Analysing Sonichu Issue #12-9 · 1:16pm Mar 18th, 2022
Sonichu Issue 12-9, published in 2018, is an oddity in the series. Not only is it the first comic in the series to not use episodes, the unusual numbering is a consequence of Chris' triskaidekaphobia (a phobia he shares with millions of other people).1 Originally planned as a crossover with YouTube collective Planet Dolan, the planned story was shelved after drama between Chris and several of Planet Dolan's members, leading him to rework the comic as a My Little Pony fanfiction.2
The cover reveals a few interesting changes. Firstly, Chris switched to a new font for this issue, replacing comic sans with proxima nova, an altogether less ugly typeface. Secondly, notice that Chris states in the disclaimer that he hopes that Night Star, his ponysona, becomes a canon MLP character. Whilst ponysonas have appeared in the show (Angel Wings being the most famous example), I doubt that Night Star would be adopted due to her being tied to so much other copyright infringing stuff.3 Also notice the reference to the real world; get ready for a seriously confusing dimension hopping story.
As previously discussed, Chris believes that all fictional characters live in a parallel dimension, which he calls C-197.4 This is what he referring to here, but Chris is also forewarning us that the Chris of our world will be appearing too. This means that Comic Chris and IRL Chris are both separate characters now. My head hurts already and we're only on the disclaimer!
Chris uses the Dimension theory as an excuse to get around copyright, claiming that Hasbro, SEGA, et al, cannot claim copyright over their creations as you cannot own a living thing (by this same logic, he also does not own Sonichu and cannot enforce a copyright claim over him, but I digress).
I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise in advance for the lower quality of the pages. Unlike previous issues, which had pages uploaded onto Facebook, this particular issue is only available in print format and was put together rather badly, so sorry for the awkward images.
It is worth pointing out that psychic powers do not exist in G4; the equivalent is magic. Chris' comments on Earth having more dimensions than any other is immediately contradicted by the next sentence, which implies the other planets of our solar system do. Also, I'm pretty certain G4 does not take place on Earth.
Gallop Crush and Sugar Darling are ponified versions of Chris' parents. Hilariously, the MLP episode Once Upon a Zeppelin appears to have a reference to the Chandlers:
The pony in the striped jumper bears a marked resemblance to Chris, whilst two of the background ponies resemble Bob and Barbara in their younger days.
Already Chris is muddling up different generations. The events being referenced here are from G1 to G3, which are not canon to the world of G4.
Of course they are linked. Chris has decided to make yet another Mary Sue overpowered OC for a character.
This is, indeed, true; Chris did stop speaking at a young age, something he blames on a babysitter locking him in a room full of toys (ironically, Chris does the same to himself).5 It is worth pointing out that ASD cannot be caused by these factors; Chris was two at the time, which is the age when symptoms of ASD tend to manifest.
Chris now rips off Twilight Sparkle's backstory. It is not clear whether by 'their king', Chris is speaking about Equestria or the Dragonlands, but neither country is ruled by a king or queen (a fact you'd expect an obsessive brony like him to know). Chris then commits the second major error of OC writing; having them be friends with a canon character (in this case, Lyra).
Chris references a whole mountain of different things and properties. Whilst I imagine many of the Hasbro and anime references will make sense (and, indeed, there have been official crossover MLP and Transformers comics), some of the others are probably harder to follow. Red Skelton and Lucille Ball were both comedians from the 1950s that Chris got to know through his parents (not in person, as Red Skelton lived in California for much of his life, and Lucille Ball died in 1989, when Chris was 7).
It turns out she draws Sonichu as well! I wonder what Sonichu looks like as a pony. Also note that, exactly like Chris, Night Star has heterochromia.
Chris now draws on Equestria Girls lore, which would suggest that CWCVille exists in the same world as Canterlot High School. However, he also says that Equestria also exists in the same world as those two. This, of course, makes no sense as CHS is explicitly stated to be in an alternate dimension to Equestria, and seeing as travelling from one to the other triggers an automatic transformation into either a human or a pony, it'd be impossible for humans and ponies to live side by side.6
Night Star wears suspiciously similar clothes to Chris. Hmmm...
Of course, Sonichu appears.
IRL Chris makes his first appearance here, indicating that transdimensional communications have developed greatly beyond books and burping dragons.
Night Star can open portals, a feat that (in canon) can only be achieved by the most powerful of unicorns and alicorns (Starswirl, Twilight, and Starlight Glimmer all come to mind). Mary Sue much?
This yellow thing is Equestria Girls Night Star (it stands to reason that as there is a pony Night Star, a version of her exists in the Equestria Girls world). The design is taken from a custom doll Chris kitbashed to create his OC.7
Wait a second, humans don't have cutie marks. And why does she look like somebody with ARS at the end?
I'm actually stumped as to what is meant by mental sync. Diamond Melody was the ponysona of Jessica Quinn (the troll with the fat fetish from last issue).8 This idea of pairings occuring across dimensions seems to have been taken from the EqG films constantly shipteasing LyraBon and ScratchTavia.
That is a terrifying depiction of Vinyl Scratch. Chris was obsessed with the character at the time, as well as her VA Nowacking (who, before coming out as male, identified as a lesbian, thereby making them sweetheart material in Chris' eyes).9 To absolutely nobody's surprise, Chris made a complete ass of himself and then got Nowacking's Twitter page flooded with weens, eventually resulting in Chris being blocked.
Pinkie Pie then shows up, oddly enough in character, but then gets taken into an S-Chu ball. Does this mean Pinkie is a Sonichu?
Well that added absolutely nothing. Pinkie asking for painting to wait is hilarious in hindsight, as in one of the Summertime Shorts (which were being uploaded to YouTube around the time this issue was in production) Pinkie shows absolutely no issues with painting without protective gear.10
Notice how Sunset is wearing her old outfit. This would imply this story takes place before the Digital Series began later in 2017.
Chris has a somewhat complicated history with hair dyes, usually doing it himself and producing a rather uneven, unprofessional result. This has resulted in his hair style being nicknamed 'mermaid grandma' by trolls.
Precisely where Canterlot is in EqG is unclear, but the geography of the EqG world is inconsistent with Maryland, bearing a closer resemblance to coastal Oregon or Washington state. Chris' poor grasp of geography comes up yet again; Foggy Bottom is actually in the District of Columbia, which is a distinct entity from Maryland.
Chris' proposed calender, featuring 457 days and 10 months, is based on one from the video game Gears of War. Anybody with a basic grasp of mathematics can see why this does not work; the 457 and 365 day calenders do not line up properly, making it impossible for dates and years to line up properly and for days to be one to one as Chris claims. Leap years are, of course, dependent on rotation speed (Earth years are actually 365.25 days long, hence the need for leap years), so it's possible Equis spins slowly enough to avoid them. As a result of these myriad problems, a proposed solution suggested by the CWCki is to abandon the 457 day model and rework the calender as 365 days. Also, remember the month order-it becomes quite important later.
For reasons explained above, no you would not, Night Star. The next events take place in June on our calender, with Vinyl headlining for a human group that plays music not at all like hers (also, wouldn't they be ponies?)
Only one pony canonically has ever pulled off a Sonic Rainboom-Rainbow Dash. Also, WHAT ORDER AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THIS IN?
You might be wondering why the hotdog stand is called Tesco. This was a joke inserted by a British troll in reference to a scandal in which British supermarket chain Tesco's meat products were found to be contaminated with horse meat.11
But who is Nepgear?
Night Star gets the Konami code wrong; it's actually up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start. After doing some research, it turns out Nepgear is a character from the video game Hyperdimension Neptunia, an RPG which sees you playing as and interacting with characters who are personifications of video game consoles (CPU is a play on the computing term Central Processing Unit).12
Neptune, as you've probably guessed, is not based on a real console; within the Hyperdimension Neptunia games, SEGA continued to manufacture consoles, one of these being the SEGA Neptune, which in real life was never released.13
Not really interesting, is it?
By mother, is Night Star referring to Chris or to Sugar Darling? I'm confused!
The 'hedgehog' joke would have worked if CWCVille sounded anything like hedgehog. An alternate joke could be 'sounds like life moves fast there'!
I'm not sure if Chris took the human reaction thing from the first EqG movie or Mirror Magic, as Twilight and Starlight react very similarly to suddenly being human.
A few weeks, you mean Night Star. As Heat 19th equals June 19th, July 4th won't be for a few weeks. The Tesco joke pops up again, as well as another piece of lore. Chris believes that he has limitless wealth in CWCVille, and intends to use this to pay off his creditors after the merge is completed.14
Lucky guess or foreshadowing? Night Star refers to the Doctor (of Doctor Who fame) using female pronouns, however this page predates the announcement that Jodie Whittaker had been cast as the 13th Doctor.
Chris, I thought you said people could only sleep together on the third date!
Chris continues in the long tradition of suddenly writing out troll characters. In real life, Chris responded to the news by ranting angrily on Facebook, eating obscene amounts of ice cream, and then screaming at his toilet (no, seriously).15
As previously noted, an OC being good mates with the main, main characters is often a sign of Mary Sue-ness.
Oh, Discord. Why do you have to suffer by being in this comic too? We already have a paradox; Bounty is the equivalent month for December, but the bottom panels occur in November.
I suppose one of the upsides here is that the panel structure is easier to follow.
In case you haven't guessed, Kun is another troll character. He was originally called Kun T'nyuget (pronounced exactly as you think it is pronounced), but Chris vetoed that one. He's also Vietnamese, for some reason. This sequence constitutes a plot hole; these events are occuring in the month of Storm, which occurs before the month of Bounty.
Night Star's actions here would suggest that the character is bisexual, yet another minority Chris has shoved into his comic.
Kun's talents are a reference to Chris' father, who worked as an engineer for General Electric for most of his career.16 The references to his cutie mark show that Chris did pay attention to the show; ponies can have jobs that do not match their special talent, with Rarity being the most well known example.
Chris even incorporates his penchant for wandering off on random tangents. This is one of many reasons talking to him is infuriating, as his train of thought is often incomprehensible.17
I'll talk more about the Special Sonichus when we get onto Issue 13. 'Mach Speed' is a reference to a stage type in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), which feature Sonic autorunning at very high speed and the player having limited control over him.18 It can be inferred that stopping on a dime is another example of this, whilst Chris tries to explain wind resistance.
OH MY GOD! Night Star looks even more hideous as a Sonichu! Rei Ryghts is another Hyperdimension Neptunia character. I think Chris may have been obsessed with it at this point...19
Chris, it's 'show, don't tell', not 'show and tell at the same time'. Even Tommy Wiseau understands this concept!
Chris references the concept of cutie map missions, a plot device that I'll admit I wasn't too keen on. Rather than the problem arising naturally from the story, they are specifically sent to a place where a problem is, a la Power Rangers. Also, how does talking across dimensions work with time zones? Additionally, take this opportunity to note that IRL Chris and Comic Chris look nothing alike.
Notice that Chris makes no attempt to explain where Kludgetown is, meaning anybody who hasn't seen the 2017 movie will be instantly lost. The fish man is the same one Tempest attacks in the film.
The creatures mentioned are background characters from the film; until I googled them, I had no idea what Celeano was on about.
This page completely contradicts the events of the movie, where it's made very clear that the Storm King essentially treats anybody outside of his inner circle as slaves.
Sweet Celestia, this is seriously boring!
'But I digress' is one of Chris' many catchprases, an expression he picked up from the game Animal Crossing.20
That is a terrible drawing of Tempest Shadow. And where is her armour? She's not seen without it.
Once again, our heroes succeed through the power of plot convenience.
Wait a second, what is Tempest's horn doing there? She lost it when she was a foal!
I'm struggling to follow this.
Hold on a moment. A unicorn's horn makes a unicorn stride grows as the unicorn ages. Tempest was a foal when she lost hers, so it should still be the same length as it was when it was severed. And yet in the art it's clearly an adult horn.
Now that plotline is resolved, time to warp dimensions.
Of course Chris is an alicorn in Equestria. He also looks almost identical to Night Star.
This page would mark the very last entry of conventional Sonichu issues, as they would not be looking at Count Graduon's story, or indeed that of Night Star.
Prepare yourselves. This issue serves as something of a calm before the storm, as after the insanity that is to come, there was no turning back.
List of References:
1 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/CWC-isms#.23; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskaidekaphobia
2 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Planet_Dolan
3 https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Angel_Wings#Development_and_design
4 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Dimensions#C-197
5 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Abusive_babysitter
6 https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Locations#Human_world
7 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Christine_Doll
8 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Diamond_Melody
9 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Vinyl_Scratch#Nowacking
10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_TSxi90a04&list=PLnBI5wYL7z327ZnYyMdJM1jofz3PDmGfJ&index=10
11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdimension_Neptunia
13 https://segaretro.org/Sega_Neptune
14 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Financhu_Crisis
15 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Jessica_Quinn#She.27s_missing_out; https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Chris_lost_Crystal
16 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Bob_Chandler#Career; considering all the stuff he invented, I find it quite sad that he'll mostly be remembered for being the father of one of the internet's most infamous lolcows.
17 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Chris_and_English#Written_language
18 https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Super-Speed_Stage
19 https://hyperdimensionneptunia.fandom.com/wiki/Rei_Ryghts#Rei_Ryghts
20 https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Animal_Crossing#Chris_and_Animal_Crossing
God they are so bad. You are a better man than I. I have tried so hard to read his comic but I can never get past the first few pages.
5644565
I don't blame you. It takes mies of courage to get through this, but I will admit that the later comics are much harder to get through then the newer ones. Whilst the classic comics are more funny bad, the later stuff (11 onwards) is just bad bad.
A self-insert, power fantasy, wish fulfillment, Mary Sue fanfiction...My most hated kind of story. You guys might need to put a helmet on for this one. It's gonna be rough:
I'm very much against banning books, but I think that this one needs to be sealed away in a vault at the bottom of the sea.
5644678
1. Agreed. Hell, even Little Pip's more interesting! To quote one of the writers on Sonic Boom:
2. Or send him to a mental hospital for complete batshit insanity (though it's suspected that he has, considering his radio silence since March 1st).
3. I know how that feels. I'll admit for that reason I find my OC very hard to write. Trying to make a character interesting whilst not making them overpowered is a delicate balancing act, something that Chris does not understand as he does not understand the appeal of a flawed character.
4. Chris, funnily enough, completely missed the reference, believing it to be Liquid.
5. And boring.
6. I mean, if he was writing this now and had G4 and G5 stuff, that'd make sense as they're narratively connected. But none of the prior generations take place in the same world, or even have the same geography.
7. Or they include it because they never will.
8. Maybe here, but in his dreams...
9. I was having a chat with a friend of mine on dA a little while back, and we came to the conclusion that Chris is actually more like Eggman; a fat, balding, egotistical middle-aged man with a control complex. The key difference is that Eggman is an engineering genius and is very cunning, whereas Chris cannot build shit and is a slothful buffoon. Safe to say, Sonic would be opposed to everything CWCVille stands for, and the fact Chris does not realise this shows how little he understands his childhood hero (after the American Rabbit).
10. Hence why I have less to talk about.
11. He has traced better comics, so I wouldn't be surprised if he copied the panel structure using his Reflecta-Sketch (that's right, he uses a children's toy for tracing rather than professional tracing equipment).
12. That's what this comic is all about people. Pure wish fulfillment.
13. Long, round, and hollow like a tube.
14. I was recently rewatching HBO's Chernobyl in preparation for an article I'm writing (if you haven't seen it yet, do; it's incredibly good), and Night Star 'finding herself' does look scarily like somebody in the final stages of Acute Radiation Syndrome.
15. I suspect if Vinyl were to meet Night Star, she'd kick her arse into next millenia.
16. Hell, even Storm King is more deserving.
17. I suspect Sunset would tell Chris to take a bath.
18. It's not working, Chris!
19. I have no clue why he suddenly starts shoving in Hyperdimension Neptunia!
20. Where is it upon you?
21. An extreme refinement of the 3rd date rule.
22. I can see why. An incomprehensible being with a comprehensible form doesn't quite gel somehow.
23. Scary indeed.
24. Of course, Chris could never speak that fast.
25. Why are you surprised? This is a Chris Chan comic.
26. Comas are no joke.
27. Tell me about it.
28. I'll admit that it's an error I was guilty of in my early fanfiction days.
29. Have them become ruler of Equestria.
5644741
Couple of things. I watched The Adventures of the American Rabbit. It was as forgettable and boring as it gets. And to answer your question about the evil eye, it's in reference to the original purpose of the mano cornetti (more commonly known as the horns). Way back in the day, Ronnie James Dio learned it from his Italian grandmother, which in Italian culture is a way to gouge the evil eye and break curses or other evil spells, or just to wish luck on another person. Dio did this gesture at his concerts, and it caught on in the fandom, where it was misconstrued as devil horns.
5644958
1. I hope it gave the insight into Chris' psyche that Christorians claim it does.
2. Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Given that I've never heard of Planet Dolan, which is what this issue was originally meant to be about, can you tell me what it is?
5769420
Planet Dolan is a creator collective of film makers and artists, who produce content in a shared universe. One of the key figures was DoopyDoOver, an artist who Chris constantly harrassed online and made inappropriate advances towards, such as claiming she was his girlfriend and constantly calling her 'dear', a term usually reserved for family members or very close friends. Doopy blocked him over this, and Chris, in a spectacular lack of self awareness, immediately blamed a conspiracy of trolls for the incident.
Hey EM2, I decided to watch YurieTheAwkward's Reading Sonichu 12-9, and they found the quizzes Chris took to make their ponysona. I took the name quiz and ended up Apple Louie, a guy who loves playing baseball and has multiple siblings who're not like me. (While I do have 3 younger half-siblings, I only got to spend about 3 months with the eldest before my adoptive dad took me back home, and I never knew the other two, plus they've all been taken away from my mom by CPS years ago, so when the quiz asked if I had siblings, I picked 'I am a single child') Not liking the answer (I'm female, I don't like baseball, and it ignored my answer about whether or not I have siblings), I took the quiz again and ended up with Sugar Darling...same as Barb's ponysona.
Smh.
If you ever call me Apple Louie or Sugar Darling, I'll buck you into Tartarus. As my handle suggests, my ponysona's name is Storm.
Btw, sorry that if it annoys you that I only comment to talk about Chris/Sonichu.
5777702
If you could link the test, I may take it myself.
5777726
https://www.propofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=nij4odu1
If the link doesn't work, Google "MLP Name Generator Quiz: What Is My MLP Name? Propofs"
5777729
Thanks.
5777730
What's your ponysona's name (test, and real, if you have one)?
5777785
Test came back as Apple Louie. My actual ponysona is called Starry Night.