Sonic the Hedgehog (anime)

File:Sonic OVA title.jpg

Sonic the Hedgehog title

The original Sonic the Hedgehog animated video, referred to as Sonic the Movie, or Sonic OVA by some, features Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Dr. Eggman, Hyper Metal Sonic (ハイパーメタルソニック, Haipā metaru sonikku,) and a few original characters, such as the human Sara (セーラ, Sēra), her father the President of South Island (サウスアイランド大統領, Sausuairando daitouryou,) Old Man Owl (オールドマン・ザ・オウル, Ōrudoman za ouru,) also known as Old Man(おじさん, Oji-san,) and Black Eggman (ブラックエッグマン, Burakku egguman.)

In Japan, where it was simply titled Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Sonikku za hejjihoggu,) the film was released on May 31st, 1996 and presented on two different VHS episodes, each about 30 minutes in length and were titled Journey to Eggmanland (エッグマンランドへむかえ, Eggumanrando he mukae) and Sonic vs. Metal Sonic　（ソニック vs. メタルソニック, Sonikku vs. Metaru Sonikku.) An English dub was first released on September 8, 1999 by ADV Films, titled Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie as a single VHS. This release date was chosen to coincide with the release of Sonic Adventure.

World

The main setting of the film is Planet Freedom, which is composed of two distinctly different worlds. The story begins on the outer world, which is comprised of interconnected floating continents, called The Land of the Sky, and eventually moves to the surface of Planet Freedom, which is referred to as The Land of Darkness. In the opening scenes of the film, we see Sonic and Tails on their small, unnamed home continent. This continent is part of a larger group of interconnected continents which are referred to as South Island, this group of continents is a country governed by the President of South Island. It is presumed that other country boundaries exist within Planet Freedom.

Story

Sonic is relaxing on the beach when Tails comes out to test a new jet-propelled surfboard and asks Sonic to give it a try. Sonic declines, and Tails starts to surf. As he is surfing he encounters small airplane piloted by the President's messenger, Old Man. Unbeknownst to Old Man, the engine of his small aircraft is failing and has been set ablaze, which Tails attempts to fix mid-flight but to no avail, leaving them on a collision course with the oncoming cliffside. Sonic hears Tails' cry for help and runs to save them, barely rescuing them from danger moments before impact.

Shortly after, Old Man informs Sonic that he has been urgently summoned by the President to the Presidential residence. Leaving Old Man in charge of their abode while away, Sonic and Tails board the Tornado and fly to the Presidential house. Once they arrive, they find it appears that the President and his daughter Sara are being held against their will, and are forced to listen to what Dr. Eggman has to say. As it turns out, Dr. Eggman says he is in need of Sonic's help to rid The Land of Darkness of a myserious being known as Black Eggman who has taken over his city, Eggmanland, on the surface of Planet Freedom. He explains that Black Eggman has sabotaged the Egg Generator at the center of the city, and if Sonic does not shut it down it will cause a giant explosion which will destroy the entire planet.

Once Sonic and Tails have left, the charade is dropped and it is revealed that Eggman has somehow bribed Sara and the President to pretend to be the his hostages. Sara and Eggman enjoy several rounds of a fighting video game, demanding that Eggman continue playing the game with her or she will stop being his hostage. Sara continues to lose several rounds of the game before demanding that she be taken for a drive. On cue, the empty shell of Black Eggman crashes through the roof and Eggman and Sara climb in despite her father's plea to stay.

After much flying, Sonic and Tails come across the storm eye-like entrance to the Land of Darkness high above the planet's atmosphere. They swoop down into it, the winds so strong that Sonic is nearly blown from the wing of the bi-plane. Finally, they exit the eye and crash land, the Tornado taking massive damage. Sonic and Tails set off once again to find Eggmanland, traversing many perilous paths and facing a barrage of Eggman's robots on the way before entering a warp zone which takes them to the ruins of an ancient abandoned city.

Black Eggman finds them and congratulates them for making it so far, but Sonic and Tails promptly mock and attempt to evade him in order to continue to Eggmanland. Black Eggman pursues Sonic and Tails and throws a barrage of weaponry at them, causing them to nearly fall into the ocean below a bridge. They make sounds as if they are taking in water and so they believe they have tricked Black Eggman into thinking they have drowned. They find that Black Eggman was simply waiting for them once they tried to sneak away, and attacks them with globs of a superglue-like substance, adhering Tails to a nearby fence. Sonic attacks Black Eggman with his own missles, damaging him slightly, but finds that he has accidentally stepped in a pile of the superglue which has effectively adhered him to the pavement. It starts to rain and as Black Eggman's massive weight cracks the pavement with each step towards them, the water begins to encroach Sonic. With the water nearly above Sonic's head, Black Eggman aims a laser gun at him, preparing to shoot Sonic just as Knuckles swoops in, knocking Black Eggman off balance. Tails pulls Sonic from his impending watery grave and the trio launch a team-attack on Black Eggman, causing it to explode in mid-air, presumably destroying it, and then move on to locate the entrance to Eggmanland.

Sonic, Tails and Knuckles travel warily into the core of the city, finally happening upon the Egg Generator in the center of the massive base, which looks on the brink of exploding. Sonic shuts it down in the nick of time but finds himself quickly magnetized against it, unable to escape the eerie green glow of the force field-like device. It eventually releases Sonic and the entire machine begins to collapse. Tails saves Sonic, and the three watch curiously as something that was previously in the center of the Egg Generator begins to come to life. Sonic is suddenly faced with his robot twin, Hyper Metal Sonic.

Black Eggman seems to reappear from beyond the grave but falls apart again only moments later, as it is still completely damaged from earlier. As noises of shouting are heard from the rubble, Sonic realizes that Sara was working with Eggman, but she pretends that she had been coerced to do so, though still does not want harm to come to Sonic. In a fit of rage, Sonic runs at Eggman, but Metal Sonic gets there first, blocking him, causing much shock and worry to Tails and Knuckles, having never seen anything move faster than Sonic before. A battle between Sonic and Metal Sonic ensues as Tails and Knuckles travel back through the warp zone to find the Tornado and return back to South Island. In combat high above the ground, Metal Sonic knocks Sonic off of a mountainous peak, presumably killing him, as Metal's heart pulse monitor for Sonic quickly flatlines.

In the night, because Sonic is presumed dead, Metal Sonic, having all of Sonic's feelings, thoughts and motivations, travels to South Island before Tails and Knuckles have arrived. Metal Sonic approaches Old Man, and dresses him in Sonic's favorite clothes for no apparent reason. In the morning, Tails and Knuckles arrive with the Tornado and Knuckles begins repairs on the bi-plane. Tails modifies Eggman's navigation device, turning it into a locator to find Metal Sonic, and by association, Sonic. Afterward, they receive a call from the President, who has been getting reports of a Sonic-like figure destroying several cities in the Land of the Sky. They quickly deduce that it is Metal Sonic causing the destruction, and that his next target is the glacial bridge at northernmost tip of the interconnected continents, which if destroyed, the centrifugal force of the planet would hurl the outer continents into space. Sonic reveals that he was there all along and had been listening in the entire time, and rushes northward to stop Metal Sonic.

Sonic arrives to find that Metal Sonic is already working quickly to force magma to the surface, causing a giant geyser of molten rock which is erupting precariously close to the ice bridge. The two face off once more, each predicting the other's actions move for move. Sara and Eggman appear from a warp zone just as Metal Sonic goes flying upward, his head bashing through the underside of Eggman's ship. Sara is thrown from the ship but is saved by Knuckles before she hits the ground. Knuckles then attempts to redirect the flow of the magma away from the ice bridge by digging tunnels beneath it. Metal Sonic grabs Sonic, choking him, so Tails uses the modified locator device to overload the robot with more of Sonic's emotions causing him to malfunction and release Sonic, giving him the chance to damage him. Right after this, the President's ship crashes into the ice bridge, jarring shut the door to the ship and trapping him and Old Man inside. As Tails flies Sonic to their aid, Metal Sonic appears again, knocking them both out of the sky and effectively blocking their way to the ship which has now begun to catch fire. Eggman sniper-shoots Tails' modified device from above, destroying it before he can use it to overload Metal Sonic again.

Sonic and Metal Sonic continue their fight and eventually a strike from Sonic sends Metal Sonic flying into the President's ship, crashing into and breaking the cockpit windshield, causing the entire ship to explode. Metal Sonic emerges from the smoke holding the President and Old Man, having saved them from the explosion. He drops them to the ground before a large chunk of debris knocks Metal Sonic down into a deep crevice filled with magma. Sonic, seeing that Metal Sonic has good in him, like Sonic himself, immediately jumps down the incline, sliding down to try and save Metal Sonic. He reaches out a hand to Metal Sonic who slaps it away, realizing that he must perish as there can only be one Sonic in the world. Sonic is incredibly distraught, Knuckles having to restrain him as he watches Metal Sonic melt away into the magma.

Later, everyone is overlooking the ice bridge which has been saved from destruction. Sonic is lost in thought, presumably still saddened at the loss of Metal Sonic. Tails and Sara attempt to cheer Sonic up, but are interrupted by Eggman appearing behind them, touting the fact that he still possesses the CD containing Sonic's data, and plans to create an even more powerful version of Metal Sonic which would omit the part of Sonic's data containing his personality, so that he would have no weakness. Too caught up in his egotistical speech to notice, the slow, turtle-like projectile Eggman had released earlier finally shows up, grabs the CD in its mouth and explodes, destroying it. Everyone laughs and then Knuckles hits Sonic on the head, claiming it was payback for earlier when Sonic accidentally stepped on Knuckles' head. Knuckles runs off and Sonic chases him, with Tails following both of them. Sara, Old Man and the President all pile into Eggman's ship and demand that he catch up with Sonic. Eggman obliges and as they fly up behind Sonic, they all grab for him, Sara shouting that she wants to marry him, and Eggman claiming that he will eventually get Sonic's data again. Sonic announces he is getting out of here, and races towards the screen. The title shows once more before the credits play.

Trivia & Censorship

• In the original Japanese version, Sara refers affectionately to Knuckles as Mr. Mole (モグラちゃん, mogura-chan,) when he saves her, presumably as a joke because she does not know what sort of animal Knuckles is. This occurs only once, but was correctly translated, and so is present in the English translation.
• The only actual censorship in the film is the omittance of quite a few curse words which were present in the Japanese version, but were replaced with more mild-sounding language in the English version.

Production Credits

Executive Producer:

Haruki Nakayama

Production Manager:

Kyoichi Mori

Producers:

Koichiro Sugie

Akinori Ohno

Takayuki Sugizaki

Naoharu Hokutani

Production Directors:

Sonic Team

Yuji Naka

Naoto Oshima

Music Production Director:

Junji Fujita

Music:

Mitsuhiro Tada

Ending Theme "Look-a-Like":

Mitsuhiro Tada (Music & Arrangement)

Riu Konaka (Lyrics & Performance)

Storyboards:

Sadayori Sekijima

Original Story:

Masashi Kubota

Production Design:

Kazunori Ikegami

Character Designs & Director of Animation:

Tsuneo Ninomiya

Assistant Animation Director:

Fumie Muroi

Mechanica Coordinator:

Haruo Miyakawa

Key Animation:

Fumie Muroi

Minoru Kibata

Junichi Hayakawa

Toshiya Washida

Masaru Yoshioka

Koji Itou

Nobutaka Itou

Shiro Kudaka

Hideaki Sakamoto

Fumie Muroi

Fujio Oda

Junichi Hayakawa

Masaro Yoshioka

Masahiko Matsuyama

Koji Aso, Minoru Kibata

Hiroyuki Yoshimura

Junichi Takaoka

Hideaki Sakamoto

Art Director:

Seiko Akashi

Backgrounds:

Studio Uni

Masaru Amamizu

Takashi Nakamura

Akira Suzuki

Reiko Ikeda

Kaori Nishikawa

Animation Check:

Reiko Yamada

Animation:

Anime World Osaka

Tezuka Production

Yoshiyuki Naritaka

Studio Pierrot Fukuoka Annex

Studio Pierrot Art Division

Tezuka Production

Yoshiyuki Naritaka

Color Designation:

Yoshiko Takiguchi

Finishing:

Anime World Osaka

Tezuka Production

Studio OM Aomori Works

Yoshiyuki Naritaka

Studio Pierrot Fukuoka Annex

Tezuka Production

Studio OM Aomori Works

Hiroyuki Naritakara

Studio Run Run

Digital Animation:

Junya Koshiba

Special Effects:

Kenji Ikeda

Finishing Check:

Toshio Kaido

Izumi Murasaki

Yoshiko Shimizu

Director of Photography:

Motoaki Ikegami

Photography:

Studio Cosmos

Katsunori Mahara

Noriko Suzuki

Tetsuo Ofuji

Yoichi Kuroda

Hiroshi Noguchi

Shinji Ikegami

Naohisa Kijima

Takashi Shimada

Recording Director:

Fusanobu Fujiyama

Mixing:

Akiyoshi Yoda

Sound Effects:

Daisuke Jinbo

Swarer Production

Recording Studio:

Studio Echo

Jinnan Studio

Sound Effects Production:

Jinnan Studio

Hiromi Kikuta

Editing:

Seiji Morita

Film Processing:

IMAGICA

Titles:

Maki Productions

Production Coordinators:

Hiroyuki Fujiware

Daisuke Nishioka

Production:

General Entertainment Co., Ltd.

Animation Production:

Studio Pierrot Co., Ltd.

Original Production:

Sega Enterprises, Ltd.

Director:

Kazunori Ikegami

English Language Version:

Presented by A.D.V. Films

Project Translator:

Keisuke Okamoto

International Coordinator:

Toru Iwakami

Executive Producer:

John Ledford

Produced & Directed by:

Gary Dehan

English ADR Script:

Jennifer Presto

Gary Dehan

Production Manager:

Lisa J. Miller

Sound Design:

Paul Killam

Art Director:

Laura Attwell

Logo Design:

Kevin Hinnant

Production Coordinator:

Janice Williams

English ADR Recorded at:

Monster Island

English ADR Recording Engineer:

Charles Campbell

Production Assistants:

Kelly Beard

Maki Nagono

Akiko Yoshii

Production Secretary:

Anna Bechtol

Voice actors

Role	Voice Actor (English)	Voice Actor (Japanese)
Sonic the Hedgehog	Martin Burke	Masami Kikuchi
Miles "Tails" Prower	Lainie Frasier	Hekiru Shīna
Knuckles the Echidna	Bill Wise	Yasunori Matsumoto
Dr. Eggman/Robotnik	Edwin Neal	Junpei Janikuchi
Sara	Sascha Biesi	Mika Kanai
Black Eggman/Metal Robotnik	Edwin Neal	Junpei Janikuchi
President of South Island	Edwin Neal	Yuzuru Fujimoto
Hyper Metal Sonic	Gary Dehan
Old Man Owl	Charles Campbell	Chafūrin
President's aide		Akimitsu Takase

Box Art

• 

  "Journey to Eggmanland" JP cover (VHS)

• 

  "Sonic vs Metal Sonic" JP cover (VHS)

• 

  US/EU cover (VHS)

• 

  Early US/EU cover (DVD)

• 

  US cover (DVD)