Sonic the Hedgehog (anime)
From Sonic Retro
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, and a few original characters, such as the human Sara (セーラ, Sēra), her father the President (大統領, Daitouryou) and Old Man, (おじさん, Oji-san.)
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 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 home continent of the Land of the Sky, South Island.
Story
Sonic is relaxing on the beach when Tails comes out to test a new water-bodyboard 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 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 residence, where they encounter Eggman holding the President and his daughter Sara hostage. Eggman explains that his city, Eggmanland (Robotropolis in the English dub,) has been taken over by a metal version of himself called Black Eggman (Metal Robotnik in the English dub.) After much deliberation, Sonic reluctantly agrees to find and confront Black Eggman, and Tails receives a navigation device from the mad doctor that will lead the duo to Eggmanland.
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 persues chase and throws a barrage of weaponry at them, causing them to nearly fall into the ocean below a bridge, where 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 superglue-like blobs of paste, 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 ahered 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, but falls apart again only moments later, as it is still completeley damaged from earlier. As noise of shouting is heard from the rubble, Sonic realizes that Sara was working with Eggman, pretending that she had been coerced to do so, but 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 moutainous peak, presumably killing him, as the 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. Afterwards, 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 into 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 emotion, 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 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 jumped down the incline, sliding down to try and save the 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 restraining him as he watches Metal Sonic disintigrate in 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, Knuckles is referred to as a mole and not an echidna. This 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:
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
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)
