Trivia / Sonic X

• Acting for Two:
  • Cream and her mother Vanilla are both voiced by Sayaka Aoki in Japanese, Rebecca Honig in English and Gianinna Talloni in Latin Spanish (only in the Chilean dubbing).
  • In Spain, Rafael Alonso Naranjo Jr. was Sonic and Vector.
  • In English speaking territories, Jason Griffith voiced both Sonic and Shadow.
  • In Latin America there were several cases:
    • In the Chilean dubbing:
    • Jessica Toledo was Cheese and Helen.
    • Rodrigo de la Paz was Bocoe and Hawk.
    • Carlos Carvajal was Decoe and Nelson.
    • Viviana Navarro was Bokkun and Christina Cooper.
    • Jorge Lillo was E-102 Gamma and Shadow.
    • Alejandro Trejo was Mr. Tanaka and Espio.
    • Keyros Guillén was Scarlet Garcia and Lindsay in episode 19.
    • Enrique Madiña was the President and Pachacamac.
    • Sandro Larenas was Jerome Wise and Elmer Johnson.
    • Loreto Araya was Frances and Tikal.
    • Julio González Littin was Big, Dr. Gerald Robotnik in episode 37, and Vector.
    • Iván Romo was Albert Butler and Dr. Gerald Robotnik in episodes 33 and 38.
    • In the Argentinian dubbing:
    • Marcos Abadi was adult Chris and Leon.
    • María Elena Molina voiced Lindsay and Chrysanthemum.
• Adored by the Network: For whatever reason, Sonic X seemed to be loved by pretty much any Saturday-Morning Cartoon block there is. When it first debuted on the FoxBox, it quickly became the most advertised show on the block and continued to be loved even after it switched to 4Kids TV and then to TheCW4Kids and then to Toonzai and then when it became Vortexx. KidsClick, an attempted revival of the Kids' WB! format, planned to start reairing the show in 2017 (they didn't do so before KidsClick shut down). Keep in mind this was an anime that ended in 2006.
• Anime First: Unlike other anime that were made before a manga adaptation for it was announced, the anime didn't get a manga adaptation after it premiered. But it did receive an American comic book adaptation by Archie Comics after it premiered.
• Ascended Fan Nickname:
  • The official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter used the Fan Nickname "Dark Sonic".
  • TMS used the Fan Nickname "Dark Super Sonic".
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Jason Griffith originally auditioned for the role of Chris Thorndyke because he wanted to know what it was like to be Sonic's best human friend. He wound up getting the role of Sonic instead.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: A popular scene from Sonic X has a bartender asking Shadow what his most happy memory is, to which Shadow replies "being dead". This doesn't happen in the actual show, as the scene is from episode 72 and is about the bartender talking about the death world the Metarex left behind.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Bokkun, Charmy, Danny, and Tails are voiced by women.
  • Mike Pollock, who plays Eggman, voices Ella in the English dub.
  • Chris' Japanese, English and Latin Spanish (only in the Argentinian dubbing) voice actors are female.
  • Bokkun in the Chilean Latin Spanish dub is voiced by an woman.
  • Charmy and Tails in the Argentinian Latin Spanish dub are voiced by women.
• Development Gag: The anime contains dialogue and scenes from Adventure and Adventure 2 that were removed from the initial releases of the games.
• Directed by Cast Member: The French dub was directed by Antoine Nouel, who also voiced numerous characters such as Chuck and Nelson Thorndyke, Sam Speed, Mr. Stewart, Decoe, Big, Espio, Dark Oak, etc.
• Early-Bird Release: Episode 27: "The Beginning of Disaster" (or Pure Chaos) was released on the VHS and DVD "A Super Sonic Hero" 3 months before it aired in America.
• Exiled from Continuity: Ian Flynn confirmed on his Bumblekast podcast that most Sonic X characters are off the table in regards to any future appearance in the mainline continuity. This also means that any plans Flynn had for a potential Metarex arc in the IDW comics will never happen.
• Feelies: The "Project: Shadow" DVD included a card from the Sonic X card game.
• Foreign Dub as Basis: Most foreign Sonic X dubs are based on the bowdlerised 4Kids dub. The few exceptions based on the original Japanese script include the French and Korean versions.
• God Never Said That: Cosmo's species has never been officially been called "Seedrians". It's a Fan Nickname that became widespread.
• Late Export for You: Initially, the last season only aired on television outside Japan, despite a full Japanese voice track being produced. However, to commemorate the release of the Sonic movie, all 3 seasons were rebroadcasted in Japan in 2020.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The show aired reruns for a long time. Despite this, according to Ian Flynn, Sega apparently doesn't want the comics based on the show to be reprinted, if some sources are to be believed. Archie (who originally published the comics) and Sega parting on very sour terms and the Sonic comic license going to IDW only further hurt the odds of a reprint due to Sega and IDW trying to move on from Archie's run.
  • The 5.1 audio version of the Japanese Sub. In Japan, they released thirteen volumes of the show on DVD that hosted the show's first 52 episodes. While they were out, there were two versions of the DVDs released. One was the standard edition and the other is "Hi-Spec" edition, which included 5.1 audio compared to the standard's Stereo audio (and also special features and better looking covers). Unfortunately, out of the thirteen volumes, ten were done for this, leaving the other thirteen episodes original 5.1 audio lost (let alone if they exist). Even worse, the "Hi-Spec" editions were made in limited quality, making it hard to find the original audio. Fortunately, Discotek Media announced the 5.1 audio will be included on their release of the Japanese sub.
  • The Latin American Dub, and specifically the third season, we're nearly impossible to find for a long time. The show was constantly shuffled around different timeslots on Jetix before being removed just a few years after the show premiered. The show pretty much dissapeared from TV at that point, with the only airings being on a small TV channel in Chile called Telecanal, and they only aired the first two seasons. Luckily, Disney's (through Buena Vista International Television) distribution rights of the show expired around 2018-2019 and the rights reverted back to TMS Entertainment. All three seasons are now readily available on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's released a set of six toys in France in 2006, and a set of four spinning toys in Europe in 2007.
• Network to the Rescue:
  • In Latin America, after years of having its distribution rights locked away at Buena Vista International and fans circulating all the dubbed episodes they have on the Internet, TMS Entertainment got the distribution rights back in 2019 and they immediately uploaded all the episodes (even Season 3, which at this point was pretty much lost save for a few episodes) to Netflix and Amazon Prime. Sonic fans in the region were really happy when the news came out.
  • On the English speaking side, we have Discotek Media, who first released the English dub back in 2016 on DVD, and then on standard def Blu-ray in 2019. No word on the Japanese version until 2022.
• Postscript Season: Season 3 due to high international ratings, which rendered the seemingly conclusive Season 2 finale a Series Fauxnale.
• Newbie Boom: The show's immense popularity upon its release, reaching number one in its timeslot in countries like the United States and France, plus its continuous re-runs in the subsequent decades played a pivotal role in cultivating a new generation of Sonic fans.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Unlike the games in 2003, the anime featured different voice actors from the 4Kids Entertainment line-up such as Jason Griffith as Sonic and Shadow, Amy Palant as Tails, Dan Green as Knuckles, Lisa Ortiz as Amy, and Mike Pollock as Dr. Eggman. They would later replace the game voices as the official voice cast until 2010, when all but Mike Pollock would be replaced with the current voice cast.
  • While most of the Japanese voice actors were retained from the games series, Joji Nakata, however, did not reprise his role as E-102 Gamma (despite providing the voice work for Dark Oak in the third season of the anime). Instead, Naoki Imamura took the role.
  • The first two seasons were dubbed in Chile for the Latin American dub, but by the third season it was dubbed in Argentina for unknown reasons. As such, none of the actors reprise their roles for the Metarex saga.
  • After Shun Yashiro's death the same year the anime began airing, Takashi Nagasako took over as Big the Cat in the anime and in the games.
  • Tails, on the other hand, was originally voiced by Kazuki Hayashi in Sonic Adventure and Atsuki Murata in Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Adventure 2, but is now voiced by Ryō Hirohashi in the anime and in the games beginning with Sonic Heroes.
  • Pachacamac was originally voiced by Tōru Ōkawa in Sonic Adventure, but is now voiced by Toshihiko Nakajima in the anime.
• Role Reprise: The Japanese voice actors from the games reprise their roles in the anime, with a couple of exceptions.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: When episodes 26 and 52 were released on DVD in Japan, the insert songs that played in them ("Kotoba ni Dekinai", "Natsu no Hi", and "Midori no Hibi") were replaced. The Discotek Media release of the Japanese version will follow suit.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Not in the West, but surprisingly in Japan. TV Tokyo burned aired a new episode every week for 52 weeks straight, while airing it on a Sunday at 8:30 in the morning with almost little to no advertising (which is a is an issue considering Sonic is not as popular in Japan as he is in the West, so it can't get traction on Sonic's name alone). Leading to the show suffering from poor ratings, and the third and final season never airing on TV Tokyo (until it was released in 2020 to premote the Sonic movie there) or released on DVD there, having instead run once on Kids Station and then never again.
  • A very infamous case in Latin America. The show only lasted from October 2004 to September 2007 (less than 3 years) on Jetix before being removed entirely to make room for more The Fairly OddParents! re-runs.
• She Also Did:
  • Chris's English voice actress, Suzanne Goldish, would also go on to direct a few anime dubs with the L.A-based Studiopolis ^note as well as serving as an engineer where the Sonic games are currently recorded, including Bleach (episodes 268-366), K, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Tiger & Bunny and Sailor Moon (2014 re-dub).
  • Chris' Japanese voice actress, Sanae Kobayashi, would also play Allen Walker in D.Gray-Man, a manga in which TMS Entertainment would later adapt into an anime.
• Studio Hop:
  • At first, the rights to the English dub were handled by 4Kids Entertainment, before switching to TMS Entertainment.
  • The rights to the series outside North America and Asia were acquired by Fox Kids Europe in 2003, later renamed Jetix Europe, with distribution serviced through Disney's Buena Vista International Television. Disney's distribution rights to the series expired at the end of 2018, reverting back to TMS Entertainment.
• Self-Adaptation: In contrast to previous animated Sonic shows, Sonic Team is directly involved with and had a ton of creative control during the show's production. It helps that the show is produced by TMS Entertainment, which is owned by Sonic Team's parent company, Sega.
• Those Two Actors: The actors who voiced Sonic and Knuckles (Pablo Ausensi and Alexis Quiroz respectively) in the Chile dubbing of the Anime would later dub Sportacus and Robbie Rotten respectively.
• Uncanceled: There were originally 52 episodes, but its performance in the West was enough that, after the Grand Finale, 26 more episodes were produced. This is unusual for anime, which don't have seasons; when extra episodes are produced, they're usually treated as a separate sequel series. It's also a notable case in that the 26 extra episodes weren't aired in Japan until 2020.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sonic X originally looked like this. Scenes from that short were used in the American intro. It originally took place on a World of Funny Animals much like most previous adaptations. Instead, they opted for Sonic living in another dimension, and he and his friends end up on Earth at the start. This means they could adapt Adventure and Adventure 2 plots, which heavily involve humans.
  • While not too different from the how the show actually turned out, there were a few elements that were definitely scrapped or changed from the second pilot.
  • One of the most (in)famous examples is "Nazo", a name given to a seemingly unknown Super form or character shown in one of the trailers. The name stems from the image name from the official website "Nazo.jpg". Iizuka's word is that it was just an early design for Super Sonic, which means he would have looked very differently from the games, having a silver coat and different quills. However, the fact that Super Sonic's regular design is also shown in said trailer casts doubt on this.
  • For the 4Kids dub, they would've gotten the game actors (Ryan Drummond, Deem Bristow, etc.) to do their respective characters, but since 4Kids was located in New York, and the game actors in California, this was impossible. Also, Jason Griffith was going to voice Chris, before he got the role of Sonic and Shadow instead.
  • Years after both the show and comic ended, YouTuber "The Game Apologist" interviewed Tracy Yardley about Issue #24 of the Archie comics adaptation, where he wrote and drew the issue. Yardley revealed a number of things about the white robot (only known as "X Robot") that copied the gang's abilities and only showed up in that issue:
    • As the robot was visually based on Emerl, it at some point was going to be a Gizoid before that was scrapped. The prototype designs leaned into this, with concept drawings that showed a more humanoid shape. One sketch showed that one hand was going to just be a hammer and the other being modeled after Knuckles. The other design showed it having butterfly-like wings and a silver, orange, and yellow color scheme, before settling to a white, red, and black design that incorporated elements of the four characters it copied (Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles).
    • While the X-Robot didn't end up getting an official name, the name "Specter" was thrown around due to it's predominantly white color scheme, but it didn't fit according to Yardley.
    • The editor, Mike Pellerito, hoped to bring back the robot as a recurring villain for the main/Sonic Universe line of the Archie Comics, as the Sonic X comics ended with a crossover between the main Archie book, Sonic X, and Sonic Universe. The robot can even be spotted in one of the panels in the final issue, where Eggman is repairing it. While Yardley states he didn't know why, he knew that Sega just said no to that idea.

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