Why Does Sonic Have GREEN EYES?

Why I’m in a complaining over something stupid challenge and my opponent is a Sonic fan:

And tails' blue eyes could symbolize him looking up to sonic

I always thought it was a side effect from repeated use of the emeralds

It’s easy to forget Sonic looked like an old little manga cartoon critter thing

Sonic has had green eyes longer then just pure black.

I thought that it reference the chaos emeralds

Damn even Sonic himself is a green hill zone reference

So that’s why they are called uekawa

I'm sonic fan😊

Imagine an alternate timeline. What if Sega released only two consoles: Genesis in 1991 and Dreamcast in 1996? Each with a 5-year lifespan and 6 Sonic games. While the characters' Classic designs were used for 10 years from 1991-2001. Then, as Sega becomes third party in 2001, the Sonic series gets rebooted for multiplatform and Modern character designs were used for another 10 years until 2011? Then on the 20th, Sonic as a franchise has retired on a high note. How'd all of you have liked that from your altered memories, experiences, and POVs?

overall, at least we can agree on his arm color... right?

I honestly thought it was to represent an emerald and/or to signify the chaos energy within him.💫

A Greenhill zone reference doesn’t feel right to me. I felt like it was the original chaos emerald the green one

It’s because in the old games there wasn’t a lot of detail for eyes so they were black for simplicity. But when you go to 3D you have to give more detail so Sonic had to have color in his eyes or else it would have been more creepier than Mephiles the Dark not having a mouth. Same with the arms debate, they changed Sonic’s arms to blue because he was taller and it would have looked real weird if he had his tan arms.

im dying wat...

And then they constantly use or reference Green Hill Zone to death as if the green eyes were never enough. cough Sonic Forces cough Sonic Frontiers cough Sonic Prime *cough cough*.

Well, classic Sonic is a younger version of him. And children's eye coler is reported to change during aging...while not a significant change, black to green is a possible change.

Classic sonic had an art style which suited all black eyes, the green eyes fit the new designs better because the eyes are significantly larger and would look like giant holes without any colour (also having them be dark would invalidate that and blue eyes would be making him more me colour for 90% of his body

Oh, dear goodness. Not Green Hill Zone again...

They also work well bc they are the opposite color of his red shoes

i like how its a similar green to the chaos emmeralds

When he said drum roll please, I said "Puberty" out loud

I knew it, and i didn't even know it for sure until now

That's an awesome reason

Y'know green hill references are cool! But I held the headcanon that the green eyes developed from using the chaos emeralds! Makes no sense buuut it was a cool thought as a kid lol.

I like to think that his eyes suddenly turned green after using super/hyper form a lot in sonic 3&k.

whoaw

Makes sense, referencing green hill I mean, another example was the guy who produced silver’s theme without knowing he sampled green hill’s theme

Emerald Hill, Palmtree Panic, Angel Island, you are kind of right.

its cuz hes a super sayian

Dont forget his first green eyes were from super sonic on sonic 3

i remember thinking "green? his eyes are green? like the emeralds?" but also, as an artist, "is it for complimenting the red??"
also why do all japanese game designers i see have.... cute, round handwriting??? my handwriting is so sharp and unreadable compared to it 💀💀

I kinda liked how Archie explained the change.

Essentially, Sonic had to run around the world over and over again at record speeds (even for him!) for a plot point I forgot about and a side effect of that was him getting green eyes.

Sonic had green eyes in the good ending of sonic 3 and knuckles when tails is flying to angel island.

Any and sonic both have green eyes so does that mean they could either be cousins or brother and sister

He’d look uncanny with black eyes now

The green eyes debate is dwarfed in comparison to the blue arms debate.

I like to think of it as the green eyes being given to the one who's meant to weild the power of the Master Emerald. It's also a contrast to the red eyes in Super Sonic form.

So does Super Sonic have red eyes or nah?

Fun fact: super sonic in s3&k has green eyes

Shadow "Radical Highway" Hedgehog:

Well, it was about time we had more green eyes in cartoons, it's always blue ones. Although I thought it was due to the chaos emeralds.
It's interesting how a lot of cartoon hedgehogs have green eyes, I don't know if it's a reference to Sonic or for other reason. The species are related to nature so who knows

I was always thinking that Sonic's eye colour changed from using chaos emeralds (in sonic 3 his eyes in the super form are green). The official reason sounds very on brand for SEGA tho.

That's the reason? 🎉 Love it!

Ngl, I liked when they added eye color as a kid. Made them feel more real, so to speak.

Where did this question come from

I always felt the change to Green Eyes in Sonic Adventure was to make them changing to Red stand out more when he turned into Super Sonic in Sonic Adventure. Also the game had a focus on Perfect Chaos’s eye opening wide in the opening of Sonic Adventure. Having Sonic’s eyes get updated and showcasing his new more mature themed look while the badguy was a darker more ominous monster of a threat both showcased the graphics of the Dreamcast and that Sonic had grown up with us. Having the battle and the main hub in a modern city, Sonic’s design now being “modern” also just gave the Dreamcast a feel of modern or futuristic. Their other title at this time of Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1&2 really drove home that futuristic vibe and games like Crazy Taxi at that time also had that modern and late 99’s attitude vibe which you also feel from Modern Sonic in the Adventure games. It just all felt so on-brand the different design choices they were making at that time. Also to go with a more edgy hedgehog in Shadow for the sequel game and that game continued the modern-futuristic darker with more mature themes and monster bosses theme. The Dreamcast in general just had its own unique vibe to it.

Amy stole Sonic whole f*ckin flow. Hedgehog for Hedgehog, Green Eyes for Green Eyes☠️

Fun fact and somewhat lore accurate: In the Archie Comics', Sonic's eye color change from black to green is addressed in issue #71. In this storyline, Sonic utilizes a Super Emerald to repair a time distortion caused by Robotnik's attack. This intense exposure to Chaos energy results in his eyes permanently turning green.

Now in the games his eyes would turn green when he is in his super form. I like to believe that after his Hyper Sonic form, he just permanetly got the green color looks leading to SA1.