He was in it for the money.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Wasn't the "seasons" thing another result of Netflix splitting the show into three? Iirc, Netflix originally ordered 24 episodes, with the first "season" getting eight. The second season now has eight, and it's likely a safe bet that the third will have eight.
I have no idea where it can go from there.
I do like the idea of Shadow as a anti-hero whose Fatal Flaw is that he wholeheartedly thinks that only he can handle certain things, meaning that he’s always around to help but doesn’t work well with others and has a tendency to try to leave people behind.
It doesn’t necessarily gel with his earliest appearances, but it works as a reason for him to be around and a character trait that always gives him something to do.
On the other hand, as I understand it going *too far* with that is exactly what people disliked about his characterization in the IDW comics the last few years.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 5th 2023 at 9:24:22 AM
I can understand it. Shadow's pragmatic by nature, even in SA 2. He only accepts help when he has no other option because in his mind, he's already more than capable of handling anything on his own. Even with Rouge and Omega, his first spoken lines to them is telling them to keep up or get left behind.
That said, I'm sure people prefer a emotionally open and kindhearted Shadow, but this kind of keeps him in a heroic role while still putting him at odds with the other heroes.
Of course, this ONLY works if Shadow is justified in his feelings which Prime does by uh...well I already spoke about what they did with Sonic.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Now I have the image of Silver going Jack the Ripper:
Seriously, just imagine the above conversation from Metal Gear Rising with Silver and Zor in place of Raiden and Monsoon.
Actually, you could draw even more parallels between Silver and Raiden. Both were very naive and were manipulated by the main villains before learning the truth. Both have a strong sense of morality but can be rather blunt in their approach. And both are trapped in a "perpetual war" of sorts (Raiden has difficulty adjusting to civilian life and Silver is constantly having to return to the past to save the future).
I don't know if I'd call this Shadow pragmatic given his tendency to punch first, explain much later. A mistake he repeats in this recent episode.
Edited by windleopard on Jul 5th 2023 at 5:55:01 PM
In a way, it's kind of a shame that Metal is little more than Eggman's tool most of the time.
If he were to properly break off from the Empire instead of a performing a gentle mutiny, they could given him some of the traits that they've tried (with extremely mixed results) to give Shadow.
Edited by Grounder on Jul 5th 2023 at 11:07:44 AM
I just realized something, why a promotional image from Sonic Prime gave me a weird unfamiliar feeling.
I think it's called Nostalgia...
That promo image showing Shadow holding Sonic down under a body of water.
I felt that way because it reminded me of a drawing I made as a kid, where Shadow had Sonic chained to a ball sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
—-
Funny how things work like that.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.I don't watch anime on a regular basis, so the first one that came to my mind was Blue/Gary Oak. Obviously, he is nothing like Shadow. Seto Kaiba and Erika were the runners-up, and they don't have many similarities to Shadow either. But since Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh only share Sonic's intended age demographic and Girls und Panzer has nothing to do with Sonic at all, they're apples-to-oranges comparisons.
I feel there's a difference between rivals who compete against you in sports, and people who are labeled as rivals when they don't really compete in sports. Like, it's easy for Ash and whichever rival to be on friendly terms outside of a battle, because they only compete when it comes to battling Pokemon. But then in other stuff, rivalries aren't defined by one thing and are much more nebulous. Like, when Sonic is said to have a rival in Knuckles or Shadow, it's harder to define that rivalry. How would one determine who is "better" between Sonic and Knuckles? Would they just fight? Is that all? Same with Shadow.
Edited by WillKeaton on Jul 5th 2023 at 2:30:23 AM
That's why "foil" is a better descriptive term for what those characters are.
Even this wiki gets in on it with the Stock Shōnen Rival page, where it's more accurately "Stock Shonen foil"
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.As long as he's not flawed from the actual writing...
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Honestly I think the movie/s might have helped a bit. The mass audience generally responded positively to a younger Sonic capable of making mistakes, so at the very least an expectation that more casual viewers seem open to that sort of characterization for him is pretty reasonable.
Edited by BorneAgain on Jul 5th 2023 at 8:41:07 AM

I...wouldn't really call this "going to back to 06". Shadow doesn't interact anywhere near as much with Sonic there, and his plotline is entirely different there.
No what they did what is actually have Shadow play a proper foil and contrast Sonic's reckless but good hearted nature with his own blunt pragmatism.
And it only really works because Sonic suffered a bit of Adaptational Dumbass so that Shadow can be the smarter one of the two.
But naw, that's nothing like 06. Even personality wise, Shadow is WAY more smug here than he's been since SA 2. Like he actually cracks smirks.
When was the last time Shadow was this cocky.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jul 4th 2023 at 10:29:40 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.