revealing that Bokkun has a crush on Cream. In the English version, the contents were never seen for unknown reasons.
 * The Japanese version features Eyecatch cards at various intervals, displaying details about a character, such as weight, height and age. It even extends to Eggman's various robots. This was removed in the English version for unknown reasons.
 * In the English version, Rouge's cleavage is sometimes edited to make her breasts seem shorter.
 * All instances involving or depicting alcohol were portrayed child-friendly drinks. i.e: Champagne is replaced with Cola while beer is replaced with orange juice.

Theme Songs

 * Opening


 * SONIC DRIVE (Japanese Version)
 * Gotta Go Fast (English Version)
 * Closing


 * Fu-tu-re (Ep.1 – 13)
 * The Shining Road (Ep. 14 – 39, 53 – 78)
 * T.O.P (Ep 40 – 52)

Episodes

 * 78

Voice Cast

 * Japanese


 * Junichi Kanemaru as Sonic the Hedgehog & Dark Sonic
 * Ryo Hirohashi as Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Nobutoshi Kanna as Knuckles the Echidna
 * Taeko Kawata as Amy Rose
 * Sayaka Aoki as Cream the Rabbit & Vanilla the Rabbit
 * Koji Yusa as Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Rumi Ochiai as Rouge the Bat
 * Kenta Miyake as Vector the Crocodile
 * Yuki Masuda as Espio the Chameleon
 * Yoko Teppozuka as Charmy Bee
 * the late Chikao Otsuka as Dr. Eggman
 * Sanae Kobayashi as Christopher Thorndyke (Young)
 * Masakazu Morita as Christopher Thorndyke (Teenager)
 * Bin Shimada as	Chuck Thorndyke & Bocoe
 * Kujira as Ella
 * Naoki Imamura as Mister Tanaka
 * Etsuko Kozakura as Cosmo & Cheese
 * Ken Yamaguchi as Decoe & Nelson Thorndyke
 * Naomi Shindoh as Danny & Lindsay Thorndyke
 * Yuri Shiratori as Maria Robotnik
 * ??? as Molly
 * Yuka Shioyama as Frances
 * Noriko Hidaka as Helen
 * Soichiro Tanaka as Sam Speed
 * Yumiko Kobayashi as Bokkun
 * English


 * Jason Griffith as Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog & Dark Sonic
 * Amy Palant as Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Dan Green as Knuckles the Echidna
 * Lisa Oritz as Amy Rose
 * Rebecca Honig as Cream the Rabbit, Cheese & Vanilla the Rabbit
 * Caren Manuel as Rouge the Bat
 * James Carter Cathcart as Vector the Crocodile
 * David Wills as Espio the Chameleon
 * Amy Birnbaum as Charmy Bee, Cosmo & Helen
 * Mike Pollock as Dr. Eggman & Ella
 * Suzanne Goldish as Christopher Thorndyke (Young)
 * Michel Sinterniklaas as Christopher Thorndyke (Teenager)
 * Jerry Lobozzo as Chuck Thorndyke
 * Darren Dunstan as Bocoe & Mister Tanaka
 * Andrew Rannells as Decoe & Bokkun
 * Jennifer C Johnson as Lindsay Thorndyke
 * Ted Lewis as Nelson Thorndyke
 * Erica Schroeder as Maria Robotnik & Molly
 * Kerry Williams as Frances
 * Rachel Lillis as Danny
 * Greg Abbey as Sam Speed

Trivia
The fourth wall is broken in this series.
 * 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.
 * Sonic X has the most number of episodes among the Sonic television series. (Sonic X has 78 episodes while Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog had 66 episodes counting Christmas Blast, Sonic the Hedgehog had 26 and Sonic Underground had 40.)
 * In episode 20 of the Japanese version, Cream mentions that she was raised in Green Hill Zone, a reference to the classic 16-bit games.
 * Shadow was seen removing his Inhibitor Rings 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 Sonic X.
 * 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.
 * 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 of which Sonic and Amy's relationship borders more on romance than most other franchises. 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 Hedgheog manga series, where Eimi is the love interest of Nikki 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 American National Anthem.
 * 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 was on the air for eleven years (including reruns), making it the longest running Sonic television series.
 * In the first episode, while Sonic is standing on one of the S-Team's race cars, Hector Dragg, the driver of the race car yelled at him, telling him that there are kids watching, which also brings Sonic to break the fourth wall, and his expression shows that he knows that in which ever dub the viewer is watching, it is unlikely to happen anyway.While standing on top of the racer, Sonic then proceeds to saying: "Kids, don't use Formula One cars to chase hedgehogs!" In the original Japanese version, Sonic tells the viewers that they should not stand on top of speeding race cars.
 * In that same episode, when Sonic flies over the city and is subsequently about to fall into the pool, he looks at the viewer with an exasperated expression then says: "uh...oh...." makes an attempt to run to try to keep moving in the air, then proceeds to saying: "See ya!" right before he falls. In the Japanese version, he said she oh no before he falls in the pool.
 * When Eggman was viewed as a hero by many of the brainwashed civilians, Decoe and Bocoe pitched an idea of a TV show called "Eggman X", which is a clear nod to the show's title being "Sonic X." Immediately afterward, Eggman tells the audience to "tune in next week".
 * When Sonic fails to reach the Egg Carrier, he turns to the camera and says "No way".
 * In the Japanese version during the ending sequences in the first season, Sonic will watch footage from the episode.
 * When Sonic fell into a small pond/puddle while fighting Knuckles in Cracking Knuckles, he'll turn to the camera and sheepishly say "It's lucky I fell in the kiddie pool.", before returning to his fight with Knuckles.
 * In the Japanese version of Episode 26, Eggman tells the audience not to change the channel before a commercial and when a card showing a blacked-out E-99 Eggsterminator, Eggman appears and tells the viewer "I'm sorry!" before bringing out the Eggsterminator.
 * In the Japanese version of the episode In Cruise Blues, Decoe and Bocoe said that took a while to repair the Egg Fort because they didn't appear in the previous episode. Amy convinces Sonic to stop misbehaving by warning him about what fans of Sonic X would say to Sonic. When Eggman launches the Egg Fort II, he receives phone calls from the "viewers" complaining that they couldn't see the flying fortress. In response, Eggman tells them to get bigger televisions. When Sonic got the idea to persuade Chris and his friends to get off his dad's cruise in Cruise Blues, he looked at the viewer with a sly smirk on his face.
 * In the Chaotix's debut episode, Charmy shows Vector a DVD of Sonic X. Not long after, they can be seen watching short scenes and the beginning of the theme song from the Japanese version of the episode.
 * In the Chaotix's debut episode, Vector and Espio give a description of themselves to the viewer. These descriptions take so long that when Charmy asks if it's his turn yet, Vector informs him that they don't have enough time, and that they have to cut to commercial. Charmy, desperate for some screen time, grabs the camera with a worried look on his face as the scene fades to black. In the Japanese version, Charmy fails to introduce himself before the eyecatch and instead the eyecatch details all of his stats for him.
 * In the Japanese version of Unfair Ball, when an Eggman robot was batting and hits the ball out of the stadium, Sonic who was fielding, goes and catches the ball and says, "Out!" but Chuck informs him that if the ball goes beyond or at the end of the stadium then that is a home-run. Sonic then says, "Why should we follow the rules? This is an anime!"
 * In the Japanese version of the final episode of Season 3, Charmy reminds Espio that he's acting out of character after the latter begs for more of Vanilla's cake.
 * In the Japanese version of episode 67, after Rouge destroys the Fake Emerald producing machine she then moves off-screen complaining that this is all she does in the episode and even yells "Call the Producer!"
 * In the Japanese version of episode 77, Eggman and his crew have an entire argument about whether or not each were properly acting in character.
 * In the Japanese version of Cruise Blues, Amy goes on about how Sonic is the hero and that without him, the viewers and the fan rate would drop.
 * In the English version of Sonic to the Rescue, After Sonic, Cream and Cheese made it to the Tornado II, Tails talks to the audience and said "I helped Sonic the real hero!"

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