Sonic X

Sonic X (ソニックX) is an anime series based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. It was produced in Japan by TMS Entertainment with the partnership of Sega and Sonic Team.

Series 1 (Seasons 1-2)
During the mission to rescue Cream the Rabbit and Cheese the Chao from Dr. Eggman's headquarters, Sonic and his friends are caught in an explosion that transports them to the another dimension occupied by humans. While Sonic is exploring this new place, he gets into trouble with the local police, who send the S Team, led by Sam Speed, after him. The S Team fails at catching Sonic, but Sonic falls into a swimming pool. Luckily, he is saved from drowning by a twelve year old boy named Chris Thorndyke. Chris lives in a mansion owned by his two celebrity parents with his inventor grandfather. Chris aids Sonic in locating his friends, and it is not long before Dr. Eggman reappears. Eggman decides to make the new dimension the start of the Eggman Empire, and Sonic and Eggman battle to collect all seven Chaos Emeralds, which came to Earth with them; Sonic wants to use the Emeralds to return home, while Eggman wants to use them to take over the new world. At the end of the first season, Chaos Control occurs, but instead of sending Sonic and co. back home, parts of their world (like Angel Island) are sent to Earth instead.

In the first season, when Sonic and his friends are transported to Chris' world and they get into trouble with the police they hide in Chris's house, where only Chris, his grandfather, their maid, Ella, and their butler, Tanaka, know of their existence. Eventually, however, they are accepted as heroes and celebrities, with the entire city knowing about them. The second season features plots based on Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Battle.

In the second season (in Japan, the end of the first series), it is discovered that the Earth and Sonic's world were once a single planet, but a cataclysmic event split it into two and sent them into different dimensions. The flow of time on Sonic's world is considerably slower, with a single month on Sonic's world equaling an entire year on Earth. Because Sonic and his friends were transported to Earth, the two worlds are beginning to merge into one yet again, which will cancel out their respective timelines and freeze time itself; thus, Sonic and co. have no choice but to go back.

Series 2 (Season 3)
The new villain, known as Dark Oak, tries to get the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, but Sonic scatters them across the galaxy to prevent Dark Oak from using their power. Meanwhile, six years having passed in the human world, Chris uses a portal to travel to Sonic's world, where only six months had passed, but ends up in the form of a twelve year old. During their reunion, Dark Oak and his Metarex army (similar to the Black Arms from the Sonic games) attacks and steal the "Planet Egg" from Sonic's planet. Without the Egg, all the plants on the planet wither. Once again, Sonic and his friends venture into space to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds. Dr. Eggman follows soon afterwords with his ship: The Crimson Egg.

On the course of the Season, Sonic and his friends end up on many different planets, searching for the Chaos Emeralds and restoring life to almost barren planets. During this time, Dr. Eggman joins up with the Metarex and becomes one of the five Metarex kings soon after, along with: Pale Bay Leaf, Black Narcissus, and Yellow Zelkova. It is later revealed that Dr. Eggman was stealing technology, he, along with Decoe, and Bocoe, were later arrested by Pale Bay Leaf, and sent to jail. Sometime later Chris shows up and tries to save him. Only for Dr. Eggman to point out that he never needed any help breaking out, and the crew proceed to escape.

A few episodes later, Cosmo is eventually unveiled as an unwilling spy for the Metarex, who are part of the same race of anthropomorphic plants as Cosmo. Dark Oak, Pale Bay Leaf, Black Narcissus enact a plan that could destroy the galaxy, Cosmo sacrifices herself with the help of Super Sonic, Super Shadow, and Tails. Her essence is manifested in the form of a seed, which Tails plants once they return to their own planet. With the Metarex destroyed, Eggman helps Chris to be sent back home. Soon thereafter, Dr. Eggman revives his previous rivalry with Sonic, albeit a more light-hearted one. The series ends with a couple of minor cliffhangers, such as the whereabouts of Shadow (although it is implied that Dr. Eggman knows what happened to Shadow) and what Dr. Eggman plans to do with Chris gone. In the Japanese dub, Shadow the Hedgehog is still alive and he is seen where he put a rose on Molly's grave.

Main

 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Amy Rose
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Cream the Rabbit
 * Rouge the Bat
 * Dr. Eggman
 * Chris Thorndyke

Minor

 * Big the Cat
 * Froggy
 * E-102 Gamma
 * Chaos
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Charmy Bee
 * Tikal the Echidna
 * Chao

Original characters

 * Chris Thorndyke: Chris is a boy who becomes involved with Sonic and his companions. He is the son of Nelson Thorndyke, a CEO of a engineering corporation, and Lindsay Thorndyke, an actress, who are unable to spend much time with him due to their work. He is mainly raised by his grandfather, Chuck, and his maid, Ella. He lets Sonic and his companions stay at his mansion, and he helps them find the Chaos Emeralds. After they return back to their dimension, Chris spends six years working on a gate that will allow him to transport himself to Sonic's world. After he arrives, he reverts back to his twelve year old body, and helps fight against the Metarex.
 * Chuck Thorndyke: Chuck is the paternal grandfather of Chris Thorndyke. He is a scientist and inventor, who bonds with Tails due to their shared interest of inventing. He is voiced by Bin Shimada in the Japanese version and by Jerry Lobozzo in the 4Kids dub.
 * Ella: Ella is Chris's large, jolly and Hispanic maid. She befriends Amy and Cream after discovering their existence. She enjoys her job and she is very hotheaded.
 * Mr. Tanaka: Mr. Tanaka is Chris's butler, who discovers that Chris is hiding the existence of Sonic and his companions. He is a skilled martial artist and he works with Topaz on occasions.
 * Decoe and Bocoe: Decoe and Bocoe are Eggman's personal humanoid assistant robots. Decoe is tall, slim and gold-colored, while Bocoe is short, stubby and silver. They are almost constantly seen with Eggman, helping him pilot his machinery among other things. They are somewhat clumsy and stupid,(similar to Scratch and Grounder) and they constantly reflect on their failures and insult Dr. Eggman behind his back. In Japanese, the word 'dekoboko' (凸凹) means uneven, bumpy, jugged. The symbols on Decoe and Bocoe's chests represent the two kanjis in this word. Their character designs are based on the villains Omega and Epsilon from previous TMS series Kinkyū Hasshin Saver Kids.
 * Bokkun or Messenger Robo: Bokkun is a messenger employed by Doctor Eggman to send messages to Sonic that come in a form of a TV that blows up in the recipient's face. Bokkun is constantly mistreated and abused by Eggman, though he still is very loyal to him. He enjoys using bombs to annoy people and he flies using a jetpack. He has a weakness for sweets, as seen in episode 44, the Sewage Search, when he was bribed by Chris' friends to call for Sonic's help in exchange for Ella's apple pie and strawberry shortcake. In the Japanese dub, Bokkun is referred to as: Messenger Robo.
 * Cosmo: Cosmo is a young, but beautiful member of a plant-like alien species known as Seedrians, whose homeworld was destroyed by the villainous Metarex. She escapes to Sonic's homeworld after the attack and meets Sonic and his companions. She has the ability to empathize with plants, trees, or the planet and determine their state of life. She also can decipher the Metarex language.  Her skirt allows her to jump to high heights, and gently float down to the ground (as an homage to Alice in Wonderland). During Season 3, she gets a crush on Tails.
 * Metarex: The Metarex are a group of five cyborgs, Pale Bay Leaf, Black Narcissus, Yellow Zelkova, Red Pine, and their leader, Dark Oak, who use an endless army of robots to rob worlds of their "Planet Eggs," the source of all life, leaving the worlds dying in their wake. They later reveal that they are the masculine members of Cosmo's species, who turned their back on their own kind after using their own planet's planet egg to become extremely powerful, which eventually corrupted them. In his first appearance, Dark Oak easily outmatches Super Sonic (though it should be noted that Sonic was, by his own admission, holding back).
 * Mr. Stewart is a government agent posing as a school teacher assigned to watch Sonic and his friends by the President. He is a fan of Chris' mother Linsey Flair. He always looks out for Chris and the other kids in his class. He is voiced Andrew Rannells in the English dub.
 * Scarlet Garcia is a reporter for SSTV news in Station Square. She is voiced by Megan Hollingshead in English.
 * Sam Speed: Sam is Chris's maternal second uncle and the leader of the Speed Team, a special unit of the Station Square police force that uses high-performance Formula racing cars. He forms a rivalry with Sonic. In the Japanese dub, in every appearance he makes, he has a different nickname.
 * Topaz is a GUN agent and the human partner of Rouge the Bat. She initially disapproves of Rouge, though they later become friends, and their main assignment is to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds from Eggman. She is voiced by Kayzie Rogers in the English version.

American version
In 2003, 4Kids Entertainment and VIZ Media co-licensed Sonic X for the United States, with the series being distributed and licensed on DVD by FUNimation, Alliance Films (Canada) and Paramount Home Entertainment (UK). The episodes were then localized for the intended demographic, including the complete replacement of the score, as well as removing suggestive content and changing the fate of several characters, as well as editing the story to be much lighter and younger in tone for US Release. Other continuity errors include mislabelling "Chaos Control" as Doctor Eggman's base. While both English and Japanese characters were digitally removed or replaced with incoherent symbols (This was done by TMS Entertainment, rather than 4Kids.), Chinese characters were unedited in The Adventures of Knuckles and Hawk, in coherence with the episode's setting.

4Kids did not dub the Sonic games at the time and went with their in-house VAs. Mike Pollock, the current voice actor for Doctor Eggman, stated during an interview that he was provided samples of the game's voice overs as a reference. The original 4Kids cast included Jason Griffith (as Sonic and Shadow), Lisa Ortiz (as Amy), Amy Palant (as Tails), Dan Green (as Knuckles), Rebecca Handler (as Cream), and Mike Pollock (as Dr. Eggman).

As 4Kids owns the international distribution rights to Sonic X, the edited version of the show was then provided to most other countries around the world, including most of the countries of Latin America and Europe. The show was dubbed into the corresponding languages for each country, but the footage had the edits already made in the American version, along with the music changes. Furthermore, the scripts for the foreign dubs were based on the revised dub scripts of the American version rather than the original Japanese scripts, most likely as a way of maintaining consistency with the edited footage. The only other countries to receive their footage of Sonic X directly from Japan—without any of the edits made by 4Kids Entertainment--are France, China, and Thailand.

The cast of the 4Kids production eventually became the official cast for Sega's Sonic titles, starting from Shadow the Hedgehog in 2005.

When a producer for the series was asked about any prior experience with the Sonic franchise, he replied, "I've never played the game, seen the series or read the comics."

As of July 2010, 4Kids Entertainment still owns the North American rights to Sonic X as of this day. The edited dub airs on Toonzai (formally The CW4Kids) in reruns, and the entire series can be viewed online at 4KidsTV.com, 4Kids' YouTube channel, Hulu, and Toonzaki. However, in July 2009, 4Kids uploaded a preview for a subtitled episode of the Japanese version of Sonic X. The First Season of the Japanese version with English subtitles were uploaded to Hulu, along with the dubbed version of the complete series. More recently, the Japanese opening and closings were added to 4Kids' YouTube channel. On June 7, 2010, 4Kids had begun releasing Season 1 in Japanese on their YouTube channel. By June 11, 2010, the dubbed version of the complete series and the First Season in Japanese with English subtitles became available on 4Kids' YouTube channel. Recently, Toonzaki was launched, and Season 1 and some episodes of Season 2 with subtitles became available to watch. Recently, episodes from season 2 have been slowly being uploaded to Hulu, but it is unknown if more subbed episodes will be uploaded to YouTube.

Censorship
Although all the episodes aired in the US, they were not presented full-length compared to the original Japanese version. In the Japanese version, some scenes from some Sonic X episodes contained material such as weapons, profanity, guns, violence, blood, death, and romance. (In Japan, this type of material is not considered inappropriate for young children, as it was in the United States). As a result, 4Kids Entertainment removed most scenes containing these elements, due to the fact that the American version was rated TV-Y7 FV, although most of the fighting was kept in all the episodes.

Theme songs
For the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, much of Europe, and Brazil, the opening song was performed by a female singer repeating the show's title numerous times, the U.S. ending theme was kept, however, and all of the inserts were edited out of the English version.

U.S.

 * Opening
 * 1) "Gotta Go Fast" by Norman J. Grossfeld, Joseph Garrity, and Russell Velázquez
 * Ending
 * 1) "Gotta Go Fast" (shortened version) by Norman J. Grossfeld, Joseph Garrity, and Russell Velázquez

Japan

 * Opening
 * 1) "SONIC DRIVE" by Hironobu Kageyama (KAGE) & Hideaki Takatori (Project.R)
 * Intro Version 1 (eps. 1-26)
 * Intro Version 2 (eps. 27-78)


 * Endings
 * 1) "Mi-Ra-I" by:RUN&GUN(English translation: "Future") (eps. 1–13)
 * 2) "Hikaru Michi" by Aya Hiroshige (English translation: "The Shining Road") (eps. 14–39 and 53–78)
 * 3) "T.O.P" by KP & URU (eps. 40–52)


 * Inserts
 * 1) "Kotoba ni Dekinai" by OFF COURSE (Oda Kazumasa) (Episode 26) (TV-Tokyo Broadcast Only)
 * 2) "Live & Learn" by Crush 40 (Episode 38) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 3) "Natsu no Hi" by OFF COURSE (Episode 52) (International and TV-Tokyo Broadcast Only)
 * 4) "Midori no Hibi" by OFF COURSE (Episode 52) (TV-Tokyo Broadcast Only)
 * 5) "Event: The Last Scene" by Fumie Kumatani (OFF COURSE) (Episode 52) (From Sonic Adventure 2) (Japanese DVD and International Broadcasts Only)
 * 6) "Fakery Way...for Twinkle Park" by Jun Senoue (Episode 68, 76) (From Sonic Adventure)
 * 7) "Event : Defeat of the Ultimate Lifeform" by Jun Senoue and Fumie Kumatani (Episode 68) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 8) "Event : Keeping my promises" (Episode 68) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 9) "Vengeance is Mine...for Radical Highway" by Jun Senoue (Episode 72) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 10) "3 Black Noises" by Kenichi Tokoi (Episode 68, 72) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 11) "Boss : Chaos ver.0, 2, 4" by Jun Senoue (Episode 73) (From Sonic Adventure)
 * 12) "PHANTOM MINDS" by Nana Mizuki (Episode 75) (TV-Tokyo Broadcast Only)
 * 13) "SONIC DRIVE" by Hironobu Kageyama & Hideaki Takatori (Episodes 1, 42, 48, 52 [Hironobu Kageyama only/instrumental], 72)

Europe/Australia/New Zealand

 * Opening
 * 1) "Sonic X" by Jetix
 * 2) "Gotta Go Fast" Played in certain episodes throughout the show.
 * Ending
 * 1) "Gotta Go Fast" (shortened version) by Norman J. Grossfeld, Joseph Garrity, and Russell Velázquez

France

 * Opening of TF1
 * 1) "SONIC DRIVE" by Hironobu Kageyama & Hideaki Takatori; sung in French by Claude Vallois (Lyrics completely modified but same music)
 * Intro Version 1 (eps. 1-26) First Season
 * Intro Version 2 only seen in episode 39, also eps. 67-74


 * Opening of Jetix
 * 1) "Sonic X" by Jetix


 * Endings
 * 1) "Mi-Ra-I" by:RUN&GUN (English translation: "Future") (eps. 1–13) instrumental version
 * 2) "Hikaru Michi" by Aya Hiroshige (English translation: "The Shining Road") (eps. 14–26 and 77–78) instrumental version
 * 3) "T.O.P" by KP & URU (eps. 27–76) instrumental version


 * Inserts
 * 1) "Live & Learn" by Crush 40 (Episode 38) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 2) "Natsu no Hi" by OFF COURSE (Episode 52)
 * 3) "Event: The Last Scene" by Fumie Kumatani (Episode 52) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 4) "Fakery Way...for Twinkle Park" by Jun Senoue (Episode 68, 76) (From Sonic Adventure)
 * 5) "Event : Defeat of the Ultimate Lifeform" by Jun Senoue and Fumie Kumatani (Episode 68) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 6) "Event : Keeping my promises" (Episode 68) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 7) "Vengeance is Mine...for Radical Highway" by Jun Senoue (Episode 72) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 8) "3 Black Noises" by Jun Senoue (Episode 68, 72) (From Sonic Adventure 2)
 * 9) "Boss : Chaos ver.0, 2, 4" by Jun Senoue (Episode 73) (From Sonic Adventure)
 * 10) "SONIC DRIVE" by Hironobu Kageyama & Hideaki Takatori (Episodes 1, 42, 48, 52 [Hironobu Kageyama only/instrumental], 72)

Latin America

 * Opening
 * 1) "Sonic X" by Jetix (Seasons 1 and 2)
 * 2) "Gotta Go Fast" Spanish version by Jetix (Season 3, only on some episodes)
 * Ending
 * 1) "Gotta Go Fast" (shortened version) by Norman J. Grossfeld and Russell Velázquez (English and Spanish versions by Jetix. English version was shown on seasons 1 and 2, Spanish version on season 3)

DVD releases
All Sonic X episodes were released in Australia. In 2005, four volumes were released in the UK by Warner Home Video, which featured two episodes per disc. In America, after complaints about confusion among which episodes were on which volumes, 4Kids released all three seasons on 13 episode collection box sets by Universal Studios Home Entertainment (Because of Jetix), Walt Disney Home Entertainment & Contender Entertainment Group.

Comic book series
In September 2005, Archie Comics, publisher of the North American Sonic the Hedgehog comics started a series based on Sonic X. Issue #40 was its finale, and in March 2009 a new comic book series started entitled, Sonic Universe.

Toy line
McDonald's released a set of Sonic X disk launchers one with Sonic, one with Tails one with Knuckles and one with Shadow on the launchers and the disk themselves. The Leapster, from LeapFrog Enterprises, released a Sonic X-themed math game intended for kindergarten and first grade students. Toy Island also made action figures in 2006 and 2007, some of which were 2 slightly altered re-releases of figures from a Sonic Adventure line and larger molds of part of a series of Gashapon figurines.