#30.6.20

Went with a hair down photo since it’s not something we got very often and even though I obviously love her twintails, this was nice whenever it happened as well. But anyway I wanted to give Usagi a proper birthday post of some sorts just because like, aside from being her birthday, today is the first anniversary of me starting Sailor Moon, and the probably 9 or so months I spent watching that meant a lot to me. It was just a really fun time knocking out an episode a day for all that time, and while I’m very vocal about Ami being my favourite character, Usagi certainly did a lot to carry the joy and emotion of all that time. What’s also neat is that due to the timing of some unfortunate things in my own personal life, I actually get to say that Sailor Moon helped me through a tough time, with Usagi herself being a real inspiration in that regard. I mean optimally I wouldn’t have been going through tough times anyway and I loved Sailor Moon before and after said tough times, but it’s nice that it could be there for me during those times as well. And just again, Usagi’s just so fucking great, she feels so realistically portrayed with regards to her thoughts and feelings about everything she and her friends go through and has some really humbling flaws that make her being as strong a hero as she is stand out even more. It’s probably fair enough to call her the ideal magical girl honestly. She’s just delightful. Very happy to have Sailor Moon in my life.

And then with the name recognition being important, let’s talk cast. Mike Pollock is Mike Pollock and gives the best performance, was and will always be the best Eggman. He’s hammy and bombastic while still managing to sound gruff and villainous and that’s just the fuckin, bomb.

Now, Ryan Drummond, I’ve honestly never really cared for his Sonic performance. Don’t get me wrong, I’d say he gave the character a good voice all those years ago, especially given the constraints of the Adventure games’ horrible voice direction, but maybe it’s because I grew up with and prefer Jason Griffith but Drummond’s Sonic never really felt all that special to me. It’s fine, it fits the character, but that’s it, and now, 20 years later, he’s sorta lost some of his edge and ability to portray the character anyway. Moreover he’s the Sonic voice most people parody if they’re imitating Sonic and I think that’s sorta just worked against him in my mind, unfortunately. So I mean idk, cool that he’s involved in something like this but I can’t give much actual credit to his work here.

Emi Jones does well enough as Tails I suppose, but she sorta goes for that more feminine sounding Tails that we had from basically everything pre-Colours, and while I have a soft spot for that type of voice for his character I do honestly prefer his slightly deeper voices we’ve been getting over the past few years. So Jones’ performance just ends up not really being for me. Also I think her audio seemed a bit more quiet than the rest?

David Humphrey as Knuckles is an odd one. He was Shadow’s first English voice and is still my favourite Shadow voice to this day, I wish he had more time with the character than he got even if I think Griffith’s Shadow was pretty solid as well. But uh, he’s Knuckles here and I think his voice fits Knuckles okay, but he gives a pretty weak performance, he sorta just doesn’t emote as strongly as I want from a Knuckles voice, cause he can be calm and chill and stuff, Scott Dreier is my favourite Knuckles and he does that great, but Knuckles is also hotheaded and passionate and when he gets angry you can feel it - Humphrey doesn’t really manage that here.