4 out of 5

Developed by: Evan Baily, Donna Friedman Meir, Sandrine Nguyen

covers season 1

I know – you’re shaking your head in wonder at why I dipped into the Sonic worlds, aghast that my tastes – limited to the higher planes of media – would dip into what is most certainly money-hungry dreck (the worst kind of dreck!).  Then doth your eyes crawl up to that rating and be still yer twice-damned heart if’n I haven’t lost my sanity to the blind goats of Ulsthar by bestowing such a high rating upon said dreck.  Away, away to the back button on yonder browser; to your bookmarks to HuffPo; to crying ‘pon the sloped shoulder of your effeminate significant other.  But you hesitate: certainly… Certainly with such a storied history of trusted reviews, I can’t have misfired so deviously?  Cautiously then do you proceed to read the following:

Sonic Boom is dang good.

When I was a kid and Sonic was cool, I had some comic books and I watched some cartoons, but nothing really sang like the games.  And the series maintained its ultimate cool up through the last main Genesis entry – Sonic and Knuckles, with its awesome snap-in ability (first time and pretty much the last time that something that “enhanced” a previous game made me go back and play that previous game fully through), but if I’m ditching my rose glasses, it was never plot that interested me, it was just the vibe and gameplay.  Sonic matched Genesis’ purposeful “rogue” presentation back then, or at least the rogue as it appealed to gamers, and it totally worked.  When the 3D Sonic hit Dreamcast, Sega seemed like a much more ‘friendly’ brand.  The system itself is much more bubbly to look at, and while the game has its pluses, tossing its hat into animated cut scenes with dialogue underlined some cheesiness which was always there but more easily excusable in the 16-bit era.  Sonic just didn’t feel all that cool anymore.  And this trend seemed to continue as the games progressively failed to attract an audience.

Years later, Sonic has a comic which putters about with its convoluted history that’s been threaded through countless games and other cartoons; it has its followers but doesn’t feel like it plays in the same class as most anime or the like.  Sonic Boom was a multi-media spin-off attempt at revamping the franchise into something more modern, and while it met with its detractors, there was something about the concept that appealed to me.  The scarf and wrist / ankle bandages worn by Sonic might seem like eye-rolling bids for ‘hip,’ and you’re probably not wrong, but in my brain, this all came across as an attempt to rescue something that’s been around for, now, quite a long time.  I have no idea if the developers are lifelong Sonic fans, but the inclusion of characters like Amy and Tails whilst trying to modernize something during the “grim and gritty” era of reboots was almost heart-warmingly nostalgic, for as over-emotive as that sounds.  In other words: Sonic suddenly felt like the underdog, and I loved that the series kept on trucking despite its seeming inability to clamber back up to its once popular standing.  This is what got me to check out the show.

And then the writing kept me there.

The show is frequently… hilarious.  The comic timing and meta-humor are well above its age range, and especially surprising for a partially foreign production, which normally suffers from those odd off-beat notes that betray its non-English origins.  (I try to say this with as little ignorance as possible and just to mean that sometimes these things suffer in the cultural translation.)  The animation is always wholly weird for this era, and adds to the underdog feel, as it’s rather reserved.  Most cartoons nowadays – especially the 3D ones – are all about bluster and noise.  Even my fave TMNT has this issue, where we can’t let a moment go by without a CRAZY reaction or someone yelling or some loud music scenes.  Sonic?  He hands out on the beach with his friends.  Dr. Robotnik hangs out in his lair.  Yes, they inevitably battle, but there are no secret plots and no dramaturgy; everyone quips and wants to get back to being lazy.  The animation follows suit, with detailed but calming backgrounds and a few familiar locations servicing every 11-minute episodic need.  For 50+ episodes, I kept expecting the break where the show would realize it’d have to step it up a notch, but instead, I just kept marveling at the intelligence of the humor, which constantly has me chuckling out loud.  (A rare feat.)  Sure, there are plenty of “stock” plots to go around, but there are just as many – if not more – moments where things morph into something completely random and inventive.  I was overjoyed to hear they’d renewed for a second season.

So maybe you’ve stayed away due to Sonic’s perceived uncoolness, or maybe you’ve assumed this won’t slot in with your Adventure Time tastes.  Maybe you’re right.  But I’d offer that this is one revamp that’s totally worked, and has balanced itself such that it can reach out to older age ranges – if, hopefully, they give it a shot and let it work its magic.