Sonic X, Episode 2.17: Mean Machines

Sonic X, Episode 2.17: Mean Machines

Japanese Title: Huge Home Electronics Panic!

Japanese Air Date: January 25th, 2004

U.S. Air Date: February 5th, 2005

"Sonic X" continues to explore the impact our blue hedgehog has on earthly society in "Mean Machines." Sonic's popularity has inspired people to copy his carefree attitude. This has led to fewer people working in the Thorndyke electronic factories, leading to shoddier products, and more customer complaints. In order to supplant the lack of workers, the Thorndyke corporation is relying more on prison slave labor. Eggman has been personally repairing hundreds of broken appliances... And also adding microchips to them that make them evil robots that attack their owners. Sonic and his friends must save the hapless population from these household appliances that have been programmed to kill.

Yes, this episode presents the unlikely scenario that Sonic, somehow, has inspired a labor shortage. I get Sonic inspiring people to copy his hair cut, as we see at the Sonic festival in the first scene, or inspiring a jogging fad, as we saw in the last episode. But people still have to work, ya know. We still need money to survive. Most humans cannot afford to laze around in their roofs all day. Unlike Sonic, they do not have a billionaire benefactor taking care of them. The entire subplot raises far too many questions for this cartoon show to answer. 

But this is a children's cartoon that reinforces a very conservative, and very Japanese, moral. This episode just runs with the idea that fewer workers will mean less satisfactory products coming from factories, which makes no sense. Complaints pile up on top of Nelson Thorndyke's desk — as if the billionaire CEO of a corporation would handle that stuff personally — but when he hears Chris has the flu, he immediately vacates his office. (Leaving the real work to his underlings, which is extremely realistic.) He picks up Lindsey from a film set via his private helicopter, and she also abandons her job without a moment's notice to take care of her sick child. 

Yet when Chuck Thorndyke hears about his son leaving his job suddenly, he scolds him. He tells him to get his lazy billionaire ass back to work! The happy ending of the episode occurs when Nelson decides to personally help end the crisis. Funny enough, Lindsey is never chastised for leaving her job suddenly. That's because "Sonic X" reflects Japan's work obsessed, sexist culture that believes retirement is a moral failing and women should stay at home and take care of the babies. At the end of the episode, Nelson is overjoyed because all the appliances being destroyed means people will just buy new ones from him. Everyone laughs. It's a win for corporate greed! None of this shit has any business being in a cartoon about Sonic, hero of the proletariat, but I don't write the cartoons, guys. I just review 'em.

My favorite thing about the stupid, fucked-up moral to this episode is it mostly reveals how childish and dysfunctional the Thorndykes are as a family. When Chuck is ranting at his son and daughter-in-law, he calls them "idiots" and tells them to "grow up." He says he's "setting a bad example" for Chris by leaving work and then calls him his "stupid son." Nelson says his father used to also ditch work to be with his kid and Chuck tells his son to stop bringing up the past. Ah, the old "do as I say, not as I do" defense. Nelson's dad then blames his corporation's recent troubles on his son's laziness, once again linking work with morality. Everyone else just has to awkwardly stand back and watch while Nelson and Chuck scream at each other. This tidal wave of Daddy Issues climaxes with Chris telling his father he hates him and for everyone to leave him alone. Before any of this, Chris begged Ella not to bother his father with his cold, as if he could foresee this shit storm happening. I just love how this light-hearted children's show presents the deep-rooted psychological problems of its characters as if it's normal and not worthy of further comment. 

Contrasting with this subplot that blames work-related inconvenience on "laziness" is Eggman's scheme. All of this was unintentional but it's kind of funny that Eggman, contrived into unpaid labor on behalf of a billion-dollar megacorp, devises a plot that sees household appliances trying to destroy the people who own them. Ya know, definitely kind of fitting that an abused worker would use the very system that enslaves him to strike back. That appliances, symbolic workers, are rising against the people that bought and own them. Eggman then gets busted out of prison by Bokkun, just waltzing straight out of this horrendously unethical situation. What I'm saying is Eggman is the hero of this episode. 

I might be overanalyzing the unintentional and probably non-existent political subtext of this episode because it's actual content leaves me with little to talk about. The sequences of Sonic and friends fighting cartoonish, evil appliances with silly red eyes are pretty lame. This is not the best animated episode of "Sonic X" and the action scenes are fairly inert. Eggman didn't water-proof any of his appliances, so a splash from a water hose is enough to defeat them. It's like Sonic got dropped into a less cool version of "Maximum Overdrive." This episode definitely would've been improved by our hedgehog blowing up a Green Goblin truck with a rocket launcher. And, presumably because some people will demand replacements instead of just buying new ones, who's going to fix the appliances Eggman made evil and Sonic destroyed? More prison slave labor? Probably.

Anyway, uh, what about Emerl? Yeah, he's still here. It's established that he's living with the Thorndykes now and that his robotic memory has been wiped. But his ability to copy special moves just by looking at them, his game play gimmick from "Sonic Battles," is maintained. I guess this show does deserve some points for doing standalone episodes but still building up an on-going in the margins like this. Also, the opening scene features brief appearances from Cucky, Pecky and Ricky (the closest we're ever going to get to Sally Acorn appearing in a Japanese “Sonic” cartoon), suggesting some of the animal life from Sonic's world made the leap to Earth along with that big chunk of land. 

Also also, this episode features an excess of heaving bosoms. Nelson's secretary wears a low-cut blouse under her suit jacket. The movie Lindsey is filming has her riding a motorcycle while wearing a skin tight leather catsuit, with the zipper pulled down low. That sequence is the best animated in the episode. There's also a shot of scantily clad babes with Sonic haircuts in the first scene. (Which just makes them look like Ryoko.) Only that last moment was deemed excessive enough to get cut from the 4Kids dub. I guess it's no surprise that the "Sonic" cartoon that gave Rouge her animated debut would be enamored of great big titties. Anyway, this is a dumbass episode that still massively entertained me for reasons that are almost totally besides the point. [7/10]