It looks like it's currently only the Sonic greetings that's going to take place. There won't be any stage event. I guess Iizuka-san's schedule didn't fit this time? Last year he came all the way from LA just to attend thie event!
I wish they would have planned TSR competition or something similar, it's be a great opportunity for that! Or live music event with Senoue-san and his 'Sonic Adventure Music Expenditure'! Would be a blast.
Kanemaru-san saw the news too and commented as follows!
今年こそは参加してみたいな…。
— 金丸淳一VoiceActor&Vocalist Kanemaru Jun-ichi (@junichisonic) May 27, 2019
And Kanemaru-san wishes to go there too! How cool would it be if there was a greeting with Kanemaru-san and Sonic?😊 Hopefully this will be realized someday!
Hi everyone! I hope you have all enjoyed the 4th Twitter Takeover by official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account of the US a month ago.
Every year the takeover crew is growing in number; now adding to the last year's members Sonic, Dr. Eggman and Shadow, Tails has joined the team this year to receive hundreads of questions gathered from Sonic fans from all over the world.
We're here to refresh your memory of this extremely amusing event with the summary & transcription of every Q&A video tweets by the official account, alongside with Japanese translation for the Sonic fans in Japan!
Translations are combination and modification of those by @celeritas128 and me, @Knuttunk55 .
As the official Sonic the Hedgehog account announced the date and time of the event, four casts were revealed to take part to the 4th Takeover! As the fans responded cheerfully, Mike Pollock (voice of Dr. Eggman), Roger Craig Smith (voice of Sonic), Aaron Webber (Social Manager of US Sonic Team) tweeted their passion and additional useful information to raise the spirit further.
Join us this Friday at 10 AM Pacific as Sonic, Tails, Shadow and Eggman take over our Twitter to answer your questions! pic.twitter.com/WaqEZBksyK
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) May 22, 2019
🔵On the release day of Team Sonic Racing, the evil genius gives an interview to NDW! Read the 5th and the last article to the TSR teams direct interview series! https://t.co/Pen9fl0Buq
Tomorrow is the day! Team Sonic Racing will be released on May 21st!
Right before the big day, Sonic Committee announced the release of a web game manual for Team Sonic Racing! Check it out on the official website at the bottom of the top page!
Listen to the video message by Director Kawarazuka-san, Lead Composer Senoue-san and Producer Iizuka-san's passion towards the game and get ready to boost on!
🔵 Video message from the developers of Team Sonic Racing to fans! Listen to the messages from Director Kawarazuka-san, Lead Composer Senoue-san and Producer Iizuka-san and get ready for the game release tomorrow! https://t.co/rGIfbTPaza
The dar game DARTSLIVE is collaborating with Team Sonic Racing!
Its original TSR-designed theme is now available for.. FREE!
Get the theme while you can! Offer ends on June 16th.
For 600 yen, you can eat Sonic's favorite chili dog and get special tin badge!
Also, a special Sonic acrylic key chain with collab design can be obtanied for 500 yen!
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Have you ever left the game untouched for 3 minutes long while playing Sonic CD?
Then you must have seen Sonic jumping off the stage, saying "I'm outta here'. And you've successfully lost a life.
This is Mazin-san's another unique contribution to Sonic CD, aside from that infamous 'Fun is Infinite' illustration which he addressed the other day.
And today, he spoke about his voice acting for Sonic as he found an old game magazine with an article on Sonic CD development team!
"Due to influence of overseas merchandise, 'I'm outta here.' is now common - but I remember saying it as 'I'm outer here.' and got confused. But now I found this image from a magazine from that time, and as I checked, I was right with 'outer'.
I guess my English pronounciation was bad. *laugh*
By the way, everyone looks so young..."
- Masato Nishimura (Mazin)
So it seems like in his script back then, it was written as 'I'm outer here'!
But that doesn't quite make sense as an English sentence in that context. I think 'I'm outta here' is correct because that means 'I'm going out of here', the shortform of a verb - which Sonic executes as he says. He is not in the state of being 'outside' of the game yet, so using 'outer' (an adjective) wouldn't fit here.
The pronounciation of both words are a similar and might sound pretty much the same to those who are not faimilar with English that much. The scriptwriter, Mazin-san and the magazine writer apparently didn't know the difference. Welp!
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Senoue-san's game tip of the day!
Enjoy Puyo Puyo in the West too, with Senoue-san's cool remixes!
Are you familiar with "Dr.Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine"? The latest Puyo Puyo called "Puyo Puyo Champions" is now available in the US and Europe. I made some remix music for this. Enjoy!
On Team Sonic Racing, each course has set of four music, including short cues... Intro fly-by, regular lap, final lap and goal. Each character has own music as well which is familiar for you. Also some for cutscenes and maps... and the list goes on. Hope you'll enjoy what we did.
Back then, Naka-san worked on porting Space Harrier to Mark III, but he couldn't remove the frame by programming. His boss told him that it doesn't bother them much so he could decide to release it, but it seems like the frame remained a worrying factor to him.
Today, he found someone who ported Space Harrier with some improvements (removing the frame, smoothing out zooming in/out) is amazed by the result!
Upon seeing the first three episodes of Japanese Sonic X released online on YouTube for free for limited time, Kanemaru-san comments further on each episode & on the interview footage to Sonic X casts!
Senoue-san explains that he chose a blue metallic guitar to match Sonic's car 'Speed Star', and the its pickup cover is metallic red - a perfect 'Team Sonic Racing edition'!
SEGA invited fans and press to this once-in-a-life opportunity to have a sneak-peek into the latest work to Sonic series presented by Yuji Naka-san, the head of Sonic Team himself.
This event was initially planned to have two shows on this day, but since the number of people gathered to join the presentation exceeded the expectation of SEGA greatly, they had to add the third show on spot.
(from a report by MAYON)
The event included real-time gameplay of the product on Dreamcast with Naka-san's explanations, a video documentary on Sonic Team's business trip to mid-south America for collecting materials for ideas and aesthetics of the game, recording of 'Sonic!' call by the audience together with Segata Sanshiro, and live performance of 'Open Your Heart' with Jun Senoue-san.
What does Naka-san remember from the preparation for this memorable event?
🔵Naka-san: "Sonic Adventure Production Presentation, how nostalgic. Back then Dreamcast was still in development of its chip and had only 50% performance, but we definitely wanted to demonstrate the gameplay so everyone worked very hard. The trip to mid-south America was fun."RT
Oh wow, so despite the hardware not having full memory. the Sonic Team did their very best to fit everything in to make the live-demo of the game happen! Hats off to them.
You can watch the summary of this presentation event including 'Sonic Team Story' (documentary of Sonic Team's business trip to mid-south America) in this VHS of the event which was distributed for the members of "SEGA Partners" back then.
Here is one Naka-san mentioned in his tweet & the one you can watch with English subtitles which I helped out a little bit.
Enjoy!
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Hey all!
I did another update on this blog archive site.
This time, it's the navigation banner on top!
I didn't realize this function existed on Blogger. And it works fine both on desktop and mobile versions! So not only the PC users but also people visiting my site on their smartphones will have much easier overview and quicker access to different pages and categories. That is really practical!
I should have done this waaaay before...
But anyways, now I did!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
List and description of each tab:
Home (mobile version only) = Goes to the top page of the website with every posts listed in chronological order. (In desktop version, simply click on the blog logo at very top of the page.)
PC ver. = Switches to desktop version of the website. (usage for mobile version users / as HOME button for PC version)
Introduction = Posts for introduction to SonicJPNews & how-to-use for this archive site.
Sonic = Gotta go fast! Shows all posts tagged with 'Sonic'.
Game = Any game related news and fun stuff. Shows all posts tagged with 'Game'.
Art = Looking for good art? Here you'll find them! Shows all posts tagged with 'Art'.
Music = SEGA's Music = perfection. Shows all posts tagged with 'Music'.
-OMZ- = Direct link to the parent page of Official Materials Zone. (List of links to my translations of official materials such as official game/product page, user guide, game manual etc.)
-TAZ- = Direct link to the parent page of Translated Articles Zone. (List of links to my posts for translation of articles, mostly interviews.)
-ENSZ- = Direct link to the parent page of Event News Summary Zone. (List of links to my summary posts for Sonic related events)
Behind-the-Scene = Interesting backstories and look-backs by Sonic developers. Shows all posts tagged with 'Behind-the-scene'.
Discussion = Articles summarizing hot topics discussed by Sonic developers. Shows all posts tagged 'Discussion'.
Anniversary = Find something to celebrate for! Shows all posts tagged 'anniversary'.
Birthday = Check whose birthday it is today! Shows all posts tagged 'birthday'.
Plush = Need some comfort? You love plushies? Come here and adore Sonic plush adventures posted by SEGA Offcial! Shows all posts tagged 'Plush'.
Merch = Looking for cool SEGA stuff just for yourself? Then you came to the right place! Shows all posts tagged 'merchandise'.
JP Culture = Love Sonic and love Japan? What if they are combined together? Learn about Japan with Sonic! Shows all posts tagged 'Japanese culture'.
SEGA-JP = Shows all posts tagged 'SEGA of Japan'.
SEGA-US = Shows all posts tagged 'SEGA of America'.
SEGA-EU = Shows all posts tagged 'SEGA Europe'.
For more tags, switch to PC desktop version and look at the right side of the page. There you can find every tag I used in alphabetical order!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On PC it looks like this...
Navigation banner on top of the site page. Make use of this for much easier SonicJPNews life!
and on mobile, like this.
Tap the blue banner which says 'Home'...
And you'll find this drop-down list of tabs.
Tap on 'PC ver.' to switch to desktop version which has more fun gadgets, such as World Map, Random Post, Popular Posts and Sonic Sounds Player!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Alright! So what do you think of it?
Now it's much easier to navigate to major topics of this blog without scrolling down the labels section on the right or searching for keywords in that little searchbox above it. Nice!
I also put link to the desktop version of this site as the first button! So mobile users don't need to go all the way down to the bottom of the page to find 'switch to web version' link.
PC version has much more contents than mobile version, so please check it out too by choosing 'PC ver.' from the dropdown list!
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Many thanks to Funk Katsu from Chile who made this cool poster. Great job! If you'd like to hear Crush 40 music in a movie, please share this on your facebook page and tag Paramount Pictures. Let's shows these guys that Sonic ROCKS! 😎#crush40#crushin40#SonictheHedgehog #… pic.twitter.com/Dkq3vV8h0Z
"Pre-Daily Ohtorii. Nothing has changed yet though, but just as a first record in Reiwa. Well, actually I passed here in a car on the very first day of Reiwa, but anyway.
'Let's burn the house every day!'
Kidding, I'm going to come here every day as often as I can."
- Masato Nishimura (Mazin)
"So I decided to do some jogging from my home in Kawasaki to Ootorii every night until the old SEGA HQ will be dismantled.
But honestly, to jog this distance every day is very challenging.
Let's say it's a recklessness of being young. I'm not young anymore though."
- Masato Nishimura (Mazin)
Golden Week, the longest national holiday week of Japan has ended.
For this year 2019, this giant holiday season was especially long with 10 days due to extra holidays added because of the Era Change.
(See reaction of SEGA people on the end of Heisei era and the beginning of Reiwa era here.)
So today is the day 1 for people in Japan to get back to work for the longest national holiday they ever had. They are either filled with energy to work, or don't want to go back to work at all...
Which type are you? :D
For those who are shining with charged energy and for those who need something to lift up your day - Sonic Committee and SEGA Official are there to encourage both of you with nice stuff here!
1. Release of Team Sonic Racing is getting close, only in 2 weeks!
Are you ready to play the new type racing game with Sonic characters? Here you go! Pre-order now and get ready to give full acceleration!
"The first day after a long vacation. The head-spinning everyday started again, but if you wait 14 days more, it's the release day of Team Sonic Racing! Let's do our best for the day!"
- Sonic Committee
2. For those who need some energy source... how about this little adorable hedgehog?
"The timeline on day 1 after the big holiday is in such a chaos, so I'm posting here a video for you to pick out the thorns out of your heart. Fluffy. (At Orbi Yokohama)"
- SEGA Official
Orbi Yokohama is SEGA's animal park joined with technology where you can interact with different kinds of animals in unique environment of DigitaReal, located in Minato Mirai.
If you have a chance, visit there and you may be able to touch a real hedgehog!
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🔵Naka-san went to watch the Detective Pikachu movie with his children. "I went to watch the movie Detective Pikachu with my children. They seem to have enjoyed it, and it was better than I expected. I hope I can feel like this after watching Sonic's movie." RT⬇
Kanemaru-san looks back on his voice acting for Sonic's transformation into Dark Sonic in Sonic X!
This is probably the first time we hear about it from him. I'm excited!
— 金丸淳一VoiceActor&Vocalist Kanemaru Jun-ichi (@junichisonic) May 5, 2019
🔵 Kanemaru-san on his acting with Dark Sonic in Sonic X:
" 'What...have you done to Chris?'
That line was a gamble as it was off from Sonic's original character.
From my memo on script: a counter attack filled with rage to protect loved ones - if this feeling -
- arises from the bottom of one's heart, the voice naturally becomes low."
"I believe that because a character is not an perfect ideal without any flaw but one with such 'charm within imperfection', people watching them resonate with them."
So that's his thought on Dark Sonic!
He also knew that Dark Sonic is off from Sonic's original character, and it was a risk they took for the anime original story. Some liked it, some did not, but Kanemaru-san thought very well about Sonic's action and emotion to make it sound realistic. The beauty of imperfection - that's what he wanted to tell us through Dark Sonic.
How did you like Dark Sonic? The acting was pretty different between Japanese and English versions. Which version is more convincing to you?
English...
Or Japanese?
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He is the man who wrote scenario&plot for Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, and Sonic and the Black Knight, along with his other contributions to the series as game planner and designer.
And today, he stumbled upon a fan's analysis on how Sonic Adventure 2, for it being a masterpiece, "ended Sonic":
🔵Maekawa-san reacted to a Sonic fan's theory analysing that SA2 was what took Sonic's life as its complicated story unlike simple 'defeat Eggman because he is the baddy' caused fans' high expectations and inability to accept light story with easygoing attitude of Sonic anymore:
"Their comparison to Mario might be true.
Today they can stand side by side to enjoy sports together, but back then they were rivals, and it's true that we were trying to go for other direction than Mario in order to win against him."
-
- "Alright, so the guy who wrote SA2's scenario gets death penalty👍"- Shiro Maekawa
No Maekawa-san! You brought us so many more great stories like Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, Sonic and the Black Knight. You deserve to be hired at SEGA again to tell us more about Sonic's adventures!
I knew he was joking in his last tweet, but still I felt that he was shocked by hearing this and wanted to encourage him. Because I really love the Sonic scenario he writes and want him back in Sonic Team again for more great stories that give people hope, joy and life lessons.
And even though SA2 was the most successful work in Sonic series, there were many games which came afterwards and had great stories with good balance of comedy and seriousness - incuding Maekawa-san's other works. My top favorites are Sonic World Adventure and the Storybook series (Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic and the Black Knight). There are still many games I haven't played, but I hear that Sonic Heroes and Sonic Battle have good stories too.
So even though I partially understand the theory of this fan, I don't agree with it 100%. It's more of the problem of stories from Sonic Colors and on which in some parts lacked the basic essence of character personalities and consistensy as a story. Sure, because I first played Sonic World Adventure and Storybook series and grew up with this cool and caring Sonic, this one would stay as my ideal Sonic. I was also playing Colors a short while later, and thought that story itself is really good - just some of Sonic's lines and his actions in cutscenes were a little too childish compared to the Sonic I met in previous three works. Then Generations came in, with the cool Sonic again but lacking much story. Well, for this one being an anniversary title, I could take it easily. Then Lost World, Boom, and Forces. I had hard time finding the Sonic I knew from few years ago. Sure he had cool moments, but somehow he didn't shine much as a character like before. It's in the story, it's i nthe lines, it's in the actions - all these factors affect a character's impression, And this has changed a lot over the last decade.
It's true that I have hard time accepting Sonic who acts self-centered rather than trying to help others in needs. I do have high ideal of Sonic's character - but so was the depiction of him in the past series for a very long time. The main points are even written in their character description on official website. And it's been working well. Why did they change it then? Why did they hire somebody who has zero understanding towards Sonic universe as scenario writer?
I hope Sonic Team will have better people for plot and scenario writer who can convey the already establihed personalities of Sonic characters through the game. A game first needs good action, and second they need good stage design, and third, if the game is character-driven, a good story to make players want to continue playing. + great music to make everything better. Sonic Team never fails with the last point, but for other three they sometimes seem to have difficulties with some of them.
Maekawa-san himself has been saying that if he has a chance, he would gladly take the opportunity to write more stories for Sonic series. It would be wonderful if this can be realized.
SEGA, please hire Maekawa-san again for Sonic plots and scenarios! Please---!
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Kanemaru-san is happy to know that his tweet about Sonic X was retweetedby TMS Entertainment!
Yes, you can watch the first three epiedoes of Japanese version of Sonic X on TMS's official website for limited time!
Don't miss your chance! Hurry up and go watch it! You can use VPN such as https://www.vpngate.net/en/ if needed.
And don't forget to subscribe, give a thumbs up and comment on the videos so that they will upload more episodes!!
— 金丸淳一VoiceActor&Vocalist Kanemaru Jun-ichi (@junichisonic) May 5, 2019
"TMS Entertainment retweeted my tweet!
Everyone, please enjoy Sonic X."
- Junichi Kanemaru
Btw, my tweet on my personal account about Sonic X and MEGA DRIVE MINI's YouTube ad appearing together was also retweeted and liked by SEGA Official and Okunari-san, the producer of MEGA DRIVE MINI! That was cool.
5th of May is Children's Day in Japan!
To wish for healthy growth of children, people build kites and special carp-shaped windsocks called Koi-nobori. They also make kashiwa-mochi and chimaki, rice cooked in bamboo leaves, an originally traditional Chinese food. That's what Sonic is holding. And what he is wearing is kabuto, a traditional Japanese milirary helmet worn by Samurai.
Sonic really seems to have fun in the CM, and Kanemaru-san's voice acting is perfect for its comedic touch! I can't stop smiling while watching this one.
Then Naka-san found his tweet and responded to it too!
🔵Naka-san on Kanemaru-san's tweet on SA ad w/ Sonic Plush:
"This commercial for Sonic Adventure is nostalgic. If I recall correctly, they filmed this in Australia - I was too busy so I couldn't go. I heard that many Sonic flew from the airplane. Somebody, please collect them!"↓
Oh wow, so they really did throw several Sonic plushies out of the plane, it's no CG at all...! I wonder what kind of adventures those Sonic are having in Australia now...
And Kanemaru-san replied Naka-san's comment!
ソニックを探せツアー in Australia～！
一緒に行きたかったですね、中さん！
— 金丸淳一VoiceActor&Vocalist Kanemaru Jun-ichi (@junichisonic) May 5, 2019
"Find Sonic Tour in Australia!
I wish we could go there together, Naka-san!"
- Junichi Kanemaru
That would be another opportunity for cool documentrary!
I really love the Sonic Adventure Production Presentation event they had back then including 'Sonic Adventure Story', a documentary video on Sonic Team travelling to mid-south America for collecting materials for game development. It's really cool!
Here is a video with Japanese and English captions. (I helped out a little with Japanese one.)
Have a look!
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SEGA posted new #SonicTravels photo!
It's Midori-no-Ho (Green Day) today in Japan, and Sonic visited many different places with green.
Can you guess where these places are? What is this huge tree?
A couple of days passed from the 'Sonic the Movie trailer impact' - after seeing the first trailer featuring a blue furry creature we are totally not familiar with, most of the fans were mad or at least skeptical about the design of Sonic. Even the people who are involved in development of original Sonic series, and moreover the creators of Sonic himself - Ohshima-san the artist and Naka-san the game programmer - were confused and worried about the drastic change of their beloved son.
My energy was drained over these two days and I even had nightmare because of the design. It was already decided that I was to mourn over what they have done to Sonic forever. And I still will.
Yet, to our surprise: a Twitter account, which seems to belong the movie's director Jeff Fowler, posted following words:
Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be... #sonicmovie#gottafixfast 🔧✌️
"First year of Reiwa!
Have you pre-ordered 'Team Sonic Racing' already? It will be released on PS4 and Nintendo Switch on May 21st! Play the latest work from Sonic series and nail that start dash of Reiwa!"
- Sonic Official
Kanemaru-san is excited about Team Sonic Racing too!
"Reiwa Year One - the beginning of a new era!
Under the motto 'Creation is Life', we have been creating sensational experiences of surprise and joy through our products and services.
SEGA Group will continue to provide you great experiences in Reiwa era. Please keep on supporting us!"
- SEGA Official
"Hello Reiwa
MEGA DRIVE which was released at the end of Showa is reincarnating as Reiwa's first new hardware 'MEGA DRIVE MINI'.
There are still many available at game shops allover Japan. Please look forward to the first September of Reiwa!"
- SEGA Official
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