Nazo Unleashed: How A Mixed Bag Changed A Community
Nazo Unleashed has been argued by many within the Sonic community as the greatest Sonic fan animation. While this topic is debatable, there is no denying that it left an impact on everyone who watched it for better and for worse.
I'm going to get this out of the way right now. Nazo Unleashed is certainly a product of it's time. The fact that most (if not all) of the frames were hand drawn by a high school student in the year of Our Lord 2006 is an impressive feat in and of itself. But other than the titular big bad evil guy, the meme worthy scenes and how the connections to Dragon Ball are borderline uncanny, no one really seems to talk about it.
As for the story, while it's pretty simple and straightforward with a dash of fan service, it's also bare bones and orbits around the main antagonist like a moon circling it's neighboring planet. A brand new villain has appeared and it's up to the heroes to put a stop to them before their nebulous goal is fulfilled. Well, it starts off as such at first. It's only when we reach part three that his origins and motives are finally revealed. While not exactly disappointing, it does sound awfully familiar.
It's also well known at this point that Nazo isn't even an original character, but rather a scrapped concept of Super Sonic in Sonic X. With all this in mind, some may say that Nazo can't be a Mary Sue. To which I say check out the video in the link. As mentioned earlier, the story revolves around Nazo being the bigger threat treating the main protagonists like punching bags and even destroying civilizations and murdering countless lives in the process. The stakes raise to the point that the fate of Earth (and to an extension, the universe) hinges solely on his existence. It's only at the last minute that the villain is vanquished and the day is saved. Or is it?
Yes folks, we are even teased with sequel bait courtesy of Dr. Eggman retrieving one of Nazo's rings or are they wrist bands? Bracelets? We would get it years later in the form of Sonic: The Wrath of Nazo. It's a major overall improvement from the last one and Nazo feels less Sueish. It is however on hiatus and the most we're getting from it are animatics. All I can say to him and his followers is "My condolences. But whose bright idea was it to end the finale of their magnum opus on a cliffhanger to begin with!?"
All in all, Sonic: Nazo Unleashed is style over substance. Most of the animation holds up but it and the fan service feels like they're there to distract the viewers from the lackluster story that's riddled with plot holes (I.E. Tails surviving a point blank Ki blast). So you can understand how someone such as Ian Flynn (and more competent writers like George Orwell. May he rest in peace.) would dislike it. However, the notoriety gained from the trilogy earned Chakra-X enough reputation that he would be given chances to participate in animation collabs. One that he accepted would be Sonic Shorts: Volume 6.
A reminder that Sonic's target audience is kids and teens. The former of which is far more impressionable. So it wouldn't hurt to look at it from the perspective of a child. If Chakra-X is able to create a character as cool and epic as Nazo, why wouldn't he give his fans advice on how to make their own?
Perhaps it's no wonder that so many VRChat larps starring Sonic characters (both canon and fan-made) will occasionally feature Nazo in some way, shape, or form. I'm not saying that every Sonic VRChat larper is probably a Nazo stan, but rather the inverse.
Like it or not, Sonic: Nazo Unleashed spawned from nothing more than an idea in the mind of an adolescent which exploded into an influential phenomenon (both good and bad) felt around the fanbase and it is here to stay. While some would go on creating their own animations, others would take the wrong lessons and indulge in their self-insert wish-fulfilling power fantasies even further.