Sonic X, Episode 2.02: A Chaotic Day

Sonic X, Episode 2.02: A Chaotic Day

Japanese Title: The Mysterious Lifeform Chaos

Japanese Air Date: October 12th, 2003

U.S. Air Date: September 25th, 2004

The "Sonic Adventure" adaptation continues in episode two of season two. After a quick reconvening at the Thorndyke residence, everyone sets out in separate missions. Sonic pursues Eggman, meeting up with Tails soon afterwards. They encounter the villain and accidentally feed Chaos two more Chaos Emeralds, making him more powerful. Knuckles heads out to collect the shards of the shattered Master Emerald, while Chris and Big look for Froggy. Amy soon encounters a little blue bird before being abducted by Zero, an intimidating robot. And that's where the episode cuts off.

My fears that "Sonic X" would directly adapt "Sonic Adventure" with very few changes are seemingly confirmed. "A Chaotic Day" is essentially just a highly condensed summation of the first third of the video game. I've already played "Sonic Adventure," so there's not much value in seeing it lazily reenacted here. Moreover, this episode makes it clear why this approach is not such a great idea. "Sonic Adventure" broke its story up by characters but this episode just shuffles everything together. The result is a lurching, halting pace that leaps from one plot thread to another. Playing through a twenty-hour story, being able to pause whenever you want, is a lot different than just having the entire plot summary chopped up into half-hour chunks like this.

The "Sonic X" show runners seem to understand that trying to replicate the video game experience perfectly would be tedious... But only up to a certain point. See, they cut out the individual levels, not showing Knuckles going through the casino level or Sonic and Tails navigating the Windy Valley. But they keep all the boss bottles. Sonic fights Eggman in the Egg Hornet. Then he fights Chaos 4. Then Sonic and Tails fight the Egg Carrier from the seat of the X-Tornado. Do you see boring and exhausting this is, to just string together a series of boss battles? Raising the stakes three times in a row like this makes it seem like the stakes don't matter at all. Especially when Sonic, as in the video game, wins each battle by bopping the bad guy on the head. (Which has the added effect of making Chaos look way less threatening than he's obviously meant to be.)

It's weird to me that this show understands that drolly running through the levels would be boring but misses that doing the same with the boss battles wouldn't be. Maybe they figured, as long as the action is constant, the kids watching at home won't mind... Which might be true, if the action scenes were better. Instead, they feel limp and lifeless. And it doesn't help that the show inserts a lot of ugly CGI. Sonic turns into a computer-generated Spin Dash too many times. Angel Island is CGI, a cloud of dust is CGI, the X-Tornado and Egg Carrier are CGI, and Chaos appears to be CGI in a few scenes. There's even a shot of the casino floor that is computer-generated for no reason! It's very distracting.

When the episode isn't occupying itself with replicating the game plot and constant fight scenes, it becomes a lot more interesting. When Knuckles grabs the first Master Emerald shard, he gets a flashback to Pachacamac about to claim the emeralds from the Chao Temple, despite Tikal's protests. This sprinkling of backstory invokes some anti-imperialist themes. Which is pretty interesting and in keeping with the progressive themes of the "Sonic" franchise. But it's literally just one moment, a brief teaser in an episode overstuffed with incidents. 

Similarly, after the Egg Carrier shoots down the X-Tornado, we get a flashback to the early days of Sonic and Tails' friendship. It's a good moment, because it shows how Sonic's support has caused Tails to grow more confident. The little fox used to be fearful and uncertain but, with Sonic by his side, he found the strength to be braver. (It also features the image of Sonic piloting the Tornado II and gunning down some robots, which definitely has some novelty.) This seems to be a compromise between the "Adventure" characterization of Tails, who was trying to grow stronger and more independent, and the "X" version, which is already pretty self-assured and self-reliant. Yet the episode launches into this moment with so little preparation that I thought it was just another boss battle at first. I like the peek into Tails' past but the janky pacing of this episode fucks up even the good stuff.

If there's an attempt to correlate Tails' personality in the game with his personality in this show, no such attempt is made with Amy. Amy is largely inactive in her narrative. The blue bird that motivates her plot literally falls out of the sky and conks her on the head. Later, Zero shows up and grabs her, Amy making no attempt to fight back. She just screams for Sonic to come rescue her. This is very much at odds with Season One Amy, who was more than happy to beat robots into submission with her hammer. When combined with an earlier scene, where Amy happily discusses the foods she'll cook for Sonic, it makes it seem like someone who was previously a hammer-swinging badass is now a reductive feminine stereotype. 

So far, "Sonic X: Season Two" has been what I feared the first season was going to be. Namely, a straight-ahead adaptation of the "Adventure" era games, that recreates the events of the game without approaching the pacing differences between games and television as mediums. Most of the weird humor and explorations of the planet-hopping premise that made the show entertaining up to this point are not present. It's not much fun to watch. Hopefully, things will improve as we get further into the season. [5/10]