Nostalgia Critic review of Sonic 1999 OVA

[Sean]

Unless someone can prove to me otherwise, I’m absolutely unconvinced that the OVA was ever edited in any capacity. There is no evidence or screencaps of this being the case on the internet. I rented the original VHS copy numerous times, own the original DVD print, and have even seen footage of the Japanese VHS versions (where they have Japanese credits and are split into two episodes). All of them are identical to each other in terms of the scenes commonly cited as being censored (Sonic’s finger, the breastfeeding, Tails groping Sera, etc.). I’m aware that literally every wiki mentions the censorship and that some people even report possibly seeing instances of censorship, but until I get some hard evidence of this - and believe me, I’ve searched high and low for it - I generally dismiss it as an urban legend that nobody has bothered to prove or disprove.

[StaticMania]

Maybe it wasn't edited and Sonic's finger is just drawn badly.

[Cuz]

Now you got me looking around for that finger scene and I think you're 100% right. I've got the 1999 VHS release and while it's obviously his index finger I can't seem to find a cut where he actually holds up the middle one, and I've never seen a cut without the breast feeding or snowball scenes.

 

 

[Tara]

I think the whole "Sonic gives the finger" thing was spurred about by the power of suggestion and early 2000's internet being largely unchecked.  A lot of images which surfaced around the time the film was released in North America are of extremely low resolution, so it wouldn't be hard for someone to squint their eyes and think it looks like a middle finger.  And since a popular narrative is that America has much more strict standards on children's television than Japan (something that isn't entirely wrong, but often undermines that there are also things that are offensive in Japan but inoffensive in America), it's easy to see how the rumor would quickly spread that the American version had to be censored.

In a similar scenario, something that is also cited by numerous wikis and fan sites is the Japanese version having heavy swear words that had to be censored in the dub, which is a misnomer for a number of reasons, all of which assume that the Japanese language works in an identical manner to English.  The more accurate statement would be "the dub chose not to use swear words in the translation, where a fan sub would probably relish in sprinkling profanity everywhere" or "The English dub doesn't properly translate the nuances that make certain lines of dialogue seem more rude or impactful in Japanese."  Phrasing it like "there were numerous profanities that had to be cut" wrongfully paints the picture of the original cut of the film being extremely risque and more mature than it really is, which may have been the intent behind such rumors but I digress.

Like Sean, I have yet to see a direct comparison of the "censored" or "uncensored" versions, so I am also not convinced that the supposed cuts were made.  Just seems like a misreporting that went viral in an age before YouTube and people just haven't bothered to check if it's true or not.  Similar to how we still sometimes get reports that say Sonic and Tails were going to be in Super Smash Bros. Melee but were cut out at the last minute. (Even though the fact that they were considered for Melee is true, but there's nothing present in the game's data that suggests they were developed anywhere past the planning stages)

[Sean]

I mean... I do think the intention was that it's Sonic's middle finger. However Sonic is drawn at a distance, and characters in anime who are far away are drawn with noticeably less detail, so it ends up looking like his index upon close inspection. I'm not challenging how people interpret his gesture; regardless of which finger it's supposed to be, the scene in question was never altered at any point in history.

[Tara]

13 hours ago, Sean said:

I mean... I do think the intention was that it's Sonic's middle finger. However Sonic is drawn at a distance, and characters in anime who are far away are drawn with noticeably less detail, so it ends up looking like his index upon close inspection. I'm not challenging how people interpret his gesture; regardless of which finger it's supposed to be, the scene in question was never altered at any point in history.

And that's fair, too.  It just changes the argument from "in what version does he make what gesture" to "what gesture is he making in general."  I think I remember there was an edit going around that showed what a more convincing middle finger would look like in that scene.  Need to find that for comparison.

[shdowhunt60]

I think one of the problems when it comes to outside-fanbase criticism of anything Sonic, is that it isn't really all that often that you get anything that hasn't been discussed to in-depth in the fandom. And to me, this review kind of is an example of that. Most of the critique is the kind of thing that's already been talked about internally in the fandom.

[Cuz]

On 8/4/2018 at 7:36 PM, Tara said:

 I think I remember there was an edit going around that showed what a more convincing middle finger would look like in that scene.  Need to find that for comparison.

That's honestly what always fooled me most about the scene. That edited frame is one of the top search results you'll find and it's only on closer inspection you realize that is an edit and not from an actual version of the film.

[Meta77]

It was a bad review imo. It was literally from someone who did not seem to understand basic 90s anime. He went in looking for a plot deeper than a icon trench. 

[Tara]

13 hours ago, Meta77 said:

It was a bad review imo. It was literally from someone who did not seem to understand basic 90s anime. He went in looking for a plot deeper than a icon trench. 

He's gone on record before saying that he doesn't really watch any anime except Cowboy Bebop, I think.

And it kind of shows whenever he reviews anything related to anime (Pokémon: The First Movie, Sailor Moon, etc.)  It's not to say that viewing anime from the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with it can't be interesting or that his criticisms are invalidated as a result.  But the nuances and story beats that separate anime from western cartoons in terms of pacing and style is usually lost on him.

[Meta77]

9 hours ago, Tara said:

He's gone on record before saying that he doesn't really watch any anime except Cowboy Bebop, I think.

And it kind of shows whenever he reviews anything related to anime (Pokémon: The First Movie, Sailor Moon, etc.)  It's not to say that viewing anime from the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with it can't be interesting or that his criticisms are invalidated as a result.  But the nuances and story beats that separate anime from western cartoons in terms of pacing and style is usually lost on him.

I agree. I rolled when he was upset characters were not introduced at length.  I was like let me introduce you to a anime called the tenchi muyo ova series first ep lol

[GenghisConn3]

Imo, Nostalgia Critic was always terrible and it's only gotten worse over time. Couldn't make it past 5 minutes of his review, typical boring and unfunny "lol wacky randem humour ecks dee!", thankfully I didn't have to sit through a dull 15 minute skit to get to his "review" but still.

[Austroid]

I haven't liked NC's stuff for years, so I was expecting the worst.

The OVA is an... interesting part of Sonic's history, but he didn't say anything that's already been said before. (wacky English VA, pointless side characters, Eggman's convoluted plan, etc.)

This wasn't AS bad as I though it'd be; but still pretty dull. What's next? Talk about how weird Underground was? Complain about the dub of Sonic X? He's 10 years too late on that.

[StaticMania]

6 minutes ago, Austroid said:

This wasn't AS bad as I though it'd be; but still pretty dull. What's next? Talk about how weird Underground was? Complain about the dub of Sonic X? He's 10 years too late on that.

If people want him to...he probably won't, so it doesn't matter.

[Razule]

9 hours ago, Austroid said:

Talk about how weird Underground was? Complain about the dub of Sonic X? He's 10 years too late on that.

Well.. he is the Nostalgia Critic, that's kinda his shtick. If it's old enough to be nostalgic to literally anyone (and with the amount of remakes and reboots, there'll never be a shortage of content), it's fair game

[Austroid]

9 hours ago, Razule said:

Well.. he is the Nostalgia Critic, that's kinda his shtick. If it's old enough to be nostalgic to literally anyone (and with the amount of remakes and reboots, there'll never be a shortage of content), it's fair game

I meant in terms of his popularity at the time, people were flooding him with requests to do other Sonic media; yet he swore off doing anything after SatAM and AostH. His cameo in that Anime Abandon review of the OVA cemented that.

He's likely only doing it now because it garners a huge amount of views, despite the Channel Awesome controversy and such.