Sonic the Hedgehogmay be the last pop culture icon most people would expect to be the subject of an anime, but he actually received his own anime film back in 1996 that people have almost totally forgotten about. The reasonSonic the Hedgehog’s1996 film is so little known is because public reception was not very positive.
Viewers felt that the English dub of the Japanese film was not of great quality and criticized the film for lacking substance. Per anAnime News Network report,Sonic the Hedgehog"strayed from the video games a little too much." For all these reasons,the 1996 film was doomed to be disapproved of at best and forgotten altogether at worst.
Sonic the Hedgehog’srecent live-action movies, other TV series, includingSonic BoomandSonic X, andoriginal Sonic video gamesare all valued pieces of entertainment, so it may seem surprising that the 1996 anime did not experience the same fate. A host of troubling issues held the anime back from true greatness, the first of which is its English dub.
This 1996 version ofSonic the Hedgehogwas released in two parts, one in January, and one in March. The story followsfamiliar Sonic characters, including Sonic himself, Knuckles, and Tails, as they embark on a mission to stop Dr. Robotnik and his metal henchmen. The animation was praised as colorful and innovative, but that’s about where the compliments end.
Although the dub did bringSonic the Hedgehogto new audiences, the voice acting did not hold a candle to the original Japanese dialogue or properly represent the characters and their personalities. The list of problems does not end there; a few of the slapstick-style humor sequences in the movie also came under fire for their sheer ridiculousness.
Aside from bad voice acting and jokes that didn’t land,Sonic the Hedgehog’splot was also called boring and basic, lacking the charm and creativity of previous Sonic stories. All of these issues coupled together made the Japanese movie utterly forgettable within the Sonic canon, since manyother Sonic shows and moviesovershadowed it by being better in every way.
Though They Want To, Sega Cannot Re-Release the Sonic Anime Due to Licensing Issues
Not only is theSonic the HedgehogOVA movie obscure, it is pretty difficult to find due to legal reasons. SEGA planned to re-release the failed 1996Sonicanime,according to a Game Rant report, but paperwork issues have made this impossible. When ADV Films, the company that produced the movie, was dissolved,Sonic’slicense was lost in the shuffle.
Chances ofSonic’sanime ever being re-released feel slim, considering its lack of popularity and the ADV Films licensing issues. While some fans did really enjoy the film, praising its vivid animation and childlike lightheartedness,Sonic the Hedgehog’sanime was just not impactful enough, and too riddled with shortcomings to be remembered for very long.
