Sonic Prime Episode 2 & Site Stuff

 A blog post with 2 topics.
Reader beware on the 2nd one, we ask some questions......R-rated questions. Some regular questions at the end, though. Let's see where they all go...

First, the site! It's a bit more exciting this week because at least it was on time, and the variety was ok. Everyone had wanted for a while to see "more than just USA stuff", and with the Europe Hygiene items, it seems to be starting. Hopefully more is found outside the USA too, or shared with it/world wide because everyone should be able to easily collect. 

How about those Jakks Pacific figures?
How about them indeed because they still seem to be on the 'willy nilly' track for releases. Nothing's ever announced, waves show up randomly at the same time as each other and it just seems anything goes. I kind of doubt it's "Christmas Chaos" (not the...uh..emerald variety) because they seemed to just release anything, but now it's even more at the same time. 

What will the figures hold?
Mentioned on the site too...they have toooons of figures with the 'grip a thing' hand, but then only recently is there a single thing (the single ring) that any figure could grip. So why do they keep doing the hand for everyone? Hopefully they're considering holdable items in the future. 

Sonic Prime Episode 2:
Why does this thing have SO much recap?? It was almost like a 'recapisode' (one of those recap-only episodes often used as a filler piece in animes) with how much recapping they put in there. But it's 100% pointless because it's a NETFLIX show. A show where ANY ep can be watched at ANY time and ANY amount of times--making recapping anything like triple pointless. 
Dangerous move:
Why recap so much on only the 2nd episode? It loses momentum like crazy and makes it look lazy too like they didn't want to animate or do plot so they just re-used things from the first episode. A recapper later in the series (like ep 8 or whatever out of 24 or etc) makes more sense but here we go. The recapisode is also used to fill people in who missed it on broadcast but it ONLY makes sense for broadcast when the audience isn't controlling when the show is on. You literally cannot miss a Netflix ep. so recapping is inherently pointless.

Grisly Amy:
Did you catch it in the first episode? Eggman cut off Amy's head / decapitated her to get the minion form of her that she is Rusty Rose here. She reveals that a bird is what keeps the body running and the life support for the remainder of her head. The torso is empty and all the limbs are purely robotic. Parts of the head are also missing.
How did he cut the head off?
Why did he choose this particular person to decapitate?
What happens when the bird dies?
Do you have to throw away the sick bird and replace it with a new one before it dies?
Does she, or Eggman have to extract the sick bird & replace it with a new one?
Like Sonic, she is a cyclops, how do you cut out half of the mono-eye?

Life as a battery:
The secret to Eggman's success (every game, etc) has always been that he's the only one to figure out how to use living things as batteries. Everyone knows that a fruit fly in the house will keep going for weeks at a time while eating so small a portion no one can detect it by turning that portion into (seemingly) limitless flying, walking and stalking energy about the home. No machine that size could ever hope to compete...so animals of all sorts are much more efficient at being batteries or energetic on hardly anything than any machine. Eggman's 'cracked' that problem so he gets 'limitless' power for his robots to take over the world with it. (And, that's why Sonic has to free all the little animals) I was always really impressed with this logic point in the story about his success. 

Kind of surprised they went there with all those......implications.

Sonic vs Shadow
You knew they had to fight in the show because "its what's expected". This was unexpectedly long, but it was well enough choreographed that it was interesting enough to watch. Naturally the premise for it is very shaky
"Let me explain!"
"No!" 
Fight fight fight. (I would have been very shocked if they'd actually had a good premise for this, but like all 'goodguy vs goodguy' fights in media the premise is rubbish somehow) 

Characterization:
You can't really comment too much on characterization with 1 ep, but by ep 2 it's getting there. Rouge Rebel is...really well done it seems. She's smart in an independent way, she talks about the plans enough, and is also nice and logical. Having her be as fast as an airplane (first ep) is fine/the whole cast is fast. She uses flying appropriately and there's no 'she forgot to fly!' mis-steps in the action. Actually becoming very impressed with her.

The Knuckles is fine, but he didn't yet get quite enough screen time/talking to judge him that much. He is rather scuffed up which suggests that he gets hit often, or that hits don't heal well on him. His banter with her is decent, they do come across as old buds. 

Nine = Tails
A bit better here, defending himself from robots while working at the console was quite nice. Having him match wits with the 'hacker' Eggman is also a good vs. Did you catch the Jurassic Park 1 Dennis Nedry laugh in there? (Same circumstance as JP too, of course)  
While he was captured, his hands were cuffed as seen when he breaks loose later, but were his tails also cuffed/controlled? What was stopping him from using them to get out of the cuffs? Would he REALLY have just let the machine kill Sonic by standing there? They need to swing him around to actually caring about other characters fairly soonish. 
(He's obviously Dr. Octopus from Spiderman= scientist makes extra 'arms' for self, becomes super) 

Nerfin' Sonic:
Hopefully this doesn't become a trend in the show. He took a bad hit from Shadow in the flashback as to "why he was late to intercept Eggman attempt at the crystal" and then the capture ring & capture ball combo made him very dizzy* and failing during the whole 2nd half of the episode. 
Aside from the Shadow fight, the only actual Sonic-action in this episode (that wasn't recap) was nerfed action. 

*Any of the characters who spin should LITERALLY be completely incapable of getting dizzy under any circumstance. Spinning ballerinas don't get dizzy because they know how to control it. Spinning as a mode of transport/attack for your whole life & you'd be the best person ever at controlling it so all should be invincible to dizziness. 

Why did Shadow need a chaos emerald for chaos control? (His power is inherent, that's half the point of him, he NEEDS nothing to be strong)
Why did adding more power to the city cause it to shut down?
How did Eggmans have a 'powers extractor' just somehow on hand to kill him with if they even admit they never encountered anything like 'that power' ever?
"The power" was "like the battery" but batteries don't make energy they store it, so which is it?

The Bottom Line:
2nd episode is ok, but slightly not as good as hoped with all the odd recapping, and 2 nerfs put on Sonic. Nothing huge, but not as expected. 

Next Week:
Target gets even more Sonic things, new plushes are found, and another wave of Craftables gets confirmed.