Review- "Clash! Sonic VS Knuckles" (Sonic X Japanese Dub)

Hello everyone- if you're reading this, 31 years have passed since the release of Sonic the Hedgehog. With the release of Sonic Origins (which, despite the confusing preorder charts; is well worth it for Sonic 3 and Sonic CD alone) and the upcoming Sonic Frontiers (which, like many in the fandom, I am equal parts hyped for and concerned about); and the success of the second movie (not to mention the upcoming Sonic Prime on Netflix). So, to help celebrate, let's open up this review of the Japanese dub of Sonic X; with the episode "Clash! Sonic VS Knuckles!"

After the absolute banger of the JP theme song, "Sonic Drive," we open on Knuckles the Echidna in a dark alley; as a newspaper of Sonic's fight with Eggman blows toward him. The doctor himself comes to Knuckles and offers a partnership to help find the Chaos Emeralds, using Sonic as his patsy. Of course- Had to make use of the "trick Knuckles into fighting Sonic" plot somehow! Knuckles is more than willing to go along with it for now, since he and Sonic technically aren't friends yet in this anime.

At Thorndyke Manor, Chris, his grandfather the professor and Tails are studying a Chaos Emerald in the attic when their maid Ella comes in to clean up. He hides in plain sight by pretending to be a stuffed toy.

Tails doll? It can't be- He's actually cute and not creepy.

While Sonic is chilling on the balcony, Chris takes Tails with the Professor to seek out further details on the Emerald. However, after Tanaka tells the Professor to get some rest; Chris has to find another way. Seeing a news report about the Emerald in Silver Valley; they decide to head over with Amy in tow under the guise of going out on a picnic. Since Tanaka used the car to take Chuck to his water aerobics class (much to the professor's objections), they decide to head to the valley by way of cable car! 

Joining Tails in posing as a plush toy, Amy gets tugged by a little girl; who she ends up kicking across the train after getting called cute. Her thoughts say only Sonic can call her that. So, Amy briefly turned into Dot Warner in this cable car trip.

Back at Thorndyke Manor, Bokkun delivers a message to Sonic; with Knuckles telling him to come to Silver Valley to confront him. The message self-destructs; and Sonic heads to the valley to meet Knuckles. At the valley, Dr. Eggman captures Tails, Amy and Chris to use them as bargaining chips; even remarking he planted the story about the Chaos Emerald! So, not a stretch, especially with that situation about the OST in Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Sonic meets up with Knuckles, who is none too pleased with how laid-back his hedgehog opponent is. He outright tells the echidna he's being played; but "Knux" won't have it. Their fight begins, and I do rather like how the sequel to the movie alluded to this scenario (more on that in a bit).

Back with the others, Chris and Amy bemoan how Knuckles has been tricked; while Tails starts tooling around in their prison capsule with a screwdriver. Interesting- I know many versions have him as a tinkerer; but where did that come from? Don't think he has any pockets, so where would he keep any tools? Hidden in his socks, perhaps? Amy is far less patient: after an attempt to break the glass with her hammer proves fruitless, she hits the console Tails is tooling instead. The resulting explosion breaks the glass and alerts Sonic to their presence!

Sonic takes out the joints of the mech, known as E-47; and Knuckles joins the fight after realizing he's been had! Eggman, effectively saying the quiet part loud and vice versa, demands the Emerald in exchange for his hostages. An attempt to goad Sonic into crossing the lake is also fruitless, as he simply goes around the shore and knocks over the already damaged E-47. Amy leaps into Sonic's arms, and this part is cute. If they include her in a future movie; I already have a shortlist of actresses in mind to voice her (Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Emma Stone and Zendaya; if you're curious).

Eggman activates the final phase of E-47 (not a stretch, wouldn't be the first multi-phase boss I've seen from this franchise); but Knuckles decides to send this wannabe Zaku to the scrapheap! The robot explodes, and Sonic saves Knuckles from being pulled into the wreckage! Everyone is all right; and from the closing moments of this episode onward; Knuckles becomes an ally who softens over the course of this anime. I also apologize for how this took longer than I expected (back-to-back internet outages).

"Clash! Sonic VS Knuckles" is among the best early episodes of Sonic X in any language; even getting an excellent re-animated fan project that Sega; Sonic Team and their other partners are strangely fine with. It's an experience I enjoy even after all this time; and much like their video game source material, Sonic's adaptations have always had something I've enjoyed all while varying wildly in quality (the Boom cartoon was pretty entertaining even if the games were buggy messes- heard Fire and Ice was better; but I haven't played it yet).

On that note, since my review of the first live-action film was a success a couple years back; I intend to look at this year's sequel after it comes out on Blu-ray (or at least after I get Paramount Plus to work). Before that, I have some unfinished business with other posts I was working on before the aforementioned web outages. That will be all for now, take care.