In the original Western releases - the manuals really trim down what story is in there. So it really just mentions Tails idolizing Sonic and learning to do the Spindash - impressing Sonic enough to let him tag along - seemingly omitting that he also likes to build things as well.
A section from Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Japanese Manual story.
"The fox is named Miles Prower. Miles has two tails. Therefore, the animals on the island called him Tails. He was often bullied because of his two tails. However, Miles had changed when he saw Sonic come to the island. He made up his mind. 'I want to be cool, too!' After that, Miles started chasing after Sonic all day long.""
It was one afternoon. Miles found a beautiful plane on the beach. Miles, who loved machines and vehicles, started running and approached its side. A smart body with wings that could draw sharp lines. While admiring the aircraft, Miles walked to the other side and stopped his legs movements as if he were shocked. Sonic was taking a nap under the wings on the other side."
It was there from the start, just not in western media. As a result the western made media mostly focused on Tails being this kid who looks up to Sonic more than anything. Interestingly Sonic the Comic I think pivoted towards his Japanese characterization closer than the others long before Sonic Adventure confirmed it in western canon.
Currently playing/Watching: Urusei Yatsura, Pokemon Violet, Sonic FrontiersAdventures still kept Tails as a genius who could build crazy stuff, it's Sat AM that nerfed him because they only had room for once genius on the show.
Tails isn't a genius in AOSTH...
He's 4 and consistently just slightly less capable than Sonic as the kid sidekick.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.The whole reason I asked, is precisely because there was no indication of Tails being smart in any of the western media from that time. I'm not sure if Sega of America was not told Tails was supposed to be smart, or what.
Actually, I think there was one episode of Adventures where Tails got hit with some kind of Phlebotinum and became super smart, but the episode ended with Tails returning to normal.
Edited by WillKeaton on Jul 31st 2022 at 7:10:59 AM
The mohawk was on its way out before Sonic Adventure...
More accurately, it was already gone in the American art.
Edited by randomness4 on Jul 31st 2022 at 9:58:51 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Yeah the western info in Genesis days mostly had just "Tails is a younger character who idolizes sonic and maybe isn't the coolest" so most media rolled with that. The only western media that really went beyond that was Sonic the Comic in the UK - where Tails was also given some anxiety and self-image issues (and actually became more solo as the Comic went on, so he'd already had the arc that the canon Tails had in Adventure (mind STC literally ended on it's Sonic Adventure adaptation)
Also note - prior to Adventure, Sonic Jam on the Saturn also had official character profiles from Japan translated, and the internet fandom was already realizing there was certainly some differences between the stories Japan and the west got for the series. So I think this began a slow trickle of adjustments before SA made all of that go full tilt.
Currently playing/Watching: Urusei Yatsura, Pokemon Violet, Sonic FrontiersIt feels like a pretty insignificant detail overall.
Tails being a genius/inventor affects the Classic games minimally. Sonic still does the legwork. Its clear by Sonic Adventure that Tails is smart.
Its not really valusbld lore bexayse the games run with/continue that idea going forward, so if you weren't a nerd looking up the Japanese lore in the 90's you eventually absorbed Tails inevitable characterization. Tails being smart in Sonic 2 and 3 is irrelevant because story wasn't a big deal back then. It only starts to matter in Sonic Adventure when Tails can suddenly make a fake chaos emerald... which is still a leap from what he did in the earlier games regardless.
Perhaps that's why Adventure updates the setting so much. Just to bridge the gap between Western/Eastern Sonic canon. By that point what you saw in the Sonic cartoons/comics wasn't applicable to what the games were doing whereas the Classic games were simpler, and it was easier to reconcile SATAM and AOTSH and the comics with the world the games presented.
Edited by FOFD on Aug 1st 2022 at 9:04:15 AM
Adventure just was what it was. They weren't trying to cater anything to the Western audience or catch it up. SEGA of Japan didn't care about SEGA of America. To the contrary. They seemed to despise their overseas counterparts. It was a Japanese product made for a Japanese audience, but the series had reached a point where shaving the Eastern parts off during translation and adaptation wasn't as viable. The world and plot were more up front. The series wasn't just surreal settings explained by manual text anymore.
Edited by Zeromaeus on Aug 1st 2022 at 12:01:58 PM
I've always found that weird. I don't know how true it is that Sega of Japan didn't care about Sega of America, but considering how often I've read about the company's right hand not only not knowing what the left hand was doing, but often deliberately slapping anything said left hand is holding to the floor and then stomping on it, I am left to wonder.
I don't think I've ever heard of a company at odds with itself as much as Sega was, and I could never figure out why.
One Strip! One Strip!There are quite a few horror stories from Western devs during the run of the SEGA Saturn. Just getting a dev kit from SEGA of Japan was often like pulling teeth. Sonic X-treme's failed development really stands out, honestly. They didn't get a dev kit until incredibly late in development. They were given an incredibly tight deadline to work under. And when a team from SEGA of Japan (Yuji Naka included) came to check on progress, they openly talked with each other in Japanese about gutting the dev team's work and firing most of their personnel.
The Saturn port of Virtua Racing was another one. They did get a dev kit, but they weren't given the code for the arcade version of Virtua Racing. They ended up making the "port" by going to the arcade and eyeballing the tracks and mechanics and replicating them as best as they could.
PandaMonium Reviews Every U.S. Saturn Game covered the development of V.R. Virtual Racing for the SEGA Saturn in high detail in the following video:
Edited by Zeromaeus on Aug 1st 2022 at 1:31:36 PM
This video gives you a great sense of just how unknown Sonic is in Japan.
It's not even remotely comparable. Still seems crazy that Sega would resent their overseas success. And it's not like they've done a ton to market the character in Japan, outside of the Olympics series... which was clearly effective judging by the video lol.
On the subject of how Sonic was designed, I just found a Japanese interview with Yuji Naka where he has some funny things to say about it. He says the Sonic being designed to appeal to Americans wasn't anything ordered by higher-ups or even the goal in-and-of-itself, but rather was something Naka decided to just they could hopefully put "Big Hit in America!" on the Japanese box to entice the Japanese audience into buying it. He says that he told the designer that he wanted Sonic to being "West Coast-ish" but no one really knew what he meant by that, including himself since he had never been to America much at the time. He says they made Sonic a bright, clear color because they thought Americans liked things that were bright, clear colors. The interviewer said it was like how American candy and cake is bright primary colors.
The sense I've had is that So J (Sonic Team included) did care about success in the West, it just may not have been their primary concern, especially given the multitude of other local worries they were dealing with. In that way Sonic may have been designed to have universal appeal; not something strictly Western catered, but also something that wouldn't turn them off either.
I think it applies elsewhere too. Sonic's appeal and unique stuff in the Americas and/or Europe is something I think So J typically allows until the point it hinders their own plans. The classic titles having their own lore was fine because it wasn't interfering in their canon; region based comic titles were left alone until they stopped being profitable enough (Fleetway) or became a legal pain (Archie), games made by strictly American teams would be tolerated if they didn't use the engine of So J's games, and so forth.
Basically while they've not often fully embraced the Western appeal of the character in the games proper, they've also been keen enough to know when to let the success of the brand happen via various channels. Sonic Mania itself is a release that holds little market appeal to region like Japan that never embraced the 16 bit titles in their heyday, but makes complete sense everywhere else.

He was always meant to be a general-purpose 'genius' in the games, even if it was generally relegated to manual lore early on—and although it's in the same semi-obscure camp as Tails Adventure and the OVA, there's also the whole-ass Tails-branded rocketship with hangar from Sonic the Fighters.
Edited by Chortleous on Jul 30th 2022 at 8:51:53 AM