Sonic X: The Dub

When I first started my “Sonic X” retrospective, I commented that this was the third or so time I had attempted to watch the show. I never made it very far before for many reasons, my then-reluctance to explore versions of Sonic that I didn’t have nostalgia for being the main one… But, I think, watching the dub each previous time was a major factor. It's not a controversial opinion to say that the “Sonic X” dub is bad. At the very least, most agree it's the inferior version of the show. There's still quite a lot of enmity towards 4Kids these days, for their heavy and frequently bizarre censorship. Honestly, I don't know why it took me so long to just watch the sub. Once I did, I found "Sonic X" to be a fun, quirky show in its own right. 

Nevertheless, the dub does have its place in "Sonic" history. After all, the 4Kids approved voice cast took over all the same roles in the Sega video games for a few years. For fans of a certain age, Jason Griffin is their Sonic. Naturally, the dub is how a whole generation of U.S. "Sonic" nerds got introduced to the franchise. It's unsurprising that many "Sonic" fans have a fondness for this version of the program. Considering "Sonic X's" third season was primarily made for the U.S. market, some might even go so far as to say that the dub is the primary cut of the show. That certainly seems to be the opinion of the weird people who run the Sonic News Network Wiki, where all "Sonic X" articles frustratingly defer to the English language version first. 

So I knew I had to talk about the dub eventually. I simply had a problem deciding how to do that. As I write this, it's been a whole month since I've finished watching "Sonic X" and writing every other article in this series. Truthfully, I wasn't eager to subject myself to the dub, because I knew I was going to hate it. But there were practical reasons for the delay too. Sitting down and re-watching the entire series in English, after just finishing a marathon of the Japanese version, did not seem like a good use of my time. Especially not for the sake of one article. Watching a short highlight reel on YouTube or something also seemed like cheating. 

What I really should've done is watched each dubbed episode right after watching the original cuts. I could've included a short paragraph comparing each edit in every review. That would've been the easiest, smartest way to handle it, which would provide me with as comprehensive a view of this show as could be expected. Both the sub and the dub are easily found online – the dub is streaming on YouTube, or Tubi if you're nasty, officially and for free – so I really had no excuse. In fact, why didn't I do that? You wouldn't be forced to read these words right now if I had. Sorry, guys, I'm kind of dumb sometimes. 

Having clearly missed my chance to do the right thing, I guess I got stuck in neutral for a while. After deliberating for a whole fucking month, I finally decided on a strategy: I would watch a bunch of dubbed episodes in one day. I went through my reviews and picked out a dozen favorites, across the three seasons. I figured this would give me a fairly balanced view of the dub, exposing myself to the different sounds and moods of 4Kids' "Sonic X," without walking the cumbersome path of re-watching a show I just finished not that long ago. Six hours later, I finally had a reason to write this blog post. If that also seems like cheating, I apologize profusely to you, dear Hedgehogs Can't Swim readers.

The most obvious aspect of the dub to discuss, I suppose, is how the cast compares to their Japanese originals. To be totally frank, I don’t like Jason Griffin’s Sonic. Jun’ichi Kanemaru’s Sonic had just the right level of snottiness, making the hedgehog seem genuinely cool and carefree. Griffin’s Sonic, meanwhile, always sounds too excited for everything. There’s something cutesy about his approach that puts me off. Like he’s a cartoon teddy bear trying to sell me detergent or something. Sanae Kobayashi's Chris was definitely whiny at times but also always sincere, in a way that made him seem like a genuinely neurotic child. After listening to Suzanne Goldish's scratchy, petulant little boy voice for five minutes, I was ready to throw Chris into a jet turbine. No wonder fans hate him so much! 

This difference is true almost entirely across the board. Japanese Tails is cute and soft. U.S. Tails is nasally and annoying. Japanese Amy nicely balances a girly side with a vulnerability or a manic touch. U.S. Amy is too bratty, too often. Japanese Vector is absurdly overconfident. U.S. Vector goes for an exaggeratedly goofiness that grates on the ears. Japanese Cosmo is emotive and fragile but with a serene streak. U.S. Cosmo is just flat, effecting a generic feminine gentleness to every line. Japanese Big is doofy and U.S. Big is somehow even doofier. Japanese Cream is, well, ear-splittingly high-pitch but at least she sounds like a real little girl. U.S. Cream sounds like a grown woman doing a sub-par impersonation of a little girl. Decoe and Bocoe's English V.O.s have a robotic filter over their voices that drain away much of the humor, while Bokkun gains a clownish quality to his already obnoxious shrieking. They aren't the only robot that gets a downgrade, as the dub gives Gamma a pinched, nerdy voice for some fucking reason. 

The more you watch 4Kids “Sonic X,” the more apparent it is that they wanted to wring out as much of the original’s personality as possible. While the Japanese actors who played Chris' family frequently have a dryly humorous quality to their voices, that made the over-the-top wackiness easier to swallow, the U.S. cast go for cuddly warmth almost every single time. (The pidgin English and “ay caramba!” accents the dub cast chose for Tanaka and Ella would get the show canceled these days and I don't mean by the network.) Nobitoshi Canna's Knuckles is gruff but also youthful sounding, emphasizing the echidna's frequently child-like personality. Dan Green's Knuckles has way too deep a voice, sounding like he's significantly older than the rest of the character. This is even worst for Shadow, also voiced by Griffin in the dub. Griffin's attempt at a gravelly tough guy voice is simultaneously overwrought and flat while also being completely impossible to take seriously. 

Not every voice is godawful. In the Japanese audio, Chikao Otsuka gave Eggman a pretty goofy voice, though one you can still easily imagine coming out of a 56 year old mad scientist with a mustache like that. Mike Pollock's Eggman is honestly better. He's realistically gruff but with an expert comedic timing, selling the perfect mixture of egomania and childish posturing that makes Eggman the character we know. TMS gave Sam Speed a baritone voice that was a little distracting while 4Kids Sam Speed has a more natural Tom Cruise pattern to his speech. 

A lot of the dub actors are not necessarily better but they at least aren't terrible. I would not say Kathleen Delaney's Rouge is superior to Rumi Ochiai – she still sounds too old, doing some weird Jessica Rabbit impersonation – but she maintains her sensual quality. Espio's English voices him like the lead in the cheesy dub of a ninja movie, which is fitting, I suppose. I like Pale Bayleaf's Japanese voice a lot better but at least I can still take his English voice seriously. (As opposed to Dark Oak and Black Narcissus, who have ridiculously overcompensating computerized “evil” voice) Topaz' Japanese voice is cuter but the English actress does a passable job. Charmy is equally irritating in both versions and at least Helen doesn't sound too unnatural. 

Of course, the voices were not the only changes 4Kids made during the dub. The incidental music was completely changed. It's not like the background music in “Sonic X” was all the exceptional. However, what 4Kids replaced it with is just about the most generic stuff you can imagine. The music is loud, blaring melodramatically, during moments that were subtle in the sub. It's cloying and too-cute in sequences that were funny or character-driven originally, wacky horn noises taking the place of silence. 

Large swathes of the script were rewritten too, of course. The absurd humor of the Japanese script is flattened out, the dialogue peppered with puns instead. Lame attempts at comedy like that stands right next to histrionic declarations. “Sonic X” was not the most nuanced anime in existence yet, compared to the English dub, it comes off much better. 4Kids did everything they could to overemphasize every emotion in the story, treating it audience like they were the biggest dummies in the world. It took a show that was for twelve-year-olds and made it for three-year-olds.

With that in mind, it makes the motivation behind the overzealous censorship the dub is so notorious for clearer. They did shit like remove every instance of writing, Japanese or otherwise, on-screen. Presumably because the producers seemed to genuinely think its audience wouldn't understand why there were Japanese symbols in this Japanese show. That the visual symbolism of oil leaking from a robot's eyes, like tears, would be too subtle. So the oil must be changed to look like tears. The writing was changed so often that the meaning of entire scenes were often completely altered. Take a look at this scene from the Sonic Battle arc. In the original, the scene is about Chris' character development, how he feels frustrated that everybody still treats him like a kid. In the English dub, the scene is changed to be about the guilt Chris feels over “cheating,” as if the program was trying to instill some cheesy moral on its audience.

Obviously, the most notorious alterations 4Kids made to “Sonic X” are in episode 68, “On a Destroyed Planet.” I've already gone over the kids-glove changes 4Kids made to the ending, of changing Molly's suicidal sacrifice into her merely flying off-screen. But it's actually even more awkward in execution than it sounds. Molly – who sounds like a suburban mom knocking on my door to tell me my grass isn't up to the community standard – speaks about continuing to fight when her Japanese counterpart was weeping in defeat. Her and Shadow share a meaningful glance totally out-of-context. Her cry of agony now becomes a meaningless wail as she flies off. Shadow then goes nuclear on the Metarex armada for no reason at all. Her gravestone is then digitally removed from the final scene, Shadow and Rouge's dialogue now being filled with empty platitudes about worrying and Molly being tough. Lame!

It's just a natural extension of how the dub insisted every ounce of subtly get bled out of this show. Molly has to mention the Black Wind at every chance. Rouge has to be slinging one-liners every minute. The heroes just can't randomly be attacked by giant piranha on a weird planet. It has to tie into the plot somehow. Characters flatly announce their motivations and emotions, as if  Philip J. Fry wrote this or something. It's absolutely maddening. Even that English title, “A Revolutionary Tale,” is a goofy pun that feels at odds with the tone and content of the grimmest episode of the entire series.

I guess that's my main takeaway from the 4Kids version of “Sonic X.” If you saw this as a young kid, you probably liked it. Because it's designed to make the show as kid-friendly – in both form and function – as possible. That means sanding off everything interesting or even slightly edgy off the show. To an adult's eyes, the dub comes off as nothing but incredibly simpering and condescending. I'm glad I didn't attempt to review the Fox Box version, as it would've been like getting my teeth drilled every day. The original “Sonic X” surprised me because of how much fun, how well done, it could be. I thought the show was going to be cringe-y bullshit for stupid babies... Because that's what the dub, my first exposure to it, is. 

If there's any point to this rambling rebuttal, I guess it's simply this: If you're going to watch “Sonic X,” watch the Japanese version. It's readily available online. The dub takes a pretty decent, entertaining show and reduces it to the most bland product possible. I guess 4Kids kept getting away with this because it made everyone involved a lot of money. But we're grown-ass adults now, so we don't have to put up with the watered-down version of our children's cartoons anymore. “Sonic X: The Dub” is lame as fuck. Stick with the subtitles.