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Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニックザヘッジホッグ, Sonikku za Hejjihoggu?, born June 23[22][23][24]) is the titular main protagonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and Sega's mascot. He is an anthropomorphic hedgehog born with the ability to run faster than the speed of sound, hence his name. As his species implies, Sonic can also roll up into a concussive ball, primarily to attack enemies.
Born on Christmas Island, Sonic abandoned his home at an early age to pursue danger and adventures.[22][25] Becoming a carefree adventurer, he has spent most of his life traveling around the world and far beyond, usually with his best friend, Tails, by his side.[26][27] He has used his abilities to defend his world and those far beyond from the forces of evil, especially his arch-nemesis, Dr. Eggman, and his empire.
During his many adventures, Sonic has traveled from the ends of the world to the far reaches of space and time, facing countless trials that have tested him to the fullest, earning him many titles, allies, and the scorns of several foes. Well-known for his attitude and somewhat short temper, yet strong sense of justice, compassion, and love for freedom and adventure, Sonic's countless victories over the villains he has faced and his extraordinary set of abilities both have given him somewhat of a celebrity status, having many fans who yearn for his cool lifestyle.[28] However, he does not care about his image at all, and prefers to live his life his own way.
While several people have been involved in the creation of Sonic, the artist Naoto Ohshima, programmer Yuji Naka, and designer Hirokazu Yasuhara are generally credited with the creation of the character.
In April 1990, Sega requested a game that involved a mascot for their company.[29][30] They wanted a character to rival Nintendo's flagship mascot Mario; Sega president Hayao Nakayama in particular wanted a character as iconic as Mickey Mouse.[31] Sega had previously used Alex Kidd as their mascot, but because he was considered too similar to Mario, he was deemed unsatisfactory.[29] Several character designs were submitted by its AM8 research and development department. These included a wolf, a bulldog, a robot, and a warrior character. However, the team put emphasis on speed for the game, which came from Yuji Naka attempting to get through Super Mario Bros.' World 1-1 as fast as he could.[32] Due to this, Sega started to only consider fast creatures, such as kangaroos and squirrels, while scrapping designs not associated with fast animals.[29] One of these ideas involved a rabbit who could grab objects with prehensile ears. It showed potential, but was too complex for the Sega Mega Drive's hardware. Afterward, the team narrowed its search down to animals that could roll into a ball, based on the idea for an attack-based move, which led them to consider armadillos and hedgehogs.[31][33] The hedgehog character, which was proposed by Naoto Ohshima,[30] ultimately prevailed. After that, Ohshima went on vacation to New York, taking sketches with him. There, he went to Central Park, where he would ask locals for their opinions on them, which led to the hedgehog character being deemed the favorite.[34]
The new character was originally named "Mister Hedgehog" (ミスターハリネズミ, Misutā Harinezumi?). However, due to a mistranslation of Ohshima's notes by English-speaking fans, it was believed that Sonic's original development name was "Mister Needlemouse" until it was corrected by Yuji Naka in January 2021.[35] Wanting a name that could convey an image of speed, the team initially went for light speed-related terms, including "Raisupi", a shortening of the Japanese "raito supiido" (ライトスピード, "raito supiido"? lit. "Light speed"), and "LS", an acronym of "light speed". However, none of these nicknames were found good enough for the character. Then, a member of the crew came up with the idea of a name representing the speed of sound instead, leading the final name to become Sonic the Hedgehog,[36] which Ohshima stated was chosen because it represented speed.[37]
During the design of his debut game, Sonic was originally colored teal,[30] though he was later given a light shade of blue, but that got changed to dark blue fur so he would stand out against certain backgrounds[38] and so that he would match the color of Sega's logo. According to Ohshima, Sonic's basic design was created by combining Felix the Cat's head with Mickey Mouse's body.[39] He was also designed so he could be easy for children to draw and look familiar, as well as to exhibit a "cool" attitude, representative of the United States at the time.[34] His shoes had buckles that drew inspiration from Michael Jackson's boots on the album cover for Bad and Santa Claus' red and white color scheme, whom Ohshima deemed the most "famous character in the world".[30] Meanwhile, his personality was inspired by then-future president of the United States Bill Clinton's "get it done" attitude, who Ohshima felt embodied a modern sensibility of wanting to get things done right away, righting wrongs as they presented themselves instead of letting them linger.[40][41][42] According to Yuji Naka, Sonic's color was also meant to symbolize peace, trust, and coolness, which are the attributes of his character. Sonic's spikes were emphasized to make him look sleeker, and he was given the ability to spin while jumping so that attacking and jumping could be controlled with a single button.[43] However, Sonic was created without the ability to swim because of a mistaken assumption by Naka that hedgehogs could not do so.[44]
Early concepts gave Sonic fangs and put him in a band with a human girlfriend named Madonna.[45] However, Sega of America scrapped these ideas to keep his identity simple. They also expressed concerns that most Americans would not know what a hedgehog is and initially proposed a full-scale recreation of the character. Nevertheless, compromises with Sonic Team led to them making some simple design changes instead.[30] To further help sell the idea to Sega, Ohshima also pitched the concept framed by a fictional American fighter pilot that had earned the name "Hedgehog" due to his spiky hair, and had decorated his plane with images of Sonic. When this pilot retired, he married a children's book author, Mary Grannet, who wrote stories about the Sonic character, the first of which became the plot for the first Sonic game; Ohshima stated that this influence can be seen in the logo of the game, which features Sonic in a pilot's wing emblem.[34] When Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released, Sonic's proportions changed. The original 1:2 head to height ratio changed to 1:2.5.[46]
At the time of the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega of America had little to no exposure to the established Japanese material for the game.[47] This led to them developing a new canon through what is known as the Sonic Bible, a collection of internal documents detailing the supposed backstory of the game. Notably, these documents established things not seen in Japanese sources, such as Sonic's home planet being named "Mobius" and that Sonic befriended a kind scientist named "Dr. Ovi Kintobor" who became Dr. Robotnik following a laboratory accident. They also appeared to contain information that was never used later on; for example, the first draft described Sonic as an ordinary hedgehog living in Nebraska with his mother and five sisters. This draft also stated that his true name was Sonny Hedgehog. Some modifications to Sonic's design were done too; these included a different fur color, sharper eyes, a brow in between his eyes, and a mohawk-like hairstyle. However, these changes were slowly abandoned as time went on, and the Japanese canon began being adapted worldwide.
During the development of Sonic Adventure, Sonic Team had trouble representing well the existing characters in 3D. However, with concerns that the series was being perceived as "Japanese" arising, the team wanting to rework their character designs in an "new, edgy and Western" fashion,[48] and the feeling that Sonic's design was "dated" allowed the developers to give him and the rest of the cast a redesign. Kazuyuki Hoshino, art director of the game, recalled that "retro" games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man at the time were becoming popular again due to them appearing in "urban street" fashion and with indie music. This made the team want to make Sonic appeal to this type of subculture, or at least "have some cool T-shirts with the character on them".[49] As such, an internal contest was held at Sega to determine who would be in charge of redesigning the characters, specially Sonic. Some of the proposed designs for the character were from Satoshi Okano, the promotional artist for Sonic Jam; Yuji Uekawa, the character designer of Sonic R; Naoto Ohshima; and Takumi Miyake, the designer of Knuckles' Chaotix. In the end, Uekawa won the content, though he would take inspirations from the other designs for his redesign,[50][51] and also from Akira Toriyama's style of deformation and line art style, Susumu Matsushita's airbrush art, and the cartoon designs of Walt Disney and Looney Tunes. While the character's age remained intact, his proportions were made much taller compared to his original design and now had emerald green-colored eyes. The reason for this color for his eyes was not only to contrast with the rest of his color scheme, but also, according to Uekawa, "because he [was] always seeing these green pastures around him, like in Green Hill Zone". There were more tweaks to accomodate the 3D space, such as new soles for his shoes and a deeper blue, the latter of which was done to reflect the color of Sega of America's logo.[48] Sonic's new design was also meant to become more aware of the fashion trends at the time and be a good fit for club music, which Hoshino was into back then.[49] In addition, Takashi Iizuka noted that this new design was more suitable for 3D than Sonic's original and more compact design, which was meant to be seen from the side.[52][53] Furthermore, this Sonic was purposefully made more of a "bad boy" for Sonic Adventure, so that he did not become too "cutesy" or "immature" like so many other mascots and Japanese-styled characters (Yuji Naka stated that Hello Kitty already owned the market in cuteness).[48][36]
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