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Animation

Sonic Prime Gets New Trailer, Starts Streaming December 15th

With Sonic Frontiers only days away, it’s been easy to forget that the upcoming 3D platformer isn’t the last we’re hearing from Sonic in 2022. Having been teased for nearly two years at this point, Wildbrain and Man of Action’s Sonic Prime has been sitting in the wings, waiting for its time to shine. Until today, aside from some Green Hill-filled teaser trailers, a concept art leak, and the knowledge that the show was meant to involve the multiverse in some form or fashion, we hadn’t heard much else. Not even a release date! Today, we finally got world on the exact day Sonic’s figure-eight run will hit the small screen: December 15th. Sure, the date was leaked some time back, but hey, now it’s official. They even released a trailer for it!

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Animation

Discotek Media Announces Sonic X Blu-Ray ‘Original Japanese Version’

Its the Blu-ray news Sonic fans have been waiting for since the release of the original Sonic X Blu-ray in 2019. Discotek Media has recently aired a panel on their Twitch channel showcasing new releases leading up to the current plans for next year. Among the announcements was a new Blu-ray set for the ‘subtitled’ version of Sonic X labelled as ‘Original Japanese Version.’ This set features all episodes uncut with the original audio tracks previously unreleased to home video outside of Japan. This includes the “Metarex” story arc that was not broadcast in Japan until 2020. Brought by popular fan demand and even a push internally at Discotek from producer Brady Hartel, this release comes in featuring the best possible standard resolution presentation these episodes have ever seen with the launch window slated for winter of 2023. (Edited 10/26/2022) Which is a few months from now!)

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Animation

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Coming to Blu-Ray

It’s 1993. You rush home from school, the smell of pizza rolls filling your nose as you burst into the house. Jumping into the living room, you see the Sega Genesis, the Sonic 2 cart still plugged in from last night. But before you turn it back on, you switch to a local station. The theme song is already in progress – Sonic the Hedgehog, running around an abstract landscape, his name being used as a weapon. Yes, it was time to watch Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. And now? You can do it all over again, thanks to the people over at Discotek Media.

Best known for their anime sets, Discotek is no stranger to the blue blur, having previously released the complete English dub of Sonic X on blu-ray. Adventures of Sonic is following in Sonic X‘s footsteps, getting the blu-ray treatment for the first time. While the episodes will be in standard definition, Discotek has promised they will look closer to the master tapes than ever before, not to mention being in stereo, which the most recent DVD release lacked. A slew of special features were also announced, including the original pitch pilot and animation rushes from the first episode of the series. But perhaps the most exciting extra are the brand new commentaries on two episodes from the man who made Robotnik sexy, Milton Knight.

The set is slated for release in February 2022. Continue on for an image gallery of what’s in store.

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Animation, Movies

Production Demo Recordings From Sonic OVA Soundtrack Shared

With the full version of “Look-a-Like” being unearthed and shared to the world on Sunday, many fans wondered if the source that shared it with the community had a full version of the Sonic OVA soundtrack in their possession. illuminor, who had reached out to the anonymous contributor on the OVA, ran that question by their source to find an answer. They received a reply that provided a single .mp3 file containing production demo recordings of the soundtrack. The file isn’t from the master sound source, sporting occasional sound artifacts and issues with stereo, but considering that the OVA is nearly 25 years old now just being able to hear this at all is astounding.

The quote below from the YouTube description shines a little more light on the tracks themselves  specifying that the tracks they don’t seem to have any official names, for instance. It is also worth noting that this .mp3 file also doesn’t contain every single piece of music created for the OVA, but it does include the South Island track, don’t worry.

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Animation, Movies

Full “Look-a-Like” From Sonic OVA Unearthed After Nearly 25 Years

This morning a member of the community  under the handle @SAAC_RUS tweeted out a link to the above video. Rather surprisingly, the video contains the full and proper version of “Look-a-Like” from the Sonic OVA. The two episode shorts originally released in Japan in early 1996 and featured “Look-a-Like” as part of its backing music. However, the only official release of the song since was a truncated version available on the True Colors: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2 CD, but now the full version is available for our listening pleasure thanks to illuminor. The video and its description explains how they came into possession of the song, shared below:

The universe of Sonic the Hedgehog is full of its own secrets and mysteries. And so it happens that some interesting things might be hiding in the most unexpected places. And today we would like to share with you an amazing discovery our good friend and the community member illuminor has made. illuminor specializes in translations – Japanese translations in particular. Having looked the Japanese version of Sonic OVA he noticed that the credits song «Look-a-like» has certain words that have never been used anywhere else and that differ from what fans usually document. «Look-a-like» is the ending theme of Sonic OVA performed by Riyu Konaka. Its full version was never officially released, though most of the song can be heard in the original Japanese release of the movie. And its short edit was later released in the official «True Colors: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2» album. In all variations available on the Internet we can hear the line «A short while ago, I was born» which then repeats twice, but in the movie the first time sounds as «A long time ago…», though we cannot hear the rest due to the dialogue of the characters. illuminor decided to get to the bottom of it and reached out to one of the people who was involved in creating of Sonic OVA. We will not disclose the identity of this person not to cause them any troubles. The original plan of illuminor was to ask for the song’s lyrics, but his interlocutor exceeded all expectations and just sent the whole track instead of the plain text. And so, friends, for the first time in history we are happy to introduce you the full and original version of the song «Look-a-like». Have a nice listening! We are thanked to illuminor for the news and for such a great material!

How great is it to finally have it after all this time?

Animation, Movies

Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Trailer Revealed… Again

At the tail end of April, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie had it’s first trailer drop and was met with a… less than positive reception. Going back to the drawing board, Paramont, along with a few key artists, decided a delay was in order and postponed the film until February 14th, 2020. There’s been plenty of speculation as to what this meant for the film and just how much feedback truly was taken into consideration. Well pals, speculate no more, the trailer is here and you can see it above. Heck, you probably already have.

What’s interesting is not only does Sonic look different, but the tone of the trailer seems decidedly different as well. There’s a major focus on Sonic, rather than Robotnik or the human characters, Sonic himself is way quippier and arrogant, and overall, the film just seems… better. Time will tell if it succeeds in bucking the poor movie adaption trend or if it winds up another title on the list. One thing is for sure, things are looking more promising than they were just six months ago.

Animation, Movies

Sonic the Hedgehog Film Finally Teased

For nearly as long as the franchise has existed, there have been numerous attempts to bring Sonic the Hedgehog to the silver screen. From Wonders of the World to Sonic Armageddon, a variety of produces, directors and writers have pitched their vision of the blue blur in the hopes to turn it into a full-length feature, but for whatever reason, none of them came to fruition.
In 2014, Sony Pictures announced they had secured the rights to produce a Sonic film, but after a long bout of radio silence, it seemed that this was yet another false start. But with the announcement that the project had been picked up by Paramount in 2017, everything quickly shifted into high gear. Production started, characters were cast, and filming commenced. For better or worse, the movie was finally being made.
Though lots of stories both official and not have been published in the last few months, no official imagery of the film had been released – until Monday.

Yep. That certainly does say Sonic.
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Animation

These Are the People Making the Sonic Movie

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It’s been more than two years since it was announced that a live action/CG animation hybrid Sonic movie is being made. However, it wasn’t until today that we got to hear about who is making the film. So now that we know some details, let’s take a look at who the folks making this thing are:
Jeff Fowler from Blur Studio is directing the movie. While it’s not known which in particular were directed by him, he has worked on various CG cutscenes and trailers for video games. He also wrote and directed the short Gopher Broke back in 2004, and wrote the 2006 short A Gentlemen’s Duel. He has also been working on an animated adaptation of David Fincher’s The Goon. Continue Reading

Animation, Fan Works, Interview

Retro Spotlight – The Wrath of Nazo

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The first incarnation of Nazo Unleashed was released on Newgrounds a little over 10 years ago as of this month. For a lot of fans, seeing Sonic combined with the action of Dragon Ball Z just clicked. Over the years, Aaron Cowdery a.k.a. Chakra-X, has proceeded to release high definition remasters of the original before eventually opening up a Patreon to support his latest endeavor, Sonic: The Wrath of Nazo. We interviewed Chakra-X and several members of the Nazo Unleashed team about the project, their own history, and what we can expect to see in 2019.
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