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Team Dark's dynamic is a band of warriors. Shadow trusts them as two who'll back him up in battle. Shadow sees the rest of the living cast as either allies when needed, NPCs, Sonic, and enemies. This is relevant since Shadow at no point has never said that in actual canon he sees the others in the established cast as friends or that he wishes to be around mankind beyond what's needed to keep the world from being blown up. Shadow forgiving mankind or G.U.N. was never said. That's just your fanon. The actual point of 06 is that he knows that mankind will never accept/trust him and that's fine since he doesn't care what mankind thinks or do what he does for them. Shadow is no different from Sonic (in game canon) where he's not a superhero who's enforcing justice or protecting society but follows his will alone. Shadow doesn't value life on Sonic's world beyond Maria's opinions. You dismissing his bios and cherrypicking his dialogue (see Battle where you don't address his lines in the final campaign talking about how mankind's actions ensured the world will be obliterated by Emerl) doesn't change that. You especially didn't engage in what the Sonic Channel stories said (like how they have Shadow actively work against humies who aren't Eggman and fight G.U.N. robots well after 06) or Iizuka's word in interviews (that he protects the world on Maria's opinions, that he's not like Vegeta in that he doesn't fight for justice and isn't friends with Sonic).

Oh my god I hate how they keep giving Rouge a high pitched voice. From day one Rouge always had a deeper voice which makes sense since she’s an adult and is supposed to be a mature, sexy woman. How is Rouge, an adult character, being given a higher pitched voice than Amy, a character that is a child?! Recently, Rouge sounds more like a child than Amy does and Amy sounds like a woman in her 30s even tho she’s 12. What is with the female voice acting?!

1) pretty sure Project Shadow was top secret, even if it was an open secret that everyone knew about there would be no reason for Abraham to just know about. Going back to Shadow The Hedgehog, id always thought it was that he learned about something he wasn't supposed to know about and then either told people or an adult explained it to him later. And then when the raid upon the Ark happened and Maria died and the military said it was because of an "accident" that Abraham blamed that mysterious creature. Going even deeper, I don't know how i feel about Abe living on the Ark with Maria. I always sort of thought that part of the reason why Maria wanted to go to Earth so badly was because she was lonely, afterall she was stuck on this bigass space station where there weren't really any other kids her age, surrounded by scientists who were all busy, even her grandfather Gerald, would have been too busy for her. I always figured the commander had a parent who worked on the Ark and maybe he visited during the Summers or something to that effect because if he did live there, what was the reason, did he have NIDS too, but I thought the whole reason Maria was allowed to be cared for on the Ark was because of Gerald, that she had special permissions. Maybe thats wrong but we didn't really see any other kids aboard the Ark so i assumed that was that it was something like that. Its also weird to me that Abe was on the Ark at the same time Shadow was getting to know Maria. It changes the story in a big way as it makes it seem like from his perspective this demon seduced his childhood friend and then killed her which is why he hated Shadow so much. In that case, i would think that Abe would be actively trying to keep Shadow and Maria from being alone together. Its also weird to me that Shadow knew he was part black arms, i mean, i guess there's no reason he wouldn't know, but i dont think he would have had very personal feelings on the matter, it would probably just be something he knows as he would recieve all his knowledge through Gerald who would likely frame this information in a certain way. I dont know if Shadow would even be disgusted by the black arms, he would just know that theyre his enemies. All of Shadow's knowledge and feelings would have been framed through what Gerald told him, not through any personal experiences so its a bit weird. To be clear, none of this is an outright contradiction, its just a bit weird to me. 2) I dont know if Doom was actually spying through Shadow, if he was, he would've known about Shadow having amnesia. In Shadow The Hedgehog, Black Doom did not know about Shadow's fall to Earth, he assumed Shadow's lack of memories was due to Gerald tampering with his mind. "Seems the professor has done more to your memory than id have imagined..." "The Professor?" "Strange that you don't remember your Maker..." 3) only problem with your theory is what was that Death Leach using to eat off of all this time, assuming your theory is correct, Shadow and Rouge will probably encounter that Leach in part 3, meaning its been aboard the Ark this whole time, with nothing to eat. Thoughts: This episode was significantly weaker than the previous one. Only half the episode was any good while the other half was just action to have action and so Shadow could team up with Rouge to go find a shuttle. The base Shadow went to didn't even have one and of course him running into Rouge was hella convenient. It still feels like the story hasn't progressed at all, so next episode has a lot it needs to do. Not only does it need to act as a good lead in to SonicxShadow gens but it needs to also act as a satisfying resolution to this storyline. Really hoping Ian can pull it all together for the final part.

I mean real life and Stories are built on coincidences. Stuff like people randomly meeting others happens all the time in every story so it doesnt bother me.

Your theory on Black doom appearing from that larva is actually pretty neat.

I really think that death leech theory is a cool idea and interested to see if it goes somewhere. I also think Kirk's current performance is not bad but he could give it more emotion.

Abe survived probably because they didn't execute *everyone*. Maria was killed while she was helping Shadow escape.

even if 06 was reset, it's not like it became irrelevant, it's still canon, the event still took place, and there are still remenants of those "Erased" events

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i'm first, what do y'all have to say about that

32:54 if you've been in this franchise for a long time you will know that by now that they always had this status quo for decades! now at this point every tiem eggman plot something evil against sonic he always defeats him! And give him a hard butt kicking and let him go...after that to like you know teaching and saving the day this actually happened before in the games aswell so it's not the first time he done this! Hell...he even done this in other continuities aswell...like im archie,sonic X and sonic boom.

29:21 wait a minute...didn't you just criticize amy's character for being a natural leader and it wasn't in-character for her to be a leader and all stuff and you were even explaining her disdain for being the leader of resistance and how stressful it was for her to do that abd she clearly didn't wanted to do this anymore and you even mentioned it in your previous review in issue 31 but NOW! you just suddenly forgot your own critique about her character being a leader and your explanations about and completely forget tye contexts aswell appearently and just label her as an incompetent character just because she said she's not leading the restoration anymore.. honestly man there's no consistency in your own review aswell like cut her some slack she's been through alot of stress so it makes sense if she doesn't want to do it anymore imma be honest with you i think amy not be the leader was for the better it kinda downplayed her other qualities what made her character so great and memorable to begin with. Also i have to disagree with you about it wasn't explained how did they pull out the metal virus out of the people actually it was silver used his psychic powers to do it! Dis you not payed attention to context?

I'm not saying he's not allowed to critique the comics because let's be real they have flaws...but honestly the way he talks and criticize the comic and the tone of his video really making him seem like that he really wants to hate the comics on purpose. Like Brother...calm down you don't need to tell tone your voice down a little so we could know that you are normally criticizing the ide comics... because the way you talk and the tone of your video really seem like you just want to hate this comic.

So, 2 things: Yeah, Mimic is just kind of a trash villain, insufferably stupid, i can't even begin to understand. Though, one thing i don't agree on is the idea that Mimic could have killed Eggman because if he did, every single gun in the room would be on him but thats hard to know for sure since we're not shown. On the other hand though, Mimic's actions here make no sense, he betrays his crew for the sake of survival, out of fear, but i don't know about you but for me, in no instance ever would i want to put myself in a situation where i am alone in a room with Dr. Eggman unless either he is highly restrained or i am accompanied by people who i could be confident would be able to protect me from him. Eggman has countless machines at his disposal which he could use to kill Mimic at any point. 2) I don't think its that Blue hates violence but rather that he doesn't like hurting living beings. Eggman's forces are mainly machines so i think hes usually fine with it but here hes being used to attack a person, so its a bit different. Thoughts: In comics in general a certain level of suspension of disbelief is necessary in order to engage with the medium. Characters, scenarios, and actions will essentially be very contrived for the sake of plot, this isn't an excuse of course but its something you generally have to deal with but ideally after you get past the contrived setup you can enjoy the story for what it is. The problem is that for this arc, that moment never came. There was never really a point where the story stopped being stupid. Once the set up for the core scenario was done, the point where youd think the stupidity would be done, it just kept going. Neither Mimic nor Whisper approached the battle with the necessary level of seriousness. Mimic turned into Sonic again after people figured out he was impersonating Sonic in issue 4 and in the first battle Tangle was tricked by Mimic into thinking he was Jewel despite knowing about Mimic's shape-shifting. The writing felt like Saturday morning kiddie Sonic Rush Adventure writing where all the characters are just stupid. There were moments i liked about this story and there was some Mimic imagery that was genuinely terrifying but in general i did not enjoy this arc and i usually avoid reading it. The best part was learning Whispers backstory with all the trauma but the story itself was not fun.

1) First, let's go over Silver and his time travel... and... oh boy... here we go, in the annual Silver says his time doesn't have fertile grass. Here's the thing, that is wrong. Yes, Silver's original future was completely destroyed but that was in 06 which wiped its own story from the timeline at the end of the game. That version of Silver doesn't exist anymore. This Silver however does know the Sonic cast, but the only game where Silver properly met the cast for the first game after 06 was Sonic Rivals so thats the Silver this is supposed to be, bear in mind also that Gemerl is canon to the comic so all the handheld games are canon, i know that doesn't make sense roll with it. So Rivals is canon, and this Silver can only be Rivals Silver. Here's the thing, Rivals Silver doesn't originate from a destroyed future, he comes from a good future where everything is fine and super advanced. Hell in the DS version of Sonic Colors Silver says that in his time the sky is blue and everyone is happy. Now yes, in Sonic Forces Silver came back in time to prevent Eggman's takeover however that was not the original timeline that Silver comes from, Silver comes from a good timeline and thanks to interdimensional shifts the Forces timeline happened. Whatever method Silver is using to time travel makes him immune to the shifts in time so Silver should still be from a good future and remember that future even if it doesn't exist anymore. Saying that Silver's future doesn't have fertile grass is actually a massive retconn. Because in doing so youre saying that this Silver is from the Forces timeline. In which case when did the Sonic cast meet Silver? Is Rivals not canon? Because thats the only way this makes sense. 2) So Elder Scruffy just hung there for a week without food or water? And he's totally fine? Scruffy is a beast!! 3) yes, something being processed doesn't mean its not organic and thats probably not how something like this would work in real life, but thats not really a problem. Stories don't necessarily have to abide by how things work in real life but they do have to have to be consistent to their own internal logic. The metal virus only effects organic material but if that organic material is processed it doesn't work. Thats the rule, now we just have to see whether or not it breaks that rule. 4) Not a plot hole, yet, as earlier in the review you said that Rouge finding Mr. Tinker when Metal Sonic and Eggman's empire couldn't would make her the most competent person in the comic and if she ever has trouble finding someone again, that would be a plot hole. The comic isn't saying Starline is more competent than Rouge so not a plot hole, just kind of odd. 5) Eggman often congratulates himself on his ideas and accomplishments whether or not theyre actually genius or not, like getting the dark gaia pieces to come to him rather than gathering them one by one. 6) its not that Starline doesn't have any sense of scope but there's a difference between knowing and experiencing it first hand. 7) the introduction of the Metal Virus was a slow burn at first. I really enjoyed the contrast in these early issues where the heroes were off thinking of this as another casual adventure, all the while there's this ominous dark undertone. Even then it didn't really sink in just how bad things were going to get until Eggman hit the first city. 8) the clothes of Rough and Tumble getting infected however is a plothole as Eggman specifically said the virus couldn't infect something inorganic, unless their clothes are made of organic material but that doesn't even work because again, Eggman specifically said processed material couldn't get infected, unless their clothes aren't processed???? Are the Sonic characters all just wearing raw unprocessed animal flesh? 9) Another interesting to focus on: Sonic's speed and inparticular why his speed is able to burn off the virus. According to Ian this is because of how he'd prefer to look at Sonic's speed. In Sonic Colors Sonic was shown to almost be fast enough to almost outrun a black hole, in Gens he runs so fast that his speed fixes time and in Forces Sonic can run fast enough to escape null space. Ian doesn't like the idea of Sonic being so fast that he can just do crazy things, he prefers that there's something special about Sonic's speed itself, a special property that only he posseses. This would of course mean that only he can run off the virus, so if Shadow or Blaze got infected they couldn't run off the virus which is odd because the comic strongly indicates that Shadow could run off the virus.😤 Thoughts: these first few issues work as a pretty good lead in for the Metal Virus Saga. Building up the metal virus as a threat and establishing the rules for how it works, even if it immediately breaks those rules. The fight against Starline was cool even if there were things that didn't work. However, we also start to see problems that will haunt the comic going forward. Eggman having a specific way he wants to beat Sonic as if this was all a game is just wrong for his character. Also, didn't he just break that container of metal virus test subjects, sure hope no one gets infected because of that. Afterall, as we saw, clothes can get infected and starline was pushed right up against that container.

1) So, Amy did state that Metal wasn't hiding his plans anymore, so thats the reason they were able to find his plans when all previous attempts failed, which is hella convenient but whatever. 2) Amy being pushed into a leadership role was something that was already being pushed in the Pontac and Graff era, with Sonic and Tails reporting to her about the kidnapped critters in Lost World. Amy seemed perfectly fine giving them orders in that game. So there is a precedent at least for this. Amy here feels like a blend between her Boom portrayal and her SA1 portrayal to me, as Amy very much did play a leadership role. 3) Obviously when Silver time travels, he becomes detached from time itself, otherwise anytime he time travels and changes history, he should snap to how he would be in the new timeline with no memory of what he did, the one exception is 06, where time travel worked off of a fixed timeline where every change has already happened but any future stories appear to operate off of a loose open timeline, the only way Silver's time travel could make sense is if he's not affected by the changes in time he makes. 4) Did you say "Sell your soul"? How have I never caught that before!? Thoughts: Revenge of Neo Metal was interesting to me as a reintroduction of the world and characters of Sonic. After how poorly these characters have been handled under in the past 10 years the comic needed to show how the way it would handle the characters would be better. That said, in addition to all your points, it felt like this comic was attempting to tell 2 different stories. One was the story about the aftermath of Eggman's takeover, which will essentially be forgotten by the comic, and the other is about the return of Neo Metal Sonic. There is a way you can do 2 plots like this simultaneously but the way the comic did it was wrong. There are also a number of plot holes and contrivances and the war in general was very poorly constructed. There were a number of short stories that were fine on their own but are really bad as part of a larger saga as audiences will want to skip past the smaller tedious story for the sake of the bigger grander narrative. Evidently there was no thought put into it as a whole. There was also Shadow undoing a Super Form with his Chaos Spear, because its chaos energy i guess? That should not be possible! Maybe you can damage a Super form with Chaos Energy but it should not be possible to completely nullify a super state as long as you have chaos energy and if that was always a possibility then Blaze should definitely be here! Also, why is Espio not here to steal the Master Emerald while the boys distract Neo? Seems like he could be real useful about now. This arc was clearly trying to be Sonic Heroes but better, and in some ways it works but in most ways it doesn't. Then there's Sonic's new character trait of showing mercy to villains, gaslighting his friends and in general being a dumbass. Why does Metal still have his turbo engine? Shouldn't Tails have deactivated that? Whatever. The arc as a whole is a mixed bag, some good ideas, mixed execution.

1) Even tho Sonic isn't actually the one who beats Metal Sonic. 2) So the way I interpreted it was that machines can use the Master Emerald to go super while living beings cannot. Why? I have no idea but if we've only ever seen machines use the Master Emerald to transform but never a living being then that would be mt conclusion. I dont know why that would be the case, id hope that would be explained at some point but its been a couple years now. 3) So according to Ian Flynn, even if Metal Sonic never showed up Mr. Tinker would have still turned back into Dr. Eggman. 4) Yeah, Metal just finding Eggman was convenient as hell but I kinda like it because its a bit thematic for his character, Metal thought he could beat Sonic by copying a bunch of data and absorbing more power and then eventually find Eggman, yet he was still beaten by Sonic and it was only after reverting to his original form that he was able to find Eggman. A lesson in humility for him. 5) Knuckles is only the guardian of the Master Emerald, the Chaos emeralds are outside his responsibility.

Issues 5-6: oh boy, here we are the start to Sonic's "show villains mercy" arc and gaslighting his friends. Im not going to really go too deep into this as Ive already said my peace on the subject multiple times already but its really bad and really out of character. Issue 7: A really solid issue with the dramatic reveal that the mysterious person controlling Eggman's robots is Neo Metal Sonic and a pretty cool fight. Issue 8: On the point about Wisper, you do know she's a sniper, a wolf sniper, a sniper wolf you might say, but not a sexy one... Anyway snipers aren't really known to actually fight on a battlefield, they usually find a safe distance away from the action and well... snipe. The better question is why is a sniper trying to infiltrate an Eggman base by herself, surrounded by walls with no where really to hide or gain a better vantage point, and why is a sniper going head first into an area with enemies everywhere, instead of hanging back and shooting from a distance. Both of these are situations where she, as a sniper, would be at a massive disadvantage. If Whisper is someone who acts so recklessly then how has she survived as long as she has? Well this all happens so Silver can earn her trust and Whisper can go through a mini character arc but its still contrived as hell. As for why she's banging on the door? I dont know, she's gotta get through the base somehow i guess but its not like Whisper didn't know Sonic was in the base, she literally held the door open for him. What she should have done was fly up to a higher level and watch what Sonic and Silver do. So yeah, this issue is the weakest in the bunch.

1) Apparently, they're planning on doing a time skip after the current arc to after Frontiers. This isn't really common practice for them tho, usually the comic will do a small game tie in comic and then keep going with the main story of the comic. I mean, when was there time for TSR or Dream Team to happen? So, it seems like they're just doing at most a tie-in comic and then ignoring it. 2) 13:41 - This is an interesting point of discussion, in one panel we can see Tails looking away with a somber expression, saying that "If you get caught off guard again, get hurt..." there's a bit of subtext that Tails might be thinking about how he felt when Sonic was defeated by Infinite, there's also an implication, seeing how active Tails is here that perhaps the reason the Tails was a coward in Forces was because he was traumatized by the supposed death of Sonic. Or at least thats how a few people have read this scene. At the very least Tails deciding to care for the city while Sonic continues running around looking for answers is a promise from the writers to readers that Tails will be handled better here. 3) Its worth noting how different Amy here, not just compared to recent portrayals but especially Forces, in that game her personality very much was the Sonic fan girl. Here though, while its obvious that she's still infatuated with him, she's still able to put the needs of others ahead of her desire to be with Sonic. This is a massive improvement over what came before, its not really good for Amy to revolve her whole existence around Sonic and not care about much else. This feels more like how Amy was in Sonic Adventure with her being willing to put aside her feelings for Sonic in order to do whats right. This portrayal just feels like a more mature portrayal of that. And by mellowing out like this, she ends up getting what she wanted all along, as Sonic offers her a chance to come with him on his adventure, something that never would have happened before. And yes, you can say that Sonic only does this because he enjoys the chase and Amy is no longer chasing him or trying to get him to come back to the resistance by the end of the episode but that only proves that this is something that was never going to happen as long as Amy kept being overzealous. 4) I don't think Sonic's spines are what cut through the metal, i think it has more to do with how fast he's spinning. 5) Issue 3 mainly exists to explain why the wisps are even here, because all the wisps were supposed to go back to their planet and unless you played Sonic Runners, no explanation is given for why they continue to be in future games. Good idea, no so good execution and yeah, the wisps waiting in deployment pods is dumb and has a lot of terrible implications, not every game mechanic needs to be translated into the comic. 6) 30:27 Is that a Burst Wispon!? I thought it was supposed to be basically a flamethrower! Why is it shooting a laser beam? 7) Except Blaze is kinda here for nothing. She blows up a battleship and then dips. 8) these first 4 issues exist primarily to reintroduce and realign the Sonic cast to being more interesting and compelling characters, compared to their portrayals in the past decade leading up to this point, the way its done is pretty sloppy, mostly retconning the problems away or hand waving away the issues but hey, Tails is no longer a whiney bitch and Amy isn't just solely focused on Sonic. A fine foundation to build off of.

Actually, we dont know how far apart South Island is from West Side Island. They could be miles apart or right next to each other. Also, remember that South Island is a drifting island, so there could be times that it passes by West Side. 🤓

Well, I think the reason Shadow's characterization seems contradictory is that whether or not he realizes it in the moment, he's still present-day Shadow, not Ark Shadow. His feelings are still real, even if he thinks he's back aboard the Ark. If this is the case, then that could give us some much-needed insight into Shadow's current character, like his feelings that he doesn't really belong on earth, and thereby his detached attitude towards everything, as well as his guilt from failing what he sees as his initial purpose. It's still pretty contradictory to his development in the 2000s, but it's better than what we've been getting.

I see this as what If Sonic had a Crash 4 type thing getting rid of everything past SA2 tho I do have some complaints Chaos was clearly meant in SA1 as a evolved chao so him being a Ancient would be confusing You kinda got rid of Tails being jealous and just made him flat mid way through Why would Sonic specifically remember Amy while I get Tails & Knuckles since he met them later but he met Eggman before the rest of the cast Why are ancients in the real world good people but in Cyber evil Tails really didn’t forget anything besides some people same with Amy but she was kinda a background character but you’d think he’d try to hide his Tails so he couldn’t get bullied or be reliant on Sonic The Quick time bosses sounded boring ngl So overall I feel like while your story is on the same level as Frontiers but in different ways

Do you think the western interpretations of Sonic are introverted or extroverted?

I think why black doom is still around he use a part of himself to make shadow

This honestly the best theory I've heard & makes me somewhat hopeful they'll do this right. I will say I think the new manga regardless of canonicity does help add to & contextualize important details this glosses over but if ur theory is even somewut correct that may have been intentional

I overall agree but i have some possible counter-points 7:00 All he said was he didn't know if he had a place there, not that he had 0 interest in going. 9:10 It seems that was just a sad moment. He saw his best friend/sister figure faint from her disease. HE'S supposed to be the cure, yet he can't help. It's a reminder he hasn't saved her. I feel like that's a valid reason not to be in the best mood. 9:50 Emerl is a robot, not a human. It could be that he only has reservations about killing human/living things 11:00 I agree with pretty much everything from here, I think this theory could be true

Your understanding seems to be a bit surface level. Like you aren't really thinking in-depth about how Shadow's moments connect and the meaning between the lines of what the characters are saying. Anyway.

I disagree with the kirk take. Maybe trying a little too hard to sound cool, but he sounds fine imo. I'd even say his "Maria!" Is the best out of the three. At least better than Jason's

I think the shadow manga can explain how maria got shot....

I’ve never liked kirk as shadow (great va and he did step it up for sxsh generations but..) and finding out he played kisame is too funny.. i really don’t get this casting choice at all

This is actually like a really well done theory, but one thing that I think is that the entirety of the first half is shadow having a flashback because of the aurora borealis in the sky, along with the arc and the broken moon I think everything that happened actually happened until shadow landed that one punch and it shattered the entire reality. I think that actually happened until that moment shadow breaks reality. my theory on why shadow was acting like that with Maria when looking at earth is because the cut scenes from sa2 and shadow05 take place before Gerald tried to cure Maria with shadow when shadow was in a good enough state still not finished though and it fails, shadow learns that his purpose was caring Maria and it failed causing him to think he shouldn’t have been born and is useless and him thinking to himself that he should be able to since he is the ultimate life form because he is still early(also just gonna say early shadow beating out of control emerl is crazy. How strong is shadow) but if we did go based off of your theory, I still think that before shadow lands that big hit on Emerl shadow swaps personalities, but overall that is what happened on that day then after the big hit, that’s when black doom starts fucking with his head

For the time eater, from what I understand he mix past with present. So Black Doom came back. By lucky coincidences. And since he is opportunistic he quickly took the chance.

Ahah! Poor Kirk Thornton, nobody likes his voice. We'll, neither do I. So I'm not the only one who noticed that inconsistency in Shadow's character in the ARK. In SA2 from the dialogue with Maria, he wanted to visit Earth and from his words it seemed it was also a personal wish. The melancholy is part of his nature, but he wasn't depressed in 2001. About the nightmare, unfortunately some part gave me few positive (read - happy) sensations. That's not the fault of the anymators. Is mine. Part of the nightmare looked too closely to a nightmare I had at the age of 5, and since it was also a lucid dream, I just took control and played with it. Still, I could clearly see Shadow's angst. I'm surprised he could be so alive, I mean, expressions and body language. In the latest decade he seemed always tied.

Honestly it's such a breath of fresh air to see you make a positive video on Ian Flynn's writing. I was wondering how you were going to find problems in the writing this time, and thankfully you didn't. If this level of quality can be consistent throughout all of the episodes and the game itself, This might be the best Ian Flynn story is a long while. I do wonder, will you cover the Shadow manga? I haven't read it fully myself yet but it might be worth a video since it reveals some interesting stuff about Shadow's past. Next episode releases next week, so i'm excited to see what they have been making and what you'll have to say about it. See ya there!

I could be totally wrong about this, but i think that entire fight with emerl never happened and it is just black doom messing with shadow. Which further shows how much control he has. I am definetely stating the obvious here, but given that Maria was able to send shadow away from the ark, means that the shot she took didn't kill her. She more than likely died of blood loss, which is represented by the bright light going down her body, when she gets shot in this dream sequence

me planning to play the game and watch this entire series in Japanese:

Interesting, it was kind of obvious that Shadow was sort of reliving his time with Maria, but I didn't really break it down like you did. The possibility that Black Doom is actually controlling Shadow and making him relive these memories is an interesting theory i hadn't considered. The only problem is that Shadow killed Black Doom, but it is possible that the Time Eater inadvertently brought him back. Whether or not thats whats actually going on remains to be seen. We'll have to keep watching. You pointed out how Shadow emitting electricity is like how the characters' abilities are represented with electricity. I wasn't a fan of Sonic being represented this way, but it works really well for Shadow because it can be viewed as symbolic of his power, which is a major part of Shadow's character. Looking forward to seeing the rest of these animations.

I do like the idea of Black Doom bringing out Shadow's deepest memories. It seemed strange to me at first when Shadow made notes on the pacing of events, since he supposedly didn't remember much about his past in SA2 and STH'05. But since Black Doom is entwined into Shadow's DNA, he likely has the ability to resurface these more intimate details that were either lost to amnesia or repressed/manipulated by Prof. Gerald.

The manga does have one answer to one of your question

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I actually liked the Metal Virus. The writers have the actual balls to scare its audience and make the stakes real