Sonic Prime ★★★★☆

I think I just have to admit I love animated movies and shows something like 2x or 3x more than live action movies. It's easier for me to forgive their flaws, and honestly, I love looking at colorful things on screen. I watched Sonic Prime to get more of my Shadow the Hedgehog fix, and though I was disappointed by a number of things in the show, I really enjoyed it, especially that one episode that exclusively featured Sonic and Shadow together. In fact, I would say that episode did good guys fighting each other in a frenemies style rivalry better than Batman v. Superman. Well, that's not that difficult. How about better than Captain America: Civil War? Yeah, that's my controversial opinion. It's just a shame that the show didn't feature the two of them together even more, because their relationship was a perfect match for the overarching theme of the show.

The lesson that Sonic has to learn throughout this show is actually pretty unique. Sonic's character flaw is also a strength for him. He believes that everyone has the capacity for good, and that people can just come together and agree on how to live in harmony without conflict. The problem is that his thinking is rigid, and he just assumes everyone is on board with his plans and ideas for the future. His optimism is endearing, but it leads him to have blinders on for how he might be stepping on others' toes without realizing it, assuming that what's best for himself is always best for his friends.

Most of his friends do go along with Sonic because he is a genuinely nice person who tries to help. But Shadow is a foil for Sonic, because Shadow is brutally honest with Sonic about how Sonic needs to change. They genuinely have amazing chemistry, and as opposites, they bring out the best in each other, Sonic keeping Shadow from being overly pessimistic, and Shadow keeping Sonic grounded in reality. It's super fun. I also may have gone into the show with the headcanon that they are totally in a relationship with each other, which I will say, there's not really evidence for, but also not really any evidence against that being the case. So it will stand in my head as my personal canon. They are a very cute couple.

Okay, what else is good here? Sonic travels to different dimensions, meeting three different versions of each of his friends, dystopian city themed, pirate themed, and jungle themed. As Shadow keeps reminding Sonic, they aren't his Green Hill themed friends, they are fully separate people with their own motivations and backstories, and I never felt like I was just watching duplicates. Some of the alternate versions become friends with each other in very sweet ways that were interesting to watch. I particularly like robot Amy Rose, "Rusty Rose," who I felt had a believable arc where she switches back and forth from bad guy to good guy.

The show throws in homages to various movies, and they all worked without being heavy handed. Like dystopian themed Tails has 7 mechanical tails in additional to his two organic tails, and the first time we meet him, he and Sonic fight on a train, in a clear reference to the Doc Ock fight in Spiderman 2. Very iconic, I enjoyed it.

There's sort of a twist at the end of season 2, where the villain switches from the alternate version of Eggman (more on that in a second) to a different, arguably more threatening villain, which I think is good in principle, but that brings me to my gripes about the show.

The entire third season of the show (each season is only 7 or 8 episode long) is basically one long fight. It should have probably been about 3 episodes, maybe 4. The villain's goals at one point even seem perfectly aligned with Sonic's but some bullshit reason leads them to fight anyway, which left me confused about what the plot even was anymore. The good guys set up multiple plans to assault the villain's lair only to not really make progress. In fact, that's a problem the entire show has. There are many fights, especially one-on-one fights, that are really fun to watch, with honestly amazing choreography that shows off Sonic's unique fighting style. And there are many fights where the villains can literally just conjure up infinite minions to fight, so it feels like fighting is totally pointless. As soon as they finish off one group of minions, another appears, and no progress is made. My guess is that this is one of those corporate problems, where the studio, Netflix, has requested a specific number of episodes of a specific length, so they have to fill up the time with this pointless fighting instead of making the best possible show.

The alternate version of Dr Eggman is actually 5 Dr Eggmans working together. This contributed nothing to the story. Two of the Eggmans are so cringy I could barely watch them on screen, a baby Eggman that babbles incoherently (but everyone in universe understands), and an elderly Eggman whose only character trait is "being old." These Eggmans don't feel very villainous, as they are constantly just played for laughs that fall empty, unless maybe you are very young. The story could be barely changed and feature just one alternative Dr Eggman, or even 3, as long as they ditched most of the "jokes."

Finally, I have to admit the animation quality is pretty low, although I think the animators used their budget well, putting time and effort into making Sonic's movements look hella cool, but the backgrounds definitely suffer a lot. Overall, I would recommend this show if you're looking for something lighthearted that's not a big time commitment Well, I guess if you think about 8 hours is a small commitment. It had a definitive ending, though, so it's not like you have to keep catching up. I seem to be in the minority in disliking Sonic 3, but I genuinely think this is a better representation of the Sonic Universe than those live action interpretations. Maybe it's my bias towards animation talking. But after Sonic 3, I really needed more of Sonic + Shadow, which I got by replaying Sonic Adventure 2, and then by binging this show. I give it 4 stars out of 5, I recommend this show, but I give no guarantee you'll enjoy it, since you have to look past a lot of junk to find the good bits.