Sonic X, Episode 2.10: Shadow World

Sonic X, Episode 2.10: Shadow World

Japanese Title: The Threat from Outer Space

Japanese Air Date: December 7th, 2003

U.S. Air Date: November 20th, 2004

After seeing on the news that there were no casualties from the Prison Island explosion, Sonic and the gang are relieved that Chris is alive... Before realizing he must have been captured by Eggman and Shadow. Currently, the youngest Thorndyke is aboard the ARK, Gerald Robotnik's space fortress and Shadow's birth place. Eggman announces to the world how dangerous the Eclipse Cannon is by blowing up half of the fucking moon and demands Earth surrenders to him. Sonic and the gang team up with Knuckles, who stumbled upon Eggman's desert base in his previous journeys. They venture there and head into space shortly afterwards, though not without some complications also the way.

After hinting at it for the last few episodes, "Sonic X" finally reveals Shadow's tragic backstory in full. We see most of the details, of how G.U.N. invaded the ARK and how Maria died before Shadow's eyes, just as she launched him to safety. (The cartoon stops just shy of showing an actual child being shot and dying.) Even though it's a brief scene, it is enough to sell Shadow and Maria's special relationship. How her death still haunts and motivates him. A traumatic past may be an overused cliche, when it comes to Bad Boys with a Heart of Gold characters, but it does add more depth to Shadow. 

This episode also recreates an infamous moment in "Sonic" history that I've always had some questions about. Yes, I'm talking about Eggman blowing up part of the moon with the Eclipse Cannon. Thanks to the internet, I am now completely incapable of taking this moment seriously. Even before that, I wondered why blowing up half the moon didn't have graver consequences for the Earth. The moon suddenly being half as heavy would, presumably, have serious effects on our planet's tidal activity. Beyond that, the explosion throws a lot of moon shrapnel into the upper atmosphere. Wouldn't huge chunks of free-falling space rock being above our world be, ya know, bad? Alas, the show doesn't address these questions because it's a cartoon for small children and I am, as always, overthinking things. 

In the last review, I pointed out that this story arc hasn't featured much of Knuckles so far, even though he had a big presence in the Dreamcast version of these events. I guess the show runners were also wondering "Oh yeah, isn't Knuckles supposed to be here?" around this time too, because the echidna shows up this episode. All this really does is draw attention to how superfluous Knuckles' "Adventure 2" storyline really is. "Sonic X" doesn't have him hunting shards of the Master Emerald again. Instead, he just randomly finds Eggman's pyramid base and arrives in time to inform Sonic and the gang, just when they need a way to get into space. But I guess it's nice to have the big dorky red guy around again. 

Unfortunately, Knuckles' arrival in this episode also signals the point when it goes completely fucking bananas. The subplot of Mr. Stewart and Scarlett Garcia teaming up still has yet to go anywhere. Here, they wander into Jerome Wise's hobo shanty, search for some other homeless guy, and are spied on by Agent J and Agent K from the "Men in Black" movies. The police then chase Sonic into a near-by alleyway, prompting a "Scooby-Doo" style chase sequence and a fourth wall break. Knuckles just happens to be fighting some G.U.N. drones in the same location, for reasons that are never explained. Mr. Tanaka then rides in on a motorcycle, while dressed as Bruce Lee from "Game of Death" and making matching martial arts noises. Everyone then escapes via the sewer. Bokkun is also in there somewhere. None of that was exaggerated for comedic effect. All of those events literally happen in this cartoon. 

The episode never really recovers after that solid dose of insanity. "Sonic X" struggles to find a reason to include an Egyptian style pyramid in its story, an element that was always kind of out-of-place in "Sonic Adventure 2's" plot. A video game can get away with that "who cares, it looks cool" logic but a serialized story needs an actual reason to include such things. So we just have to go with Eggman having a pyramid base in the desert, that's guarded by a giant ancient Egyptian-style stone robot and features a NASA space shuttle. "Sonic X" further complicates these events by also introducing Topaz back into the story at this point, for reasons that are not yet clear. Also, Bokkun is also in this scene too, controlling the Egg Golem, and he's annoying and dumb.

The Egg Golem sequence is made more awkward because it looks like shit. The sense of scale is all fucked-up here. The Egg Golem is obviously meant to be huge, as its feet dwarf Bokkun and Sonic. Yet, when seen in full, the stone robot seems much smaller, about half of its actual size. This is not the only example of perspective being a mess in this episode. When Tails enters the base in the X-Tornado, the tip of the pyramid seems barely bigger than the airplane. That's obviously not right, which is clear when the space shuttle — which, I don't know if you realize this, are a lot bigger than airplanes — exits via the same entrance. Add in some other moments where Sonic and Knuckles' heads seem hilariously oversized, and where Tails in general is off-model, and you have an episode that was clearly rushed through the animation stage. 

I've always thought "Sonic Adventure 2's" plot was a bit messy and this episode really draws attention to that. While "Sonic X" has done a good job of adapting the game's event up to now, it hits a snag here. Still, this episode is definitely worth seeing for that solid two-minute long chunk of madness in the middle. Oh, and for further insight into Shadow's past too, I guess. [6/10]