date created: june 2001

developer: yuji uekawa

Shadow the Hedgehog (シャドウ・ザ・ヘッジホッグ Shadō za Hejjihoggu?) is a character that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Characterized by his sharp attitude and strong sense of purpose, Shadow is a recurrent arch-rival of Sonic the Hedgehog, whom he resembles and with whom he shares many abilities. His trademark power is Chaos Control, which allows him to warp time and space using a Chaos Emerald. wikipedia entry.

Shadow is the "Ultimate Lifeform" (究極生命体 Kyūkyoku Seimeitai?), created aboard the Space Colony ARK over fifty years ago by Professor Gerald Robotnik. He is the final result of Project Shadow, a government experiment that was only completed by infusing Shadow with the DNA of the alien Black Doom. After his birth, Shadow befriended Gerald's granddaughter, Maria Robotnik. However, the Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) deemed the project a threat and raided the ARK, resulting in the captures of Shadow and Gerald, and the death of Maria. Driven to madness, Gerald altered Shadow's memories to one day seek revenge.

Shadow first appeared in the Dreamcast game Sonic Adventure 2 (2001), although he was conceived during the development of Sonic Adventure (1998). Iizuka devised the concept, while Maekawa developed his character and Hoshino designed him. Influences included the Dragon Ball character Vegeta, the Image Comics character Spawn, the Sonic character Metal Sonic, and speed skaters. Sonic Team envisioned Shadow as a one-off character who would only appear in Sonic Adventure 2, but his popularity among fans led to his inclusion in subsequent games, beginning with Sonic Heroes (2003).

My Thoughts

Discovering Shadow the Hedgehog for the first time for me, was when I was watching a youtube video about SEGA franchises, and hearing about the beloved Shadow the Hedgehog. And from then on, I really wanted to know more about the character! Although I'm absolutely not an og fan from when it was still back then in the late 2000s, I'm still really interested in this character and practically everything about him.

When I think about what I like about Shadow the most, I'd probably have to say its his design alongside his personality.

The reoccuring thing that I've noticed with my favorites is simply just the "aggression"(mainly just the character being cold). I think that this is probably happening because of the fact that I can get frequently angry at things, and in-turn, if I see this anger represented in any way, it feels relateable and comforting-which is definetly a big part as to why I relate to Shadow rather than Sonic or any other character in the franchise.

When it comes to Shadows design, I think that I'm so fascinated by it because of the similar colors. What I mean by this is because of the red, the yellow, and the tan, all three being close on the color wheel and all being very nice with the contrasting white and black used in the design! I also believe that a main reason as to why I like his design is because of its simplicity(relatively), being a very cool looking hedgehog with stylized proportions, being decently easy to draw if you study it a bit and very fun to pose with! I also really like Shadows design because of the elements that remind me of a cat(primarily the ears and somewhat the tail), making me happy because my favorite animal is infact a cat!