#sonic collection

July/August 2026. Wendy's has a collab with Minions & Monsters, all the decor is Minions-themed, it's whatever. BUT. One place has a random Sonic the Hedgehog IDW poster on the wall. What. Why. We ask.

There's a Sonic the Hedgehog collab for the 35th anniversary. There are trading cards. There are unique cases. Holy cow, I must have them.

So over the past couple weeks, we collect all seven cases, and get all 35 cards. It's not difficult. It's for little kids. There's no gatcha/gambling involved, every bag is printed with which case in inside, and every character's case has its own set of five cards so there's no crossover.

But the choices they made with these cards. My BFA in Graphic Design is crying. You would think with infinite money, they would market the collab a little more instead of stealth launching under Minions, but instead they've invested the money in print and resin colors for these cards and cases.

FOUR SHADES OF PINK PLASTIC. FOUR SHADES OF GRAY PLASTIC.

Every purple character has a unique shade of purple for their card background. Some cards share the same color background so it implies some consistency or theming but others don't mesh at all. There are two shades of yellow- one slightly orange for Tails, one lighter for Super characters (and Charmy??).

There are mixed in splash cards/full-card-art cards, but they're all generic print marketing pics we've already seen, all Just Sonic. Not every pack has one.

There are three different card backsides- one with the collection list, one with the info of the character on the other side and a quote they might have said at some point maybe, and one flat blue with the Wendy's logo.

ALL THE CARDS ARE NUMBERED, so if you have the whole collection and place them in order, they make zero sense thematically or visually.

There are 35 cards (7 sets of 5), so they leave an empty space in standard 3x3 card collection binder pages. None of the sets of five are coherent- which might make sense if you were trading them between sets with other people, but they also don't form a coherent whole. (Spoilers, there is no E-123 Omega. My disappointment is immeasurable.)

Every card case has a character and a Chaos Emerald. The character is sort of debossed/popping out of the 3d case, and the Chaos Emerald is a separate transparent colored plastic so you can see inside. The front of the case is a theme color for the character. The back of the case is a different shade of the same color, so when the box is empty, the transparent Chaos Emerald's color is muddled or lost.

None of the characters match the Chaos Emerald they're given, not complementary colors, not lore-relevant associations, nothing.

Example of how nonsensical this all is:

-Rouge has a card case.

-Rouge's case Emerald is white/clear.

-The front resin is a dark blush pink.

-The back resin is darker pink-purple.

-The clear plastic Emerald looks dark/purple through the front.

-The first card in Rouge's card pack is Rouge. She has a white holo-foil background.

-The second card in Rouge's pack is the White Chaos Emerald. It has a dark pink-purple holo-foil background.

-This is the only card pack where the box character and the box Emerald have a different color of background.

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