Browsing Tag

Sonic OVA

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, 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?

Community, Fan Works, Miscellaneous

Happy Symbolic Heart Love Crazy Cool Day from Sonic Retro

sonic_v_day
Whether you’re sharing your life with other people or if today is more of a, “Nope, not getting out of bed today” sort of affair, we just want to take a little time to say, “Hey, thanks for still putting up with our insanity and we love you.” Truly! Retro wouldn’t be half of what it is right now both as an information hub and as the forefront (or at the very least, the knowledge base) of some of the neatest Sonic hacks out there if it wasn’t for your support.
It’s not much, but since trying to email chocolate to everyone who visits would not only be impossible and probably messy, we’d like to show our appreciation by hooking you all up with a project tucked away in the corners of SoundCloud aiming to recreate an often sought but never discovered soundtrack. Mr Kingalicious is in the middle of making the Sonic OVA soundtrack himself and it sounds pretty damn good, all things considered! Go show his work some love today too, since it deserves recognition for being pretty quality stuff.
And if today isn’t the best for you? Hang in there. Let this little gift at least give you some light.