Sonic fans have been having a pretty good year. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released to commercial success and critical acclaim. On the generous grading curve applied to 3D Sonic games, Sonic Frontiers was an absolute masterpiece. Now, the long-awaited Sonic Prime cartoon is here to give the beloved hedgehog another chance at animated success.
Sonic Prime comes to Netflix courtesy of Man of Action, the comic book writing and artist collective that also created Ben 10, Generator Rex, and Ultimate Spider-Man. Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, and Steven T. Seagle are well-known for their comic-inspired action cartoons. They've been a huge asset to the long-suffering genre, and their newest outing is a great new addition to the canon.
Sonic Prime starts in medias res, with Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Rouge locked in combat with Dr. Eggman. The evil scientist is prepared to take advantage of the series' new powerful MacGuffin, yet another magical crystal with immense untapped power. This one, the Paradox Crystal, explodes on contact with Sonic, sending the Blue Blur tumbling into an alternate dimension. His new destination is New Yoke City, a dystopian technocratic nightmare in which Eggman, split into five variant Eggmen, rules with an iron fist. He discovers swiftly that his friends now operate as a gritty underground resistance and work in the shadows to overthrow the regime. Sonic must gather the shattered pieces of the crystal to fix the world he broke. Unfortunately, every time he touches a crystal, he's launched into a new alternate dimension. The show swiftly becomes a sort-of universe of the week walking tour as Sonic explores fun AU fan fiction and solves each world's problems.
The draw of this show is the action. It's well-animated, everything feels appropriately fast, and the choreography is very compelling. Every character has their own distinct fighting style, some of which change multiple times as Sonic sees their multiversal variants. Every episode has two or three massive brawls with a ton of participants. There aren't a ton of innovative solutions to problems, it's just classic cartoon combat. The most immediate comparison point to the show in general might be the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. The 3D animation is detailed enough that the characters don't look like toys, but a more simplistic 2D art style might have been a better fit for the series. The multiple redesigns of beloved characters will likely be very popular among Sonic fans.
The writing is competent enough but in a fairly generic way. The show isn't particularly funny, but it may hit harder with its presumed audience of 8 to 12-year-olds. The jokes are fairly by-the-numbers and anyone in or above their teenage years will be able to guess every punchline before it lands. Outside the jokes, the world-building is sometimes very interesting. Each new reality has a self-contained story with personal stakes that Sonic can pop in and solve. The main one is New Yoke City, in which the stakes are much higher. Sonic visits a world in which his friends remained primal jungle-dwellers and one in which they're a crew of high-seas pirates. These little jaunts give fans a chance to see their favorite characters in different genres. It's the same logic that led to the creation of Sonic and the Black Knight, though with much better results.
The voice cast is an interesting issue for the Sonic franchise. Everyone knows what all of these characters are supposed to sound like. When they're recast, the new actor winds up doing an impression of those who came before them. Devin Mack brings the typical 90s cool tenor to his performance as Sonic. Ashleigh Ball as Tails and Adam Nurada as Knuckles bring the familiar sound to their characters while also easily blending into each new reality with a shifting performance. Brian Drummond has the somewhat daunting task of following both Mike Pollock and Jim Carrey in the role of Eggman, but he handles the role and all of its variants well. The cast is fine. No one sounds particularly jarring or out of place, but they're not doing much new either.
Though most of the show is decent, it's building towards something that is not yet present. The show is supposed to have 24 episodes total, but this first release has only 8. It's very clear that the show has more to say because, without wishing to spoil, there is not much of an ending here. It's reminiscent of the first four-episode season of Netflix's Castlevania, which deliberately felt incomplete. There's also entirely too much repetition within this brief season. It's as if the show was meant to be released weekly, but since it dropped in a block, it's a bit annoying to see the same clips over and over. If the show ends here, it'll be a bitter pill for Sonic fans, but it's fair to assume that more is yet to come.
Sonic Prime is yet another argument for Sonic as a TV star first and a game character second. Sonic fans will love the showcase for their favorite characters and the fast-paced action. Despite some weak writing and a bit too much repetition, Sonic Prime is a lot of fun. Enjoy the Blue Blur's journey into the multiverse.