Actually, if we're talking about characters with unexpected countries of origin, we gotta talk about Sonic the Hedgehog:
In this 2011 interview with the Russian magazine GameLand, Yuji Naka, the co-creator of the series, was asked why the Sonic series only featured animal characters initially, and then suddenly added a ton of human characters in Sonic Adventure.
Naka replied that the games originally took place on Christmas Island, and that by chance it happens that there are only animals and robots inhabiting it. Sonic only met humans for the first time when he later left the island and travelled to the city in Sonic Adventure.
The interviewer then asked whether Naka meant a location on Earth, or one on different planet.
Naka confirmed that he was not only talking about a place on Earth, but specifically the Christmas Island that actually exists in our real world.
But he didn't mean the Australian territory – he was actually referring to the island of Kiritimati, which is also sometimes known as "Christmas Island", and was the site of a series of nuclear weapons tests carried out by both Britain and America at the height of the Cold War.
After briefly explaining this real-world history (though he only mentions the Americans, which the magazine rectifies in an edit), Naka went on to claim that these nuclear weapons tests were the reason why the island is now filled with robots and strange animals.
Because Kiritimati is part of the Republic of Kiribati, Sonic would therefore be I-Kiribati.
Although, in that same magazine article, Takashi Iizuka was asked about where the Sonic games took place, and he said that it varies from game to game, but usually there's one planet where the Sonic characters live, and another instead populated by humans, which would mean Sonic is an alien.
Personally, I unironically think Sonic being I-Kiribati is actually way better than him being from another planet.
Kiribati is one of the world's countries most threatened by the effects of climate change such as rising sea levels, and given that protecting the environment is a central theme to the entire series, him being from a country like Kiribati that's so vulnerable to its destruction would fit that theme perfectly.
And while the idea of him being a mutated rodent born from the radioactive fallout of nuclear weapons is weird to imagine, Sonic does spend most of his time dismantling superweapons created by mad scientists, so him being a result of the effects our real-world equivalent to planet-destroying superweapons have on the environment strangely also makes sense thematically.
Him being an alien is just kinda lame in comparison.
Here's a translation of the article, which is a little rough but is still reliable.
This is just a fraction of what the interviews cover, so it's worth reading if you're interested in this kinda thing.
jbbartram-illu
janainaart
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
