Sonic the Hedgehog (anime)

The original Sonic OVA features Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Dr. Eggman and a few other characters, such as the human Sera. The Sonic Anime was made in 1996, where in its native Japan it was presented in two different box sets. ADV Films dubbed it in English in 1999, and released it in Europe with a single box video. They later released it in North America in 2000 as Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie.

World

The main setting of this Sonic artoon it is the Land of the Skies, and it has many different accessible dimensions, like the Land of Darkness, and in typical anime style, this place seems a crossbreed of a fairy tale and Earth. The planet the action takes place on is Planet Freedom.

Story

Sonic is relaxing like he usually does. When Tails comes out to test a new bodyboard, he asks Sonic to give it a try. Sonic declines, since he has a great fear of water. Tails' bodyboard however, encounters a flying ship driven by Oji-san, an old owl anthropomorph, and he is almost about to go into a cliff, being picked up by the ship. Sonic runs after hearing "Help!" from Tails several times. Sonic rescues them, but Oji-san gives news of the President being held captive by Dr. Eggman. Sonic and Tails race to the Presidential Palace, where they encounter Eggman holding the President and his daughter, Sera. Eggman tells Sonic a lie that his city (Robotropolis in the English version to copy off of SatAM), in the Land of Darkness, is being held by a metal version of himself called Metal Robotnik (Black Eggman in the Japanese version). After Sonic trusts Eggman, Sera goes into Robotnik's ship with him, playing around with the controls. Sonic and Tails go into the Land of Darkness, encountering badniks, but they soon get to the abandoned city. There, they get into a long battle with Metal Robotnik, evantually making Knuckles save them and destroying Metal Robotnik. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles go into the core of the city, where Sonic is held in a glass container which copied his DNA. The protagonists think that the bomb that Robotnik threatened that would blow up the Land of the Skies was a dud. The Metal Robotnik appears, evantually crumbling, then revealing Eggman and Sera in it. Robotnik shows Sonic a metal version of himself, Metal Sonic, and the two get into a fight. Metal Sonic wins, and Tails and Knuckles go back to the Land of the Skies, where Tails finds out that Metal Sonic is out to destroy the world by hitting the Ice Caps and blowing it up. The blue hedgehog wakes up, and thinks about Metal Sonic knowing everything Sonic does, or did. Sonic gets to the workshop, and hears all about the Ice Cap thing from the President. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles go to the Ice Cap, where Sera is being held captive for marriage she is being forced into. Sonic encounters Metal Sonic, and the two have a long fight. Tails corrupts Metal's data with the navigation watch Eggman gave him before, and Sonic is able to do serious damage. At the same time, however, the President's ship is destroyed. Metal Sonic saves the President and Sonic realizes that Metal does have emotions, as he was programmed with Sonic's DNA. Metal gets blown into a volcano, where Sonic tries to save him, but Metal says "There is only one Sonic.." and is destroyed. While is Sonic is smarting from his injuries, Eggman says that he still has Sonic's DNA. A robot blows up the CD that the DNA is inside, thwarting Eggman's plans.

Trivia & Censorship

In the original translations Knuckles was presented as a mole and not as an echidna; this mistake even re-occurs in the character-bios featured in the DVD release. Sonic Anime was also cencored somewhat as the anime was originally aimed at teenagers. Most of the sensorship issues mainly concerning not translating certain Japanese cursewords, but in the scene where Sonic is supposed to show his middle-finger at Black Eggman, ADV changed the scene so that it seemed that Sonic was holdin g up his index-finger.