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Would you consider Sonic the Hedgehog a Japanese icon or a Western one?


Alex Nguyen

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The character Sonic was obviously created by the Japanese, however I feel like the character is more popular in the West than its home country since it was designed to be popular in both territories, marketed as a freedom fighter, which Westerners can relate to, and even had a Sonic float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. I was thinking about how Japan has so many iconic fictional characters that could represent Japan, such as: Mario, Goku, Pikachu, Kenshiro, Hatsune Miku, Kirito, Saber, RX-78-2 Gundam, etc. Sonic is a popular character for sure, but not sure if he would fit as a Japanese icon like his peers. What do you think?

Edited by Alex Nguyen
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I feel like to adequately answer this question I would have to have been involved in both Western and Japanese society to an extent. I honestly couldn’t tell you how popular Sonic is in Japan. I guess you could say that’s an argument against him, but I had no idea how popular Dragon Quest was in Japan until recently and that was only because of the context we started getting once DQXI and their inclusion in Smash came about.

IIRC the Mega Drive wasn’t as popular in Japan as the SF and PCE though (damn shame imo).

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Would you call Jesus a middle eastern icon?

Sonic is a global icon. Dude has cartoons, comics, a movie, merchandise, the works!

Fun Fact: you can type in “[Your first name] the hedgehog“ on google and shitty sonic fan art will pop up. If you’re lucky, you might even get some Rule 34 on your name...

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On 1/13/2021 at 4:50 PM, Tanooki said:

Maybe because he has that weird Japanese confusing art style to him... I mean hell the dude has one giant eyeball with 2 pupils in it.  Look at the image above, that's some freaky stuff right there.

Siamese eyeballs?

Addit: the one on the right is freakiest - his right pupil appears to protrude out of the right eyeball, and the pupils are so disproportionate to each other. Was the artist on crack at the time?

Edited by GPX
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Back on topic, Sonic is exactly like Mario - created from Japan with a global influence in mind, and no doubt with a lot of Western influence. I guess  though if you’re a Sega fan, then he should be an icon no matter which continent you live in.

 

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Sonic's whole universe and character roster etc. feels very inherently Japanese to me, and so much of it is grounded in their culture. It's pretty hard to ignore that aspect of his character.

On 1/13/2021 at 12:35 AM, Alex Nguyen said:

marketed as a freedom fighter, which Westerners can relate to

True. The Japanese are pretty notorious for hating freedom.

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3 hours ago, Sumez said:

Sonic's whole universe and character roster etc. feels very inherently Japanese to me, and so much of it is grounded in their culture. It's pretty hard to ignore that aspect of his character.

True. The Japanese are pretty notorious for hating freedom.

It makes sense that Sonic's character was inherently Japanese, but most of their systems do much better outside of Japan and their mascot is much more popular overseas.

That's why while Westerners wished that they lived in Japan, I would much rather live in Eastern European countries like Poland because I assume that they would believe in freedom.

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23 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

Would you call Jesus a middle eastern icon?

Sonic is a global icon. Dude has cartoons, comics, a movie, merchandise, the works!

Fun Fact: you can type in “[Your first name] the hedgehog“ on google and shitty sonic fan art will pop up. If you’re lucky, you might even get some Rule 34 on your name...

I think anyone who is familiar with Sonic knows the whole google search "[your name] the hedgehog".

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