#takashi iizuka

[movie-robotnik-positivity]

"When I worked with the movie team to make sure the characters were portrayed appropriately, what I wanted to focus on was the personality and attitude of Shadow (...) So as a character advisor on the movies, I did want to work with the creators to make sure that Shadow still felt like Shadow in the movie."

-Takashi Iizuka, head of Sonic Team, on Movie Shadow.

[maskedkitsune]

New Iizuka interview just confirmed that Shadow is jobless

[thecorruptedquietone]

iizuka was so based for this

[shirubae]

WHY was Blaze in Sonic 06?

In my analysis of Sonic 06 I promised not to touch lore or canon. But this single question has plagued me for years, and I can't run from it any longer: why was Blaze in the future with Silver in Sonic 06? It literally keeps me up at night. It is a core moment in her identity, yet it remains one of the biggest unaddressed mysteries in the series.

To answer this question, we must also answer: who is Blaze? She's a princess from another world. Easy, right?

Buckle up. Forget everything you know. This is a long one.

Blaze's Debut

Let's step back in time. The year is 2005.

Blaze debuted in Sonic Rush, which released on November 15, 2005. She was created by the game's writer and director, Akinori Nishiyama, as a contrasting character to Sonic. It introduced Blaze as a cat from another world who is the guardian of the Sol Emeralds.

Fun fact: this game never even implies that Blaze is a princess. Not once. In the game, the manuals, and any promo material I can find, she is only called the guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Maybe it was a note in her file at Sonic Team HQ, but at this point, her royalty simply was not a thing. If someone can prove me otherwise, bob's your uncle.

This is the first example of Blaze's identity being in flux.

Blaze Returns

Blaze's next appearance was in Sonic 06, which released on November 14, 2006, exactly one year later. This game depicted Blaze as the curt companion of Silver, fighting Iblis in a destroyed future of Sonic's world. Huh? Yes. The game never mentions her alternate dimension nor the Sol Emeralds. Blaze is Silver's well-dressed friend now. You think that's confusing today? Try being a kid who just got to know her in Sonic Rush a year prior.

Because of how the game treats Blaze, some fans assumed that Sonic 06 was a reboot of the series, or that it was at least retconning Blaze's backstory into her being a denizen of the future alongside Silver. There are zero official sources to support this rumor, but it gained traction anyway, and people started citing it as gospel. It's wrong.

Blaze's official Sonic 06 backstory can be found in other sources, like the official websites and the Japanese manual. They are pretty consistent with Rush: she's from another dimension and guards the Sol Emeralds (despite their total absence in this game). None of them say she was born in the future.

Notably, the website calls her a "queen". As far as I know, this of all places is the first public source to reveal Blaze's royalty!

However, there's also some odd details, like her wearing a cape, so it may come from an early draft of Sonic 06's plot and not be entirely accurate. Maybe they were planning on her royalty being more important than it ended up (I theorize that it's why she could absorb Iblis where Silver failed).

Let's wrap up the princess thing. The first game to really make Blaze a princess was Sonic Rush Adventure, which released another year later on September 14, 2007. It's an important plot detail, which is likely why they decided to officially solidify it.

But that means for the entirety of Sonic 06, Blaze may not have been "out" as a princess. Did Sonic Team really plan for everyone to go read her bio online in order to know this? No, but the game didn't mention it either. So her identity was still being sorted out on the public stage.

It got worse when fans noticed that Blaze doesn't seem to recognize Sonic at all in Sonic 06. In their only scene together in Kingdom Valley, she doesn't say a word. If this is the same Blaze from Rush, why doesn't she know him? (Mind you, Sonic hardly even acknowledges her presence). This discrepancy only fuels the "future Blaze" rumor, and it's still never been properly explained. Despite being discussed again and again, we haven't had a clear answer. So, let's at least go over the answers that we have received.

Takashi Iizuka at Sonic Boom

Takashi Iizuka is the current (2024) head of Sonic Team. He's worked on many games in the series, though notably not Sonic 06 nor Rush. Still, during the Q&A panel at the live event Sonic Boom 2012, one of the many fan-submitted questions requested he clarify some lore regarding Silver and Blaze.

Here's a transcript, since the crowd in the video is pretty loud:

Speaker: "Iizuka-san, can you please clear up the story of Silver, Blaze, and Eggman Nega? Are they from an alternate dimension, or the future? Not to mention, in Sonic Rush, Sonic Rivals, and Sonic 2006, they all know each other, but in Sonic Colors, they've never met?"

Takashi Iizuka (via translator): "So, everyone probably already knows this... but Silver and Eggman Nega are from the future, and Blaze is from an alternate dimension. That's the official story. But in 2006, basically what happened was everyone kind of had like, amnesia. That's how that kind of played out."

The guy was put on the spot to answer a big question regarding two characters from games that he didn't even work on, plus the translation barrier! He handled it well, all things considered. This at least debunked the "future Blaze" rumor, but it didn't answer why she was in the future in the first place. Let's check another source...

Shiro Maekawa on Twitter

Shiro Maekawa is a former Sonic game writer who worked on the Shadow and Silver Episodes for Sonic 06 (but not Rush). This means he wrote for Blaze; naturally, some curious fans have reached out to him with questions. His responses may give us some insights into what was intended with her in 06.

First of all, Maekawa confirmed that he (so at least one person on the team) intended to connect Rush to 06. He's said this in multiple tweets.

A fan once made a neat tumblr post delving into this connection; I don't totally agree with everything said, especially the "future Blaze" stuff, but it's definitely a valuable perspective (unfortunately the author deleted their blog to avoid the harassment... thanks guys).

He also says that he intended for the place that Blaze gets sent to in Silver Episode to be her alternate dimension. That makes sense; just sending her home! But he admits that his ideas are not official, so it's up to Sonic Team to decide.

Furthermore, Maekawa supports the theory that Iblis remains sealed within Blaze's soul to this day. Fans have taken it a step further by theorizing that the reason Blaze can become Burning Blaze is because of her connection to Iblis - this makes sense, given the fiery aura and the fact that Blaze briefly goes Burning as she absorbs it.

If that theory is true, and she goes Burning in Rush, then it would force 06 to be a prequel to Rush.

Since it's confirmed Blaze isn't from the future in 06, she must have gotten sent there somehow - maybe by the Sol Emeralds? They do teleport her on their own in Rush. That would mean Blaze hasn't met Sonic yet, so she has nothing to say to him. Then in the ending, she forgets everything and goes home, later meeting Sonic for real in Rush. Boom, easy! For a long time, this placement in the timeline seemed fair.

There was one tiny hole: an unused audio file of Blaze dialogue in 06.

Blaze says: "Sonic... the Iblis Trigger... a blue hedgehog... can it be true?", expressing familiarity with the blue blur. So... she did know who he was? Why would she ignore him? Nah, it's unused so it shouldn't count. But the fact that it's recorded at all means it got far enough into the script to be voiced...

On the other hand, this game also has the "Book of Darkness" flub and the "head to Wave Ocean" blooper, so maybe its audio files aren't to be trusted. Problem solved?

No. Not until a certain someone speaks...

Ian Flynn on Bumblekast

Ian Flynn went from writing the Archie Sonic comics, to the IDW comics, and now the games. He's been working on Sonic properties for a very long time, and is even consulted as part of the mythical "Sonic lore team" at Sega-Sammy. Those folks work on piecing together the canon, including the chaos of 06's timeline placement (imagine being paid to write stuff like this lmao).

This means he receives lore knowledge from on high, from the top dogs at Sonic Team. At the moment it's fairly secretive, but on Ian's Q&A podcast, the Bumblekast, he often lets fans in on tidbits.

What Ian has shared so far supports a lot of theories discussed with Maekawa. He has entirely confirmed that Blaze went Burning Blaze as she absorbed Iblis and went home, and has dubiously confirmed that she still has Iblis in her soul (he doubts it will ever be brought up again).

But the prophet has spoken: Sonic 06 is officially set after Rush in the timeline. Say what you will about Ian's writing or understanding of the characters; like it or not, he's received this info from Sonic Team. So, our timeline theory is debunked.

Ian even acknowledges that there are plot holes with this timeline placement, like why Blaze and Sonic ignored each other in Kingdom Valley, and why she didn't think to find her old friends for help. But he has no say over that - he'll just have to find a way to write around it, I guess.

He also acknowledges that Blaze's presence in the future is still completely unexplained, and he hopes to eventually touch on it... But he also states that there is an official reason why Blaze was in Silver's future. I'll write his quote here for reference:

Ian Flynn: "Here's the thing: working on something else, I actually did get a straight answer, and it was frustratingly simple. And it's like, 'that works, okay.' No, I can't get into it, that's all private work stuff but maybe it'll come to light, eventually. But there is an answer, and it works, and I kinda feel dumb for not thinking of it."

So it's currently classified. Where does that leave us? "That greedy Ian is selfishly sitting upon a hoard of gold, hiding his secrets from us!" "There must be a secret scroll sitting in the depths of Sonic Team HQ, emblazoned with the truth!" "Ian is a filthy American, he has no idea what he's talking about!"

Well, we can guess to our heart's content. There are a few theories:

Maybe the will of the Sol Emeralds sent Blaze to help Silver. The strings of fate guided her so she could help guide him and eventually absorb Iblis. This one is the most sentimental, so I like it...

Maybe Blaze got caught time-traveling during a fight with Eggman Nega, and was flung into the future. This would explain why Ian found it "frustratingly simple" (he hates Eggman Nega lol).

Maybe at the end of Rush, Blaze couldn't get back home from the Exception zone; instead, she ended up lost in Silver's future due to space-time shenanigans. Nothing in her ending truly confirms that she ever made it back home. Pretty simple.

These still don't explain why she and Sonic didn't recognize each other, but we have to just let Ian deal with that one lol.

Conclusion

Our best course of action is to wait. In many of the clips I've linked, Ian regularly expresses interest in addressing Blaze's mysteries in an issue of IDW comics or a TailsTube episode. We also know that Evan Stanley, a fellow comic artist-turned-writer, is a big fan of Blaze and Silver (check out her "Ghosts of the Future" fan-comic). Our cries for the truth do not fall on deaf ears.

Ultimately, Sega-Sammy will choose whatever is most profitable. They are a business operating in capitalism. If revisiting Silver and Blaze's backstory is somehow a good business decision, they will allow it. If it's not... they won't.

The "Fearless: Year of Shadow" campaign has given me hope. Its success is hopefully proving to Sega-Sammy that fans do care about characters besides the main Team Sonic, and that mysteries and lore of the past can be addressed in games like Sonic X Shadow Generations. Whether it results in more leniency with using the extended cast in future games, such as Blaze and Silver, remains to be seen. Maybe the two need to be teased in a movie before they can get more attention lol. But I have hope; hope that one day, my patience will have paid off, and I can update this article with the official truth of the matter.

Patience and hope: that's what Blaze offered Silver in Sonic 06. She supported him through his recklessness, stabilized him, and reminded him of what he was fighting for. But she also loved his passion, his drive for peace, and value of the truth. She loved how "naive" he was in the face of his seemingly impossible mission.

We fans are all a little naive. So for now, let's just wait and see.

[tenebraevesper]

Fearless Interview with Takeshi Iizuka

Why is Shadow a hedgehog? Will we see more character spotlights in future years? The answers to these and more are revealed in this exclusive interview with Takashi Iizuka.

[tomboymikayla]

Iizuka had enough lmao

[randomthefox]

Iizuka stating in no uncertain terms that the reason for all the new Shadow content is to tie into the movie. Naturally.

[silverthehedgehoganalysis]

I don't think shadow is silvers dad,since we know silver is from 200 years to the future that would mean that 186 years to the future shadow would have silver. But we know that shadow is not in the future so that would mean that shadow is not the father. Is either a random character or a future relative of shadow.

Shadow can indeed live 200 years into the future due to being ageless as the Ultimate Lifeform. In the Iblis timeline of Sonic 06, Shadow was sealed away by humanity due to being blamed for the Day of Disaster but his fate is unknown in most subsequent timelines. Silver re-encounters Shadow for the first time in Sonic Rivals which indicates that Silver had not met Shadow in the future by then and has not indicated that he’s met Shadow in the future since. (Silver is also specifically from 200+ years into the future, not 200 exactly)

“Dadow” remains one of the most popular theories and headcanons in the series due Shadow and Silver being based on Dragon Ball characters(Vegeta and Trunks respectively) that were father and son as well as their counterparts in Sonic and the Black Knight (Lancelot and Galahad), also being father and son in Arthurian lore.

These connections combined with the similarities in their powers have for years caused speculation that Silver is descended from Shadow, but when asked if Silver was a descendant of Shadow, Takashi Iizuka plain and simply said “No”.

[blazehedgehog]

Man, that's crazy and unfortunate what happened to that level designer on Sonic Heroes. Is there a source for those stories you could share?

Unfortunately it came from a Game Informer interview on their website back in 2016. Thanks to the efforts of Gamestop, everything about Game Informer was basically wiped from the internet about a little over a week ago.

Digging around a bit I found this Wayback Machine post for the article, titled "Where Sonic Went Wrong", written by Brian Shea.

Iizuka recalls the development cycle of Sonic Heroes, the first multiplatform mainline Sonic console game, as the most stressful of his career, in part thanks to deadlines. He was based in the United States while the rest of the development team was in Japan, and mismanagement took its toll on the team. "The level design for Sonic Heroes was made by two people: me and one other person," he says. "As we got to the later stages of development, this other person got pretty sick and didn't show up to work, so level design was made by one person! So for those very last stages of the game, I didn't sleep at all and I was constantly working. I lost about [22 pounds] because I was just cranking away and it was just work, work, work. I didn't sleep because I had to finish the game on my own. Almost dying!"

From what I've heard, this isn't the first time somebody has mentioned this about Sonic Heroes, just the first time in an English interview.

For the other information:

The information about Sonic 2 comes in the wake of Hirokazu Yasuhara's Digital Dragons talk in 2017, where he revealed a significantly different and more ambitious early design for Sonic 2 that was scrapped in favor of something they could do faster and easier.

The information about Sonic 3 comes from the Hidden Palace dump of a Sonic 3 prototype. The creation date on their prototype is maybe three months before its retail release and the state of the game at that point can charitably be described as a disaster, something their news post explains thanks to information provided by the person who offered the prototype.

Sonic Adventure 2 being made by half the people in half the time is original research by me. Sonic Team is on record that the 3D Sonic World in Sonic Jam was a prototype for Sonic Adventure on the Sega Saturn, putting development of SA1 starting around late 1996 or early 1997. If you count from there to when the finishing touches were put on the International (American) release of SA1, that gives it a development time of around 2-3 years. SA2's development started probably around December of 1999, and came out in June of 2001, making for a development time of 18 months. You can compare developer numbers yourself using Mobygames. (Shoutouts to The Golden Bolt for also looking down a similar path.)

Similarly, just look at the production credits for Shadow the Hedgehog, CTRL+F, and search for "Takashi Iizuka"

After Shadow in 2005, Takashi Iizuka was no longer an active developer on the Sonic series for the next five or six games, mostly relegated to distant "supervisor", "concept" and "special thanks" roles. Instead, he worked on NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, another game Sega jerked him around on. He came back to the Sonic franchise and started doing press again midway through the development of Sonic Colors in 2010.

Sonic Unleashed being expensive comes from, to my memory, an IGN Developer Diary that's impossible to find nowadays, where the director admits one of the producers at Sega pitched the Werehog as a way to slow players down and appreciate all the effort they put into environment art. Also they literally developed a whole entire rendering engine just for that game, of course it was expensive.

Here's a 2009 post mentioning a "Sonic Anniversary" leak from Sega's FTP. Details are fuzzy, but a Sega Spain leak a year later clarified that "Sonic Anniversary" was a game coming to Wii, DS, PSP, and PS3. A (physically) broken prototype of Sonic Anniversary for the PSP reveals a very early version of what would become Sonic Generations for the 3DS. And given how much content is shared between Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, it's not hard to connect the dots between Colors being built from the proposed Wii version of "Anniversary" (Generations). There may be a more direct source for this straight from the horse's mouth, but I can't find it right now.

Morio Kishimoto was a game designer for Secret Rings and Black Knight, his first games for Sega, and got promoted to Director for Sonic Colors where he's stayed ever since. He mentioned not being a part of Sonic Forces at first, but was brought in to get the game back on track, and the game's troubled development is corroborated by Takashi Iizuka in the liner notes for the Sonic Forces soundtrack.

You can compare the metacritic for Secret Rings and Sonic 06 to see just how much more favorably Secret Rings was received, despite both games coming out less than six months apart.

Here's an archived IGN interview from 2007 with Yojiro Ogawa describing how Secret Rings was split off from the development resources of Sonic 06. Exact dates would be fuzzy, but it's easy to assume the entire game was developed in less than a year.

Here's a 2010 Eurogamer interview where Takashi Iizuka (not Kishimoto, whoops) says Sonic Colors is a Sonic game meant to appeal to Mario fans.

As for Sonic Lost World being Sonic Colors 2, my source on that is "I mean, just look at it."

(For people many years in the future, this post is in response to this.)

[scarskelly]

[weireir]

Epic writing fail from Sega. So the meaning behind the Kabuki makeup is a lie, and Shadow’s just an a$$? That doesn’t sound appealing. The appeal for me is a character who looks dark but is redeemable - that’s more interesting than a guy who both looks and acts like a villain. This character was not thought out well at all. 🤦‍♀️

[video-sonic]

Takashi Iizuka talks about Silver, Blaze and Eggman Nega's origins in a Sonic Boom 2012 Q and A

[cloudofash]

"I don't want Shadow to be redeemed, or adopted, or make friends."

Some of y'all have never played the games and it shows. Shadow is literally redeemed by the end of SA2 when he helps save the planet and again in later games. He forms Team Dark with Rouge and Omega and remains with Rouge as a G.U.N partner (sorta).

Shadow can and most likely will be redeemed in the movie. He was never an irredeemable character. Regardless of what Iizuka says about him "not being friends with Sonic whatsoever", Shadow does form some sort of companionship with some of the other characters. He can be adopted by Tom and Maddie, or form an eventual bond with Jojo or whatever the Sonic directors decide is the best direction. That doesn't take away from who he is. Forming connections and eventual bonds doesn't mean his personality will completely change, maybe he'll soften a little but he softens anyways after remembering that Maria never wanted revenge on the planet. Shadow was never meant to be wrathful and angry forever.

Context: Just seeing some of the responses to what Iizuka said about Shadow not being the Vegeta of the series and never being Sonic's friend, and that led to people agreeing that Shadow should not only not be friends with Sonic but shouldn't have friends at all, and shouldn't be adopted into any family and should remain alone forever on the ARK which doesn't even happen in the games. Heavily disagree with all of the takes that spawned from that discussion.

[chase-omega]

There is no reason why Chao Garden HAS to be tied exclusively to Adventure. Especially since Sonic Advance 1 had a mini Chao Garden.

Iizuka does not understand what is best for the Sonic franchise.

[soahcity]

Takashi Iizuka Has Revealed Original Sonic Generations Designers Return for New Content in SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS

Takashi Iizuka Has Revealed Original Sonic Generations Designers Return for New Content in SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS #SonicTheHedgehog #SonicNews

ead of Sonic Team, Takashi Iizuka, has revealed in a new interview with Video Games Chronicle the original Sonic Generations designers have returned for the new content in SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS. What can you tell us about the development team behind Sonic X Shadow Generations? Who’s working on the game? This game is developed in Japan by Sonic Team. The director of this game is actually Mr…

[sonicjustbecause]

Oh God...

But when I read the name ‘Takashi Iizuka’ I must except something really really really weird is on the way.

Like:

Actually there is the Föhn a warm wind.

I had to read twice to make sure he was truly talking about Sonic.

Or deny the evidence like

Yet, is really the first time I hear Spawn associated with Shadow. 

2024. 

Not before.