>>712600472
Oshima, Sonic's creator, said that Sonic, while having western influences since Oshima loved classic American characters, also has Japanese influences, because he himself is a Japanese person. That ties back to what the other anon said about Japanese people writing what they know.
The thing people miss when discussing Sonic and western influences is that A LOT of Japanese intellectual properties have some western influences. English, for example, is seen as cool over there. The Mickey Mouse design philosophy can be seen in popular Japanese characters like Son Goku from Dragon Ball and Astro Boy. Goku's design is influenced by Astro Boy, who himself is influenced by Mickey, as many early anime designs were directly following in the footsteps of Disney. Dragon Ball also pays homage to stuff like Terminator and Star Wars. The fact is that Sonic's creators are Japanese, so Sonic has many Japanese components in its DNA, which Yamaguchi, Tails' creator, went into recently.
>Sonic's aviation badge intro animations are based on Dr. Slump (as well as the enemies from the Tokyo Toy Show demo)
>Hoshino stated that Amy is based on Oshima's taste in women, and fashion that was popular in Japan at the time, and she wields a Japanese toy as a weapon
>Yamaguchi revealed that Tails is based on 3 characters, all of whom are Japanese (Kitsune from Urusei Yatsura, Myau from Phantasy Star, Son Gohan from DB)
>Sonic 2 has a manga style, according to Yamaguchi
>Eggman is mainly based on Motro from Laputa, while also taking aspects from another Miyazaki character from Lupin III named Professor Lonebach, and the henchmen from Muteking
>Mecha Sonic is based on Mecha Godzilla
>Death Egg Robot is based on the ATM-09-Scopedog from VOTOMS
>the majority of Sonic 3's plot and environments are inspired by Laputa
And that's just a few classic examples. Japanese people mainly write what they know.
