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Your ideal Sonic media?
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RE: Your ideal Sonic media?
Tominique > 08-27-2024, 06:15 PM
(08-26-2024, 08:41 PM)hooligan Wrote: I genuinely was interested in Sally overcoming struggles w/ family and royalty, and Antoine actually becoming a greater swordsman, and Bunnie... accepting herself and her robotic parts! (which I wasn't a fan of her robotic parts being de-roboticized, I liked the contrast between her and Cassia in Post SGW/Reboot, where Cassia had to be cyberized due to her illness, where as Bunnie accidentally became roboticized and accepted that part of herself) but I digress! I shouldn't continue to ramble like that, haha
I know it's a very Japanese Developer (???) thing to create a game/story within a series and have it as standalone or not related to the main canon, it's a very ENG fandom/western thing to want everything to connect together.... so at the same time I'm keeping that in my mind as well as I think of such a large series as Sonic is
That's another check for my daily reminders to finally take the plunge and really get deep into the Archie comics, thank you. I am fueled by getting to see more of Antoine and Bunnie.
Funny you say that about the Western side of Sonic being so concerned with connectivity and THE LORE, while the Japanese side doesn't really care about that, as it's something I've been kind of noticing delving more into the Western content like the comics themselves.
Like, say, that Sonic 1 promotional comic explaining the backstory of Sonic and Eggman, or rather, "Ivo Kintobor".
I've heard someone say it's very comic book-y to explain every aspect of Sonic's character like that comic does. Why is he blue? 'Cause he was originally brown but ran so fast his quills turned blue! Why does he have the shoes? Why, Dr. Ovi Kintobor created them to help Sonic with his speed, of course! Who is Kintobor? A kind man of science who wanted to rid the world of evil, but after an accident with a machine and a boiled egg, he instead absorbed all the evil and became the terrible Dr. Ivo Robotnik!
... Y'know, giving backstory to things that are otherwise never explained in the Japanese scripts, because... that's just how Westerns write, I guess? That urge to give greater meaning and context to everything was actually everywhere at the time. Like how the little animal critters all had names tied to each of them as if they were individual characters. The name "Mobius" and "Mobians" for the world and species of the animal characters. Maybe a third, even better example, but I really gotta stop writing these so late at night.
Early Sonic is a really good example of how different regions handle their franchise and it fascinates me.
In a way, the "Western way" of having everything connected is kind of how the franchise is starting to be handled again these days, but to a greater extent since the IDW comics and apparently Sonic Prime are canon to the main game universe, along with nearly every game being connected in some way for one continuous, really convoluted timeline. Which, of course, I'm a bit iffy on for my aforementioned preference of a loose continuity, specially with Prime being "canon", but... eh. So much can happen by just saying something is canon. -
RE: Your ideal Sonic media?
hooligan > 08-27-2024, 08:57 PM
(08-27-2024, 06:15 PM)Tominique Wrote: That's another check for my daily reminders to finally take the plunge and really get deep into the Archie comics, thank you. I am fueled by getting to see more of Antoine and Bunnie.
Funny you say that about the Western side of Sonic being so concerned with connectivity and THE LORE, while the Japanese side doesn't really care about that, as it's something I've been kind of noticing delving more into the Western content like the comics themselves.
Like, say, that Sonic 1 promotional comic explaining the backstory of Sonic and Eggman, or rather, "Ivo Kintobor".
I've heard someone say it's very comic book-y to explain every aspect of Sonic's character like that comic does. Why is he blue? 'Cause he was originally brown but ran so fast his quills turned blue! Why does he have the shoes? Why, Dr. Ovi Kintobor created them to help Sonic with his speed, of course! Who is Kintobor? A kind man of science who wanted to rid the world of evil, but after an accident with a machine and a boiled egg, he instead absorbed all the evil and became the terrible Dr. Ivo Robotnik!
I recall in some interviews w/ members of Sonic Team (cannot remember if it's Iizuka or Oshima) but they call sonic a "yusei" lit. a fairy. In JP it's common for things to just exist in a world w/ minimal explanation to how it came to be or exist, like you said abt the western comics; in NA/USA they absolutely had to have an origin story for Robotnik and Sonic, which is very very comic book/western-ish.
in JP a lot of times they see a character existing in a setting or world, regardless of explanation behind it, and I almost miss the simplicity of it... I know we discuss the canon-icity of humans existing in Sonic's world, but in Sonic Adventure, I'm sure it was just an idea included to flesh out the world without creating more critters... but then we see in SA2 how much humans actually do affect the world w/ the concepts of GUN, Professor Gerald, and such, y'know?
(08-27-2024, 06:15 PM)Tominique Wrote: In a way, the "Western way" of having everything connected is kind of how the franchise is starting to be handled again these days, but to a greater extent since the IDW comics and apparently Sonic Prime are canon to the main game universe, along with nearly every game being connected in some way for one continuous, really convoluted timeline. Which, of course, I'm a bit iffy on for my aforementioned preference of a loose continuity, specially with Prime being "canon", but... eh. So much can happen by just saying something is canon.
(I'm also guilty of writing responses so late at night, but it's when I have the most motivation!!)
it also doesn't help that western canon was technically all connected; even if it did have its different iterations you could argue SATAM and Archie Sonic fit seamlessly into each other, and even elements of Adventures/AOSTH were fit into the canon w/ its comedy and reoccurring robots.
Fast Forward to modern Sonic continuity and we started seeing the "ugly side" of it, Prime being fit into the universe (almost forced) when it arguably could've been it's own "weird timeline" that got erased, similar to Sonic '06 in a way, and then ppl arguing abt how it's placement in the timeline makes no sense so fans are at a divide over their continuity they're "owed". And then IDW is supposed to take place after Forces, yet what does that mean for future games taking place after that? I'm not sure if Frontiers ever mentioned Forces really in its story (I haven't played Frontiers, unfortunately!) do we just go forward w/ a Zelda-esque "two timelines" situation? even though we know how fans will react to such a thing... thinking of it all at once is a lot, really!
That being said, I don't mind callbacks to previous titles, example: I don't think it's "lore breaking" to reference Spinball in other media, but a lot of fans will tell you otherwise and then go forward to speaking negatively on the Lore Team /frown, but I do think other things are interesting and should be expanded upon, such as in ShTH (2005) when the Glyphic Canyon is referenced to be bird shaped! and when you think abt it, Babylonians would've come across the Black Comet, or even Dark Gaia! things like that!
enough rambling though! I fear I'm slowly going off-topic to talk abt "western" canon ideology, haha -
RE: Your ideal Sonic media?
sundrowned > 08-27-2024, 09:49 PM
it took me a bit to get back to this thread and it seems you guys have really been talking in the meantime! re: what tomi said earlier, i did realize my question was a bit complex after i posted it, but i was just really eager to start a conversation about this. which it seems i've succeeded in!
i can't respond to everything individually without this becoming a mile long, but i agree with a lot of what's being said here. particularly about the draw of sonic being just how experimental it gets. the various different styles and genres and canons are a big reason why this franchise is just so cool to me, and, honestly, i would also have a hard time answering my own question without it becoming an essay, haha.
that being said, part of what originally inspired me to make this thread was the sonic ova, and how badly i wish it had continued. i can't even explain why, but something about it, between the style and the characters and the oddball worldbuilding, is just very charming to me. it definitely helps that this is one of the best stories told with metal sonic out there imo, since most stories involving them feel like they don't go anywhere in regards to their character, or if they do, it's cut short anti-climactically. (which the ova is also guilty of, to be fair.)
it's interesting hearing about the difference between japanese and western approaches to storytelling, though. i never considered that before, but taking all of the stories in the franchise into account it makes sense. i have to admit, i do prefer everything having some semblance of connection to it, at least in regards to the things in one particular canon, but that's because i just love to pick apart big stories like this, and having a rough timeline of the order the events happened in is part of that. even if it doesn't really make sense in the grand scheme of things. sonic prime being "canon" is a great example of this, along with sonic battle, which, due to the way shadow in particular was written, ends up being nebulously sometime post-heroes AND post-shadow, because that game clearly wasn't written with the intention of anything falling into a timeline, and shadow being alive and having his memories wasn't something you were supposed to question.
...honestly, shadow is probably the biggest reason why i think about sonic canon this way in the first place, with his story having a clearly-defined timeilne to it spanning across several games. i can't really think of another sonic character that has that, not in the games at least. -
RE: Your ideal Sonic media?
hooligan > 08-27-2024, 09:57 PM
(08-27-2024, 09:49 PM)sundrowned Wrote: it took me a bit to get back to this thread and it seems you guys have really been talking in the meantime! re: what tomi said earlier, i did realize my question was a bit complex after i posted it, but i was just really eager to start a conversation about this. which it seems i've succeeded in!
i can't respond to everything individually without this becoming a mile long, but i agree with a lot of what's being said here. particularly about the draw of sonic being just how experimental it gets. the various different styles and genres and canons are a big reason why this franchise is just so cool to me, and, honestly, i would also have a hard time answering my own question without it becoming an essay, haha.
I'll try to keep this reply short bcuz I want other ppl to reply to everything; but I'm glad the Sonic OVA is being brought up, there's been plenty of situations that I wanted to bring up discussion abt it, but unfortunately at the time my thread didn't have many replies aside from "I haven't seen it" to "it's okay" even though I was totally ready to discuss such as the idea that the Land in the Sky being composed of mountains separating from the earth and then they rebuild cities on top of that, yet some city-like structures still existed and then Robotnik established Robotropilis under it!
like, I have an entire notebook dedicated to this OVA's plot points (unfortunately) like how the city in the land of darkness is apparently sinking???? and there's ancient relics nearby so that's why Knuckles appeared???
