Designers really, really don’t like Sonic the Hedgehog’s new look

Sonic the Hedgehog, that lightning-fast, bundle of coin-collecting virtual energy, has caused quite the furore, with certain sections of the internet seemingly unable to talk about anything but Sega’s spiky mascot.

The reason that the star of Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, and Knuckles’ Chaotix has found his digital currency skyrocketing is simple: the ferociously speedy blue bloke is about to appear in a brand new live-action film and the imagery that’s been released to drum up support for the movie has not gone down well at all.

It’s gone down so badly that even Yuji Naka felt the need to voice his disapproval and disappointment. Yuji Naka is, by the way, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog. As often happens in this day and age, Yuji took to Twitter to discuss the odd new look that one of video gaming’s most instantly recognisable figures had been given.

Industry website Kotaku has handily, for those of us who don’t speak or read Japanese, translated those tweets for us. They read as follows:

“I feel like, with this Sonic here, visually, the important thing to look at is the head and body ratio and the roundness of the abdomen. I wonder if they couldn’t have balanced them a little bit better… These images of Sonic aren’t coming officially from the movie-making source; I think it’s possible they’re being strategically leaked, though getting people talking about it ‘because it’s bad’ can’t be good for Sonic’s existing IP.”

The picture of Sonic that has so upset Sega devotees was the work of Hamagami/Carroll Inc, an agency which Kotaku reports as specialising in “entertainment industry art and branding”.