#Eggman VA controverse

[mashounen1945]

About the recent Eggman's voice actor controversy (namely, some Sonic fans' reaction to it)

I'm not gonna go into details on the controversy itself. The tags for this post will probably give it away, and those who still occasionally visit Twitter will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Out of this whole fiasco, something that still gets me is the way some Sonic fans reacted, not by merely taking it too seriously (which is barely a surprise anymore) but specifically by trying to "reclaim" Eggman, to turn that character into some sort of icon of a real-life noble cause for social justice, to divorce the character from something those fans criticize.

In this case, they're pretending to separate Eggman from Mike Pollock and his personal political ideas; there's even a tweet where someone drew Eggman carrying a certain four-colour black-white-green-red flag with... *ahem* some particular relevance in the world's current political climate, and I've already seen similar stuff here on Tumblr. But I've already seen Sonic fans trying to do the same with other real-life issues in the last few years, and just like during the current controversy surrounding Mike Pollock, it was very apparent not only that these fans took it too seriously, but also that they did not properly think it through... at all.

Someone posted a comic strip a few years ago, back when Sonic Boom was still relevant. I can't find it right now, but I do remember it went a little like this: Eggman shows he got a degree in villainy, Sonic makes a crappy joke about that meaning Eggman is a business major, and Eggman is like "I said villainy, not sucking the life-force out of poor people".

And, like… Have those so-called "Sonic fans" ever played a Sonic game? Okay, no, that sounded a little gatekeep-y, let's rephrase it: have they ever consumed literally any piece of official Sonic content? Do they have any idea of what Eggman canonically does in multiple branches of the franchise? Have they really never wondered what exactly is the energy source for many of his machines? Because if those obsessive fans did know, then they'd realize trying to turn Eggman into an anti-capitalist and/or anti-oppression symbol is not the smart move they think it is.

The same goes for turning him into an anti-corporate symbol, or something I've actually seen some Sonic fans do: positing that "Eggman may be evil but he's still better than Elon Musk". The way the character usually behaves in official Sonic content shows that Eggman is pretty much the Elon Musk of the Sonic universe, perhaps even worse because the Muskrat fortunately doesn't have his own private army (yet).

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Post-Scriptum:

Purist Sonic fans of the Japanese videogame canon will most likely start pointing at this controversy and laughing. Since this mess only involves Eggman's voice actor for English-language Sonic content as far as I know, and Sonic material made in the USA has already gotten a bad reputation due to several other screw-ups of varying magnitude both recently and during the entire history of the franchise, this will seemingly prove once again that all the people working on English-language Sonic media are a bunch of smug and unprofessional dumbasses prone to ridiculously stupid blunders caused by their complete inability to hold back their cringe urges and their insistence that they can do better than their Japanese counterparts, and that any non-Japanese author should be permanently banned from working on this franchise in any official capacity.

As if original Japanese media was always some kind of unproblematic sanctuary of compliance with the source material and the people working on it had the wisdom to avoid getting into bullcrap like this and Japanese society & culture didn't have their own prejudices & complexes to overcome or their own colonial & imperial past that they're still trying to sweep under the rug.

[clownkiwi]

and to actually further expand my thoughts on sonic this year, alot of it just. really feels like sega is actually listening to their fans and delivering us sonic stuff that we really asked for. before i go into why, keep in mind. i don't trust sega at all. hell, most sonic fans for that matter hate sega. they've done shitty practices as a company (a most recent example of this would be their near hypocritical stances on nfts, going from "we wont make nfts if fans don't like them" one week to the next, trademarking "sega nfts"), and they listen to their fans the same way modern paper mario writers and designers listens to their fans

but with all that said, i think this will be the first year of sonic media where. sega went beyond surface levels comments of "give us classic sonic games" or "give us dark sonic games" and actually went into what we really wanted as a community. we didn't just want a good sonic game, we wanted a sonic movie that felt more like sonic than the first one, we wanted a new tv show (mainly to have lore from the actual comics rather than a new continuity), and i think. sega actually listened.

sonic 2 looks more exciting, as it seems the focus will be on sonic & tails in this one, so there will be more deepcut sonic references here than. hill top zone. green hill as the name of a town. the mushroom planet being a reference to "mushroom hill zone" and kind of another sarcastic dig at mario. the characterizations of the sonic characters look pretty solid so far, jim carrey returning as dr eggman will be very delightful and will obviously be another highlight of the movie. we'll finally get talks about the emeralds (in particular, the master emerald) and its just. sonic 2 already seems like a film that'll be beyond yards better than sonic 1 and more of a sonic film than the actual sonic film we got a couple years ago

we don't know much about sonic prime right now, but it's just exciting that we're getting a new sonic cartoon that'll be something new and separate from the sonic continuity at far. who knows if it'll be good or bad, but either way, i'm looking forward to it.

and sonic frontiers, by far, has to be the most excited i've been for a sonic game since mania & forces. it's the one game that feels like sega has actually been listening to their fans and delivering us something new, bold and different. sonic frontiers will be an open world game, taking inspiration from breath of the wild. the games story and writing will be penned by ian flynn, aka the one writer that was able to keep this franchise afloat through the comics and like. the only sonic writer who gets sonic. for such a long while since sonic 06, dr eggman won't be the main threat. and speaking of which, the first trailer itself is already giving off a lot of vibes that. it won't be like the nostalgia baiting sonic games of the 2010s, but something more reminiscent to the 2000s era of sonic games. primarily, the more controversal ones that ruined the franchise's popularity then, but are still loved and accepted by various sonic fans. stuff like sonic 06, the secret rings and the black knight. and seeing how it's written by ian flynn, yea, i absolutely get it!!! there's just a lot in this game that feels right, and it's not even out yet. we don't even know what the gameplay will be like, how the rest of the cast past sonic & eggman will sound like (since these are new VAs), who will even be in this game, how the story will be like past its synopsis, like. im so excited for sonic frontiers, and i'm just so excited to be a sonic fan this year. i'm already looking forward to alot this year, but i got a feeling i'll particularly be more annoying about sonic.

anyways, these are my thoughts about sonic in 2022. sorry this was alot, i just had so many thoughts about sonic in this year, i just needed to write it down on a post