SonicJPNews archive blog: 01/24/21

2021/01/24

"Mr. Needlemouse" never existed?! Yuji Naka confused with Sonic's rumored code name

News from 2021.01.24 
Archived on 2021.01.24

Do you know the name "Mr. Needlemouse"?

"It's the code name of the blue hedgehog before he was named Sonic, right?" - You'd say.

Well today, this long-believed fact about Sonic's development code name was claimed to be wrong by creator of the Blue Blur - Yuji Naka-san!



The truth was unveiled today as Naka-san took the SEGA TEST, a special test which SEGA of Japan prepared as a part of SEGA 60th anniversary events for SEGA fans to test their knowledge about SEGA. Three tests were held in two days. 

Here, Naka-san stumbled upon one of the questions which asked about Sonic the Hedgehog's code name. 

Answer options were:
A. Mr. Needlemouse
B. Mr. Speedymouse
C. Mr. Rocketmouse
D. Mr. Bluemouse

And Naka-san... didn't know any of these!
 
"I regret the result of the last test so I tried it again, but this time I knew even less answers. I didn't get the question asking 'Sonic is the signature character of SEGA. Choose the name he had before he went public'. Even though I'm one of the creators."
- Naka Yuji

In response to his confusion, Yosuke Okunari-san, a Creative Producer at SEGA and one of the professors (i.e. SEGA employees) of SEGA TEST SEMINARS released beforehand, replied as follows:

"This refers to the English translation of "Mr. Harinezumi" which Ohsima-san wrote on his sketch by Americans, so to Japanese, and even to Sonic's creator himself, "Mr. Needlemous" causes so many questions, right? (laugh)"
- Yosuke Okunari

So as he states, the expression "Mr. Needlemouse" was never used by Japanese creators, but it is a result of mistranslation of the Japanese word for 'hedgehog' by English speakers.

Naka-san's reaction to this explanation:
"What, that doesn't make sense. Doesn't "Mr. Harinezumi" translate to "Mr. Hedgehog"? I wonder who started saying "Mr. Needlemouse"."
- Naka Yuji

Okunari-san further explains this misunderstanding by referring to a page from SonicRetro. 

"I think the source might be the image a North-American fan site picked from some magazine or video or something."

- Yosuke Okunari


Naka-san's response:

"If this is what fans are saying, isn't it strange that the question asks about the name before [Sonic] was made public, isnt' it? Well I guess they translated "Hari" and "Nezumi" separately, but seeing the word "Mr. Needlemouse" which was never used feels strange. I got the question correct anyway though."
- Naka Yuji

. . . . . 
To explain what happened more clearly, basically the word for hedgehog in Japanese is written like this:
ハリネズミ (harinezumi) = hedgehog

However, you could see this as a compound of two separate words, each with individual meaning:
ハリ (hari) = needle
ネズミ (nezumi) = mouse

It's likely that the person who spread the nickname Mr. Needlemouse picked these two words separately for literal translation (for whatever reason) instead of just taking the whole word meaning hedgehog.
. . . . .

...So yeah. After all these (30!) years, Naka-san finally got to know one of the standard knowledge of Sonic fans, just to deny its factfulness. Oh well.

I didn't know about it either, and for all this long I thought they were using a pun for Sonic's code name to give it a twist... but no, it was just one of those mistranslations agian. My life was a lie.

Knuttunk
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