UK Sonic vs. USA Sonic

[00:00:00]Whenever classic Sonic is discussed by fans, it's very likely that his design from the American box art and promotional material will be brought up, as well as its deviations from his original look in Japan by Naoto Ohshima.

[00:00:12]What isn't likely, however, is for the UK and European design for classic Sonic to be included in these kinds of conversations. So, given that I'm British and I like Sonic, and that three of my most popular videos are about Sonic products that are British, I want to change that and give this often forgotten iteration some attention. It's understandable why he isn't talked about much. The design was only around for a couple of years, lasting from 1993 to roughly late 1995. Before that, Sonic's appearance would constantly fluctuate for us tea drinkers and our baguette-eating, beer-downing, bull-fighting, pizza-loving, and bicycle-riding friends across the continent. On one game's box art, you'd see arguably the single most iconic illustration of the guy ever made, and then on the next he'd suddenly have a mohawk, bowed legs, and crooked ears.

[00:01:01]And then for some inexplicable reason, he'd go right back to having his Japanese design one game later. It was as inconsistent as the gameplay in the 3D titles. I'm not sure if this inconsistency was the reason for the UK Sonic design's existence, though.

[00:01:15]Actually, in all honesty, I couldn't find any sort of explanation for it when I was researching this topic. If I had to hazard a guess, the folks over at Sega Europe probably wanted to make their own box art instead of relying on whatever assets the Japanese and American sides of the company would send them, and then having to stitch something together from all of it. If anybody has a different idea, or hell, actually knows how and why the design came to be and can back it up with a source, then please get in touch. I'd love to talk to you about it for a brief addendum to this video.

[00:01:45]The first thing you'll notice about UK Sonic is that he more closely resembles the original Japanese artwork than Greg Martin's take does, as he lacks those bent ears and mohawk-styled quills, among other things. You'd be forgiven for thinking these two designs are the exact same given how similar they are, but there are a few small key differences between them. The funniest to me is that UK Sonic looks absolutely [ __ ] pissed off all the time as if he's just spotted somebody reading the Daily Mail or experienced 32° weather 3 days in a row in [ __ ] May. It's a very accurate depiction of what us Brits look like on an average day. So, well done for making Sonic even more appealing to us. Another noticeable change is the inclusion of soles on his sneakers, which wasn't a thing in the Japanese or American artwork for the classic games. Although it's a very minor alteration, I really like them.

[00:02:36]The white blends nicely with the straps and makes Sonic's poses pop out as it were. There's also his quills, which are drawn about as consistently as Sonic's design was across Europe in the early years. I don't mean that in a bad way at all. They look really cool in some illustrations like this one where a couple of his spines are pointing up would as though he's about to transform into Super Sonic. I will admit there are some instances where they aren't drawn the best though, like here where they look so damn tiny. It's a million times better than anything I could ever draw though, so more power to the artist.

[00:03:10][ __ ] speaking of which, I should probably talk about Duncan Gutteridge, who was the primary artist for the Sonic franchise in the UK and Europe throughout the early to mid-90s. If you've watched my video about the Sonic game books, then you'll likely recognize some of his work as it was used on the covers of Metal City Mayhem and Zone Rangers after originally being drawn for a Sonic calendar, which also happened to be one of the first things he worked on for the series. He discussed this and his overall involvement with Sonic during a 2016 interview with Nintendo Life stating, "The Sonic illustration work came about from a call from an agency who had seen my work in various publications. I worked through them at first as they had the account with Sega Europe. This started with the creation of a series of images for an exclusive calendar in 1992. This led to a number of commissions for points of sale material, packaging artwork, the cover for Sonic 3, and Sonic Triple Trouble.

[00:04:02]>> His aforementioned cover arts for the European version of Sonic 3 is probably his most well-known contribution, as well as being the main reason folks outside of Europe are aware of the UK Sonic design. It differs from all of these illustrations quite a bit, with the shade of blue being a lot darker, the ears being slightly wider and smaller, and possibly mohawk inspired quills. It's kind of hard for me to tell how they're supposed to be styled or where they begin, and I don't really care either because I [ __ ] adore this specific image of Sonic. The pose, the expression, the sharp but sleek style of it, it's oozing with aura and '90s attitude. To me, it's the perfect blend of the American and Japanese design, while still looking unique thanks to the shape of his mono eye and those white soles. My friend Jack actually saw a standee of this guy at a toy fair last year, although he was missing his middle finger. Robotnik must have been like, "You know what? [ __ ] you, hedgehog." and cut that [ __ ] clean off. One important thing I wanted to note is that I'm not sure if Guthridge drew these illustrations that I've shown previously. Given how significantly different they are from his depiction of Sonic here, as well as in the calendar artworks. I'm not even sure when most of these come from, to be honest. According to the gallery in Sonic Origins, these four were published in a European style guide back in 1994, which I couldn't find any scans of online whatsoever. And I must have spent around two hours reverse image searching all of these little dudes to see if I could find any information regarding where they came from before getting fed up. Thankfully, Skua, a former content moderator on the Sonic Wiki Zone, came in clutch and told me that they were used on a wallpaper for the 20th anniversary. So, a massive thank you to them for the info. Their exact origin is still uncertain, though.

[00:05:45]They could be from the style guide I was just talking about or somewhere completely different. Like I said earlier, if you have any insight as to where they're from and if Gutteridge drew them or not, then please let me know. I'd really appreciate it. Getting back to something that we know Duncan definitely drew, I want to talk about his rendition of Sonic Triple Trouble's box art. There's the obvious changes to Sonic's appearance from the North American version of the cover by Greg Marsden, like the removal of the mohawk and the addition of white soles, but he also looks like he has brown irises here. I know it's likely intended to be lighting or shading and they were kind of there on the original version.

[00:06:22]However, they're much more prominent here given their larger size. That's about it in terms of differences here.

[00:06:27]Although I do want to go on a side tangent for a second. What the [ __ ] is going on with Robotnik? Why is he a giant floating head in the sky? It's like he's trying to do a [ __ ] impression of the weird baby sun from the bloody Teletubbies. All right, let's talk about Stay Sonic, a 1993 book that details some juicy British Sonic lore. It contains a more fleshed-out retelling of Sonic and Robotnik's origins from Sega of America's Sonic Bible. As I've mentioned in my British Sonic books video, the TLDR of which is Sonic meets a nerd called Kintobor, he goes fast, turns blue, stupid nerd gets caught in an explosion that makes him evil and now he's Dr. Robotnik, which then leads directly into the first two Sonic games.

[00:07:06]Beautiful story. Let's get into the really interesting bits. There's several aspects of the book that may have inspired the recent live-action movies, such as Sonic having a large comic book collection, and more notably that he was first discovered by a sharp-eyed owl named Sophocles, which could be the basis for the character Longclaw. The book also contains a metric [ __ ] ton of information about the Badniks, like the fact that the blue and green neutrons are actually two different breeds called the lesser spotted blue neutron and the lesser spotted Or Wacky that one green neutron, respectively. Grabber is revealed to be a [ __ ] cannibal, as As biography states, "Some people have wondered why there aren't more Badniks in the Chemical Plant Zone. It's because Grabber isn't very discriminating about who it grabs. Rexon from Hill Top Zone is stated to be one of Mobius's oldest inhabitants despite being created by Robotnik. No idea how that works.

[00:07:58]Apparently, the best way to annoy a burrow boss is to call it a [ __ ] and knock off its baseball cap. And Spikes is dubbed a weird blend of Motobug and Crabmeat, heavily implying that Robotnik combined the two Badniks together to make it. Stay Sonic also contains the first instances of swearing in the franchise. How scandalous, I know. It's horrifically offensive profanity consists of Sonic being called pretty damn nosy and describes the buzzer Badniks as making life hell for picnickers.

[00:08:28]Chances are if you've made it this far into the video, you probably like Sonic.

[00:08:32]But the question is, how much do you like the blue [ __ ] Well, luckily, this book has the perfect quintessentially British quiz for you to find out.

[00:08:42]Seriously, look at some of these answers. Tell her she's a dozy old trout and go upstairs to pack your bags.

[00:08:48]Accuse her of going out with a Chippendale / him of going out with a Dagenham girl pipe and finish with her / him forthwith. Stop off at the bookies on route and slap your arder on Mr. Snodgrass in the 3:30 at Chepstow. Mike Pattenden, you might just be the funniest [ __ ] to ever work on this series. I'd never forgive myself if I didn't bring up the Sonic celebrities section, where five famous Brits were asked different questions about the character. Richie James from Manic Street Preachers revealed that his first exposure to Sonic was in Guildford back in July 1991 and that it was also his worst experience. God knows what happened to elicit that response. Zack Foley from EMF apparently had multiple nightmares where he asked Sonic to go out with him and came up with the shittiest motto I've ever read in my life. Sonic the spiky ball is just describing what the character can turn into. It doesn't express any kind of belief or purpose. What a [ __ ] numpty. A couple of them do their own fan casts for Robotnik in a potential Sonic movie with Kathy Dennis suggesting Richard Kiel of James Bond fame, which I could definitely see. While Tom Hingley from the band in Spiral Carpets put forward Lionel Blair of all people. Hang on a second, let me open Photoshop.

[00:10:06]No. Hey, look at that. It's Richard Fairbrass, one of the guys responsible for the weirdest Sonic song of all time a year before making it. According to him, his most bizarre Sonic moment was when he jumped out of the console and ran across the carpet. And the most frustrating thing about Sonic is that he doesn't speak French. Wait, what? What the hell are you talking about? That's the best thing about him. Okay, I kind of run out of [ __ ] to ramble about in regards to UK Sonic now. But before I wrap this video up, I wanted to give you chaps on the other side of the pond and beyond an idea of how popular Sonic and Sega were over here. You see, in the States, the Mega Drive sold 18 million units, whereas the NES and SNES sold 34 million and 20 million respectively. So surely it would be similar in the UK, right? Well, these two sold a combined total of 2,200,000 units. While the Mega Drive alone managed to sell 3 million units. It's also out-sold the Nintendo 64, the 3DS, the Game Boy Color, and the original Xbox, which is very impressive. And the hype for Sonic 2 was so immense in the UK that it received 10 times more advance orders than the Queen of Pop Madonna's massively publicized book that came out a month prior, leading to the absolutely beautiful headline, "Sonic, more popular than sex."

[00:11:29]This franchise is [ __ ] weird, man.

[00:11:45]>> [music]