Sonic the Hedgehog is weird. I mean that of course in reference to the franchise as a whole. While the character still enjoys popularity, which I imagine the films have only managed to bolster, Sonic always felt like he lost the whole Sega versus Nintendo “war” during the 90s to the latter’s portly plumber Mario.

After all, while the classic Sonic games are indisputably some of the most important entries in the history of the medium, entries in the series after 1996 have been….not so good.

Sonic has one-upped (teehee) Mario in one regard. He does have significantly more animated showings and a long running series of comics. Now more doesn’t mean good, but hey, it’s something.

For now we’ll take a look at the first Sonic movie…the Sonic OVA.

Sonic the Hedgehog, also called Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie was released as a twopart original video animation (OVA) released in Japan.

For the uninitiated, OVAs were animated films that typically ran around 30 to 50 minutes in length and were made specifically for home video release. Those readers who were old enough to remember the old school Toonami will recall OVAs being aired on there such as Tenchi Muyo! or Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz.

This particular OVA was released in the states with both parts combined together to make a 54 minute film.

As for the plot, Sonic’s nemesis Dr. Robotnik takes the President of South Island and the President’s daughter Sara hostage to force Sonic and Tails to turn off a Robot Generator that was sabotaged by a giant robot called Metal Robotnik.

Along the way the pair encounter Knuckles the Echidna and learn that the generator was a ruse to scan Sonic for Robotnik’s newest robot: Hyper Metal Sonic.

The OVA’s plot is fairly straight forward and lift many elements from the classic games, while also introducing a distinct setting and new characters.

The most notable thing about this OVA is likely to be that, at the time of its release, anime was this new and mysterious thing. And unlike the Sonic series airing on American television throughout the 90s, this OVA closely resembled the games (especially the opening animation of Sonic CD).

The art style certainly is appealing for fans of classic Sonic, and there are some interesting fight scenes between Sonic and his mechanical doppelgänger. That said it does also suffer from “cheats” that anime will often use to save on budget, and some characters will often be off model at times.

As I mentioned above, the OVA isn’t heavy on plot or character for that matter. In fact, it assumes you are at least familiar with most of the characters from the games. While at the same time introducing new characters, that we’re suppose to assume were there the whole time.

The English dub of the movie is the first to have someone other than Jaleel White voicing Sonic. The dub is also very…not good. That isn’t to say there isn’t entertainment value to be derived from some of the more meme worthy lines in this OVA, but a lot of the performances aren’t very compelling and some downright annoying at times.

The OVA is also very…. anime…in terms of its approach to slapstick comedy and cliches. And that can be off putting to people who aren’t very into that sort of thing (if you’ve seen one anime, you’ve seen the same jokes a million times. And it wasn’t any funnier the first time).

That said this OVA does have a special place for me and that is mostly due to a real life experience. Let’s rewind to 2003, I had caught the second part of this OVA (aka the good part of it) on cable and was curious to watch it again. My internet searching skills weren’t what they would eventually become and I was unable to find any information on this film or find it in any video stores.

While on a month long family vacation to Yellowstone and to visit family in Washington state, I promised I’d try to find this particular film.

We were at the end of our journey and while taking a pit stop on the return home in a mountain town, I found this movie on a rack of films and bought it.

I enjoyed this one as a kid and there are moments (the aforementioned meme-worthy ones) that still get a chuckle from me.

Overall, if you enjoy Sonic and 90s anime, check this one out. Otherwise, I’d say you can live without watching this one.

The Sonic OVA gets a 5/10.