Sonic the Hedgehog

"What you see is what you get: just a guy that loves adventure. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"

- Sonic the Hedgehog 2001

Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ Sonikku za Hejjihoggu) mostly known simply as Sonic, is the video game company Sega's mascot (and also their current and longest reigning mascot, succeeding Sega's previous mascot, Alex Kidd) and the main protagonist of the video game series he is named after.

A blue anthropomorphic hedgehog with plenty of attitude and personality, he lives up to his name by being able to run at supersonic speeds.

Why He's Way Past Cool

 * 1) Just like characters such as Super Mario and Crash Bandicoot, he is one of the most famous mascots in video game history.
 * 2) *Not only that, but he is also one of the most iconic characters ever created apart from characters such as Mickey Mouse SpongeBob SquarePants, Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, Bob the Builder, Pikachu from Pokémon, Kirby, Hello Kitty, Winnie the Pooh, Bugs Bunny, Thomas the Tank Engine and Tom and Jerry.
 * 3) He could very well be the Bugs Bunny of Gaming, while Mario is the Mickey of Gaming.
 * 4) Very creative character design, arguably better compared to many iconic characters out there. For instance, many iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Winnie the Pooh to name a few usually have a wholly different body and arms that are basically the same colour as their body, but here, speaking of which, this character is a mashup of Felix the Cat's head and Mickey Mouse's body, plus he has arms that are the same colour as his muzzle and belly, which is surprisingly very creative of Sega and it's evident that this is one of the only characters that distance his or her self from the aforementioned characters in terms of his or her character design.
 * 5) Unlike most other video game mascots, Sonic actually has a personality that can actually be integrated into interesting stories. Thanks to this, Sonic has not only interesting stories in his video games, but he has a bunch of good stories in comic books, cartoons and more!
 * 6) His famous rivalry/friendship with Super Mario, which was famous enough to put them both in a crossover game together since 2007.
 * 7) When there is a crisis, he intensely focuses on the task at hand.
 * 8) He is an unpredictable thrill-seeker and sees his heroics as an opportunity to have fun.
 * 9) He always manages to remain cool under pressure.
 * 10) He often jokes around to lighten the mood and has the tendency to hilariously taunt his opponents.
 * 11) He never forgets about his friends and believes in working as a team or, as he put it, the power of teamwork.
 * 12) Unlike Simba from The Lion King, he follows his free-spirited nature and does not dwell on the past or allow painful experiences to weigh him down. Instead, he lives in the present and always looks forward to new adventures, which is a good moral for anyone.
 * 13) He is always ready to risks his life for his friends, with little regard for his own safety.
 * 14) He has shown to have a habit for forgiving, like how he forgave Silver for trying to kill him.Twice.
 * 15) He is shown to be good at swordsmanship, like in Sonic and the Black Knight.
 * 16) He earned not only 5 animated shows (AoSTH, Sonic SatAM, Sonic Underground, Sonic X, Sonic Boom), 2 web cartoons (Sonic Mania Adventures, Team Sonic Racing Overdrive), a short CGI movie (Night Of The Werehog) and an animated movie (Sonic the Hedgehog OVA), but also an exceptionally successful live-action/computer animated duology of movies in 2020 and 2022.
 * 17) He has a buttload of quotable lines, such as "STRANGE, ISN'T IT??", "That's NO GOOD.", "Ah, yeah! This is happening!", "No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me!", "Uuuhh.. meow??" and the fan-favorite "You're too slo-ow!".

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Sometimes, he can be a little too narcisistic, impatient and prideful to be likable. In other words, he can be a bit predictable at times.
 * 2) He occasionally says some very cheesy quotes, such as "Nothing starts before you take action".
 * 3) He kinda overreacts when his species is mislabeled, like when Erazor Djinn called him a "blue rat".
 * 4) Along with his friends and foes, he was horribly flanderized during the 2010s (also known as the Meta Era by the Sonic fans). He never took anything seriously in Colors and Generations which often resulted in him spewing unfunny jokes, was a big jerk in Lost World, a overconfident, unfunny jokester in Boom Rise of Lyric (as well as Shattered Crystal) and became blander in Forces. In fact, he was so bland he made Mega Man from Mega Man 8 seem more likeable.
 * 5) In the early 1990 sketches, he was portrayed 'a little too edgy and aggressive'.
 * 6) Most of the time, he makes absolutely terrible puns that no one can enjoy. Not even unironically.
 * 7) He was one of the reasons why Super Smash Bros. Brawl took so long to release.
 * 8) * Not only that, but he has a very poor moveset in all the Smash Bros. games prior to Ultimate, As most of his moves simply consist of him attacking in his ball form and his D-air is poorly-executed, as it disqualifies him from recovering especially after meteor-spiking or edgeguarding. Fortunately, this was fixed in Smash Ultimate.
 * 9) In spite of having a great and iconic character design, he barely looks like a hedgehog and more like a blue-furred, mutated cat, which might explain why he was mistaken as a cat in the Sonic X premiere episode "Sonic to The Rescue".
 * 10) His English voice in the Sonic OVA isn't that good, as it sounds like he has a southern accent.
 * 11) He had an annoying side in Sonic Underground, though he redeemed himself once the series ended.
 * 12) Some of his designs weren't that great, like his first movie design and his Pakistan Mcdonald's commercial design.

Trivia

 * For his cameos, Sonic has proven to be an extremely popular character and he is also a fighter in the Super Smash Bros. games since Brawl in 2008.
 * After having been around only three years, he had already surpassed Nintendo's Mario in popularity according to a June 1993 Q-Survey in Gameplayers magazine.
 * Even after Sega settled on the hedgehog, an idea proposed by designer Naoto Ohshima, the company tried out a taxonomically confusing name for the character: Mr. Needlemouse.
 * In keeping with the spirit of the above, Sonic 1's soundtrack was scored entirely by the Japanese pop group Dreams Come True, formed as a trio in 1988.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog is loosely based on Mickey Mouse.
 * His design was inspired on a combination of Mickey's head and Felix the Cat's body.
 * Sonic's personality is loosely based on Michael Jackson and in Bill Clinton's "get it done" attitude.

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