Sonic X, Episode 3.14: Clash in the Cloister

Sonic X, Episode 3.14: Clash in the Cloister

Japanese Title: Cross the Galaxy Corridor!

U.S. Air Date: February 4th, 2006

Japanese Air Date: April 14th, 2020

Here's another episode where the Japanese title is far better than the English title. Both accurately describe the episode's contents. Yet crossing the galaxy corridor sounds way more excited than clashing in the cloister. I mean, I get the value in alliteration. But "cloister" is an inherently goofy word. And it's also not a word that feels very action-y. A cloister is mostly a place where you hide and a clash inside one would be more awkward than exciting. A corridor connects two separate areas, which is ultimately the true point of this episode. I'm just saying, the 4Kids dub team maybe should have just kept the Japanese title this one time. 

You know, it's never a good sign when I start my review off with a meandering digression about the title... Anyway, the episode begins with the Blue Typhoon hovering before a black hole. They realize the Metarex base resides in an alternate dimension and these black holes are how they traverse to our galaxy. The crew reluctantly decide to enter the rift. Inside, they discover a bizarre, cave-like area that is too small for the Blue Typhoon to traverse through, where root like growths grip the engine and huge stones block the path. Things get grimmer when Yellow Zelkova, the most physically powerful of Dark Oak's Metarex commanders, appears to ambush them.

I know this is a children's cartoon about a blue hedgehog that runs fast, so getting bent out of shape about the science here is pointless... But it's becoming increasingly clear that the writers of this show made no attempt to replicate the actual rules of outer space. The script seems to use the phrases "black hole" – a crushing singularity of gravity –  and "wormhole" – a theoretical structure that links two places in space and time – interchangeably. Whether the Metarex reside in an alternate universe versus just another corner of our universe seems unclear as well. Tails building a ship that can survive the pressure of a black hole seems improbable. This is about the understanding if science I'd expect from a show that depicts its heroes traipsing around outer space totally naked and suffering no ill effects from that. 

This plot point also directly contradicts the events of an earlier episode. Previously, Red Pine's ship was sucked into a similar hole and destroyed. Here, there doesn't seem to be any vacuum effects around the hole. Apparently, the Metarex routinely use them to travel! Moreover, the decision to depict the interior of the cloister – or corridor or whatever you want to call it – as a subterranean-like tunnel full of physical hazards is hilariously literal. It's like the writers heard the phrase "wormhole," pictured a hole in the dirt a worm dug through, and decided to stick that in outer space. I'm choosing to intercept the corridor as a Special Zone-like pocket dimension that links two galaxies, because that's an explanation that doesn't give me brain cancer. 

Obviously, we are not meant to think about any of this shit too much. And that's why I'm choosing to mostly laugh at the weird, stupid shit that happens in this episode. When the Blue Typhoon enters the wormhole, a bunch of psychedelic visual distortions occur. Everyone swirls around in a trippy fashion, which is pretty funny. After the ship is entangled in space weeds or whatever, we see that Tails has invented a laser rake to clear the roots. If that wasn't goofy enough, we are next presented with Sonic wearing a pair of shearing shoes Chris as designed. Those would be sneakers with twirling blades inside designed to slice through vegetation. Sonic glides along the outside of the Blue Typhoon with them, looking doofy as fuck. I'm so glad Chris had those sneakers built with an extremely specific scenario in mind at the ready. 

In fact, comedy may be the main goal of this episode. Yellow Zelkova is, in some ways, a fearsome enemy. He's incredibly strong and neigh invulnerable. He's also a complete idiot. His introductory moment has him scarfing down spicy curry and bragging about it. He doesn't seem to notice when Sonic and Knuckles start to use his headbutts to push the Blue Typhoon through the corridor. (How this doesn't totally fuck up the ship, I don't know.) There's also a funny moment when Yellow Zelkova calls Knuckles a "red hedgehog." This enraged the echidna so much, he's able to toss a huge chunk of the corridor's matter – previously depicted as so dense, he couldn't punch through it – at the robot. 

In general, this fight is just full of moments that look silly. At one point, Yellow Zelkova is swinging around the stalactite-like structures inside the corridor. Sonic is balanced atop one such pillar and just hangs out there for a minute. I'm really not sure what was happening in that scene! Once again, the baddy of this episode is defeated –  though not destroyed – when Sonic is launched out of the Sonic Driver cannon and turned into a big spinning CGI ball. This moment goes on longer than usual, which just draws attention to how goofy it all looks. Really, I'm starting to wonder why using himself as a massive projectile has no negative side effects on Sonic. Here, after he stops spinning, he just says "he's pooped." How many concussions has this special move given Sonic by now? I feel like it should be a lot. 

This episode is full of elements that just made me pause and go "that doesn't make sense." And here's another one, a nitpick that is increasingly starting to bug me: Why doesn't the Metarex empire want the Master Emerald? They've been chasing after the little Chaos Emeralds with a fanatical fervor. Meanwhile, the Blue Typhoon has routinely been using the big emerald to perform all sorts of ridiculous, impossible task. In "Sonic X," the Master Emerald really doesn't seem to be treated as anything but a mundane power source. Yet it clearly puts out a massive amount of power! Why aren't the bad guys interested in that? The heroes are just carrying this infinite source of impossible energy with them and the villains, who are seeking power-granting magical plot devices, never seem to notice. Maybe I'm just used to the Archie Comics version of the Master Emerald, whose importance and power clearly outstrips the individual Chaos Emeralds. It's still starting to feel like a plot hole.

Also, when Yellow Zelkova is getting ready to attack the Sonic Team, Sonic instructs Amy to get inside and hide. She wants to fight but Sonic thinks this threat is too serious for her. Considering Amy is capable of wrecking shit with her hammer, especially when her love is endangered, this feels really short-sighted of Sonic. And more than a little sexist. He might as well have said "Go run and hide, little lady! This fight is only for the men!" This show has proven, over and over again, that Amy is a powerful warrior. So let her fight! She can summon indestructible hammers out of thin air and loves to smash shit with them. Use that to your advantage!

If this entire review was composed mostly of me seizing on minor details and getting disproportionately annoyed about them, I apologize. The story here is simple and boring, no more complicated than "the heroes need to get from Point A to Point B but a bad guy is in their way." The characters aren't given many chances to show much depth. The action scenes are mostly uninspired. The repeated instances of unfunny humor and inexplicable gaps in narrative logic suggests the writers didn't expend on this episode. I hate to write a review that's nothing but petty whining but that's all I had to work with. I apologize. But also I don't because this episode just kind of sucked. [5/10]