Anime Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie Review
Hi there. Bored to tears by the lack of actual fighting in Street Fighter: The Movie? Scared to death by the absolute horrificness of The House of the Dead? Just tired of bad video game movies in general? Well, Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie to the rescue!
Fans of the original Pre-Sonic Adventure Sonic the Hedgehog games are in for a real treat here in many ways. First, the art direction. The art is heavily inspired by the original Sonic games surreal, Golden Age Animation/Anime esque art direction and character designs, and boy does it show. The animation is also pretty good, and the cinematography gets the job done. The music and sound effects are also very creative and memorable.
Also, despite the complaints i have heard, I don't mind the casting in the English dub. The actors are fine and in some odd way actually fit the characters personalities and sound distinctive. Speaking of personalities, Sonic actually has his classic Jerk With a Heart of Gold 'tude in full swing here, and most of the characters are likable (cough Sarah cough)
I thought the story was fine as well, a nice action tale, and how it didn't go out of its way to take itself seriously (sans the ending), and just tries to be a fun, exciting and funny movie, kinda like a Golden Age cartoon. I could complain about how unevenly paced it feels (due to its TV pilot roots) but I can forgive that. Overall, it captures the spirit of the original games with success, which i must commend. If you want a good animated film and a Sonic cartoon for fans of everything that was great about Classic Sonic, I highly recommend this film. It's a treat you won't regret.
My rating: 7/10. Good, but not great.
Anime I Didn't Really Like This Movie. STRANGE, ISN'T IT?!
Let's get this out of the way first; Sonic the OVA isn't bad, far from it. The animation, while not amazing, is still pretty good, and the lush artwork really helps evoke the feel and aesthetics of the classic games. The music is also amazing, so that much so that I've been jamming to it on Youtube long before I watched its' actual source material. And the fight scenes can be pretty fun to watch. So it's not as though this thing is without merit.
The problem is the actual script. The characters just feel shallow and not very well fleshed out, and while I get that this is just a 50 minute OVA, I've still seen more substantial characterization out of fucking Loony Tunes cartoons, and what we do get out of them isn't always that likeable or interesting. OVA!Sonic may not be as bad as Fleetway, but he's still a tool who will only bother to get his shit together after much protest, and only when someone is literally about to die right in front of him. Eggman's mostly a joke in spite of wanting to wipe out half the damn planet, and this is after having three different versions of him that were all legitimate, intimidating threats.
There's also Knuckles, who's OK and all, but he's more or less a completely different character than in the games. I guess being protector of the Floating Island is kind of mute when half of the world's full of floating islands, but you'd think there would be some sort of acknowledgement of the backstory that every single other incarnation of him has. And then there's Sarah. Sarah is an annoying little brat that's essentially Amy Rose without any redeeming traits whatsoever, and who's more or less the source of most of the OVA's attempts as comic relief. Speaking of which.
The biggest problem with the OVA is the tone. While about 60% of it is fairly serious, the other 40% is pure farce. Bad farce. And unlike, say Ace Attorney, it just doesn't know how to juggle the two. (Nevermind that the comedy in AA was actually good. And of course, there's the English voice-acting, which was so ear-curdling atrocious that I had to switch to a sub. The end result is something that, while not horrible, still isn't deserving of the accolades heaped upon it. If it got turned into an full-blown series, (because let's face it, this was a glorified Pilot, straight-up,) maybe the writers could have fleshed out the characters more and worked the kinks out, but as is, it's just So Okay, It's Average at best. If that.