How I got fooled twice by purists of Japan, plus what was like being a purist (this time of America, but is also true for Japan too.

Episode 1 - Fooled by purist of Japan

I started to get seriously interested in anime stuffs when i was 11 years old. I grew up watching both Japanese, American and Italian cartoons (yes, back then Italy did cartoons too. Aosth and Sonic SatAM are Italian/American. Topo Gigio is Italian/Japanese), but I shifted comletely toward Japanese cartoon when I was 11 years old.

Some Sonic Generations vibes, uh?

Unfortunately, I had to wait to be 15 before getting more serious into anime.

I used to read Kappa Magazine (I discovered the serie 'Genzo', recommended as itself, not from KM). There was all I wanted, comics and curious fact about anime, including those I saw in Italy. And once there was one that caught my attention. It was about the last episode of Sailor Moon (episode 200, I think). It describled the censorship and the localization. There were also few pictures, but nothing to compare by my own, unfortunately.

Sorry for the censorship. but I don't want this blog getting the same treatment of my main blog, where I can't even have an avatar.

I stopped to read Kappa magazine when it shifted to 18+.

Years later I could finally watch the episode 200 of Sailor Moon the way it was. Yes it was censored. But a good part about localization was a lie.

Fooled once!

Part 2 - Choose to be a purist of America.

As purist of Japan, I must say I was tame. I was not like the one who call all American enternaiment estimators 'bunch of idots who lack of sense of aestetic and good product'. There are far worse purists around.

But as purist of America I was fierce, even obnoxious. At the point of bordering the troll territory (I trolled with other three purists once and I got banned). All what was outside the circle was shit. I also fought against miself to purge myself from all japanese influcences i had, especially in drawing style

It was fun at first, but after a while it becomes stale, the standards get impossible. This is what a purist feel. At certain point you start to hate your own fandom, I moved from being a purist of Japan to be a purist of America because of this.

Then I chose to be neither. Just liking what I like, regardless. Fuck elithism.

A panel of my original manga. I already stopped to be a purist for a while when I drew this. Usually I don't share my drawing, they're not worth. Do you recognize the place?

The story takes place in 2001, so Key Arena is.

3 - Fooled by a purist of Japan for the second time.

About 2 years ago I came back to Sonic fandom for the third time. I started to follow a blog of a Sonic fan on Tumblr, I still hadn't open Sonic Just Beacuse blog.

This person seemed an expert. She wasn't so extreme at the start. She mostly talked about Sonic's personality, about what she enjoyed, mostly light hearted. She showed her collection of Sonic merchandising, including Archies and IDW comics.

But one day everything changed. 'This blog is Japanese only'. 'SoA Evil!' 'Ian Flynn evil' 'Takashi Iizuka the only god' 'Don't call me SoJ purist, U RaSSists!' (of course not near this level of stupidity, just to show the kind of mentality. The racist one was truly explictily said, though).

Ian Flynn according to SoJ purist

The blog had became a collection of boring repeated posts against Sonic Prime (five times a day, for two week straight), suicidal though because of a umpteenth disappointing Sonic product (maybe even written by her dear Iizuka - it was getting messy), against Ian Flynn (this was damaging, because of her I learned to mistrust Ian Flynn abilities as a writer for a while, she share all the bad examples. I had to go through both his good and bad stories to make my opinion and clean the idea of him I had. This was the worst disservice).

Also, she showed the differences between some lines in Japanese VS English (it was mostly the wording, like Cheers/Thanx/Thank you), completely removed from their context, deliberately missing part, it was close to a scam. And for the racism part, she (like many SoJ purists) describled the SoA members like the tyrannic black arms and the SoJ members like many little confused amnesiac Shadows who can't still properly defend theriselves and are forced to succumb against the tirannical black arms). Half way between paternalism and conspiracy theorist.

I can't picture, for example, Iizuka like that. I'm not a fan of the guy and his views but one thing I learned he certainly is not somebody you can bury or trample. Also SoJ and SoA work togheter for two decades or more nowadays, way before Iizuka. They're not enemies.

Like it or not, they are not enemies!

But if you like, this is also named Takashi Iizuka, and this one will break your bones.

How this ended? This person had a discussion with another Sonic Fan on YT. One who watch Sonic as a whole, Japanese, English, IDW comics, Sonic Prime, everything. One who definitely is not a purist. And contraddicted her vision, using Japanese material no less. At the start she answered to him, the discussion seemed fine, no insults, no trolling, it was mostly like two adults talking about two different point of view. But in the end she first erased all the discussion she had with him. Later she denied the possibility to comment to her post. And finally, after few days, she erased all her blogs, accounts, everything, retreating. Is 6 months and she can't bee seen nowhere. Not really trustworthy, but what I can't truly forgive her is making me hate Ian Flynn when I still had no cleal idea about his writings.

Fooled twice!

No love no hate, Ian has his high and lows, certainly I prefer him other writers, boyth American and Japanese. The one I like most was Shiro Maekawa, but Ian gives lots of satisfactions too. There are downsides but is worth.

A dream team but the picture is not mine.

Conclusions:

Do I still follow SoJ purists? Actually some people i follow are purists. I avoid those that focus only on analysis, but there are a couple of people I follow because they do really cute and enjoyable creative stuffs and they care for the quality. But I don't trust their opinion anymore. I take them as what they are. Opinions.

The skyes of New Yoke (Sonic Speed Simulator bug)

Kirk Thornton sucks as Shadow, but as Orbot he sounds lovely... In Italy his VA has a very similar voice.

I always saw Sonic as more mature and darker than Mario since 1991

Well, actually Tails was the first realization of this aspect.

I still laugh when I and my friends (two fraternal twin sister, just few months younger than me) were talking about Dr Eggman:

The twins: 'Here comes the mad scientist!' Me: 'Is he evil?' The twins: 'No' Me: 'So, what he wants to do to Sonic?' The twins: 'Kill him' Me: 'then, he IS evil!'

I didn't think much about that back then. many of my favourite cartoons contained dark scenes. In the Smurf there were episodes where they talked about death sencences, animal cruelty (shown), even racism sometimes. And weapons. Those were pretty normal stuffs in kids cartoons.

Although in a kid friendly way, if the animal was hurt, once saved it remained hurt and had to be cared through recovery, it didn't magicallly heal.

Then Tails came

What caught my attention were his twins tails. The obvious representation of diversity through design that wasn't the usual 'guy/gal in weelchair who turns out to be a Mary Sue'. I think a different kind of diversity that is often overlooked.

Tails was a child, he was flawed, he could do things Sonic could not but he also could do not do things Sonic could do, and he was very unexperienced. His twin tails gave him advantages but only to a degree. you could love him or hate him easily because he was made to be relatable, not to be loved or hated by everybody.

Well, since my understanding was low and i also was also a child, i assumed tails got two Tails after Eggman experimented on him, and somehow he escaped from his clutches (helped by Sonic most likely).

I though also Sonic could be an experiment of sort, with his blue fur, his speed and his vaguely feline face despite being a hedgehog. I wonderd how gruesome the experiment were. Especially because Sonic series also showed actual beasts, like Pocky, Flicky etc...

Sonic SatAM also was quite dark, when people were turned into robots by Eggman (who truly was evil, and who also had some accident woth his own inventions that left him scarred forever), the struggle, the fear was shown.

Sonic's tears

Mandates existed. Also in the past. All side materials what were sold - cartoons, comics etc were all SEGA approved after being supervised, including Sonic SatAM, Aosth, Sonic Underground, Archie comics etc...

But Sonic could cry, how?

Well, mandates before Iizuka were way looser and used to leave a great room of freedom to all Sonic authors. Archie comics also had lots of scenes with Sonic crying, all supervised and approved. Latest time Sonic was seen crying was in Sonic Adventure 2, then in Sonic Prime, but it had to be contained (By the time of Adventure 2 it was Maekawa's deliberate choice. Mandates were still loose. With Sonic Prime Sonic had to hold back).

Tears of grief

Here the former limits of mandates about sonic crying, tears are there and the sadness is still convincing.

Today you have to be sneaky for this. Sonic is not being tsundere here but is showing the emotions of another character who linked with Sonic before and that can't cry for obvious reasons. Noticed how casual Sonic's expression is. They even needed to underline that Sonic never cries, doesn't matter what, through dialogues.

So cold...

if it was made in the early 2000s I would have seen more emotion in this scene. This is after Sonic's friends saves Sonic from cyber corruption. If he is sure he can save them, he isn't supposed to cry, but at least look more worried.

In Sonic 2 for Sega Master System, in one of the two endings, Tails dies. and Sonic looks up the sky, remembering him.

Familiar, uh?

Sonic doesn't always have to be dark. He works well with light hearted things. But he is part of a context were death and violence were shown from the start

Sonic didn't look always happy and used to have lots of Shadow vibes and attitudes in certain situations.

Mario

Mario, though seen as Sonic rival game mascotte, was something different. It was never dark. All characters have a pudgy look and are joyful. Even the villains are quite hilarious. they may be treatening but they aren't nearly as seriously evil and cruel as Dr. Eggman

Anything was shown to be light hearted and humorous. Mario's exaggerated Italian accent, parodies of well known fairy tales and movies (King Kong, the various fairy tales with the princess in distress) everything turns happy and sad scenes are never intense.

This is the darkest thing in Mario. And is hilarious.

Look at Shadow's ears when he gets hugged!

Unique to Sonic X 😂

Sonic Prime episode 9 - Smear frames collection

My opinion on voices (Sonic and Shadow mostly), both official and fan VA

Sonic - the official

The voice I'm most fond on is the one of Ryan Drummond in the Adventure games, while I didn't appreciate much how he sounded in Heroes. It was the first time I head a convincing Sonic Voice, after years of hearing Pietro Ubaldi in Italy (Pietro Ubaldi is known to dub cat characters. All male cats in anime were dubbed by him in the '90s'. If Big the cat was in Sonic Satam, I think the Italian VA would have been Pietro Ubaldi. His voice didn't work much on Sonic, indeed right now Sonic Italian VA is Renato Novara, a lovely voice for him).

I was happy Sonic had his voice too, like Mario. Ryan's natural voice is very deep. Deeper than RCS', I was surprised hearing him talk naturally. But he made Sonic sound like a loud and cheerful teenager.

Jason Griffith was also a great Sonic. Not so great in Sonic X, but in videogames he had a strong reminescence of Ryan. Maybe he even sounded more natural. Unlike Ryan, Jason's natural voice is not so deep and i think his voice sounds cute at times. To be honest, I can't choose between the two.

My opinion on Roger Craig Smith's voice is not that great. I don't like how he sounds, not even in Frontiers, his voice is too deep and too serious for Sonic. Some suggested that he should dub Shadow, they even did videos with Shadow with RCS voice when he dubbed more mature characters. But, personally, I think he is a bad Sonic and would make a bad Shadow.

Hearing Deven Mack in Sonic Prime was a big relief. His voice is very goofy and lively, yet gentle and soft, I think it was perfect, it portrays Sonic's personality and emotions, is versatile and I hoped for him to became the new Sonic voice. Unfortunately we got RCS back.

Fan VA

As for fan VA , the first that comes to my mind is Pixelrush. I was surprised that a goofy voice would sound so good on Sonic.

LittleGameBoy5 sounds very dark. I can't say I hate his voice. He dubs the gloomy Sonic from Idol Amy, so it suits. He is also capable to be goofy when needed.

PatchToons, (Sonic and Amy Squad) dubs all male Sonic Characters but Tails. And Mario who is the guest, making all of them sound recognizable as their own. For Sonic, it seems to me he is referring on RCS, because the voice he uses is quite low.

Shadow - The officials

I've read more than once that Shadow's voice is supposed to sound beautiful.

Anyway, My favourite VA for Shadow is David Humphrey, and his interpretation is fairly different than the others that followed. He dubbed Shadow in his debut game and in Heroes. I think the first thing that I noticed is the low volume of his voice. This underlines a thoghful personality. He also spoke very clear. The voice sounded youthful and smooth and the range of emotion was large, Shadow was a grieving kid, but he was also mischievous, and you could clearly hear that. David sounded so good because that was his natural voice.

I also like Jason Griffith. He's not David and he makes Shadow sounds too mature at times, but he clearly captures his melancholy. Like for Sonic, he may sound cute. Many complain about Jason's voice being wispering/breathy when he does Shadow, but I like that. I think it underlines Shadow's quietness. Although I know some taciturn people who are loud talkers, usually when you aren't use to talk, your voice loses strenght.

Jason's Shadow can also sound playful. In Sonic Zero gravity Shadow is having fun and you can hear that.

There is not much from Ryan Drummond as Shadow. He had to imitate David, so I don't know what his take would have been, but unlike many I think he didn't sound like Kirk.

Now is better to restrict myself because what I think about Kirk Thornton's voice is... how to say? Kirk's voice is... uhmm, not very beautiful. I don't complain about the pitch but I can't stand the raspiness, he makes Shadow sounds always angry and murderous even when he is not supposed to sound like that. The famous 'You got this Sonic!' sounds angry when it shouldn't have had. The voicelines I heard on YT were at best embarrassing.

In first episodes of Sonic Prime, Ian Hanlin didn't made a good impression. He was so loud. But when Shadow had to talk for long (longer than he ever talked) in the episode 9 and when he appeared in the following episodes, I coul hear the voice I was used to, soft spoken and soothing. He shouted in the first episode for a good reason.

Fan VA

The first that I think about is Crazy Greg. He dubs in Idol Amy and has his own Youtube channel and is active for a while. Clearly he bases his dubbing style on Jason Griffith, but his voice is very iconic, powerful and feels so Shadow-like, many think SEGA should hire him.

Another VA I like has a unequivocal username... Shadow the Hedgehog, known also as Julz. He is normally a loud talker and has a goofy voice. I was surprised when he started to write serious stories with Shadow as protagonist, played them in cinematic VRchat and dubbed him... his voice suddenly sounded so soft and sad... and still recognizable as his own.

SimitarchVOs is interesting... his voice is quiet but also raspy and deep, certainly not beautiful... and yet is charming and fun, a bit sad, it sounds like somebody who went through a lot of tragedies in his life and is now trying to find peace. He mostly dubs with Pixelrush.

Shadow759 and Vindo (Both dub for Sasso Studio, but Shadow759 has his own page with his own videos) sound natural. They just speak calmly but they don-t go too far from theri natural voices, a bit like David Humphrey. This make them sound really smooth. Shadow759 also makes a good Silver. He is alittle less convincing as Sonic though.

Last, PatchToons from Sonic and Amy Squad, with his soothing, quiet and slightly breathy interpretation of Shadow. Interestingly, for Sonic he refers to RCS. But for Shadow he makes him sounds like a mix of David and Jason.

There are so many fan VA around, both good and bad. I choose to talk about those that i like most, but there are so many good fan VA around. Too many to be mentioned.

There is no point on talking about fan VA I don't like.

Movie classic Shadow!

We Italians are lucky. Shadow's Italian voice is way better than the English one (I'm talking about Kirk)...

Yesterday I finally saw SxS Gen preview in Italian.

Claudio Moneta dubs Shadow with a slightly different style in SxS Gen, compared to Sonic Prime. While in Prime he felt he had to be loud to better show all Shadow's emotion, he uses a calmer and softer voice there. As I said when I talked about the Italian voices of Sonic Prime, Claudio's approach toward Shadow is, I would say deeper, as if he connects to the character to make him sound more natural and spontaneous rather than trying to imitate a certain type of voice. His approach is similar to the one of David Humphrey and the voice sounds natural. It was pleasant to hear.

Here's our Shadow.

I guess he will dub also in the movie and the short animated serie 'Dark beginnings'. I know his voice since I was a child and I watched a lot of cartoons where he is in, he is very versatile. He dubs goofy characters like Spongebob (He seems very comfortable with those), light hearted characters like Goku or gloomy characters like Shadow, and many others.

With Goku he had some difficulty. Goku was dubbed by Paolo Torrisi, a man who mainained a youthful, high picthed voice in his adult age, it sounded very similar to the one of the Japanese actress, while Claudio's voice is rather deep (not raspy). Paolo died suddenly and Goku's voice had to be replaced.

With Goku he went all cheerful but the voice was still too deep, to manly. But in the 'Broly' Movie he sounded like a 20 years old, very pleasant and appropriate for the character.

After having said this, I'll gladly watch Dark Beginnings in Italian. I would watch it in English too if Shadow's VA was David, Jason or maybe Ian instead of Kirk. But I want to preserve my ears from Kirk's awful voice.

OK. now that I saw the trailer, I'm more slightly curious, because of the full context. It doesn't seem it has revealed spoilerish stuff. The trailer with knuckles in Sonic movie 2 was more spoilerish. It gave a lot of context.

I noticed Shadow was never named 'Ultimate Lifeform' once. Therefore Is possible there he might be not immortal nor artificial. More like hew was a normal alien who was enhanced.

As usual (at least after '06') Shadow's cool factor is ostentious instead of being genuine like in 01' to 06'. is this character that is made to appeal a certain demographic.

From the way he moves, he seems left handed. He used his right a couple of time, but those gestures that require strenght and precision, like the double choke slam and when he broke the glass that trapped him were done with his left.

I'm curious toward Agent Stone, I think he is going to show more sides of him. I always liked him, he's among my favourite non-canon characters alongside Uncle Chuck.

Oh, if you think Shadow is going to ride Stone's bike, think twice. He has the size of a five years old child. look what is like:

Shadow is riding a bike that is designed for children (yes, they exist). He would not be able to do anything with Stone's bike. Unless they don't use cartoon logic.

And yesterday I discovered that 'Shadow' didn't fully meant what I though it did mean.

This is what commonly is referred as 'shadow'. Despite the word is well liked among goth cirlcles, a shadow is anything dark (ismost seen in day time with clear skyes) and it allows you to do seek refereshment in a warm summer day, play with and even safely watching a solar eclipse or just the Sun. Years ago I was able to get a clear picture of the Sun, just like the way it appears in NASA pictures.

Now, another meaning of 'shadow'...

Yeah, 'reflection of (...)'. A reflection can be as light as a stars and still carry mystery. We always looked at reflections imagining it was another world that we were able to see but we weren't able to reach, and everything we tend to imagine about them is dark.

Shadow was meant to be named 'Terios' that does exactly mean 'reflection of...' due to his resemblance with Sonic, and is left handed. Since most are right handed, their own reflection in the miror appears to be left handed. Plus, original Shadow had many mannerism similar to Sonic just like a reflection. Makes sense. So, his name never changed. Just, it was translated in English to be consistent with the mnames of other characters. I used to think 'Terios' sounded cooler, but 'Shadow' has a broader meaning and perfectly suits what he was originally. The mystery of a reflection, the protectiveness of a shadow.

I think the alien will be modded into Sonic!

Relatable or not relatable?

Some (many) months ago, somebody complained that Japanese characters shouldn't be necessarily relatable and even talked about Sonic getting retatable as a bad thing. And that's a weird statement to me. The first character i found relatable was a japanese character. I was 12 at that time.

As a child I watched lots of cartoons. Western (such as Disney, Hanna&Barbera... even cartoons from the '30s that were still around, and most were in their original language, English) and Japanese. Italy has a long tradition with the Japanese cartoons, it goes as back as the 60's. And they were translated directly from the Japanese language.

Western characters, overall were all somewhat perfect. Not Mary Sues but almost. The good boys were all nice, smiling, outgoing, humble and talented. The bad guys were all clumsy, sadistic, psychopath, uncivilized.

I think the character I could related most were the smurf. There were grey areas there, because the smurfs, though overall all kind hearted, didn't always act wisely and used to mess up, even badly. And the evil Gargamel and Azrael saved and took care of a wild cat.

Now, at 12 I found a character I could relate with. And she was a Japanese character:

She loved cats, she was likeable (uh, maybe as annoying as prime Sonic, and probably for this I love them both) and she failed at school. well, not all things were like me, I mean, at school for some reason I was some times just slightly less than the top student, and other times I failed bad. My strong point was science. Also she had the worst boyfriend she could ever had, a punchbag with a lame personality. But a character should not be identical to you to be relatable.

In general, most Japanese character are relatable, they're flawed. Few might be too perfect or too over the top (Goku for example became more and more dumb. In Super he was flanderized to be suddenly turned later in a straight up antihero, but between the end of the first serie/early Dragon Ball Z his IQ started to suffer in favour of his ever growing muscles mass)

About Sonic, I've found X Sonic very relatable. In Sonic X he is very elusive and way less friendly than in other series, yet he was interesting to follow, not too perfect with his bad social skills, his crippling fear of water, yet always cheerful (Some of his behaviours didn't make sense here and there though, but I don't talk about them there, is not important for the topic).

Some claim autistic people in particular love Sonic. I don't think Sonic is especially loved by autistic people. The myth is born under unfortunate circumstance. A certain Chris Chan, who was a massive Sonic fan and who happened to be autistic. Though is not his fault that the fandom has a bad name, there are some Sonic fans that tainted the Sonic fandom reputation by their own taliban-like behaviour. This is the reason I noticed people fear to talk with any Sonic fan, as this comment on DA shows (VEI-6-Vesuvius is me)

The comment is not rude in any way, yet it was needed to point out 'I respect your opinion' and I perceived as this person was intimidated by me being a Sonic fan.

Is not a nice feeling seeing decent people afraid of you because of the bad Sonic fans.

Shadow incarnations

My three favourites

Maekawa's (especially SA2)

Original Shadow, unlike the others, was just cool. He didn't try. He was aware of this but he didn't try to be cool. Being cool came natural from him. Probably the only incarnation who was able to lie (I don't remember him lying outside SA2), despite this, the most genuine Shadow of all, because he just acted the way he felt like at the moment, like the kid he was, and just like Sonic does. Sulking? Having fun? Sending death treat? Celebrate his victories? Fist bumping? He just did all.

Is also true that his fleshed out personality was all compressed in a tiny space of 9 hours, because he was meant to die, so you had to slowly know him, and is beautiful how it gets unfolded. First you judged him wrongly (through hero story), then play with him, learning about his past and getting to love him (This Shadow is shown to be friendly in the latest part of the game when he finally opens up and actually not much an introvert. In all games written by Maekawa, he is always hanging on with somebody, usually Rouge but also Knuckles and Blaze in Sonic and the Black Knight, and Maria in Sonic Adventure 2. He is just quiet and reserved), then, when happiness is finally handy, he dies. Is tragic.

If Sonic is like the wind, Shadow is like water. In Italy, subtle personality like his are compared to water. Water is calming and serene on surface, but it hides dangers in the depths, is dark and it can suddenly become dangerous. That's Shadow. He is subdued and never gets angry, the dangers are always below the surface. He is dangerous because he is insane due to his traumatic past, his loneliness, his intense sadness and his suicidal tendencies. Unfortunately he doesn't want to die alone, he wants to bring the whole world with him. All of this can be spiced up by his stubborn and melancholy nature that makes the whole thing more explosive. He's very dark and scary (In current -edgelord - characterization, where he is presented as always angry, he is less intimidating. Simply because too much is too much, for the same reason Sonic's glares are way more effective than Shadow's because unusual).

Original Shadow is calm, intelligent, he might be a bit of a science fanatic. In his description of the Eclipse cannon, he resemble the most classic of the mad scientist villain, including some Mr.Burns postures with his hands, his voice was lively.

He's not an actual villain. Before the tragedies of his past he had a gentle and caring nature. But then his family was destroyed and he survived, he was feared, betrayed, brainwashed, captured, sealed. He became mistrustful, cynical, apparently cold, showing his qualities only to his closest friends.

And an interesting detail there, he never opened up to Rouge in SA2. He opened up to Sonic and Amy.

Unlike many future incarnation, the original Shadow was not particularly violent. He greatly favored brain power, leaving brute force for emergencies. Thinking about the games of that period, he virtually spared all his foes, or at least the very same foes Sonic would have spared and took down foes that Sonic also would have take down.

He is soft spoken and quiet. I especially love his VA of that time, David Humphrey, smoother juvenile and engaging, even cute voice. He shows a large range of emotions and attitude on Shadow. Jason was not bad either.

Archie (Universe)

The most expressive Shadow. (I should talk about the problems in Sonic's expressions and where I think they come from) more gruff compared to the original Shadow, aloof and more violent, but also very soft with his friends. I think is based on Adventure Shadow.

Enemies such as Eclipse and Metal Sonic help to reveal many aspect of his personality that Shadow himself might not be fully aware about.

Eclipse, bad design yet compelling and great personality, is his main foe. He shows how dangerous and ruthless Shadow can be when he gets serious/focused. Despite being a villain Eclipse cares sincerely for his friends and family and tries the diplomatic way with Shadow, similar to what an hero would do, with no success.

Metal Sonic instead helped to show Shadow's lack of free will. Yes, Shadow can still be compared with water there too. Unlike the wind that is boundless (and Sonic with his total freedom), water is always contained in some way (dams, bottles etc), controlled and follows a fixed path. When not following the path it can get destructive. If Shadow is not contained, he can cause mass destruction (everything about him is controlled, his path, the rings he wears to control his power, even his will). He is like an organic android, made in flesh instead of metal, his intelligence is AI, programmed twice by a human. But he has a heart, for this he suffers. A lot.

I think Shadow's peculiar speech pattern also shows his artificial nature.

Prime

Is one of the less gloomy versions of Shadow. I would say in Sonic Prime, Shadow is healing. He is mentally strong and more self confident. He still doesn't trust people but he is hopeful for the future. His strenght also helps Sonic to not sink (metaphorically).

Like Sonic, he has a lot of flaws and he is well aware of them. Unlike Sonic, he has a better attention span and has a better control on himself (he sighs a lot when upset or uneasy and this helps him to calm down).

He is outspoken with Sonic as well as he is awkward and shy toward strangers and extremely introverted. He is also so elusive at the point of feeling like some sort of mystical creature. Half of the times is not his fault.

He can be playful, mischievous and knows how to have fun.

The VA is Ian Hanlin. His voice is deeper than David's but is still youthful and soft.