Been rewatching Sonic X in Japanese and one thing I really appreciate about it— especially in contrast to basically the whole rest of the franchise— is that it actually takes time to make the characters (ESPECIALLY Sonic) deal with the physical consequences of fighting all these crazy battles. Like, no one does that anymore!
Even in not-so-huge battles. Like that time they had to go out to space to fight that satellite-eating machine of Eggman's? It was -50 F° up there, and while Sonic could handle it, it still took its toll on him. So when they got back to the house, they let him relax on the couch and soak his feet in some hot water, and Ella made him some warm soup. 🥹
And then the BIG one imo (although there are still others; I'm just trying to make a point here) was the whole incident at the beginning of season 3! When Sonic goes Super, it sometimes leaves him exhausted (mostly when there have been other damaging factors such as all the painful werehog transformations in Unleashed and the cyber energy in Frontiers; both made him pass out afterwards). But Sonic X has been the ONLY part of the franchise (as far as I'm aware) to drag those kinds of consequences further than just him needing a few seconds of recovery after he woke up. 💥
So Super Sonic fights this giant Metarex out in space and no matter what, he can't win. And he's tired and hurt. But he's not gonna let the creep take the Chaos Emeralds so he sends them away throughout the galaxy, and then immediately blacks out and plummets back to the planet. (And nearly crash-lands in the freaking ocean; like y'all he straight up would've died here if he'd hit the middle of the ocean, and no one would've known 😭)
AND THEN INSTEAD OF JUST WAKING UP A BIT LATER AND BEING ALL OKAY AGAIN, HE PROCEEDS TO REMAIN UNCONSCIOUS FOR AT LEAST FOUR DAYS!!!! 💥💥💥
Eggman of all people finds him and decides to take him in and presumably tend to him. (And the worst thing he does is plant a listening device on Sonic's head while he's out, which demands an analysis for a whole other post!) Eggman lets him rest until he wakes up so he can find out what happened (which is sort of funny because Sonic never told him lol). But either way, you'd think that'd be it, right? He's awake, even if it took a hot minute; he's fine now, right? All ready for more action! Any other part of the franchise would do this!
Nope.
Sonic runs off to find his friends stuck fighting another Metarex, and he tries to help them, but he's not moving as fast as normal and they notice this. Most attacks he tries get repelled easily. Knuckles and Amy see this and question if he's feeling okay, and he says he's just tired.
Then they go to the Master Emerald and Chris shows up and they're all talking and then BOOM OPE HE FAINTED AGAIN 💥💥💥
And everyone freaks out because most of them noticed something seemed off but bro literally just collapsed in the middle of a conversation?! But Tails first ensures that he's not sick, then he and Knuckles figure out what happened and they're like "okay he just needs more recovery time from that other battle." GOOD!!! 🥹
So they carry him back to Vanilla's place and she tucks him in a nice comfy bed and lets him sleep for the whole rest of the night (the sun had just set when all this went down) and halfway through the next day.
And only THEN does he actually start to feel more normal. 👏👏
I'M JUST SAYING, CAN THEY DO THIS MORE?? I'M EATING IT UP BUT THIS CONTENT IS LIKE 20+ YEARS OLDDDDD. IT'S WHEN THEY DON'T DO THIS THAT PEOPLE USUALLY WRITE FANFICTIONS TO FIX IT. Myself included!
Anyway Sonic X is goated for this and many other things 💙💙💙
